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One of those "where were you when..." things
14 years ago
General
I'm usually a nite owl/late sleeper, have been ever since college, nurtured by being self-employed and dial-up internet that I waited until night to use so I wouldn't tie up the phone. Anyway, I slept through most of the events of 9-11-2001 morning as they were unfolding. I woke up with a phone call from 
xzadfor, which went kinda something like this:
"Hey, did you see what's going on?"
"What?"
"A passenger jet flew into the World Trade Center!"
"Really? That's terrible!" (assuming an accident)
"And then another plane hit the other tower, and a third one hit the Pentagon! Looks like we're at war, man."
Knowing he was not above the occasional joke in poor taste, my first groggy instincts were "Yeah, right. Suuuuurre they did.", but turning on the television, and seeing what was on every channel snapped me out of that delusion quick. Like much of the country, and some of the world, I spent the rest of the day doing little but watching the news, trying to grasp the exact nature of the situation. I believe I began observing after the towers were hit, but before they fell.
Ten years later, there's not much I can say that hasn't been expressed more eloquently by someone else, save for expressing my deep condolences to those who lost someone close in the attacks, or the military actions that followed. In some ways it's strange to think that it all went down a decade ago. It doesn't seem that long, even though a lot has happened between then and now on examination. I think about all that has changed in the world in ten years, and what hasn't, as well as all that has changed in daily life, along with what hasn't.
The best to you all.
xzadfor, which went kinda something like this:"Hey, did you see what's going on?"
"What?"
"A passenger jet flew into the World Trade Center!"
"Really? That's terrible!" (assuming an accident)
"And then another plane hit the other tower, and a third one hit the Pentagon! Looks like we're at war, man."
Knowing he was not above the occasional joke in poor taste, my first groggy instincts were "Yeah, right. Suuuuurre they did.", but turning on the television, and seeing what was on every channel snapped me out of that delusion quick. Like much of the country, and some of the world, I spent the rest of the day doing little but watching the news, trying to grasp the exact nature of the situation. I believe I began observing after the towers were hit, but before they fell.
Ten years later, there's not much I can say that hasn't been expressed more eloquently by someone else, save for expressing my deep condolences to those who lost someone close in the attacks, or the military actions that followed. In some ways it's strange to think that it all went down a decade ago. It doesn't seem that long, even though a lot has happened between then and now on examination. I think about all that has changed in the world in ten years, and what hasn't, as well as all that has changed in daily life, along with what hasn't.
The best to you all.
Then the horrors started unfolding. A few hours later, we all got sent home from work because our skyscraper was the first one you see when you approach Pittsburgh from the east, making us a prime target.
I never understood al Qaida's motivation for the attack. If they thought it would make the US leave the Middle East, they horribly misinterpreted American history.
its felt weird living just 45 minutes from the city
Things weren't so joyful when second period rolled around. My Art teacher's husband is a commercial airline pilot, and she got a call from him in the middle of class. We didn't really think anything of it until she came back to the classroom in tears, and explained to us what was going on - that her husband had been grounded several states away because several airliners had been hijacked and intentionally crashed.
Lunch period was unusually quiet that day. A lot of kids who'd been in classrooms with TV sets were talking about what had happened, some of them were even talking about how we were going to war; but the rest of us were still a bit in the dark, until third period came, and everything in the school ground to a halt as we watched live footage of the Twin Towers burning and collapsing, and replay after replay of the planes hitting the buildings. That's when the reality of what had happened really sank in, I think. Nobody really did anything for the rest of the day.
Later, I heard from my mother that Air Force One had flown overhead earlier - she'd seen it on the way home from my brother's doctor's appointment.
...god, it still feels so surreal.
My condolences to people who lost their family, friends and loved ones...
This also reminds me of the image from
No, this time they were gone. I looked on the t.v. and was just stunned. It was like something out of a sci-fi disaster film. :(
Then I went to work.
It was the conspiracy theories and the incompetence claims that drove it home. Still, it causes even me to reflect on that I know where I stand and why, but it seems like when I try to simply explain it I only make more enemies.
What I remember most was how everyone watched the TV during their breaks in absolute silence, and the phones were just completely dead that day. Of course I also remember some guy in NYC calling up, pissed because his internet connection was out and we had to explain to him that two large buildings had fallen on the one his CO was at and that yeah, he might be without for a couple days.
"Jusu, come look at this quick! A plane has hit the WTC!"
"WHAT?!"
The next day we had to write a paper on the attack as homework. My classmates kept speculating about a possible World War III. (That must have been the only time in their lives they've ever speculated about the possible repercussions of such an event, because they were a huge bunch of idiots)
Things are only reconciled to our minds past when we're allowed to forget it, let the events fade. However I doubt there's been a single day in this last decade where the attack wasn't mentioned in media. No one is allowed to forget, and so we're all still stuck in 2001.
The world ended then, because time stopped.
couple days after the attacks some guy in town thought it would be funny to pull the American flag off the back of a dudes parked truck..throw it on the ground and stomp on it. the truck owner saw it and kicked the crap out of the dude. police showed up, and upon hearing the story the officer just shook his head and said.."in light of the recent events..you deserved to have your ass kicked for what you did"..no arrests made..no charges pressed.
I had no phone, no way to contact my parents, and only found out what was happening from my friends on the bus who DID have phones, who were keeping in contact with their family.
What I don't remember is how long we were stuck there for, what happened afterward. It's kinda foggy...
I think it was hours, that we were stuck there.
Everyone was quiet all day, and I could tell something was really wrong - but no one said why. It was surreal.
A teacher outed what happened during the final school period.
Id just gone into the back garden to see about something, when Mum called me in to say the newsflash had come up with the first tower burning. We sat in silence for the next few hours.
It was with going over to Ireland to accompany my stepdad to his Grandads funeral, which we had less than 6 hours warning for transport details, that I called off the meeting with a freind that Saturday morning in a certain pub, in the Arndale Centre, in Manchester.
We didnt find out till we got to the family place due to the rush, that the IRA had detonated the biggest truck bomb ever seen on mainland UK, right outside that pub.
So, yeah, I think Ill remember.
RIP.
All it takes for evil to win, is for good to sit back and do nothing.
I remember getting updates from Flayrah.com, because every other news site was being hit so hard they weren't updating.
I remember going to a vendors lunch that day, watching the coverage on the restaurant's televisions.
I remember seeing pictures of people jumping, and watching footage, and hearing audio in the background where there were bangs, which were people hitting, and how that's all gone now.
And a bunch of other things too controversial to talk about.
And watching a memorial service, and seeing that someone with exactly the same name as me had died there. That was surreal.
By the time I found out about it, the towers had already fallen.
I stayed and watched the whole thing unfold. My first class and my chief came up to see what was taking so long. They stayed too.
We were allowed to go home for an hour and talk to our families then we came back to the hangar and held an emergency quarters. Our skipper told us that we were officially at war and our op tempo just went into overdrive. That was the first night we went to 16 hour days. We held that pace all the way till deployment a few months later. I remember not sleeping that night when I finally got home again.
All I could think about was "Oh my God, I'm at war."
I retire at the end of this year. I've set sail on deployment three times since 9/11 and volunteered for a fourth deployment that had me ground pounding in Afghanistan with the army for over eight months. Just like then, I can't sleep.
Only difference is now all I can think is "My God, how do I let it all go?"
i was reading a dictionary because i was bored as hell.
the teacher left to use a cell phone 'cause she had a call and when she came back in she turned on her TV.
the next few DAYS were a blur except for the pictures on the boob tube.
The rest I wrote up in the journal on my page here. Funny how with some things, you remember where you were and what you were doing.