In Remembrance - 9/11: Where Were You? - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

jorgelito · 09-11-2008, 12:20 AM

In Remembrance of those who perished on September 11, 2001. Seven years ago today, the United States of America was attacked by terrorists in the City of New York, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania. Three thousand people lost their lives that day and thousands more were injured.

May God rest their innocent souls.

What about you tfp? Did you lose anyone? I lost an aunt. She left behind four sons and a loving husband as well as a brother, mother and nephews. My cousins have not been the same since and my uncle remains a broken man.

Where were you when it happened? What were you doing?

I was living in LA at the time. My roommates came home early around 11am our time. Some classes were canceled at UCLA. My girlfriend and I were at home. The roommies announced there was some sort of bombing of the World Trade Center. I didn't believe them. We turned on the tv and watched in horror as the second tower fell. It was shocking to say the least. Surreal. Live on tv. Unreal, yet real.

My girlfriend and I had other very serious things going on at the time and we made a trip into Santa Monica to a certain place where our lives would change forever. Things were already tense in our lives and filled with anxiety. The streets were eerily empty. Most shops were closed on the Promenade. One store had a sign in the window:

"Closed due to terror attacks in NYC. Go home to be with your families. What are you doing shopping at a time like this"

The clinic was open and we proceeded with our business. I had class that afternoon at the community college. It was not canceled. We went on as usual, as if nothing had happened.

That night, along with the rest of the country and much of the world, we tuned in to the television as the events were rewound and played over and over again. In the coming days and weeks, as more information came to light, the pathos and ethos of our country were irreversibly changed and set upon a path of no return. People agonized. Questions were asked. Why us - a nation bemoaned. We rallied around the flag and our country did some soul searching.

That day, seven years ago, two events would change my life forever. The terrorist attacks on our country and subsequent loss of my aunt, and the most deeply personal and intense decision my girlfriend and I would ever have to make.

The wounds have mostly healed since, but I know that a part of me literally died that day.

What about you tfp?

Thanks for listening.

jewels · 09-11-2008, 02:37 AM

Feels like yesterday. Someone had a desktop TV at work and had one of the morning shows on. I heard her, "Oh my God, is that real?" and went over to look. I saw the replay of the first tower being hit and none of us believed it was real at first. We thought it was some movie publicity stunt. Within a few minutes, the second was hit, and we closed the office.

I remember picking my kids up from school early that morning, trying not to frighten them. I remember not being able to make calls and trying to contact my cousin that lives and works in the City.

Although I never lived in Manhattan, my Aunt and Uncle had lived there, I've spent many hours there including the two summers I worked there, and my grandmother had died there. It felt like home to me and it tore me up inside. Although I didn't lose anyone related to me, it felt as though I lost many.

I remember immediately trying to join one of the armed services to protect my childrens' futures but finding out that I'm considered too old. I remember hours, days and weeks in front of the television, mourning and grieving in disbelief and shock.

I have not forgotten, nor will I ever.

ObieX · 09-11-2008, 02:44 AM

Well, i was laying in bed watching TV after staying up all night (which at the time didn't happen often) I'd usually crash out at about 12-2am. Anyway, while i was laying there watching TV the channel suddenly cut out (i didn't have cable/satelite TV at the time and still don't) so i flipped through the channels and noticed a few of them were out. After a little while they had what happened up on one of the few remaining channels and i stayed up the rest of the day and watched it all unfold, hoping that my uncle got out ok (he did.)

Xazy · 09-11-2008, 03:08 AM

To quote my blog entry:
I find it odd that I have never cried over the event. I remember that morning vividly, waking up, being outside, hearing a commotion it was right after the first plane hit, and going to the corner of Grand St. & Madison St. Watching and seeing what became common knowledge as the second plane hitting, seeing the towers go down, seeing the smoke, watching the pain of everyone standing by me. Seeing the tens of thousands of people heading from downtown past, the sadness, the panic, the pain, people begging to borrow a phone to call someone, anyone. All circuits being busy no one despite being able to try being able to reach their loved ones.

The following weeks was chaos, the area we lived in was closed off by the military. Food deliveries was on a minimum, you needed an ID to go anywhere, and everyone was still just numb.

The 2 beams are where the towers would have stood.

I forogot to add yes I saw the towers go down, and it was just mind numbing standing there watching was kind of like the mind did not comprehend it at first.

abaya · 09-11-2008, 03:33 AM

Strangely enough, I had just arrived in Iceland as an exchange student for a year, a week before 9/11. I had barely started getting to know Reykjavik, and had to walk downtown from the university to the Fulbright office (which is staffed by mostly Americans) that afternoon. We are 4 hours ahead of NY time... and the events had happened just an hour or so before I showed up at the office, so I hadn't heard anything yet.

I walked into the Fulbright office with some questions about my application, and the woman stopped me almost immediately and asked me if I had heard about the planes being flown into the World Trade Center. I thought I hadn't heard her right--it struck me as very odd news--and it didn't really sink in until I left the office (no one was working) and walked back down the street, that it was really huge news. I turned on the BBC on my walkman and started listening... and still didn't really believe it, until I got home and saw it on TV, and then saw things in the newspapers the next day.

I went to the US embassy the next day to sign the book of condolences, and saw that the line of Icelanders waiting to sign the book stretched down several blocks. There was a great deal of sympathy for the US at that time--they all felt horrible about it. People were donating blood and money and all the rest. I really can't imagine anyone feeling that way about the US right now, 7 years later. Such a phenomenal shift has happened during the Bush administration...

Anyway, I met up with some American acquaintances that night, but we didn't have much to say. It wasn't until a month or two later, when I bought an issue of TIME or Newsweek, can't remember... and went home to absorb the photo essay they had published about the event. There was a full-page photo of a close-up of people jumping out of windows, in mid-air, going to their deaths. It hit me suddenly then, and I burst into tears. I felt so safe, here in Iceland back then... I knew nothing could possibly happen to me here, the way it had to them--or to many other people around the world who never imagined experiencing such a horrible death. That was a strange year to be away from America.

And here I am again, back in the same place, just walked down the same street this morning after meeting ktsp (my Arab husband, incidentally! Who would have imagined, back then?) for coffee. It feels so familiar, but quite surreal, too. A strange circularity, looping... and it is unbelievable that in these circumstances, a Democrat might lose another election.

roachboy · 09-11-2008, 03:43 AM

how tiresome this compulsion to fetishize is.
how i give into it myself.

i was teaching at the university of pennsylvania. i heard it in the book center, on the radio. a few hours later is what i remember, walking through houston hall past multiple video monitors seeing groups of students staring, saucer-eyed, at the repetitions of the loop of collapse. over and over repetitions of the loop of the collapse, the same amateur footage over and over.

the university has assembled strange teams of people wearing baseball hats to wander the spaces between these ad hoc networks in order to provide some sort of service, it was not clear what, perhaps there was something understood to be reassuring about baseball hats, perhaps something else.

many many penn students come from around nyc, but i think the ad hoc networks were just that, people who were in houston hall for some reason or who had seen on their dormitory monitors and wanted to watch the repetition of the same tape loop again and again with others who also did not understand.

and i remember thinking that the chickens had come home to roost and wondered who said that later i remembered it was malcolm x.

it was a period that demonstrated the power of television even as it demonstrated its limits---the repetition of the amateur video loop seemed to me compulsive, like the folk who were working in the networks were traumatized as well and everywhere compulsive repetition reigned, draining away the content, reducing the image to image, and as that progressed and the vile opportunistic narrative of the "war on terror" took shape, reaction formation began.

soon the loop of amateur video was a kind of brand, like that little alligator on izod-lacoste sweaters that for some inexplicable reason people wear in some sectors. soon the loop was the little logo on a new style of war.
soon that brand was being imposed on all markets, and people were buying, and a kind of fascism-lite descended upon the land.

i remember.

everything about that day and the 2 that followed was disturbing: as a function of the repetition of that loop of video footage, a collective sense of being-victimized arose: the television-specific official "Explanation" happened---and it was all so transparent, so stupid, so ugly and alarming. i remember white boys driving around west philadelphia hanging out of jeeps waving american flags.

i remember thinking that everyone, all around, had gone insane.

by now, by 9/11/2008, this has been pulverized: used and abused, drained of meaning and filled again, spit back at us over and over and over.
remembrance becomes a game.
let us stop as we are required by all public machinery to remember why everything that's happened since 9/11/2001 has happened.
let us remember how the dead have been used, again and again.
let us remember how grief became cheap became a commodity became a justification.
let us remember what made this grief seem cheap, a commodity, a justification.

and from underneath all that, remember the genuine grief of those who lost people in the trade center and try to separate that from how that's been used.

it isn't easy.

abaya · 09-11-2008, 04:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

and i remember thinking that the chickens had come home to roost and wondered who said that later i remembered it was malcolm x.

Yes, this was a sentiment that came up among the American students I met with that night, in a Reykjavik bar... we all agreed that while it was horribly shocking, none of us took on the "victim" stance that seemed to envelop those still in the US. Living abroad, with exchange students from many other nations in the conversation with us, there was little else to say... we didn't want to say it, but we felt that this was somehow inevitable (keep in mind that usually, students who go abroad to study are already liberal in attitude--so don't expect us to conform to the usual patriotic ideals). This doesn't diminish the sorrow of the event, but we were university students, and wanted to discuss the causes and what might happen next, internationally.

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

i remember thinking that everyone, all around, had gone insane.

We Americans in Iceland had much the same feeling, seeing coverage on CNN and reading newspapers online... we missed all of that flag-waving madness, and somehow I am not sad about that. I remember coming back in May 2002 and taking a while to recognize my country again.

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

by now, by 9/11/2008, this has been pulverized: used and abused, drained of meaning and filled again, spit back at us over and over and over.
remembrance becomes a game.
let us stop as we are required by all public machinery to remember why everything that's happened since 9/11/2001 has happened.
let us remember how the dead have been used, again and again.
let us remember how grief became cheap became a commodity became a justification.
let us remember what made this grief seem cheap, a commodity, a justification.

and from underneath all that, remember the genuine grief of those who lost people in the trade center and try to separate that from how that's been used.

it isn't easy.

Thanks for the reminder, rb. Agreed.

ngdawg · 09-11-2008, 04:33 AM

I worked as a teacher's aide and was in one of the 'lounges' and the tv was on. The news of what was happened flowed thru the building like a raging river and we all watched it all happen as it happened....
Suddenly, there was a scream in the hallway. A teacher ran, crying out her son's name. Someone took her to a room and I went to find the school delegate who went to try and comfort her, to calm her down. She calmed long enough to attempt to call her son and he answered his phone-by happensance, he'd overslept and missed his train into Manhattan.
Another teacher became visibly upset, but was relieved that her husband decided to take the day off. But he lost most of his friends.
Parents filled the office to gather their kids-to this day I don't understand why as they'd have been fine where they were. Only one child lost a relative-an aunt on the plane that went down in PA.
Three days afterward, winds shifted and the overpowering odor resembling burning tar wafted over us and lingered....
Before 9/11/01, my husband would look out over a hill on his way to work and see the sun hitting the WTC. After 9/11/01, for days he'd see only smoke. Sometimes he still remarks how sad it is to see....nothing.

Poppinjay · 09-11-2008, 04:47 AM

I was sitting at my desk. Running a public radio station in the rural south had become an effort of nothing. I was chatting with a friend in NYC when all of a sudden her message was, "THEY FLEW A FREAKING PLANE INTO WTC!"

So, into the control room goes I. No news outlet had it yet, but I told our morning guy to get ready for some updates. Within seconds, the attack was on our monitor. My lone regret that morning was that I did not tell our announcer to talk a hike and let me update the info. We were getting it much faster than NPR. Later on that day, folks on the NPR listserv were criticising the network for not getting the info on air earlier (they let about 40 minutes lapse between the first plane and going with the story).

My reply was, "do you have your own microphones?"

Personally, I was to be married in four days. Our photographer cancelled because he was sure an invasion was imminent. My now MIL wanted us to postpone. Our honeymoon airline tix were obviously useless. My boss asked me if I really planned to go to Nantucket.

I lived in an area surrounded by marine air bases and an airport. I remember going out, looking up at the cloudless sky, and feeling an emptiness of air traffic. A couple of days later, a DC9 landed at our airport - where usually the planes were prop. It was unmarked, and this happened during the air restrictions.

We got married. 90 people attended instead of 110. Despite the events, we were happy. Deena declared a media blackout for me and we listened to "The Shadow" tapes while driving our stiff, uncomfortable Saturn SL1 up to Mass. Several bridges had people holding signs. One night we stayed in Mystic and watched Bruce Springsteen sing Rise Up.

I understand that people have used this date to push agendas. "Let's Roll" is not a credo. But this attack was also not a well meaning effort for diversity. It was done by people who want to kill christians and jews. They also dress women in burkas and disallow them to vote. If a woman is raped, then she may well face the death penalty for being sullied.

I don't agree with the wars currenlty happening, but to dismiss this date because of the schemes of a few is repugnant.

Eweser · 09-11-2008, 05:04 AM

I was at work when it happened. My office is connected to a 24 hour control room where they have a tv. Someone came in and asked if they had seen the news, so they turned it on. The first thing that I can recall is the news announcers trying to figure out what happened at the Pentagon. No one got much work done that day. I remember calling my family to see if they had heard. I cried on the way home that day and many after.

It is wrong how it's been used since; I try to separate it from that day. I'll never forget the faces of the terrified people in New York or how heroic the people on flight 93 were. Sometimes it seems like it was so many more years ago than seven, other times it seems like just yesterday.

abaya · 09-11-2008, 05:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Poppinjay

but to dismiss this date because of the schemes of a few is repugnant.

Is someone doing that?

FlatLand Flyer · 09-11-2008, 05:10 AM

I was at the University of North Dakota majoring in Commercial Aviation. I saw some of the early stuff on TV before I left for school and knew some of what had happened. The lobby of the aviation building had the events live on tv. We all knew what had happened. I remember just being pissed at the time and debating all day, months after, debating leaving school and joining the air force so I could bomb the shit out of the Middle East.

The thing to this day that bothers me most is that I had three classes that day and not one even acknowledged what had happened.

abaya · 09-11-2008, 05:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FlatLand Flyer

I remember just being pissed at the time and debating all day, months after, debating leaving school and joining the air force so I could bomb the shit out of the Middle East.

I hope your perspective has changed since then?

Cynosure · 09-11-2008, 05:30 AM

I was supposed to work from home, that day. I got up, that morning, and brewed myself a pot of coffee. (BTW: I live in Mountain Time, which is two hours before the time zone New York is in.) The house was quiet and tranquil, with my wife away at work and my daughter away at daycare. The morning outside my kitchen window was beautiful. I took a cup of coffee downstairs, to the PC in my basement. I booted up my PC, then sat down and opened up my browser to read the latest news, on my home page...

Ever since then, even 10 years later, I sometimes have a feeling of trepidation, in the mornings when I open up my browser.

Poppinjay · 09-11-2008, 05:33 AM

Quote:

Is someone doing that?

Well, yes and no. I thought Roachboy's comments were very correct. Less intelligent people have acted less intelligently on both sides. The W crew have tried to turn the day into a nationalistic disply of high fervor. Others have abandoned the day to them.

And then there are those who say that this was the affect of years of American belligerency. It was, but that doesn't change the fact that the attacker's cultural milleu is one of ignorance and violence.

abaya · 09-11-2008, 05:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynosure

Ever since then, even 10 years later, I sometimes have a feeling of trepidation, in the mornings when I open up my browser.

But it's only been 7 years...

Poppinjay... ignorance and violence, hm. As usual, the argument could be made (in very different contexts/interpretations, I know) on both sides... though you can count poverty and oppression on their side, as well. Do you know anyone from "that culture?"

But I don't want to get into it, really. Have work do to today, must avoid TFP Politics... (even if this is GD).

Cynosure · 09-11-2008, 06:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by abaya

But it's only been 7 years...

Doh!

I guess my coffee, this morning, hasn't kicked in yet. (But I didn't need it to, that morning seven years ago.)

Dammitall · 09-11-2008, 06:40 AM

I was visiting my parents at their home about 20 minutes outside Manhattan. Just the day before I'd been walking around downtown in the city with friends and ended up getting my ears pierced.

That morning my mom had left to run some errands and I'd gone downstairs to our family room to switch on the TV. The channel had been left on BBC the night before, and the burning, smoking towers popped up onto the screen. For some reason I switched the channel to NBC; I don't know why. I stood there and watched in disbelief, but at some point I think I went upstairs to make a phone call. I came back downstairs to meet my mom at the back door after she'd turned around to come home. I know we saw both towers go down; I can't remember whether I saw the second plane hit or not in real time. Mom was near hysterical—three of her sisters worked in the financial district, and we later found out that they were among the hundreds (thousands?) who walked home across the Brooklyn Bridge in the aftermath. One of my aunts was almost trampled in the crowd making its way from Ground Zero.

I was supposed to fly back down to Florida the next day or two days after but ended up staying at my parents' house for the next week. Coming back to the city with them afterward was shocking, from the smoke on the horizon and the hole in the skyline to the military vehicles all over the streets. That night I wrote something in my journal about being scared of what the US would do in retaliation. For the rest of my time there I obsessively listened to the local 24hr news station and checked CNN constantly, fearful of hearing what might happen next.

With so many people from my hometown working in finance and the variety of patients in both my parents' medical practices, I remain surprised that I don't know anyone personally who was lost in the towers. There were plenty of kids at my school who had lost parents, but they were too young for me to have known them.

PonyPotato · 09-11-2008, 06:49 AM

I was in high school in Ohio. My english teacher burst into my history class, crying, and turned the television on. Most of the class was paralyzed with shock (I was among them), some students crying. At that time, only one tower had been hit - I saw the second plane hit and both towers fall in real-time. There was an eerie buzz in the air everywhere I went. None of the teachers continued their classes - most people stayed in the same classrooms for the rest of the day, some parents picked their children up, the administration pondered sending students home early on the buses.

A lot of people started talking about the possible targets for future attacks close to home: Wright Patterson Air Force Base, General Electric in Cincinnati/Evendale (my dad works there!), etc. There was a palpable sense of fear and disbelief for a long time.

Poppinjay · 09-11-2008, 06:55 AM

Quote:

Do you know anyone from "that culture?"

From Al Queda? No. I did make it a point to talk to the sponsor of the Muslim Student Association at East Carolina afterwards, and produced a feature about them and the interactions they were having with Christians. Turns out, one of the Presbyterian churches invited them to hold services there shortly after 9-11. That is why I am Presbyterian now.

He explained the meaning of the veil. His two daughters wear the veil and are both excellent students bound for great success. He also told me about the Muslim view of Jesus and other prophets. He is also why I made the comment about the clock in the mosque on Dlish's thread. His computer prompts him to pray at the appropriate times.

But to say I learned something about Muslims is not to say I understand anything about the criminals in Al Queda. It also doesn't mean I know much about mid-eastern culture. I read Persepolis and that's about it.

I don't understand burkas or the denial of basic human rights due females in some hajib interpretations. I really get the chills when I see somebody in a chadri. It's like they're wearing a portable prison.

Like you said, Abaya (and I did too), there's bad guys on both sides. And I hate calling today Patriot Day.

KellyC · 09-11-2008, 07:31 AM

11th grade. I walked in to my US History class as my teacher was watching the tv with his mouth gaping open. I joined him and several other classmates. All of us watching, not a sound was made. The first building was burning. Then BAM a jet plan flew into the 2nd building and it, too, caught on fire. We continued to watch as we gasped but still not a word spoken. Then the first building fell, followed by the second. We watched as people at ground zero ran for their lives, screaming, crying. The gigantic dust cloud covering everything in its path. Then my teacher turned off the tv and told us to go buy the newspaper when we get home, it's going to be "historic."

School was relatively normal for me that day. I was at a new school and didn't know anybody so I didn't talk to anyone about it. All after school events are canceled. I was hoping they'd cancel next school day, too. I was fortunate enough to not be effected by this event. I didn't know anyone who perished in the towers, nor know anyone who knows any victim or relatives of the victims even. So to this day I remain as I was that day...uneffected.

Baraka_Guru · 09-11-2008, 08:06 AM

It was my first day of university. They had a big-screen television set up at the central area in the main campus building. The news was showing whatever footage it could find and was putting it on loop. What grabbed my attention the most was the static headline on the bottom right of the screen: "America Under Attack." It took me a few minutes of watching shaky street-level footage of fluttering debris and panicked people to find out just what "under attack" meant. Would you believe I was a bit relieved to learn of the nature of the attack? (i.e. My imagination thought of much worse possibilities.)

I watched for several minutes before realizing that all there was to see was a loop of the catastrophe and the immediate fallout, so I went to class.

My first class was a lecture for an introductory course on literary theory and criticism. The first thing the professor did was declare that day the end of the post-modern era.

She then went on to talk about Bush and rhetoric and the nature of meaning in language. She then warned us that, throughout the course of the year, her lectures, the readings, and the tutorials would have a profound effect on us if we would only engage our minds. She warned us that we would discover that perhaps just about everything we think is true probably isn't. What we've come to believe as young adults—how we see the world, what we see as "truth"—was about to be challenged and turned on its head.

9/11 marked a turning point in my life. It was the day when I stopped believing as though truth in language and images were self-evident. It was the day I started the process of deprogramming my mind in the same mode as the post-modernists. It was the day I realized that the world isn't what it seems. It was the day I tore up my scripts.

The victims of 9/11 need not have died for naught. Their memory serves as a reminder that we are all victims in some capacity. Some of us are victims in body; others are victims in mind. To lose sight of this will only lead us to slip back into our slumber, where we dream and long for what really are fatal distractions.

Do not be distracted. For the sake of humanity, be awake.

abaya · 09-11-2008, 08:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Poppinjay

But to say I learned something about Muslims is not to say I understand anything about the criminals in Al Queda. It also doesn't mean I know much about mid-eastern culture. I read Persepolis and that's about it.

Okay, good to know. It just wasn't clear who you meant by "the attackers" in your post, and some might take it to mean "the Middle East" in general (which would be incorrect), and others might see it as Al Qaeda criminals specifically. Just wanted to clarify.

I would say that you know a little more about "Middle-Eastern culture" (if such a thing can be labeled under one term) than most, and that's a good thing. I knew very little back then myself, and am still learning a ton from being married to ktsp. Of course, he's not really Muslim, so I understand more about Lebanese culture/politics in general than Islam in particular... but that's another story.

Willravel · 09-11-2008, 08:34 AM

September of '01? I was in school. Some people freaked out in overly dramatic fashion, most just used it as an excuse to skip class. It was a big deal then, it's not anymore.

snowy · 09-11-2008, 08:42 AM

That was a very strange day.

I woke up early for me. University wasn't yet back in session, and I had worked late the night before to close out where I worked. I was working in a deli at a grocery store at the time, and had sliced open my hand while cleaning one of the meat slicers the night before. My mom had made me get up so I could show my dad before he left for work, so he could decide whether it was bad enough to warrant going to the doctor and getting a tetanus shot. So I trundled downstairs, showed Dad, and then curled up with Mom to watch the local news, so despite being three hours behind, I was awake when they broke into the local news.

Mom and I watched it all unfold on television while Dad left for work.

I didn't have work that day, and so I stayed home and watched television while my mom left for work. My boyfriend at the time came over for lunch because there was this overwhelming sense that no one wanted to be alone. That evening I went and hung out with some girlfriends from high school I hadn't seen in a long time, because we all wanted to be with other people, to be comforted.

It saddens me now to look at the past seven years and see how the events of that day have been abused by those in power to get what they want.

abaya · 09-11-2008, 08:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jorgelito

That day, seven years ago, two events would change my life forever. The terrorist attacks on our country and subsequent loss of my aunt, and the most deeply personal and intense decision my girlfriend and I would ever have to make.

Btw, Jorge--reading your post more carefully--I'm very sorry to hear about the loss of your aunt that day. My aunt was also flying out from New York around that time, and it was several days before I found out that she had left on Sep 10 and was fine. I can't imagine how my life would have changed if she had been one of the people who died there.

I am also sorry to hear that the decision you had to make with your girlfriend was so difficult--from your hints, I can guess what it was. And if I'm right, then I'm also glad that you (and she) had that choice as an option... that was the silver lining on the cloud, I hope. Otherwise your life today would have been even more different, no?

FlatLand Flyer · 09-11-2008, 08:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by abaya

I hope your perspective has changed since then?

To be honest, not really. Don't want to get off the topic of this thread, but does anything (other than oil) come out of that area that benefits the world?

snowy · 09-11-2008, 08:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FlatLand Flyer

To be honest, not really. Don't want to get off the topic of this thread, but does anything (other than oil) come out of that area that benefits the world?

People? I don't know about you, but I've met a lot of really nice people from the Middle East.

m0rpheus · 09-11-2008, 09:09 AM

I slept through 9/11. I was working nights, and I remember before going to sleep reading that a plane had hit the WTC but didn't really think that much of it. I got to play catch-up with the rest of the world when I woke up.

Baraka_Guru · 09-11-2008, 09:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by onesnowyowl

People? I don't know about you, but I've met a lot of really nice people from the Middle East.

Same here. It's too bad the post-9/11 world hasn't been kind to them. At least the ones I've met have avoided most of it.

djtestudo · 09-11-2008, 09:17 AM

I'm not going to bore everyone with the whole story, but what I remember most are some of the surrounding things.

How beautiful the day was on the East Coast. My first thought on turning on the television while getting ready for class being classic gallows humor involving the whereabouts of Bruce Willis. The shock of everyone while walking across campus while everything was still happening. The way everyone gasped at once in the lecture hall when we saw the first tower fall (I finally learned what it meant to have the air sucked out of the room) and the cell phones that started ringing and didn't stop through the end of class.

Vigilante · 09-11-2008, 09:46 AM

I was sitting in genetics 301 at Texas A&M. Actually I was leaving the class and getting in my wife's car. She had the radio on and I was like WTF? We listened as we drove home, and I was talking about what to do in case it was happening to more than NY. We hit the TV and saw the towers burning, and then fall. I took stock of our ammo, maybe food, and kept the news on.

abaya · 09-11-2008, 10:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FlatLand Flyer

Don't want to get off the topic of this thread, but does anything (other than oil) come out of that area that benefits the world?

Well, my husband, for starters...

Have you been there yourself? Do you know anyone from there?

World's King · 09-11-2008, 10:13 AM

In true World's King fashion...

I was having sex.

Grancey · 09-11-2008, 10:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willravel

It was a big deal then, it's not anymore.

It was and still is a very "big deal".

Willravel · 09-11-2008, 10:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grancey

It was and still is a very "big deal".

For some people, yes.

ktspktsp · 09-11-2008, 10:54 AM

I had finished my summer intership in Paris and flown back to Beirut on September 9th. On the eleventh, I was driving with my mom to my grandma's place, an hour north of Beirut. A friend called me during our drive, and said that "2 planes have hit the WTC, one hit the pentagon, and one hit the White House!". He could be a bullshitter at times so I told him I did not believe that, and he said "Ok..".

Soon afterwards we got to our destination, and an aquaintance on the street asked us if we had heard the news... We went to my grandma's house and turned on the TV. We then saw the footage of the towers falling, playing in a loop. It was surreal. I remember thinking that the world has just entered a new, dangerous phase. I remember being horrified by the size of the killing. I remember thinking "Please, let it not be that Bin Laden dude, that will mess things up between America and the Arab/Muslim world for a long long time". Sadly that was to happen.

I was also planning on applying to US universities that year for my Master's degree, and I wondered if those attacks were gonna close those doors to me. Thankfully the doors remained open and I moved to the US in August 2002. And despite being treated differently at US airports, thankfully no American I've met was openly hostile towards me because of those events.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynosure

I booted up my PC, then sat down and opened up my browser to read the latest news, on my home page...

Ever since then, even 10 years later, I sometimes have a feeling of trepidation, in the mornings when I open up my browser.

Interestingly enough, I had a similar experience in 2005, after I had started working in the US. The former Lebanese prime minister was assassinated in a car bomb attack, and I found out in the morning as I turned on my laptop before going to work. I knew right then that things had taken a serious and long-term turn for the worse, in Lebanon.. And in fact the country entered an era of instability from which it has not recovered yet. All the windows in my dad's office (near the bombing) were shattered, but thankfully he had been at home for lunch. I still remember seeing that link in the Yahoo page and thinking "WTF"...

abaya · 09-11-2008, 11:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ktspktsp

I was also planning on applying to US universities that year for my Master's degree, and I wondered if those attacks were gonna close those doors to me. Thankfully the doors remained open and I moved to the US in August 2002. And despite being treated differently at US airports, thankfully no American I've met was openly hostile towards me because of those events.

Of course, you did have to endure your future mother-in-law asking you point blank, over a nice steak dinner on your first visit to Seattle, "So do you know where Bin Laden is hiding?" after you sketched a map of your country for her on a napkin just to explain where you came from...

Manic_Skafe · 09-11-2008, 11:11 AM

I skipped school that day and slept in a little late. Turned on the tube just before the second plane hit and wondered exactly what the fuck I was seeing. They were calling it a freak accident until the second plane hit.

...

I remember sitting on my couch for hours and eventually days - waiting for something conclusive but nothing ever came. Just the same loop of people leaping from buildings and the burning buildings.

Whatever they build there, I'll never see it in person.

LoganSnake · 09-11-2008, 11:42 AM

What do you know, I actually just found myself agreeing with Willravel.

I was in school. Gym class. Somebody told me that the NYC was under attack. We went to the library to swarm around the TV sets. Two days spent discussing. Can we move on?

09-11-2008, 12:20 AM	#1 (permalink)
jorgelito All important elusive independent swing voter... Location: People's Republic of KKKalifornia	In Remembrance - 9/11: Where Were You? In Remembrance of those who perished on September 11, 2001. Seven years ago today, the United States of America was attacked by terrorists in the City of New York, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania. Three thousand people lost their lives that day and thousands more were injured. May God rest their innocent souls. What about you tfp? Did you lose anyone? I lost an aunt. She left behind four sons and a loving husband as well as a brother, mother and nephews. My cousins have not been the same since and my uncle remains a broken man. Where were you when it happened? What were you doing? I was living in LA at the time. My roommates came home early around 11am our time. Some classes were canceled at UCLA. My girlfriend and I were at home. The roommies announced there was some sort of bombing of the World Trade Center. I didn't believe them. We turned on the tv and watched in horror as the second tower fell. It was shocking to say the least. Surreal. Live on tv. Unreal, yet real. My girlfriend and I had other very serious things going on at the time and we made a trip into Santa Monica to a certain place where our lives would change forever. Things were already tense in our lives and filled with anxiety. The streets were eerily empty. Most shops were closed on the Promenade. One store had a sign in the window: "Closed due to terror attacks in NYC. Go home to be with your families. What are you doing shopping at a time like this" The clinic was open and we proceeded with our business. I had class that afternoon at the community college. It was not canceled. We went on as usual, as if nothing had happened. That night, along with the rest of the country and much of the world, we tuned in to the television as the events were rewound and played over and over again. In the coming days and weeks, as more information came to light, the pathos and ethos of our country were irreversibly changed and set upon a path of no return. People agonized. Questions were asked. Why us - a nation bemoaned. We rallied around the flag and our country did some soul searching. That day, seven years ago, two events would change my life forever. The terrorist attacks on our country and subsequent loss of my aunt, and the most deeply personal and intense decision my girlfriend and I would ever have to make. The wounds have mostly healed since, but I know that a part of me literally died that day. What about you tfp? Thanks for listening. __________________ "The race is not always to the swift, nor battle to the strong, but to the one that endures to the end." "Demand more from yourself, more than anyone else could ever ask!" - My recruiter Last edited by jorgelito; 09-11-2008 at 12:25 AM..

09-11-2008, 02:37 AM	#2 (permalink)
jewels Eponymous Location: Central Central Florida	Feels like yesterday. Someone had a desktop TV at work and had one of the morning shows on. I heard her, "Oh my God, is that real?" and went over to look. I saw the replay of the first tower being hit and none of us believed it was real at first. We thought it was some movie publicity stunt. Within a few minutes, the second was hit, and we closed the office. I remember picking my kids up from school early that morning, trying not to frighten them. I remember not being able to make calls and trying to contact my cousin that lives and works in the City. Although I never lived in Manhattan, my Aunt and Uncle had lived there, I've spent many hours there including the two summers I worked there, and my grandmother had died there. It felt like home to me and it tore me up inside. Although I didn't lose anyone related to me, it felt as though I lost many. I remember immediately trying to join one of the armed services to protect my childrens' futures but finding out that I'm considered too old. I remember hours, days and weeks in front of the television, mourning and grieving in disbelief and shock. I have not forgotten, nor will I ever. __________________ We are always more anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess, than to be praised for the fifteen which we do possess. Mark Twain

09-11-2008, 02:44 AM	#3 (permalink)
ObieX Pickles Location: Shirt and Pants (NJ)	Well, i was laying in bed watching TV after staying up all night (which at the time didn't happen often) I'd usually crash out at about 12-2am. Anyway, while i was laying there watching TV the channel suddenly cut out (i didn't have cable/satelite TV at the time and still don't) so i flipped through the channels and noticed a few of them were out. After a little while they had what happened up on one of the few remaining channels and i stayed up the rest of the day and watched it all unfold, hoping that my uncle got out ok (he did.) __________________ We Must Dissent.

09-11-2008, 03:33 AM	#5 (permalink)
abaya Location: Iceland	Strangely enough, I had just arrived in Iceland as an exchange student for a year, a week before 9/11. I had barely started getting to know Reykjavik, and had to walk downtown from the university to the Fulbright office (which is staffed by mostly Americans) that afternoon. We are 4 hours ahead of NY time... and the events had happened just an hour or so before I showed up at the office, so I hadn't heard anything yet. I walked into the Fulbright office with some questions about my application, and the woman stopped me almost immediately and asked me if I had heard about the planes being flown into the World Trade Center. I thought I hadn't heard her right--it struck me as very odd news--and it didn't really sink in until I left the office (no one was working) and walked back down the street, that it was really huge news. I turned on the BBC on my walkman and started listening... and still didn't really believe it, until I got home and saw it on TV, and then saw things in the newspapers the next day. I went to the US embassy the next day to sign the book of condolences, and saw that the line of Icelanders waiting to sign the book stretched down several blocks. There was a great deal of sympathy for the US at that time--they all felt horrible about it. People were donating blood and money and all the rest. I really can't imagine anyone feeling that way about the US right now, 7 years later. Such a phenomenal shift has happened during the Bush administration... Anyway, I met up with some American acquaintances that night, but we didn't have much to say. It wasn't until a month or two later, when I bought an issue of TIME or Newsweek, can't remember... and went home to absorb the photo essay they had published about the event. There was a full-page photo of a close-up of people jumping out of windows, in mid-air, going to their deaths. It hit me suddenly then, and I burst into tears. I felt so safe, here in Iceland back then... I knew nothing could possibly happen to me here, the way it had to them--or to many other people around the world who never imagined experiencing such a horrible death. That was a strange year to be away from America. And here I am again, back in the same place, just walked down the same street this morning after meeting ktsp (my Arab husband, incidentally! Who would have imagined, back then?) for coffee. It feels so familiar, but quite surreal, too. A strange circularity, looping... and it is unbelievable that in these circumstances, a Democrat might lose another election. __________________ And think not you can direct the course of Love; for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. --Khalil Gibran Last edited by abaya; 09-11-2008 at 03:36 AM..

09-11-2008, 03:43 AM	#6 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	how tiresome this compulsion to fetishize is. how i give into it myself. i was teaching at the university of pennsylvania. i heard it in the book center, on the radio. a few hours later is what i remember, walking through houston hall past multiple video monitors seeing groups of students staring, saucer-eyed, at the repetitions of the loop of collapse. over and over repetitions of the loop of the collapse, the same amateur footage over and over. the university has assembled strange teams of people wearing baseball hats to wander the spaces between these ad hoc networks in order to provide some sort of service, it was not clear what, perhaps there was something understood to be reassuring about baseball hats, perhaps something else. many many penn students come from around nyc, but i think the ad hoc networks were just that, people who were in houston hall for some reason or who had seen on their dormitory monitors and wanted to watch the repetition of the same tape loop again and again with others who also did not understand. and i remember thinking that the chickens had come home to roost and wondered who said that later i remembered it was malcolm x. it was a period that demonstrated the power of television even as it demonstrated its limits---the repetition of the amateur video loop seemed to me compulsive, like the folk who were working in the networks were traumatized as well and everywhere compulsive repetition reigned, draining away the content, reducing the image to image, and as that progressed and the vile opportunistic narrative of the "war on terror" took shape, reaction formation began. soon the loop of amateur video was a kind of brand, like that little alligator on izod-lacoste sweaters that for some inexplicable reason people wear in some sectors. soon the loop was the little logo on a new style of war. soon that brand was being imposed on all markets, and people were buying, and a kind of fascism-lite descended upon the land. i remember. everything about that day and the 2 that followed was disturbing: as a function of the repetition of that loop of video footage, a collective sense of being-victimized arose: the television-specific official "Explanation" happened---and it was all so transparent, so stupid, so ugly and alarming. i remember white boys driving around west philadelphia hanging out of jeeps waving american flags. i remember thinking that everyone, all around, had gone insane. by now, by 9/11/2008, this has been pulverized: used and abused, drained of meaning and filled again, spit back at us over and over and over. remembrance becomes a game. let us stop as we are required by all public machinery to remember why everything that's happened since 9/11/2001 has happened. let us remember how the dead have been used, again and again. let us remember how grief became cheap became a commodity became a justification. let us remember what made this grief seem cheap, a commodity, a justification. and from underneath all that, remember the genuine grief of those who lost people in the trade center and try to separate that from how that's been used. it isn't easy. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

09-11-2008, 03:08 AM	#4 (permalink)
Xazy People in masks cannot be trusted Location: NYC	To quote my blog entry: I find it odd that I have never cried over the event. I remember that morning vividly, waking up, being outside, hearing a commotion it was right after the first plane hit, and going to the corner of Grand St. & Madison St. Watching and seeing what became common knowledge as the second plane hitting, seeing the towers go down, seeing the smoke, watching the pain of everyone standing by me. Seeing the tens of thousands of people heading from downtown past, the sadness, the panic, the pain, people begging to borrow a phone to call someone, anyone. All circuits being busy no one despite being able to try being able to reach their loved ones. The following weeks was chaos, the area we lived in was closed off by the military. Food deliveries was on a minimum, you needed an ID to go anywhere, and everyone was still just numb. The 2 beams are where the towers would have stood. I forogot to add yes I saw the towers go down, and it was just mind numbing standing there watching was kind of like the mind did not comprehend it at first.

09-11-2008, 04:33 AM	#8 (permalink)
ngdawg peekaboo Location: on the back, bitch	I worked as a teacher's aide and was in one of the 'lounges' and the tv was on. The news of what was happened flowed thru the building like a raging river and we all watched it all happen as it happened.... Suddenly, there was a scream in the hallway. A teacher ran, crying out her son's name. Someone took her to a room and I went to find the school delegate who went to try and comfort her, to calm her down. She calmed long enough to attempt to call her son and he answered his phone-by happensance, he'd overslept and missed his train into Manhattan. Another teacher became visibly upset, but was relieved that her husband decided to take the day off. But he lost most of his friends. Parents filled the office to gather their kids-to this day I don't understand why as they'd have been fine where they were. Only one child lost a relative-an aunt on the plane that went down in PA. Three days afterward, winds shifted and the overpowering odor resembling burning tar wafted over us and lingered.... Before 9/11/01, my husband would look out over a hill on his way to work and see the sun hitting the WTC. After 9/11/01, for days he'd see only smoke. Sometimes he still remarks how sad it is to see....nothing.

09-11-2008, 04:47 AM	#9 (permalink)
Poppinjay You had me at hello Location: DC/Coastal VA	I was sitting at my desk. Running a public radio station in the rural south had become an effort of nothing. I was chatting with a friend in NYC when all of a sudden her message was, "THEY FLEW A FREAKING PLANE INTO WTC!" So, into the control room goes I. No news outlet had it yet, but I told our morning guy to get ready for some updates. Within seconds, the attack was on our monitor. My lone regret that morning was that I did not tell our announcer to talk a hike and let me update the info. We were getting it much faster than NPR. Later on that day, folks on the NPR listserv were criticising the network for not getting the info on air earlier (they let about 40 minutes lapse between the first plane and going with the story). My reply was, "do you have your own microphones?" Personally, I was to be married in four days. Our photographer cancelled because he was sure an invasion was imminent. My now MIL wanted us to postpone. Our honeymoon airline tix were obviously useless. My boss asked me if I really planned to go to Nantucket. I lived in an area surrounded by marine air bases and an airport. I remember going out, looking up at the cloudless sky, and feeling an emptiness of air traffic. A couple of days later, a DC9 landed at our airport - where usually the planes were prop. It was unmarked, and this happened during the air restrictions. We got married. 90 people attended instead of 110. Despite the events, we were happy. Deena declared a media blackout for me and we listened to "The Shadow" tapes while driving our stiff, uncomfortable Saturn SL1 up to Mass. Several bridges had people holding signs. One night we stayed in Mystic and watched Bruce Springsteen sing Rise Up. I understand that people have used this date to push agendas. "Let's Roll" is not a credo. But this attack was also not a well meaning effort for diversity. It was done by people who want to kill christians and jews. They also dress women in burkas and disallow them to vote. If a woman is raped, then she may well face the death penalty for being sullied. I don't agree with the wars currenlty happening, but to dismiss this date because of the schemes of a few is repugnant. __________________ I think the Apocalypse is happening all around us. We go on eating desserts and watching TV. I know I do. I wish we were more capable of sustained passion and sustained resistance. We should be screaming and what we do is gossip. -Lydia Millet Last edited by Poppinjay; 09-11-2008 at 04:53 AM..

09-11-2008, 05:04 AM	#10 (permalink)
Eweser Psycho Location: O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A	I was at work when it happened. My office is connected to a 24 hour control room where they have a tv. Someone came in and asked if they had seen the news, so they turned it on. The first thing that I can recall is the news announcers trying to figure out what happened at the Pentagon. No one got much work done that day. I remember calling my family to see if they had heard. I cried on the way home that day and many after. It is wrong how it's been used since; I try to separate it from that day. I'll never forget the faces of the terrified people in New York or how heroic the people on flight 93 were. Sometimes it seems like it was so many more years ago than seven, other times it seems like just yesterday. __________________ "Whoever wrote this episode should die!"

09-11-2008, 05:10 AM	#12 (permalink)
FlatLand Flyer Insane Location: Eastern, WA	I was at the University of North Dakota majoring in Commercial Aviation. I saw some of the early stuff on TV before I left for school and knew some of what had happened. The lobby of the aviation building had the events live on tv. We all knew what had happened. I remember just being pissed at the time and debating all day, months after, debating leaving school and joining the air force so I could bomb the shit out of the Middle East. The thing to this day that bothers me most is that I had three classes that day and not one even acknowledged what had happened.

09-11-2008, 05:30 AM	#14 (permalink)
Cynosure Psycho Location: the center of the multiverse	I was supposed to work from home, that day. I got up, that morning, and brewed myself a pot of coffee. (BTW: I live in Mountain Time, which is two hours before the time zone New York is in.) The house was quiet and tranquil, with my wife away at work and my daughter away at daycare. The morning outside my kitchen window was beautiful. I took a cup of coffee downstairs, to the PC in my basement. I booted up my PC, then sat down and opened up my browser to read the latest news, on my home page... Ever since then, even 10 years later, I sometimes have a feeling of trepidation, in the mornings when I open up my browser.

09-11-2008, 06:49 AM	#19 (permalink)
PonyPotato Soaring Location: Ohio!	I was in high school in Ohio. My english teacher burst into my history class, crying, and turned the television on. Most of the class was paralyzed with shock (I was among them), some students crying. At that time, only one tower had been hit - I saw the second plane hit and both towers fall in real-time. There was an eerie buzz in the air everywhere I went. None of the teachers continued their classes - most people stayed in the same classrooms for the rest of the day, some parents picked their children up, the administration pondered sending students home early on the buses. A lot of people started talking about the possible targets for future attacks close to home: Wright Patterson Air Force Base, General Electric in Cincinnati/Evendale (my dad works there!), etc. There was a palpable sense of fear and disbelief for a long time. __________________ "Without passion man is a mere latent force and possibility, like the flint which awaits the shock of the iron before it can give forth its spark." — Henri-Frédéric Amiel

09-11-2008, 07:31 AM	#21 (permalink)
KellyC Comment or else!! Location: Home sweet home	11th grade. I walked in to my US History class as my teacher was watching the tv with his mouth gaping open. I joined him and several other classmates. All of us watching, not a sound was made. The first building was burning. Then BAM a jet plan flew into the 2nd building and it, too, caught on fire. We continued to watch as we gasped but still not a word spoken. Then the first building fell, followed by the second. We watched as people at ground zero ran for their lives, screaming, crying. The gigantic dust cloud covering everything in its path. Then my teacher turned off the tv and told us to go buy the newspaper when we get home, it's going to be "historic." School was relatively normal for me that day. I was at a new school and didn't know anybody so I didn't talk to anyone about it. All after school events are canceled. I was hoping they'd cancel next school day, too. I was fortunate enough to not be effected by this event. I didn't know anyone who perished in the towers, nor know anyone who knows any victim or relatives of the victims even. So to this day I remain as I was that day...uneffected. __________________ Him: Ok, I have to ask, what do you believe? Me: Shit happens.

09-11-2008, 08:06 AM	#22 (permalink)
Baraka_Guru warrior bodhisattva Super Moderator Location: East-central Canada	It was my first day of university. They had a big-screen television set up at the central area in the main campus building. The news was showing whatever footage it could find and was putting it on loop. What grabbed my attention the most was the static headline on the bottom right of the screen: "America Under Attack." It took me a few minutes of watching shaky street-level footage of fluttering debris and panicked people to find out just what "under attack" meant. Would you believe I was a bit relieved to learn of the nature of the attack? (i.e. My imagination thought of much worse possibilities.) I watched for several minutes before realizing that all there was to see was a loop of the catastrophe and the immediate fallout, so I went to class. My first class was a lecture for an introductory course on literary theory and criticism. The first thing the professor did was declare that day the end of the post-modern era. She then went on to talk about Bush and rhetoric and the nature of meaning in language. She then warned us that, throughout the course of the year, her lectures, the readings, and the tutorials would have a profound effect on us if we would only engage our minds. She warned us that we would discover that perhaps just about everything we think is true probably isn't. What we've come to believe as young adults—how we see the world, what we see as "truth"—was about to be challenged and turned on its head. 9/11 marked a turning point in my life. It was the day when I stopped believing as though truth in language and images were self-evident. It was the day I started the process of deprogramming my mind in the same mode as the post-modernists. It was the day I realized that the world isn't what it seems. It was the day I tore up my scripts. The victims of 9/11 need not have died for naught. Their memory serves as a reminder that we are all victims in some capacity. Some of us are victims in body; others are victims in mind. To lose sight of this will only lead us to slip back into our slumber, where we dream and long for what really are fatal distractions. Do not be distracted. For the sake of humanity, be awake. __________________ Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing? —Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön Humankind cannot bear very much reality. —From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot Last edited by Baraka_Guru; 09-11-2008 at 08:17 AM..

09-11-2008, 08:34 AM	#24 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	September of '01? I was in school. Some people freaked out in overly dramatic fashion, most just used it as an excuse to skip class. It was a big deal then, it's not anymore.

09-11-2008, 08:42 AM	#25 (permalink)
snowy Kick Ass Kunoichi Location: Oregon	That was a very strange day. I woke up early for me. University wasn't yet back in session, and I had worked late the night before to close out where I worked. I was working in a deli at a grocery store at the time, and had sliced open my hand while cleaning one of the meat slicers the night before. My mom had made me get up so I could show my dad before he left for work, so he could decide whether it was bad enough to warrant going to the doctor and getting a tetanus shot. So I trundled downstairs, showed Dad, and then curled up with Mom to watch the local news, so despite being three hours behind, I was awake when they broke into the local news. Mom and I watched it all unfold on television while Dad left for work. I didn't have work that day, and so I stayed home and watched television while my mom left for work. My boyfriend at the time came over for lunch because there was this overwhelming sense that no one wanted to be alone. That evening I went and hung out with some girlfriends from high school I hadn't seen in a long time, because we all wanted to be with other people, to be comforted. It saddens me now to look at the past seven years and see how the events of that day have been abused by those in power to get what they want. __________________ If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

09-11-2008, 09:09 AM	#29 (permalink)
m0rpheus bad craziness Location: Guelph, Ontario	I slept through 9/11. I was working nights, and I remember before going to sleep reading that a plane had hit the WTC but didn't really think that much of it. I got to play catch-up with the rest of the world when I woke up. __________________ "it never got weird enough for me." - Hunter S. Thompson

09-11-2008, 09:17 AM	#31 (permalink)
djtestudo Baltimoron Location: Beeeeeautiful Bel Air, MD	I'm not going to bore everyone with the whole story, but what I remember most are some of the surrounding things. How beautiful the day was on the East Coast. My first thought on turning on the television while getting ready for class being classic gallows humor involving the whereabouts of Bruce Willis. The shock of everyone while walking across campus while everything was still happening. The way everyone gasped at once in the lecture hall when we saw the first tower fall (I finally learned what it meant to have the air sucked out of the room) and the cell phones that started ringing and didn't stop through the end of class. __________________ "Final thought: I just rented Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine. Frankly, it was the worst sports movie I've ever seen." --Peter Schmuck, The (Baltimore) Sun

09-11-2008, 09:46 AM	#32 (permalink)
Vigilante Broken Arrow Location: US	I was sitting in genetics 301 at Texas A&M. Actually I was leaving the class and getting in my wife's car. She had the radio on and I was like WTF? We listened as we drove home, and I was talking about what to do in case it was happening to more than NY. We hit the TV and saw the towers burning, and then fall. I took stock of our ammo, maybe food, and kept the news on. __________________ We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle. -Winston Churchill

09-11-2008, 10:13 AM	#34 (permalink)
World's King Here Location: Denver City Denver	In true World's King fashion... I was having sex. __________________ heavy is the head that wears the crown

09-11-2008, 11:11 AM	#39 (permalink)
Manic_Skafe More Than You Expect Location: Queens	I skipped school that day and slept in a little late. Turned on the tube just before the second plane hit and wondered exactly what the fuck I was seeing. They were calling it a freak accident until the second plane hit. ... I remember sitting on my couch for hours and eventually days - waiting for something conclusive but nothing ever came. Just the same loop of people leaping from buildings and the burning buildings. Whatever they build there, I'll never see it in person. __________________ "Porn is a zoo of exotic animals that becomes boring upon ownership." -Nersesian

09-11-2008, 11:42 AM	#40 (permalink)
LoganSnake We work alone Location: Cake Town	What do you know, I actually just found myself agreeing with Willravel. I was in school. Gym class. Somebody told me that the NYC was under attack. We went to the library to swarm around the TV sets. Two days spent discussing. Can we move on? __________________ Maturity is knowing you were an idiot in the past. Wisdom is knowing that you'll be an idiot in the future. Common sense is knowing that you should try not to be an idiot now. - J. Jacques