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Ten Years On

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Dcc001, Sep 7, 2011.

  1. Frank n Beans

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    The one thing that stands out most to me to this day is watching the people jump from the top floors. That was one of the hardest and most emotional things I've ever seen in my life. I couldn't imagine having to make that decision and the helplessness that they must have felt.
     
  2. 6PPC

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    I remember watching things unfold that morning and the towers falling. People running down the streets to avoid the oncoming debris. I remember thinking "this can't be real. This is like some high budget disaster movie and this is all CGI." It seemed very surreal.

    9/11 really effected my brother. He had flown to NYC on 9/9 and was suppose to meet with some people on the 101st floor at 9 AM on 9/11. Due to a sudden scheduling conflict with the other party, they decided to meet on Sunday 9/9 and he left later the same day. If the meeting hadn't been changed, he probably would have died. The group he was meeting with lost 7 people on 9/11.

    I was always aware of how ignorant we Americans are about other countries and cultures, specially the Middle East. But in the following years after 9/11. I realized I had under estimated the general level of ignorance. I had lived in a Middle East country for several years, so it made it even more frustrating.

    It's difficult to talk about other things without bringing up politics, so will stop here.
     
  3. dewercs

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    The thing that sticks out the most in my mind was how I watched coverage of the attacks for about 4 days straight, at work at home, and while trying to sleep and then after 4 days I could not watch anymore, I had reached my limit of news coverage on a horrible event, I had seen just about every angle possible and enough death and destruction for the rest of my life. Then I just quit watching.
     
  4. tweetybird

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    I was a sophomore in college and it was Freshman Week (read: no classes yet, party your face off time). Thus, on the morning of September 11, I was sound asleep in my dorm room and working up a decent hangover.

    I'll never forget the sound of the banging on my door. It was a serious Bang of Doom, the kind that only happens when you are in serious trouble or there's an emergency. I'll never forget what I was wearing (white PJ pants with little flowers on them and a pink tank top), stumbling out of my loft bed (world's worst idea if you like to get drunk often, PS), the hungover/confused look on my roommate's face, and the look on my friend's face in my doorway as she told me, "They bombed the World Trade Center."

    So prescient, referring to the perpetrators as "they."

    I will also never forget that it was cool to be patriotic for everyone, not just rednecks and Republicans, for about 9 months afterwards. Please note that I have never been registered to any political party, as my personal beliefs are socially liberal and fiscally conservative. My roommate and I got what must have been the last American flag in the tri-state area and hung it proudly on our wall for the rest of college. I also had this cute belt that I would wear out all the time, it was just a navy blue cloth web but the buckle had an American flag made out of little crystals. I always got such compliments on it... and damn, I would never in a million years wear it today. Flag-waving domestically has once again become the domain of country singers, rednecks, and Tea Partiers, and I think that sucks.

    In terms of how things have changed: I traveled a lot internationally with my family when I was a kid. Everywhere we went, my sister and I had little American flags sticking out of our backpacks. This was the late 80's/early 90's, we were proud to be American, and people everywhere were friendly to us. If I had a kid, I would never let them do that today... I'm not the type to fake being Canadian or what have you, but walking around with American flags all over you just seems like a much more foolhardy thing today.
     
  5. bewildered

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    I remember that I was in the 7th grade. The teachers herded us into the 6th grade science room and we all watched the attacks live on a television in there. I honestly felt completely emotionless about the event. I didn't know what to think and I also didn't know what the hell was going on. I also had never heard of the World Trade Center before then (here I am, showing you guys what a dumb hick kid I was...).

    In any case, the idea that a huge building in NYC was the site of terrorist activity dumbfounded me. However, I was so far removed from the event, both physically and because I didn't know anyone who lived in that part of the world, and I wasn't sure how to react.

    If something like that happened today, I'm not sure what I would think.

    It's interesting to see what everyone else was doing at the time. It also accentuates our age differences here...
     
  6. Superfantastic

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    "They're attacking the United States!"

    My mom woke me up about ten minutes before my alarm. I looked up at my doorway where she stood, looked at my alarm, made an 'uuuhh' sound to show my disdain for only getting 98% of my sleep, and closed my eyes. I remember sleepily thinking "Attacked? No one can 'attack' the States," not taking into account non-military attacks. Then I heard her scream from seeing the second plane hit.

    That day started our week-long 'team building/get to know each other' program at broadcasting college. I listened to the radio the whole way there, and there wasn't much anyone could say at that point. So we get to the gym, and after a brief mention of that morning's events, our instructor, one of goofiest and most clueless people I've ever met, proceeds to start that day's activities. He gives the instructions for the first game or whatever, and 30 of us just kinda look around at each other, collectively saying "uh, we're gonna go join the rest of the college in the cafeterias and watch this monumental, ultimate history-in-the-making moment unfold...if that's ok with you."

    Paradigm shifts and/or things I would like to see changed? Well it's certainly given racists and bigots a new group to hate for no reason, so there's that. In my humble view, the 'Western'/secular world has been outgrowing religion bit by bit for a while, but it's been the Judeo-Christian religion almost exclusively. These attacks showed that while the west has been able to quiet the crazies of its most predominant belief system and rule istelf in a secular, more free way, a large part of the rest of the world still has a bunch of dickface fundies trying to control it/the entire world.

    I'm optimistic though, for two main reasons. As far as I know, through all recorded history, any group of people who's main strategy is terrorism, or who "love death" to quote the head assholes themselves, has ever acheived any significant success. Basically, they can win infrequent, isolated "battles" (surprise attacks seems more accurate), but can never win the war. Their own strategy ensures their own demise.

    The other thing is that I'm a firm believer that truth -- actual truth -- has and always will prevail. It generally takes a long fucking time, but with the way technology is spreading, information and knowledge is more accessible than ever. And as a wise man once said, "The only good is knowledge, the only evil is ignorance."
     
  7. Kubla Kahn

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    I was in 20th Century History in 10th grade. The vice principal came over the PA and said the teachers should turn on their TVs and that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. I don't remember if we saw the second plane hit in real time or if it was a replay but the second we turned the TV on we saw the image of the second plane hit, the network we were watching had a bad angle on it and you couldn't tell what the fuck just happened. Same went for when the first tower collapsed, it took a few minutes before the reports caught up with what was happening. I remember hearing the reports of an explosion at the Pentagon and that there was possibly a truck bomb near the White House. No one knew what the fuck was going on and that was scariest part, would there be attacks continuously as some war on our own soil? What was our response going to be?

    I remember watching the coverage for the next few days in utter disbelief, I still find it hard to imagine the images were real and not some sort of CGI nightmare. I was glad there was eventually a media black out of displaying the images to death. Since then I think the yearly coverage has been respectful and not as egregious as people make it out to be, particularly this year. My little brother who was 10 at the time, who is now in the I am right about EVERYTHING phase of his life, is now one of those people making the "What's the difference between a cow and 9/11?*" jokes. Honestly, as far as world history goes this is probably the biggest event since World War 2. Trying to blow it off as just another day, particularly 10 years out seems kind of wrong. I guess people grow tired of the medias role in plugging the event each year, but I see it as something that needs coverage. I do think it's funny how insanely PC the coverage has become, every other human interest story about it has to do with some unknown connection between someone at ground zero and a woman wearing a burka.


    * You stop milking a cow after 10 years hachachachachachacha!!!
     
  8. audreymonroe

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    I was in my middle school cafeteria when the girl who would later be the first in our class to get pregnant came up to our table and told us "the Twin Towers fell over today." We didn't believe her, because buildings don't fall over and she wasn't exactly the most trustworthy source of information. But by the last period of the day everyone was talking about it, teachers were crying, and kids were being called out if school or freaking out because a lot of our parents worked in the city. My home ec teacher was the one to tell me that we were attacked.

    I have a pretty complicated relationship with 9-11 to go into much depth about it, but my stepmom died ten days afterwards. I was simultaneously too distracted by that and using 9-11 as a distraction for her that I shut down and didn't feel anything except morbid fascination with something that was worse than what I had to deal with at home. Them I got tired of it being used as an excuse for political moves i didn't agree with that I didn't appropriately react to it until a few years ago when I saw the exhibit about it on the Newseum in DC and fucking lost it because the reality of it finally hit me and all at once I understood the connection it had with my stepmom. ( Sorry for being vague, but like I said, it's complicated.)

    As for how it has affected us as a whole, I think about that a lot in terms of the attitude towards politics that my generation has. The first time I ever really became aware of politics was during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and the whole Bush election/Florida ballots and, of course 9-11, happened right as we were all starting to at least try an understand, pay attention to, and have an opinion on politics. (This may have been too early for a lot of people my age, but I grew ip in a super political town where a lot of us started protesting in middle school.) To me, it's no wonder that we're either extremely apathetic and distrusting of the government, or really politically charged. These were the events of our political awakening.
     
  9. Elset

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    I was sitting in my 9th grade geography class. At that stage I didn't know what the WTC was and had no clue of the magnitude of what I was seeing. As the week wore on I started to understand the implications of the attacks, and was mostly just beside myself about the whole thing. That's about the time I realized the world was bigger than my little suburb. Quite an eye opening experience.
     
  10. JoeCanada

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    I was 14 when it happened, so while I do remember a pre-9/11 world, I can't say I had really developed an educated, adult view of the world. I was pretty naive, and in my mind, peaceful small town British Columbia was what the world was like. You would hear about "starving children in Africa" and learn about past wars, but it all seemed very distant; hardly even real.

    The 9/11 attacks and ensuing panic were what showed me that serious, horrible things can and do actually happen in the world. As the months went by and the reality of what had happened set in, it made me look at the world in a whole different light; I saw that nothing was a given, and that everything can change in an instant.

    I remember on the day of the attacks, I had the same type of feeling I had a few years later when my dad died. Where everything is the same around you, the world is still spinning, and yet suddenly everything is different. Very surreal, very weird.
     
  11. shimmered

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    Jesus fuck you people are young.




    I was in the Army at Ft. Stewart.
    Longest goddamned day ever. Watching it unfold, watching our ORs switch from scheduled cases to emergencies only, watching shit just fucking fall apart and then sensing the anger and readiness of the entire post to exact vengeance...


    This is at my gym.
    [​IMG]
     
  12. Guy Fawkes

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    I was driving to my first class of the day listening to Howard Stern when the first plane hit. I arrived at campus when the second plane hit and made my way to the classroom about 20 minutes early and turned on the TV.

    I remember all the initial footage was taken from building top cams a long ways away. About 10 minutes of watching TV with one other classmate the college evacuated the campus and I went home.

    I would say I'm pessimistic about what will happen next. I have a feeling that it will have something to do with air travel again and that will about kill it for me. It'll be without a doubt time for a new career. Selfish but it's what affects me the most out of the incident.

    My little fuck you to the terrorists has been to fly every September 11th regardless of the day it falls on.
     
  13. ghettoastronaut

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    What stands out in my mind is how the focus of the thread was "what stands out in your mind?" and the thread has turned into "I was [x] years old, I was at school, the teachers turned on the TV..."

    I like what The Last Psychiatrist has to say about it:

    <a class="postlink" href="http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2009/03/reality_responds_to_the_matrix.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2009/03/ ... atrix.html</a>

    Or as Christopher Hitchens said on the death of Princess Diana, "Where was I when I heard the knews? Who cares?"
     
  14. Czechvodkabaron

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    I was a sophomore in high school when it happened. I was sitting in my English class when our principal came on the intercom and announced that a plane had just crashed into the World Trade Center. At that time we all thought that it was an accident. A few minutes later the principal announced that another plane had just hit. At that point we all knew that it was a terrorist attack. A little while later a guy who was in that class with me (a gay kid who was a total fuck up) walked in late and told us something like "you guys, the pentagon has been hit!" The whole class let out the "oh my god, what is going on" reactions and the guy who sat behind me (another kid who was a fuck up) said "[our high school] is next, we need to leave!" We eventually turned on the television and watched the news coverage. We ended up watching the news in every class I was in that day. I remember that one girl who was in my gym class was crying because she had relatives who worked in the World Trade Center, but being that we were in Georgia she was the only person I remember being personally affected on that day.

    I had only heard the name "Osama bin Laden" and seen a picture of him for the first time probably six months before 9/11 happened. I knew that he was the most wanted man in the world and was the head of a terrorist network, but beyond that I didn't know anything else about him.

    A few years ago I saw a documentary about the anthrax attacks that happened by mail in the United States in the few weeks after 9/11. I had only vaguely remembered hearing about those when they were going on, and had no idea that they occurred so soon after 9/11.

    Also, I didn't hear about the snake handler who was bitten by a taipan on 9/11 until about a year ago: <a class="postlink" href="http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/i-was-bitten-bitten-by-a-taipan.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/i-was-b ... aipan.html</a>
     
  15. D26

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    I was 18, freshman in college, living at home, when my mom called to tell me to turn on the TV. I spent the rest of the day watching and chatting on AOL Instant Messenger with my friends, which was the only way we communicated. The next week was spent watching CNN in the school's lounge while attempting to do homework between classes. I also distinctly remember the day being an almost eerily beautiful day (70 and sunny), and it just being so quiet without any planes in the air. Finally, even to this day, when I see a plane flying even remotely low, it always gives me some pause.

    Now, I am teaching a government class, as we approach the 10 year anniversary, and a lot of these kids (who were just 7 or 8) can't even begin to grasp the concept of that day, let alone how it changed things economically, politically, and in the media. I also remember that being the first time I was truly disgusted by the 24 hour news networks, as they basically replayed footage, repeatedly asked the question "Will there be more attacks today? Could we be attacked again soon!? TUNE IN TO FIND OUT!" and speculated endlessly about who was behind it without knowing at all. People were friendlier after it happened, but that didn't last.

    The reality is that, ever since then, the prevailing thought and feeling that underlies almost everything in the news or media is fear. It went from indignant outrage (Oh my God our President got a blowjob in the oval office!) to fear (We're all going to die horribly if we don't have duct tape and a survival kit ready for the next attack!). Seriously, they talked about gas attacks, biological attacks, bombs, dirty bombs, nuclear bombs, car bombs, threat levels were created, and the schools I worked at had extra security every year around September 11th, "just in case." Even this year, the threat level is heightened and the kids at the school today were talking about how we might be attacked again on Sunday. The scariest part is that those assholes accomplished their goal: they changed our country into a frightened child that flinches when someone so much as looks at us wrong. Pre-9/11 we had a sense of invincibility (ill-conceived as it might have been). Now, when I see that bluster and that 'we'll put a boot in your ass' stuff, it feels like the bully that just got punched in the face, so he puffs out his chest and says "THAT DIDN'T HURT!" while crying and swinging wildly at anything that moves, just trying to prove to himself that he is still this awesome amazing force.

    I apologize if that got too political, but I want to make this clear: I don't blame politicians for this. I do blame the media, who jumped on that fear-based reporting and ran with it. 24 hour news networks saw a boom in viewership after those attacks like they never knew existed, and to hold on to that they had to do anything possible to get you to watch. So, instead of covering political scandals or reporting on corrupt politicians, they began to report on how anything and everything could be dangerous. If there was so much as the hint of a threat of an attack, they drilled that shit into the ground 24/7 for a week, then when it didn't happen, they moved on. 9/11 retrospectives are great, in that they preserve the memory of that day, which should not ever be forgotten. It is when they follow those reports with "are we going to be attacked this year on 9/11? Jimmy Jackass will give you HIS thoughts within the hour!" that my stomach just turns. Can't we remember that day without following it up with "HOLY SHIT IT COULD HAPPEN AGAIN TOMORROW!" Even political reporting has an exceptionally strong undercurrent of fear behind it (of the other party wins, our country is doomed!). That happened on 9/11, and the media never looked back.
     
  16. tweetybird

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    Oh damn, I always forget about the anthrax. Our whole student center was cleared out by the powdered sugar from a donut during that time, no lie. It's a major university so I imagine some of the higher-ups may have been seen as legit targets but yeah, kind of ridiculous to look back on.

    EDIT: My belt was NOT TACKY, SIR! Crystals on things were the height of cool in 2001. Also, I was 19 and as you may or may not have realized, 19-year-old girls are magpies. Shiiiiny...
     
  17. TX.

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    I was 18 and had recently moved to another state. (As in, I moved the week before and had boxes everywhere). Maybe it's because I didn't have any friends in the area yet, but I felt so alone and sad. I cried and tried to make sense of it as well as an 18 year old can. 9/11 sticks out for me because it's the first time I was deeply moved by something that had absolutely nothing to do with my loved ones or me.
     
  18. StayFrosty

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    What stood out for me? I was in a private religious school; they told us to pray, and my only thought aside form a sense of shock and numbness was that praying wasn't going to do a Goddamned thing. When I got home and turned on the TV, my 12 year old brain couldn't understand why this was happening, or how to process live video of living people jumping out of burning skyscrapers. I understood that this was bad, and that it was an important event, but beyond that I was pissed that my cartoons weren't on. In the years it took me to look back, recognize my earlier selfishness, and acknowledge the implications and results of what had happened, most of the rest of the country had already forgotten.

    Not to discount the bravery shown by the WTC responders, but what really hit me was the actions of the passengers aboard Flight 93. They had to know the hijacker pilot could crash the plane. They knew the other hijackers had bladed weapons. And instead of letting the basic instinct for self-preservation agains the immediate threat take over, they charged the cockpit in an effort to make sure that plane couldn't be used to kill hundreds more.

    It's already been said, but the terrorists accomplished their mission, and I truly believe it was more effective than they could have imagined. They forced a massively larger opponent to spend a fortune in resources, they planted fear and paranoia, and they provided the catalyst for a decade and counting of infighting and senseless argument between differing ideologies among our leaders and citizens.
     
  19. Frebis

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    I hate my memory of 9/11. I'm embarrassed by what my friends and I did that day. I was in 11th grade when this happened. The timeline of events went like this:

    -Went to first period
    -Go to second period, turn on TV to see that the US is under attack.
    -They let us out of school.
    -We go to the liquor store.
    -We proceed to drink until it is time for our parents to come home.

    At the time I did not understand how grave the situation was. I didn't understand how many people were going to die. I didn't understand everything going on. I was just happy to have time off when the parents were at work to get blitzed.

    I was an ass when I was younger. I really feel terrible about that.
     
  20. MoreCowbell

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    This. I have no unique stories about the day itself, but I'll quote an old post of mine: