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16 years ago...

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by shegirl, Sep 11, 2017.

  1. shegirl

    shegirl
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    Redemption Seeking Whore

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    Every year when this day comes around I am somber. Sadness comes and goes between actual work. When I stop and think about the things we all saw and some experienced that day, I still shake my head. I will never fully understand how some can be pure evil but, maybe I should be glad I won't.

    Talk about it, recount where you were when you heard, anything you want. I think having this thread is the least we can do to remember.
     
  2. Nettdata

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    All I remember about it was that my Dad called and told me about an airplane flying into a building in NY, so I rolled over in bed and flipped on the TV, expecting to see a Cessna 172 or something that had clipped a wing while being stupid... just in time to watch the second one go in.

    It really hit home about a week later when it was confirmed that I'd lost about a dozen co-workers on a project I was working on for Wachovia bank... as in a handful of people that physically visited me in Vancouver a couple of times, and a bunch of people I emailed almost daily for a couple of months. And then it just stopped, and the project was cancelled while they figured shit out.

    There was one guy who survived because he had a doctor's appointment or something, so wasn't in the office, and from what I heard he pretty much lost his mind... understandably.


    As horrific and terrible as that was, I really regret that there was such an overreaction to it. Sure, it was a huge, symbolic act, but it has been so abused and taken advantage of for political and financial gain, it's really quite sad.

    The fact that there is STILL such a huge fight to get those first responders medical care to handle the shit that they contracted due to being on scene and helping speaks volumes, and so many people that stand up and say "proud to be American" should be fucking ashamed of themselves.

    Jon Stewart did a great piece on it where he went and visited members of Congress, and you can see the absolute shit that they are by their reactions to what should be a no-brainer.

    http://www.latimes.com/entertainmen...first-responders-congress-20151208-story.html


    It was also incredibly reassuring that there were so many people who ran to help, much in the same way that people are helping with the hurricanes and flooding... it just really sucks that it seems to take such events to bring that to the forefront.
     
  3. Czechvodkabaron

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    I was a sophomore in high school when it happened. I remember our principal coming on the intercom during my first period Spanish III class and telling us that a plane had crashed into one of the Twin Towers, but at that time we had no idea that it was a terrorist attack. I think that I was in my second period English class when the principal came on again and said that another plane had crashed into the other tower, and that was when we knew that something was up. I think that it was only a few minutes after that when this gay kid who was a total fuck up came into class late and said something like "you guys, the Pentagon has been hit! I'm dead serious!" It felt really surreal then, and another one of my classmates who was a fuck up shouted something like "[our high school] is next!" It was right after that when we went into the classroom next door and watched the news, which is what we did in every class for the rest of the day. I also remember a girl in my third period gym class crying because she had relatives or friends who either worked at the World Trade Center or close to it. I don't remember much from high school, but needless to say 9/11 is one memory that does stand out.

    I also remember that it was eerily beautiful here in Atlanta that evening, and my dad took me to the driving range down the street from where we lived to hit golf balls because he wanted us to get away from the idiot box and do something that was fun and normal. I didn't want to go--and I have actually come to hate golf--but it was a good idea at the time.
     
  4. Juice

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    I was a sophomore in high school too. Some other kid told us about it when we were in gym class. No one believed him until we left and saw people huddled around TV sets. A few minutes after I started watching, the other plane hit. My dad was is New York that day, but he was in mid-town and couldnt get back home for a few days. I remember my mom crying when i got home and my brother and sister not really understanding it. A lady from our church was killed in the South Tower and there was an impromptu collective memorial service for her and all the surrounding religious institutions. Many members from the local synagogue and mosque came too. Despite the circumstances, it was a really nice assembly of people.
     
  5. GcDiaz

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    I damn near slept thru the whole thing. Just gotten in from work, about to go bed, figured I'd check the news real quick. I watched Fox then, back when they were sane. Tuned in just in time to catch the second plane hit live. Stayed up to see reports of the Pentagon being hit, and that's really when it hit me that this was a coordinated attack. Then the first tower fell, and I had to get the fuck out of my apt. Took a long walk to my uncle's house and spent the day there watching the rest of it, even saw WTC 7 go down (fuck the conspiracy theorists).

    It was surreal, like watching a movie. My brain couldn't accept that the towers were really GONE, for good. Now I don't know what the US response was that day, but I will swear before St Pete himself that Fox News broadcast footage of American bombs landing on *some* ME country that evening. Maybe it was real, maybe it was stock footage from the Gulf War, but it was there and claimed as current.
     
  6. downndirty

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    I was in a statistics class when we first heard, and the teacher had a moment of silence. The second plane hit and I was in Spanish class...still actually trying to learn Spanish. It wasn't until the last class of the day when we actually got to see what the fuck was going on.

    Sixteen years later, as much as I'm loathe to say it....it kind of worked. It derailed the American way of life in a perverse way that while insidious, I think was unintentional. The TSA, DHS, NSA, would all be nonexistent or serve a very different purpose. It accelerated the militarization of police in a huge way, and for most of my young adult life was the bogey man for a LOT of truly frightening things the US did: human rights violations, two unwinnable wars, a complete divorce between the media narrative of war and actual goings on, and dear Christ, the staggering amounts of money spent fighting...illiterate goat herders in the world's most backwards regions. If 9/11 didn't happen, I think the concept of "personal liberty" and limits on government power would have vastly different meanings.

    At a minimum, it was a head-on collision between parts of the world that couldn't be more opposite: the technologically advanced, secular West, powered by the most powerful military machine ever conceived, and the most religiously devoted, fanatical, and willfully ignorant poor zealots that had more cause to fear starving to death than "terrorist-fighters".

    I have no connection to the event itself, but I had friends die in the ensuing war, and fondly recall flying in 1999-2000 as a carefree experience. Mostly, I am just disappointed we haven't learned as much from the event and the things that caused it as we could have (see: how Israel has dealt with threats of terrorism & jihad since it's inception as a country).
     
  7. Kubla Kahn

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    I was in 20th Century American History and the principal came over the speakers to announce that a plane hit the WTC and we could turn on our TVs and watch if we wanted. Our teach turned the tv on and didn't say a word the rest of the class. My dad was going through chemo at the time and was home when I got home. I think it was initially so scary because there was no clue as to the who and why. Just mass carnage being replayed endlessly on every channel. Im sort of glad we've gotten away from plastering it all day in remembrance. Ill watch some of the raw footage documentary stuff every now and again and it still fucks with me.
     
  8. Nettdata

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    Most of you have probably heard that on 9/11, Halifax airport took in 47 planes and 7000 passengers that were diverted.

    I've never seen a pic of that until just now... here they are staged on the runways.

    [​IMG]
     
  9. dixiebandit69

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    On this day, I drink in honor of my dad, who was born on September 11th, 1934.

    As far as the day it happened, I was 19, and working at a chain auto repair shop, and trying to explain to my coworkers that it WAS NOT the work of Sadaam Hussein or the Russians.
    I didn't know exactly who was responsible, but I knew it wasn't either of them.
     
  10. TX.

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    I was 18 and had was in my 2nd or 3rd week of college. One of my friends sent me a message on AIM telling me about the first plane. I assumed it was a small plane and just an accident. The rest of the day was spent watching TV and wondering what would happen next. I still feel sick when I watch some of the footage from that day. I hope we never have another day like that.
     
  11. toytoy88

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    My day was EXACTLY the same. Dad called and told me I might want to turn on the tv because a plane had hit the tower. I expected a Cessna or something similar and just seconds after I switched the tv on and was processing what I was looking at, the second plane hit.
     
  12. Kampf Trinker

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    I was upstairs, I think playing video games, when my brother burst in and told me that our country was under attack. I remember watching the second plane collide into the tower. I was in middle school and too young to fully understand the implications of what was happening, namely how much prolonged war was going to result from that day. Although I had been overseas for a little over a year the day after was when I first really grasped how wide spread anti-American sentiments are. All of the Europeans in my school were talking about how the Americans deserved it and how they were fucking assholes who bombed everyone. They had no idea who did it or why it happened, it was just like a knee jerk reaction. Not that there isn't room for criticism of America's overuse of it's military, but the reactions really shocked me the day after a tragedy like that.

    It's incredible how much the after effects of that event still reverberate to this day. It wasn't the first attack by Islamic terrorists on western soil, but it took what was primarily a regional conflict and made it into a global one.
     
  13. shimmered

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    Active duty at Ft Stewart.

    The first tower was hit. One of my coworker's husband called and told us. The second one was hit and our OR shut down except the cases in rooms and anything emergent.

    I don't think about that day with the same sadness I had before.
    Now I'm sad for the nation we could've been after that attack.
    I'm sad for what we became somewhere along the way.