The author behind the ‘Ordinary People Change the World’ series proved his own point when his show on The History Channel tracked down the iconic flag
Credit: Courtesy of Brad Meltzer
NEED TO KNOW
- Brad Meltzer helped recover the missing 9/11 flag, which was raised at Ground Zero and disappeared within 24 hours
- The flag was returned to the 9/11 Museum after being authenticated, a moment Meltzer calls deeply humbling
- Meltzer’s connection to a 9/11 victim inspired a collector who was moved by his story
Author Brad Meltzer has been called a vampire, a time-traveler and a real-life Forrest Gump, all in the course of his accidental career as an author and TV personality. His life — and work — are truly stranger than fiction.
Meltzer is the author of the 40-book series (so far) for kids, Ordinary People Change the World, bestselling thrillers for adults like The Escape Artist, non-fiction books like The First Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill George Washington; hosts TV programs Brad Meltzer’s Lost History, Brad Meltzer Decoded and is the co-creator with Ordinary People illustrator Chris Eliopoulos of the animated PBS Kids series Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum, in which Meltzer also stars as a cartoon version of himself. Kids often believe he really is the bald character who appears in all of his Ordinary People books — so he must be either a time-traveler or a vampire (“just look at him,” one young fan memorably said).
“I have a very blessed life, and one that sometimes doesn’t seem like it makes much sense. I shouldn’t have my life. I shouldn’t have my career,” the author tells PEOPLE. “I’m the first in my immediate family to go to a four-year college. My parents, may they both rest in peace, read six books their entire lives. They were mine, the ones they’ve read before they died — that’s all they ever read. So none of us ever could believe that I was in the position of being a published author, much less someone who was selling books to strangers.”
But some of the opportunities that have come into Meltzer’s orbit as a result of his books are even more unbelievable. In 2014, as part of his History Channel show, the author embarked on a hunt to recover the American flag that was first raised at Ground Zero on 9/11, which later went missing.
Credit: Courtesy of Brad Meltzer
“Everyone knows that picture of the firefighters raising the flag. What no one knew is that within 24 hours, the flag went missing, and I went on a hunt to find it,” Meltzer explains. Recovering the flag, having it authenticated and returned to its rightful place at the 9/11 Museum was “one of the most humbling moments of my life,” but that’s not even the wildest part.
“One of the people that we lost in 9/11 was a woman named Michele Heidenberger. She was my neighbor who was a flight attendant on the Pentagon flight,” he says. “And when we found the flag, I called her husband, and I said, ‘I just want you to know I got the flag back in Michele’s honor.’”
Credit: Courtesy of Brad Meltzer
“On the show, when I told the story of the 9/11 flag, I ad-libbed [that] I couldn’t fathom the 3,000 people who died on 9/11, but I told the story of my friend Michele, who passed away,” he explains. Browne hadn’t accepted the award money when he returned the flag, saying he just wanted to do the right thing.
“And he said, ‘No, it’s not for her, Brad, it’s for us. It’s for all of those who were living and left behind and didn’t have a sense of closure,’” Meltzer recounts. A year after that conversation, the author got to talk to Brian Browne, the flag collector who had initially returned it anonymously and whose identity was revealed in 2016. When the flag was unveiled at the museum, Meltzer asked if anyone had called to thank him. After finding out no one had, he called him up himself.
“And he said, ‘do you want to know, Brad, why I gave it back?’ … And he said, ‘because of your friend Michele. I heard how you spoke about her on that episode of your TV show and it really got to me, and that’s why I came back,’” the author recounts.
The impact one individual can have on the world, on history itself, is at the center of everything for Meltzer.
“It’s my value system. That is how is my core belief, that ordinary people change the world. And it’s what my life has proven to me,” he says. “So yes, I love telling stories. But the greatest story I can ever tell, the best story that I can ever tell, is making someone see themselves in a whole new way. There’s nothing more powerful than that story.”
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Credit: Courtesy of Brad Meltzer
The latest book in the Ordinary People Change the World, We Are the Wright Brothers, will hit shelves on Oct. 6 and is available for preorder now, wherever books are sold.
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