Your Memories of September 11th 2001

[Steve-O]

as all of you are aware (or maybe unaware) today (or tomorrow in the US) is the 10th anniversary of 9/11, the day two planes hit the twin towers in new york, many people also died on flight 93 that crashed after the passengers brought the plane down before their could reach their target, this was meant to be the white house in Washington DC, The Pentagon got hit as well.

this thread is so that people can put their memories of that day if they wish to, you may also talk about how the day changed the world we live in (if you think it did.)

for me, I was in school that day, it was bright where I lived in the UK, going home from school was weaid that day, the roads seemed empty, as if people didn't want to move. after i got home, i came to see a building on fire, at the time i thought that it just caught on fire for some reason, but then i remember seeing the plane hit the second tower and i thought this was bad. I remember my mum talking about how bad this could be. then i remember seeing the people jumping out of the buildings, i was almost in tears at this point.

and then finally seeing the towers falling down, i just got this bad feeling in my body, as if something changed, i didn't feel safe anymore, I was only 8 when this happened, but i was able to understand.

so there are my memories of the day, as i said before feel free to talk about this event and your thoughts and memories.

May all the people that died that day rest in peace

 

[Dragon Mage]

I was in my fifth grade class at the time. We were all ready to go home because it was near the end of the day. Suddenly, my teacher, said "Kids, come over here," and made us sit down in the reading area where we sat to read once a day. Once we all sat down, she said:

"Something has just happened that is very serious and may cause a lot of trouble for everyone. I cannot tell you what it is, but know that if you ever feel confused or need someone to talk to, you can always talk to me, no matter what it's about, no matter what time of day. Things are going to be very scary today and you'll see a lot of adults panicking. Just don't worry and know that everything is going to be alright."

I will never forget what she said to us that day. I didn't know it then, but the principal of the school forbade the teachers from telling the students what happened. When my teacher heard this, she marched down to the office and told the principal (who was a major bitch) that she was going to do her best to help her students, no matter what.

Thank you, Ms. Rentz. I will never forget you.

Later that day, when I got home, my mom's black truck was waiting to pick me up at the end of the street (I usually just walked to the front door). That's when she told me that airplanes had flown into the Twin Towers and they weren't sure if the attack was over yet. I saw the Towers fall, but my mom made me leave the room when they showed footage of people jumping from 50 stories up.

Even though it's been 10 years, that memory still hurts. It aches, and all of America feels it. This isn't something that is forgotten easily. So many people say, "Get over it, America! It was ten years ago!"

Hmm. I wonder. Maybe we should have just 'gotten over' Pearl Harbor and not participated in the War? History would look much different then, wouldn't it? Do not underestimate the severity of that attack. 9/11 didn't hurt just us, it hurt the world all over. Europe has been terrorized as well -- I wouldn't want to use the public transportation over there. 9/11 hurt everyone. It still hurts. People are still recovering from WWII and the Holocaust. This was no different. The body count may have been smaller, but that didn't make it any less potent.

God bless all, and watch over the families of the fallen.

 

[Will Graham]

I think I heard about it on the bus home from school but I am not sure, the bus driver used to always have the news on. I have a vague memory of him saying it, I cannot be certain though

When I got home my mother had the kitchen television on and I saw a black helicoptor flying in and around the smoke. I thought it was a volcano or something, my mama explained what had happened. I didn't really think much of it at the time, I just got a pack of crisps and played my playstation

I do recall the next day in school, our teacher spent the day explaining to us about why someone might do something like this. She also tried to get us to understand though tragic as it was, that America could take such an event. The war they were going to bring against whatever country had fostered the attack would be much worse

 

[unadulteratedawesome]

I had just turned 11 a few days earlier. I would watch the news in the mornings, so I flipped it on and saw the attack. I'd grown up watching horrible disasters on the news, so the fact that the only difference with this one was that it was in my own country didn't really shock me. I went to school and overheard how terrified the teachers were. I didn't grasp how 3000 Americans dead was somehow worse than thousands more in Africa.

After about a week, I realized the implications of the event. I felt it was a tragedy, but the greater tragedy was that it was going to be used as a scapegoat and excuse for other events.

I don't feel the world changed at all. History repeats itself - this isn't the first time something like this has happened. It it did change me, though. It cemented for me how stupid and cowardly the general populace was.

 

[Rydia]

I was a Freshman in high school in my computer lit class when we heard the announcement over the intercom. In my next class, the teacher had the news on TV and we watched it. Some girl was brought in crying because her brother was living in New York and worked in the one of the towers. She was trying to figure out if her brother would have been on or above the floor where the planes hit. I never found out how that story ended. We saw both towers fall. In my next class we had an algerbra quiz which I completely bombed.

My friend that was a year below me and still in elementary school said that the teachers knew what had happened but they were not allowed to tell the students. Instead, the students went the entire day hearing teachers talking about something awful that had happened. My friend said that when school was dismissed her teacher said to go home and watch the news because it was horrible.

 

[Squid]

Well I am from Australia so I am not as affected by the whole thing as a lot of other people are. The thing I remember most about it though was that the news cut off my favourite cartoon show to show the footage and that really pissed me off >_>

But now that I am older I feel sad for the people who lost someone and the terrible taste it has left in everyone's mouths. I think the world has changed, I think everyone is more paranoid and less trusting which is very sad, there is a lot more hate etc floating around then there used to be.

 

[The Freeshooter]

... My god what a day... It was quite painful for me. 10 years ago, though it feels like yesterday... the Twin Towers were struck... many people died... including my parents and godmother. Every year, I visit their graves and place a flower on each of them. This year makes 10.

I will never forget that day, and I will never forgive the people who did it or the ones who planned it.

 

[Donald Trump]

3000 deaths doesn't compare to a systematic attempt to eradicate an entire race of people.
Yes 9/11 was a tragedy, but a little perspective wouldn't go amiss.
I don't want to come across as overly hostile but I don't have any sympathy for America at all. I have sympathy for the family of the victims, but not the country. For me it's a case of chickens coming home to roost.

What did 9/11 mean to me at the time?
Very little, I was 11, I didn't really understand. It happened miles away and didn't really effect me.

 

[One-Winged Moogle]

3000 deaths doesn't compare to a systematic attempt to eradicate an entire race of people.
Yes 9/11 was a tragedy, but a little perspective wouldn't go amiss.
I don't want to come across as overly hostile but I don't have any sympathy for America at all. I have sympathy for the family of the victims, but not the country. For me it's a case of chickens coming home to roost.

What did 9/11 mean to me at the time?
Very little, I was 11, I didn't really understand. It happened miles away and didn't really effect me.

I can't say I know what you mean by "eradicate an entire race of people", but I certainly agree with the general notion and the need to have perspective of how many innocent people died in Iraq with 9/11 as the root of justification.

9/11 was tragic, but the "disaster capitalism" and "war on terror" that followed are even more so.

I was seven at the time, so I really didn't understand or have any idea what occured. I have vague memories of doing a prayer for it in class, but I didn't know what it was for.

 

[kolbywhite28]

I am still in college and I am reviewing for an exam in my room. Suddenly I heard my sister calling out in the living room. She was standing up in front of the television set was crying. When I saw what on the news, all I can mutter was "Oh my God'...

 

[ANGRYWOLF]

I worked second shift.I was at home asleep that morning when the phone rang.One of my coworkers called and told me to turn on the tv.I did and watched the second plane hit the second tower.She said don't come to work.They're closing us down for the rest of the day.
So I sat there and watched the news all day.

shrugs.

The person that said chickens were coming home to roost was insulting.I don't believe he intended to be insulting but he was to all Americans.
There was no justification for what bin Laden did and if you asked most Muslims , even those who dislike the US, they would probably say, if they were being honest, that the attack was counterproductive.It certainly didn't help their cause what ever that cause might be.Whether it was the US support for Israel or US bases in Muslim countries, or the first gulf war or whatever. Bin Laden failed to destroy the USA, Israel still exists, the US still has bases in some Muslim countries, hundreds of thousands of people died who would still be alive if there hadn't been a 9-11, bin Laden is dead and he achieved nothing positive for Muslims.

The person who made the chicken comments was 11 when it happened.He said he didn't understand then and it's obvious he still doesn't understand now.

shrugs.

 

[ribbit]

I can't say I know what you mean by "eradicate an entire race of people", but I certainly agree with the general notion and the need to have perspective of how many innocent people died in Iraq with 9/11 as the root of justification.

The Holocaust. And it was more than just an entire race as well. Around 6 million people died compared to the 3000-5000 in 9/11.

I wasn't aware that 9/11 had happened until at least a year after. I was about 7 at the time and no one talked about it at my school for some reason. And of course when I did find out, I still didn't understand much. I understand more now, and I hate to think about how the people who lost anyone in it would feel, but it hasn't affected me in any way. I didn't know anyone in it so I can't relate, nor has anyone I've been close to died, so I can't relate in that way either. But to all who died, let them rest in peace.

 

[Exoskeleton]

Hmm so that day I was in fourth grade. It was a terrible time because I think either before or after Sept 11th everyone near the DC/Maryland area had to watch out for some rogue sniper. But anyway I was in music class and it was 8 o clock when random kids from our class started getting picked up from school. I assumed it was because of some convinient holiday or something so I was glad. Me and some other classmates were picked up by my daycare and I played with the other kids for a while because I didn't know what was going on.

So after a while us kids in the daycare were gathered around the television looking at the news and the Pentagon that had just been hit and the towers. I remember wondering why we were watching this and what was happening. After seeing kids act surprised and getting picked up by their parents and seeing the daycare staff crying and terrified I kind of began to panic too a little because I didn't clearly know what was going on. After a while my aunts came to pick me up and take me home.

They were taking care of my mom who had just gotten out of the hospital due to surgery. When I got home I just stared at the TV with my mom in bed in her room while my aunts just watched the television downstairs and helped clean and take care of our house since it was just me and my mom and she was recuperating. My mom was surprised because she worked a few buildings down from the building that had been hit. I didn't really get it though.

For me as a kid I already had many many other tragedies that had occurred in the year of 2001 and September 11 was just another one to me back then. I didn't really feel all that sad at the time because I had already seen and experienced terrible things before it happened and even worse things after. Now that I look back on it I do feel bad. It was a terrible tragedy and I feel bad just thinking about the people who had died. When I learned that my friend's grandmother who was on one of the planes had died in the tragedy I didn't feel as sorry as I do now. I survived 9/11 with more ease but mostly because I was young and I felt I had other things to care about. Now in this day and age if something like that were to happen I'd be terrified. I happen to know many people who live in DC and work in government buildings and I'd hate o relive such a tragedy.

 

[Lebreau]

I was in 4th grade, and I remember coming in from recess only to see my teacher sobbing. Unlike some schools, we were actually told what was happening and she left the TV on for the rest of the day. All of the teachers were really tense and snappy, and I remember one of the boys in my class starting to cry because his aunt and uncle lived in New York at the time and he didn't know where, so he was worrying. I was old enough to somewhat understand what was going on, and when I got home, all my family did was watch the news and I remember my grandma obsessing over the numbers... and swearing a lot.

It didn't affect us as much as those who lost family members, but my grandma and mother became so much more protective afterwards. They also avoided Chicago and Milwaukee like the plague.

 

[unadulteratedawesome]

I don't believe he intended to be insulting but he was to all Americans.

It wasn't insulting to me. You don't speak for every American.

It certainly didn't help their cause what ever that cause might be.

I'd say it did. A small group of people, not even another country or something very tangible, were able to completely change the actions and lives of an entire nation (and those in others) while simultaneously devastating their economy, undermining their civil liberties and freedoms and everything they stood for, decimating our reputation internationally, and spreading fear and paranoia throughout the majority of the country. For a group that wanted revenge against and hated America, I'd say they were successful.

That's really what I took away from 9/11. The fact that one tragic event, not even that terrible in comparison to other modern tragedies, was able to send to warp the entire world, but particularly one nation.

 

[Dionysos]

At the time of September the 11th I was at home, with the news on. The builders hadn’t quite finished my school yet, so I had a few extra weeks off school while they erected temporary portacabins for our classes. I was about to go into Year 8 (thus 12 years old), and I decided to use the extra time off to paint some Warhammer figurines (which I had tried to start doing - shortly before deciding it was a hobby both too expensive and time consuming to continue with). As a result, I pretty much witnessed the whole of what was televised unfold live, and then saw extra footage as it was coming in later, and repeated.

When my Mom came home later she was horrified, and so were most people that day. Later, we had the radio on as I went to go do my running, and they were playing a lot more voiceclips / comments of people who had witnessed it by then, and what was already a terrible thing seemed much worse.
Though I was 12 years old, I was very shocked and confused by it. It didn’t affect my day to day life, but that’s not how I lived. I couldn’t help imagining what it must have been like being in the towers, and leaping to your death just so that you could breathe and see. I hadn’t seen something awful on that scale unfold before. I don’t know if I’d ever seen people die on TV before then, or if I did I hadn’t ever realised it. It was quite a major thing. I thought about it for ages.

In relation to perspectives, even if you had witnessed with your own eyes an entire village of people dying from starvation, and then later see someone mauled to death by a lion in some horrific manner… You’d still feel at least a bit sorry for the person mauled to death by a lion.
Tragedies occur on all sorts of scales and situations which cannot really be compared to one another, for they are different sorts of tragedies. It isn’t ever a competition.

Just because one was worse (or on a larger scale) does not mean that a ‘lesser’ tragedy is silly to feel sympathy for – especially when a lot people watched people jump to their deaths on television, and thus many people were probably quite traumatised by what they were able to see of it. It’s a human thing to be affected by that, and I can’t criticise it.

9/11 does get a lot of coverage, but it is surely to be expected. It has been one of the defining moments of the century so far and affected both the politics which followed and also the outlook of a lot of people alive today. It isn’t surprising that it still gets brought up today, especially on its anniversary. It’s quite a big thing to try and forget about.

That it gets coverage (as in TV, news, etc, or even merely people talking) I do not complain about. The holocaust and starvation in Africa (as examples) also get a lot of coverage. The holocaust has lots of monuments, sympathetic movies, documentaries, literature, and at landmark anniversaries of camp liberations (etc) it finds its way back on the news. Starvation in Africa also finds its way on the news, and there are lots of charitable organisations which always bring this to light. The two world wars (and war in general) are also remembered every year, and at about that time we get a lot of stories about those times. People are like that. I’d be confused if 9/11 didn’t get discussed at this time.

I knew when I was 12 that 9/11 was a big event, and I’m still not surprised that people talk about it now. It was not plague or starvation, but it was quite a big thing where acts of terrorism are concerned.

 

[Will Graham]

I think the reason it seems to get news coverage more than the others is that it all happened in one day. Starvation is an ongoing problem, the holocaust lasted a very long time. Not saying one is worse etc. but just proffering a theory, also as Argor said, seeing people jumping to their deaths live, to me has a much bigger impact than hearing about starvation

 

[Shaissa]

I was sitting in class when a teacher come into the room and said "the world trade centers have been hit"... I remember thinking "what are the world trade centers?" Everyone I asked really didn't have any idea.

Basically All day we watched from when the news showed the first building was already hit, till the plane ran into the second building, to the people going down in Pennsylvania. I sat in school watched the news, then went home and watched more news.

 

[Toshiya]

I must have been 7 at the time, though it actually feels like yesterday since it all happened I can't believe it's been 10 years.

At the time it didn't really affect me, I didn't hear anything about it till I came home from school that day. I just remember my mum picking me up at the school gates and telling me 'we have to hurry home, something's happened in America and I want to watch the news'

Then, a week later, we went on holiday to Fuerteventura and I remember wondering why there were loads of guards at the airport and we had to check in 3 and 1/2 hours before we flew. It was annoying

 

[Shu]

- Moved to Costa -

This is not a debate thread, it is more a general "where were you" thread.

---
I remember this day very well. I believe I was a Sophomore at the time, I was sitting in chemistry talking to my buddy Sean at the time. When suddenly things were getting weird, like a white noise moment, a lot of confusion with people running through the halls, like a bad movie. Our chem teach poked his head out the door and told the kids to slow it down and asked what was going on. Over the intercom around 3 minutes later we heard .. "Please stay in your seats... There has been a tragedy in NY a plane had an accident with one of the twin towers." Around 5-10 minutes later people started gasping and crying out two classes over (computer lab). Our teacher sort of panicked and said.. "Let's go check it out."

So came to realize that it was no longer an accident but an attack by some Islamic extremists. Some few planes had gone down and no one for sure how many more would go down.

I think what little Christianity I sort of had left that day, finally started to dissipate. People starting to pray in the halls, not for the victims and what was going on, but to keep us all safe instead. The implications everyone was unaware of. No one knew if this meant war, if we were being invaded, but then some towel headed dude on the television screen had given his statement and bunch of loyal followers were holding up their guns. I don't think just because it was an attack against the "Christian" Nation, but because it was an attack on the US.

I was angry yes, but angry at my fellow peers as well. Claiming that all muslims were to blame, because a day before they had never known there were different types of muslims and very well extremists. The blind hate that ensued was crushing to man kind. The fact that people started to join the military to get back at Afghanistan and Usama Bin Ladin, I was like wait.. what is this going to accomplish first off?

The words "War on Terror" were mentioned.. and that's about the time I hung my head.

Ever since that day we as Americans have totally missed the mark on understanding foreign diplomacy. We have been quite the needy greedy pigs, for that oil in fact. But then I guess every other nation is too, just not as .. broadcasted about. The fact that we used the "War on Terror" as a means of occupying more and more of Iraq/Afghanistan and defending Isreal, when in fact they are the ones mostly these days that are causing us grief. (not against us, for us).

I don't think a single person in American can give a good honest description of why my friends are still over in Iraq. Iraqi Freedom? I call it an abomination. We leave it unoccupied.. then guess what? Some other dick head is going to come around force feeding islamic distorted idealism down children's throats like a sick pedophile.

So did it affect me? Yep..

I'm paying more for gas by like 2 dollars.. I remember the days of paying.. 1.60 per gallon, now it's 3.59-4.00.

I pay more taxes to just have my government give care packages to other nations on a monthly basis and fight a war which we have repeatedly said we are withdrawing from.

I have to go to Airports 2-3 hours early just so I can get through the twisted security layers we have. Get my junk felt up and then feel like an alien in my own country. I still don't vote because all politicians today have missed the mark on making promises that will go against the typical Democratic/Republican believes (which in my eyes they are actually the same, just with different motives). The promises that were made, were never fulfilled as well.

Also I know as a whole America is in the biggest debt we've been in .. ever, and due to it, I doubt I'll be alive to see the day where I don't worry about money to pay for my wife and I, children.. and what not. The job market is eerily scary as hell still. You can talk the big talk when you have a job, but try finding one without having one. Our war affected affected other nations.. and all from 9/11..

I feel bad for the people that died that day.. and for their families.. but if I hear another religious reference to that day.. I might as well put on some headphones and tone them out. Your God was absent that day, face it.