Junior year of high school. I walked out of band practice, and kids were crying. I walked into Literature, and everyone looked confused. The teacher walked in, told us what happened, and kids started crying. The principal came over the loudspeaker, confirmed everything, and more people started crying. Everyone whose parents worked in the city started trying to call with the few cell phones we had between us. The rest of the day was pretty much a repeat of that. Kids crying in the hallway. Teachers crying in the hallway. Teachers trying to reassure us. Teachers looking as scared as any of us. No T.V. all day. I realize now how smart that was. People lost loved ones that day. It wouldn't have done anyone any good to see it happen in front of them. I work around the corner from the site now. I see them rebuilding it every single day, and I still get chills.
I wasn't yet through my first year in the Marine Corps, out in the field in 29 Palms*. I walked up to the antenna farm and one of my buddies told me that a plane had flown in to one of the twin towers, setting it on fire. Not even three hours later we were back main side (main base), packing all of our shit in to containers. We didn't end up shipping out until a few months later, but the time in between the actual attack and deploying was a blur. The creepiest thing was that one of the Marines in my unit was from New Orleans and deeply superstitious. The night before I was punching out on a retrans and he came down and said to us in the vehicle "That moon is red. Be careful, ok? Red moon means something bad is gonna happen". We all thought he was retarded and wrote it off. Weird. *Field - out in the desert on a training mission. * Retrans - sitting on a mountain top, babysitting radios and antennas that are retransmitting communication signals.
Focus: I was in my dorm getting ready for class when a suite-mate was like "holy fucking shit, you have to see this." For a split second I thought it was from a movie, it was so surreal. Alt-Focus: I agree with what IWSJ said except that I would add those machines DID help line the pockets of the former head of TSA, so it wan't all bad, right?
Does anyone else find it odd that, over the years, the Pentagon and the 4th plane have virtually been ignored when "9/11" is discussed? I just re-watched that Frontline documentary. Frontline is typically very balanced and NOT ONCE was the Pentagon or the 4th plane ever mentioned. All coverage focuses exclusively on the WTC.
I was in 7th grade. I was told by a friend what had happened and we watched the news coverage on tv all day. Each teacher gave us the same speech about how the world just changed and shit but we couldn't even come close to grasp the magnitude of that statement. The thing that stands out the most is watching one kid cheer and yell, "The second one came down, it just came down! This is awesome!" while we watched the tv in P.E. Our teacher threw him against the locker and screamed at him for "thinking this is funny and not considering how many people just died." All of our jaws hit the floor.
I'm going to be speaking in generalizations here. The WTC provides "better footage", and I think that probably contributes. United 93 failed to reach its target, so it tends to be brought up when people want to talk about brave heroes thwarting terrorist villains*, but not about "victims", necessarily. And the Pentagon is a military building, so out of all of the targets, you could likely argue that it was the most "legitimate", although the weapon of choice was decidedly not so. We don't see the events of September 11 as several attacks on airplanes that then enabled attacks on buildings. We just see that second plane striking that tower. Also, the Pentagon's been patched up. The WTC site isn't yet, remaining as constant proof that there were people out there who were willing to lose it all in exchange for a chance to damage us. *This is an old joke, and some reading this might not be in the best mood for levity. If so, don't read it. Spoiler An Englishman, a Frenchman and a New Yorker were walking through the rainforest. They stumbled upon a village and were ambushed by cannibals. "We are going to kill, cook and eat you and use your skins for a canoe," declared the cannibal chief. "You may choose how you wish to die." The Englishman took a gun, cried "God Save the Queen!" and blew his brains out. The Frenchman took a sword, cried "Vive la France!" and ran himself through. The New Yorker simply responded, "Gimme a fork." He was handed a fork, and started stabbing himself with it until blood was pouring through various tiny holes in his body. "What on earth are you doing?" said the cannibal chief. The New Yorker simply responded, "There goes your goddamn canoe!"
I don't know about recent programming but in the years in between I've felt like the majority of what Ive heard was mainly about flight 93. After suffering though the initial pain I think people latched on to the events that happened in that flight and it was focused on more. But yeah, the plane that hit the Pentagon hasn't had the same coverage as the rest it seems.
I had similar experiences with the younger crowd here: I was in 8th grade, didn't understand it, and didn't have anyone explain it, even though I spent the day at school with a bunch of educators. What stuck with me more, however, was the aftermath of identifying Iraq/Afghanistan as "the enemy." I'm Persian, which up until that point had never been much of a problem for me. Then, all of a sudden, classmates I never spoke to were coming up to me, asking how I felt about "my people" doing this to America. It was the strangest, saddest time I ever experienced at school. I could only imagine what sorts of things their parents were saying around the dinner table. It was the first time I realized that racism was real, and that most people knew next to nothing about countries outside of their own.
FOCUS: I remember listening to Howard Stern and getting ready for work. I had no idea what they were talking about so I went downstairs to turn on my tv. My distinct memory was standing and just staring...as I watched Tower 1 fall, I reached out my hands as though I could catch it and put it back up...like it could be undone and put back together. It just wasn't real. I was lucky enough to be working with my parents at the time and one of my sisters came to our restaurant, had lunch, and just sat with us for hours. Later on, I met my friends out at our favorite bar and I took on my regular role of listening, comforting, and driving everyone who drowned their sorrows and fears that day home. It was nice to be kind of normal in such an extraordinary situation. Nobody really knew how to react. I didn't really fully understand the impact on my life until I flew for the first time since 9/11 that November. We hit an air pocket--the plane bumped and made a terrible noise. Before 9/11, I took that stuff in stride. But then? I looked around and saw my fear echoed on every single traveler's face. Awful. MY WISH: As for what I'd like to see in the future, well, it's simple. I wish everyone would stop bitching about long lines at security, having to take off your shoes, travel with a clear plastic bag, and all the rest of the little inconveniences that we now have to deal with. And if we could adopt the cameras on the street corners like they have in London, so be it. I'd rather an hour inconvenience than have my face tattooed on the side of the White House. But people are so goddamned egocentric, I know my wish will never come true. Sad. DO IT: Oh and FYI, whether you're a Stern fan or not...it is completely worth it to track down a recording of his broadcast that day and the days following. The reactions were real, they watched every single newscast, speculated, felt, and were simply amazing. I get chills just thinking about it.
Thanks for the plug, shoot me an email at tremblethedevil(at)gmail.com and I'd be happy to send you over a signed copy of the book, I finally got the stupid thing in print. Just saw the traffic coming in from you guys, hadn't thought about this place for a good long while. And in light of all the tension around the coming anniversary, here are The Top 10 Reasons You Shouldn't be Afraid of the Terrorists: 7. Terrorists in the cell caught by an FBI-NYPD sting in the Bronx were called “intellectually challenged” by their lawyer, were high when they were arrested, and claimed that the FBI entrapped them with fried chicken.
I was painting my mom & dad's garage listening to old dead bootlegs so I had no idea of what was going on till I went in around 11:30 for lunch and flipped on the tv. My first thought was "Sweet, mom & dad finally got HBO." as there was profanity. Then I realized what was going on and all I could do was go back to work listening to the radio. My mom came home later and said to me "What a fucking day for your birthday, I don't know about you but I need a scotch." Yep, not only did my mom swear & have a drink before dinner but 9.11.2001 was my 32nd birthday.
I was unloading a box of printer paper from a truck on Bay Street in Toronto. A guy from the office came out and told me that a plane had hit the world trade center. The weird thing was that he told me this news the same way he would have told me it was going to rain later that day. My first thought was that some poor person had run their little plane by accident into the WTC (like what happened to Cory Lidle a few years ago). I had no idea about what really happened until about an hour later. Watching from Canada though, never once did I make any separation between Canadians and Americans. We've got way more in common than we think. I had recently moved back to Canada, having lived in Boston for a while. Found out a few days later that two people I worked with there, a husband and wife at that, were on the first plane. She was 7 months pregnant.
September 11, 2001 was the first day of a trial in front of the Judge I had just started clerking for the week prior. I was down in the jury room when the news was on, and I asked one of the jurors 'what happened?' She responded: "I think a plane just flew into the WTC." Me: 'What kind of... Then the second plane hit. We all just sat there staring at the screen, stunned. Alt Focus: How have we changed? We haven't, other than to happily trade civil rights for illusory security. Frankly, I think the ways this country have changed, politically and otherwise, are embarrassing. We do a great job of pretending we care without actually doing so. In short, what could have been a watershed moment in uniting Americans into caring about things beyond their own self interest has turned into what is sure to be saccharine sweet memorials and flag waving this weekend so we can all feel better about ourselves without actually sacrificing towards making a better society. You know, the same exact thing as before.
Pretty sure I posted about this before on the old board, but here ya go again. I was on leave that week, stationed at the Navy base in Connecticut. Was supposed to fly to California that week for my cousin's wedding. I put on utilities, boots, etc, hopped in my car, drove to NYC, went to the first police station I could find and said "I'm a Navy Corpsman. Where do you want me?" I got put in a bus with other people being driven down. There was a doctor in the van who was an ex-Navy officer. They took us to a triage center they had set up near an ice rink on a pier or something. The doctor asked me what I knew how to do medically... Could I do stitches, IVs, whatever. I told him I could. He said, "Stick with me then." They started assigning people: Each doctor would get one nurse or med student and two EMTs. The doctor said, "I don't need three people, just give me the Corpsman." I remember thinking, "Fuck, you have a lot of faith in Navy training" and being nervous that I would live up to it. So we go over, find our assigned spot. They tell us that they are expecting 400-500 patients any minute, firefighters and police who had been injured. We start making small talk with the doctor next to us, an orthopedic surgeon. After two hours, I look over at the ortho doc and say, "I didn't come down here to stand around. I want to get in there and actually help." He said, "No shit, me too." We walked outside and found an ambulance that was heading towards the towers. We hopped in the back and rode down. At this point, it was probably 4 in the afternoon, bright and sunny. When we got to the site, it was black as night. The dust and smoke was so goddamn heavy, I couldn't see more than 100 feet. If I close my eyes to this day, I can still smell it. We start walking towards the towers, and are turned away by a cop. We headed around another way and saw a group of firefighters walking in. We walked up and made ourselves look like we were with them, and went into the site. There was this fire department lieutenant there, reminded me of Jack Palance. So tough you could light a match on his cheek. He was probably 60 years old and looked like he could just stare straight at you until you died. I've only seen a few people with "that look" in my life, and he was one of them. I walked up and said, "Where do you want us, L.T.?" He looked me up and down and said, "OK, Navy, we haven't been that way yet," pointed to his right and said, "Go get it, son." I spent the next however many hours crawling on, over, through, and under anything I could find. Any where there might have been people, I looked. I crawled over fire trucks where the tires had melted off, leaving only the fabric cords that had been inside the tires. I found a fire hose that seemed strong enough to hold me, and lowered it down some hole and climbed down it. Some guy yelled at me to stop. "Goddamn it, we ain't said that's ok yet!" I didn't care. I went through. Found some poor ladies foot, still in it's shoe. Later on, found a leg from the thigh down. A few hours later, they found the car that had belonged to the Chief of the NYFD, it was under the biggest motherfucking girder you've ever seen. It must have been 100 feet long. They had airbags under the girder, trying to get it off so they could get the Chief's body out. Everyone that was in there came over, and we heaved and heaved and heaved on that son of a bitch for what seemed like days, but it didn't budge. They finally came in with torches or something and cut it. While we waited for it to be cut, someone came by with sandwiches, two pieces of bread with a slab of bologna, and some bottles of water. I sat down next to the ortho doc and we tried to choke down the food. I looked next to me, and there was a German Shepherd SAR dog. I remember thinking it was pretty funny that he was wearing booties on his paws... I mean, I know it was sharp and dangerous and everything, but I was just like, "Huh, look at that... Booties." I looked at the dog, he looked at me, and I swear, if dogs could talk, he would have said, "This is the worst day of my fucking life." I found out later that the dogs would actually get depressed if they didn't find someone, so every now and then, they would have someone hide for the dog to find to help keep them in the game. His handler was looking the other way talking to someone, so I slipped him the sandwich. That was the only thing about that night I like to remember, that for one second I slipped that pup a sandwich.
I was in my sophomore year of high school. I remember it was a weird schedule that day because there was supposed to be an assembly, so they changed around all the class periods. I was 8th period in the place of an earlier class (2nd or 3rd). All of a sudden a student from a Civics class across the hall that watched the news every morning burst into our classroom and told us to come over or turn on a TV if there was one. They had sent a few people to the other rooms around them as well. We all watched the second tower get hit. At first I did what everyone did, which was stand and stare. I remember how cramped the room was. I went to a high school of 2600 and most of the classrooms didn't have TVs in them. It was one of those big TVs on the stand with wheels. My uncle did a ton of work at the WTC at the time on the top floors so I was worried as shit about him. He ended up having one of those stories. He was supposed to be there but he had just flown back from London the night before and cancelled the early morning meeting. Pretty much everyone he worked with died. I think my mom asked him once if anyone he knew had made it. He just said "no" and no one ever brought it up again. Fair enough, I think.
I was working at an answering service, mostly for apartment complexes, at the time and I got a call from a guy looking for leasing rates. That office, like most, was closed/not answering their own phones and after he got belligerent I said "I'm sorry sir, they're closed due to an act of war" and hung up on him. He called to complain and my supervisor told him that I was a quadriplegic vet (which I'm not) and that seemed to satisfy him. His complaint that things shouldn't have shut down was well founded, but ill placed and unrealistic. I was IM'ing my sister the rocket scientist at the time and we both went to our nerd places. We spent the morning discussing the efficiency of the attack vehicles and the temperature of burning jet fuel. The consensus was that jumping was better.
I was in sixth grade in math class when calls started coming into our classroom for parents pulling their kids out of school. Eventually my call to leave came and as I walked through the hallway to my locker, a kid who I knew as being crazy told me that a plane was about to hit our school. I didn't really believe him, but when I saw my dad and we started to leave, he told me what happened. I don't remember exactly what time of day it was, but I remember the whole day being pretty surreal, spending it glued to the TV. Being 11 for that experience, I'm not sure it really sunk in. But I've reflected on 9/11 a bit in more recent years, especially after joining the fire department. A lot of the career firefighters have tattoos to remember the 343 firefighters killed that day. And some questions popped into my mind: What were their thoughts as they climbed those 110 stories? They must have known that they weren't coming back down, right? And I had to ask myself if I would have been brave enough to follow those firefighters into the towers that day. In my opinion, if you're not willing to do what they did, you should not be a firefighter. A few months later now, I call myself a firefighter. A rookie, granted, but a firefighter. I guess the only way to find out what I would have done would be to put me in that position, but it's one of those decisions that I just hope I'll never have to make.
My story is pretty much the same as every one else's... saw it on tv, freaked the fuck out and realized THIS was our generation's "big event". However unlike many I found myself there at the actual site a few days later as part of a group of ambulance services from Upstate NY went to assist. It was a hard time, and a surreal experience. How did it change me ? I think I came back a changed person, possibly some PTSD from what some people several people have suggested. I think my wife would agree I can still smell it in my mind when I think about it. I see the photos or the footage and break down. I've only been that scared one other time in my life when we thought there was a chance our son had leukemia. Speaking of my son... On a positive note, I became a father exactly 9 months later. Over the years I have worked on writing about the experience, mostly for my kids' sake, but on this occasion I have decided to share it with others. You can read it here: http://www.commonmindthoughts.com/?p=1027
I'm just glad that "Rescue Me" didn't make their whole show about that shit. God knows, they could have, and it probably would have been great. 9/11 is and has been and will be our generations Kennedy. "Where were you when..." I know where I was, because it had a direct impact on my life. I got called in the late afternoon, woken up, by a guy that I worked with. This was right after it started, right after the first tower got hit. So I rush down to the food spot on base, and I end up watching the second tower get hit with not only people I worked with, but former teachers and such. I should mention, by the way, that I was in the Navy, and was stationed in Bahrain at the time. I was a part of ASF, the auxiliary security force. No one ever thought we'd have to do much. Learn to shoot an M16, and stand a watch once every month. After 9/11, I worked 15 days straight, standing watch, guarding not just the main gate, but the cargo gate, and the tower out in the middle of nowhere watch, and every goddamn thing they could post a security sailor at. To be fair, I met my best friend in the world doing that. We still talk, and the guy still has the other half of my brain, because we're brothers. I thank 9/11 for the connections it made between people. Overall? I don't want to revel in the "10 years later" shit. I don't want it to be some news item. I know where I was, what I was doing, and how it affected me. I don't need a report on that. I will be watching nothing but sitcoms and dramas until this frenzy has ended, and walking quickly out of the room when any news channel is on at work.
I actually don't remember the day itself all too well. I was 11, so I must have been in fifth grade at the time. We got called into an assembly in the gym about 10 am or so, and some lady (the principal I think?) told us that planes had hit the Twin Towers, that if anyone needed to get in touch with their parents/relatives they could call, counselors would be available, etc. Then we talked about nothing else for the rest of the day. I remember rumors flying around like crazy - the White House had been hit, the Capitol had been hit, the Vice President had died, all kinds of crazy shit. I went home and my grandmother was watching it on TV. As far as impact, it's safe to say that the area I'm majoring in, the school I go to, none of it would have happened without 9/11. I always wanted to serve my country somehow, but this gave that desire some form. (I'm majoring in International Politics concentrating in Security Studies with a certificate in Arab Studies. I'm now proficient in Arabic and have taken a bunch of classes about the region and CT policy.)