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“We Are All in This Together”: McNair and a Call to Listen

Day 4 · 8:04:03 · Shawn Buckley

  • 🎖️ Buckley recalls Michael McNair’s tense Day-2 testimony as pure moral injury, ending in a shouted “we are all in this together.”
  • 🔥 He credits brave witnesses and a small wall of podcasters for making a committee room the seventh-trending topic worldwide.
  • 👂 Closing charge: the Allison Inquiry was always meant only to listen—so keep listening.

Moral-injury memory and citizen-media power close counsel’s remarks with a simple mandate to listen.

← From 9/11 Fear to Four Days That Reject Silence | Dean’s Thanks: Interpreters, Witnesses, MPs, and Family →

Transcript

Shawn Buckley · 8:04:03

Um, Michael McNair touched me when he spoke on Day 2. For those of you who weren't here, he's a former Armed Forces Army, and he was sharing his journey with us. And, you know, if you had a transcript, you didn't see his video, and you had a transcript, you would see him telling a story with, with words that were coherent and an accurate report of his journey, and you would miss his entire testimony because it wasn't what he said, it was how he said it. He was tense, he was loud. It was almost like he was gritting his teeth and having to force the words out. And it was one of the most precious testimonies and experiences I've ever had the honor of being a part of, because we all saw moral injury.

Shawn Buckley · 8:05:11

So we saw it, we felt it, we breathed it, we experienced it. But you know what he said loudly? And through his teeth is, 'We are all in this together.' Do you remember him yelling that? 'We're all in this together.' So let us all be in this together. We're the ones that change the world. We're the ones that make a difference. A small group of people that because these podcasters along the, the wall, this small number of podcasters, have set the world on fire over the last four days. How can— how is it possible that in this small committee room we became the seventh largest trending thing on the internet in the world? Because we got together and these brave witnesses took the stand.

Shawn Buckley · 8:06:14

At great personal and mental cost and some financial cost to be here so that we could once again be a nation of storytellers. And that's what the Allison Inquiry was always meant to be from the beginning, just listening. And so my The closing words are, let's listen.