9/11

[Pb76 3,952]

Never forget

It’s now 18 years, can you remember where you were when the news broke? how did you feel? How did it change your life?

[Jjss924 576]

  I woke up to my sister in law watching the news. I started watching around the time the second plane hit. It was surreal. I was 18, and it was my niece's and nephew's birthday(not twins). I don't think I really understood what it meant for a few weeks. I played online games heavily at the time, and lots of folks were making fun of it in global chat channels. It was also the time I started to understand trolling.

Side note- a guy I played EQ with worked in the WTC. He and his family are immigrants from Ukraine, and he was a stock broker. He was off because his parents were visiting. Pretty bizarre.

[The_Lady_A 1,280]

In memorial to the countless thousands of lives lost and millions of people displaced, from that first plane impact back then to the bombs still being dropped now.

May some measure of peace be found for us all.

[Protocawl 2,971]

1 hour ago, Pb76 said:

Never forget

It’s now 18 years, can you remember where you were when the news broke? how did you feel? How did it change your life?

I was then 6 years old, saw it live in the news at home, it was probably late afternoon here. Can't remember anything except for the images of the burning towers and the planes crashing into them on the TV screen. I vaguely remember the 6-yr old me watching the TV screen in shock and couldn't quite believe such a thing was actually happening in that giant faraway country called the USA. It looked surreal.

I can remember the live feed from TV, clear as day, to this day. That was the day and the moment I was introduced to terrorism and terrorists. I didn't quite understand who terrorists were as in who would do such things and why, but over the years it has become very clear: they're (possibly) the dumbest irredeemable motherfuckers on this planet. There's no talking sense to these people, there's no negotiating with them, all because what they lack in intelligence, they intend to make up for with unimaginable violence and destruction. Maybe the worst kind of enemy - a mindless imbecile who only acknowledges violence as the one and true answer to every problem.

Edited September 11, 2019 by Protocawl

[Sinister 2,583]

 

I left the Army 6 months before this happened. I was working at the Petro Truck Stop in Glendale, KY that morning when the news reports started coming in. Strangely enough I was working on a trailer hauling military equipment. Was very hard to stay focused once those towers began to fall.   

Edited September 11, 2019 by SINISTER120

[pete_95973 4,383]

I was 24 and I slept through it!  In California it was early anyway and I worked nights at the time and didn't wake up until hours after it was over.  Didn't have a cell phone at the time and my apartment ringer was off.  When I woke up it had been over for hours.  First thing I did was turn on the radio in my bedroom where I heard the words "America under attack."  Then of course I turned on the TV and saw what was going on.

Obviously America isn't the only target either and most countries are a potential target of these kinds of terrorists, but I am very nervous something like this or bigger will happen again in America in my lifetime.

Edited September 11, 2019 by pete2581

[Con 5,719]

I turned 28 years old six days after it happened. It was my day off but only because I had been forced to use up some sick days. At that time I had a job that had me going into uptown Manhattan twice a week. Every once in a while we would go have lunch downtown so id be having lunch and be looking up at the twin towers. Luckily, Sept 11, 2001 wasnt one of those days and I probably would not have been downtown at that time anyways but as you can see, that year I was commuting into the city.  As I stated, I was off that day so the night before I stayed downstairs cause the living room had the big screen tv, I fell asleep on the couch,  this is exactly how I remember it...

I was woken up by one of my roommates, I remember me saying to him, Gary I dont work today bro. And he said, no you gotta watch this...so i opened my eyes as he was pointing at the tv. I remember seeing a building with a hole in it...my brain shuffled through its playlist and I remember like it was yesterday thinking to myself...."Why is G waking me up to watch Die Hard?" As he began to fill me in the cobwebs began to clear and realized what I was watching. Of course a few minutes later, my eyes could not believe watching the second plane hit the second tower. I was planning on heading down to NYC and help but shortly after the second plane hit, they announced that NYC was not allowing people to leave or enter, so I just watched the rest of the day in utter disbelief. 

How did it affect my life? I stopped getting so damned tanned at the beach thats what. I remember going to high school with some Arab girls and they thought I originally was middle eastern cause of my dark skin and dark hair. So with that in mind, I thought I better do everything not to be confused with a Muslim, that was the first time in my life that I wanted to make sure I was not being clumped in with a group from the human race. So although I dont have the middle eastern features, 9/11 made me paranoid about being harassed by drunks, to drunks, latinos can look middle eastern, I didnt feel safe and I just stopped going out in crowds. 

Edited September 11, 2019 by Con

[Fido_le_muet 5,198]

I was 15 in 2001. It was tuesday, my mom was picking me up from high school. She was listening to the radio in the car and she immediately told me that something terrible was happening in NY. Listening to the radio, I didn't understand the scope of what was really going on. I believe the second plane had just hit. It's only when I got home 10 minutes later and we turned on the TV that I realised. I was sort of hypnotized in front of the screen. I couldn't look away and we watched the news for the rest of the day until I went to bed. 

Like Proto, that's when I discovered terrorism. I had heard of it before of course but it was only smaller scale attacks, like the subway attacks we had in Paris in the mid 90s. But I was 9 at the time and I wasn't paying attention to this stuff. 

9/11 is the moment I remember the most from my life so far, except for the birth of my baby girl. From this moment, I started to really watch the news and have since become quite addicted to it. Not a day without me tuning in on the news channels. I also started to pay more attention to my environment, the people in the streets. I'm not scared but I'm careful and I'm kinda reasoning in a more tactical way. I don't know if you see what I mean. The wave of terrorists attacks in France in 2015 have made me even more careful. I look for the exits in restaurants and public spaces, pay attention to people, see if they seem suspicious. Terrorism has kinda made me a bit paranoid and I hate the fuckers for it. It's not ruining my life but it robbed me of my serenity. 

I think about 9/11 often and it feels surreal even after all these years. 

[Jjss924 576]

@Con it's scary to see people react out of fear. A friend of mine's father is Iranian, and her brother had to change his name and move to a different college for the same reason. The dudes that owned the gas station I frequented were getting harrassed too. I think they were from Nepal. It's easy to understand why people were distrustful, but thinking and acting are different things entirely.

[Spinnaker1981 974]

Ok, being from Europe makes everything happening in the US seem far away and distant. Not this time, though...

I was 18. My parents had just bought a new house, and I had a very big room (40m2), with a wide screen TV and a very powerful PC (at the time).

I was playing something I don´t remember what while my wife (new girlfriend at the time) had a reunion with the pedagogical council of our university to discuss the dates for the exams of the year that was entering, she was our representative for that 2nd year of Univ.

My parents were attending the annual meeting for the American academy of Otolaryngology in Denver (so, in my grandparents eyes, they were right were it happened.........). They were coming home the next day (12/9).

Remind that this all happened around lunch time here, and suddenly my grandma phones me because a plane had hit a tower! She was hysterical!!

So I proceeded to explain to her that they were more than 2000km away from everything and that they were safe from that. Then (and only then) did I turn on the TV, and that was just in time to watch (Live) the 2nd plane appearing and hitting the 2nd tower! And THAT was when I realised: Oh, so this was not an accident! this is an attack!!!

And I was drawn by the news and sat there all day watching it. I think everyone completely realised that the world would never be the same after that.

It was dramatical to look at and not a single movie made out of it is even close to as exasperating as the real thing. Those fireman and policeman covered in dust and searching through the rubble, or watching live as people threw themselves from the window trying to escape the heat are images that will be marked in my mind for all time. 

Edited September 12, 2019 by Spinnaker1981

[Burgermauger 262]

I was woke up that morning by my hysterical fiancé ( ex now ) screaming the worlds falling apart.

You see I was working night shift the night before and was soundly asleep. I only got to see the replays of the horrible display of that day over and over on the TV. 

Then came the air travel ban later in the morning, you see we were scheduled to get married on Canadian Thanksgiving which was on October 3 that year. We were living in Calgary then and all the members of our families were from the east coast. We weren’t even sure if there would be a wedding. ( hindsight I wish lol )

Those are my memories of that day. A lot of my views have changed since that day watching it. But this is not the thread to discuss my views on that now.