10th anniversary thread for 9-11

[RockRaines]

I was a Junior in college and had just gotten back from my 8am class when the first tower was hit. The story broke into the program I was watching. I remember watching the second tower get hit and thinking it was a replay of the first one. I distinctly remember feeling completely helpless about what was happening. When the 3rd plane hit the pentagon my mom called me and told me it hit where my cousin worked and we didnt know if he was ok yet (he was because of maintenance in that wing). I remember being disgusted at my idiot gf at the time who had the audacity to say (whats the big deal).

 

Classes were cancelled for the rest of the day and we were all glued to our TV's and then went out and really comforted each other in that horrible first day. I'll never forget how it changed the way we looked at our safety and our world at the time. Watching the specials yesterday and today on TV brought back the feeling of sorrow that I felt for all the people that were touched by the tragedy. My old company had an office above the hit zone in the south tower and they lost all of the employees, their stories of emails and phone calls going out were unbelievable.

 

I think the main objective of sunday is to remember the heroes of the day that gave themselves up without thinking for the good of others. People were giving for months and years after that day and the spirit of the heroes should live on in remembrance forever. I fully suggest going to ground zero and just taking it in for yourself if you havent yet.

[nitetrain8601]

I was a sophmore in high school. We were in the library for Economics class. This senior comes in, takes the TV cart, plugs it into the closest wall while my teacher politely asked him what he was doing. He explained what happened and I think we were watching the Today show and watched the 2nd one hit right after. Needless to say, we all still went to our classes, but every teacher wanted to watch, so that we did. I remember just following the story for the next week, then I quit. Does seem like just 3 or 4 years ago. Can't believe it's been 10.

[Rowand44]

I was a freshman in high school and we were in between periods when everything started to go down. Teacher had the tv on when we walked in and nobody knew what the hell was going on. We had no idea it had anything to do with a terrorist attack.

 

They "closed" our school for the rest of the day but that actually meant we had to stay there and all we did was watch the tv coverage in every class. Crazy looking back on it and just remembering how ignorant I was to the whole thing.

[bigruss]

I was in 6th grade waiting for school to start when we first heard the news that the first tower was struck. We went into class not really knowing anything but every class had the news on and the teachers were speechless, it was really unsettling seeing that.

 

I do remember going home and kind of being exited that something had happened, mainly because I was young and to me at the time living through something on the scale of Pearl Harbor just intrgiued me, well my mom put me in place and that was the first and only time I saw my dad cry until his mother died this last year. I then realized that as intriguing as rewriting history books may be, this was not something I ever wanted to happen during my lifestyle. I matured a lot that day, and even more when we went into Iraw and my dad told me about his friends leaving for Vietnam. He knew I could have friends going overseas and possibly not coming back, it was a tough but life changing conversation.

[demonbluess]

Sitting in first period art class, my first week of high school. We heard it on the radio. I'll never forget that eery silence afterward. The rest of the day was frantic, disorganized. I remember trying to understand the magnitude of it at the time. How could I? "Tower 1 is down. The Pentagon." Watching those faces on TV, my life would never be the same again. The weeks after were different. People actually cared about each other. Suddenly we were all pulling in the same direction. It hurts me to think about it sometimes. About the people trapped in those buildings, the military vets never coming home. It hurts me even more to see us regress into ignorance again. Maybe for one day we can stand together. Be proud of our strength and humble for our freedom. Maybe that day is today.

[lostfan]

This is probably gonna sound callous but f*** it, it's true: "United We Stand, Divided We Fall" is a phony, empty phrase.

 

This country was united for maybe like a couple of months after 9/11 but right now? We're divided... and we're falling. Let's not pretend otherwise.

[lostfan]

Whatever was truly important about this day got lost years ago.

[HuskyCaucasian]

It was a little after 7:45am CT and I had just gotten out of the shower… I was getting ready to head to my Media Communications class at Harper Community College in Palatine, IL. I walked into my bedroom and on TV was news reports of a massive fire in the north tower of the World Trade Center.

 

Immediately, I flashed to images I had seen of the fire after a plane crashed into the Empire State Building back in 1945. Little did I know, not only was I right to remember that, but this time it would be worse, MUCH worse.

 

After sitting on my bed watching the news coverage, at 8:02 am I witnessed second plane crash into the World Trade Center, this time it was the South Tower. That was.. well, staggering. Did I mention my parents were at O’Hare waiting to board a plane to fly to Las Vegas for their 20th wedding anniversary?

 

I did not want to be late for class, and I wanted to make sure I got a parking space at school, so I headed out. But I didnt want to miss anything. So, I quickly grabbed my Sony Watchman portable black and white TV. I drove to school listening to WGN (I think). After arriving in the parking lot, I sat in my car and watched my portable TV. At this point, smoke was billowing from the two towers and reports of an attack on the Pentegon were starting to roll in. I watched as the first tower fell at 8:59.

 

I headed into class and sat in the empty classroom watching my little TV. I heard the ESL class across the hallway on the other side of our classroom trailer talking about the events. I walked over to the doorway and with a shaky voice told them the first tower had fallen.

 

People started ariving for class and needless to say we didnt have class that day. Our teacher wheeled in a TV and we watched news coverage for the remainder of class. At one point one of the students stood up, whispered to the teacher, and quickly left. His girlfriends mother was in one of the towers… we later found out she survived. We all left class, and I headed home. I later found out classes had been cancelled for the remainder of the day.

 

Early afternoon mom and dad came home from the airport. With all planes being grounded indefinitely, they were not going to be getting to Las Vegas that day, or any day in the near future. While in the airport, they met a couple from Buffalo, New York who were headed home, but stranded with no rental cars available. Mom and dad asked them to come spend the night at our house until they could get home. Eventually, they were able to rent a car and drive back to Buffalo.

 

The next few days were some of the most sobering, yet quiet days you will ever hear… there were few, if any, planes in the sky for the next few days. Seeing an airplane flying over a city would not be the same ever again.

[Milkman delivers]

Whatever was truly important about this day got lost years ago.

 

Agreed.

[southsider2k5]

Whatever was truly important about this day got lost years ago.

 

Which was the whole point of having a non-political thread.

[southsider2k5]

This is probably gonna sound callous but f*** it, it's true: "United We Stand, Divided We Fall" is a phony, empty phrase.

 

This country was united for maybe like a couple of months after 9/11 but right now? We're divided... and we're falling. Let's not pretend otherwise.

 

All though, what you are saying in the second sentence is that phrase is actually true, we just are divided.

[IlliniKrush]

To this day when I see a plane flying over downtown Chicago, I stop and watch it.

I do the same thing, also do it with helicopters for some reason.

[SouthsideDon48]

This is what I typed up for my facebook status update yesterday, here's what my morning on September 11, 2001 was like:

 

I was 16 years old, a sophmore in high school, and I had just woken up. Normally I'm always so set in my routine, you know... wake up, take a s***, brush my teeth, take a shower, get dressed, and catch the bus for school. But for some reason, I deviated from my normal routine on the morning of 9/11/01. That morning, for no reason at all, I felt compelled to turn on my bedroom tv while I was getting dressed for school. I NEVER do this, I never watch tv in the morning because it always make me run late for school, and even to this day I still never turn on my tv in the morning. Yet, on the morning of 9/11/01 it was like something was off that morning, something was not right, and I didn't know it yet, but something just compelled me to turn on my bedroom tv as if I was hypnotized to do so.

 

So I turn on my bedrrom tv and I start flipping through the channels. Keep in mind, I NEVER watch tv in the morning, so I had no clue what was on, but I kept flipping though the channels anyway. I flipped through CNN and saw an image of smoke blowing from a tall skyscraper and I continued on and flipped through more channels.

 

"What a minute..." I thought, as I snapped out of my morning daze, "what was that???"

 

I immediately flipped the channel back to CNN and saw the news report about an "airplane" that flew into the first tower. I was trying to make sense of how such an accident could've happened, and so I kept my eyes on the tv as I sat on my bed to put my socks on. But before I had a chance to put my first sock on all the way, I saw an object fly from the right side of the screen and crash into the 2nd tower.

 

"Holy s***!" I screamed, as I realized this was no f***ing accident. No way in hell could two airplanes accidentally fly into neighboring towers on the same day. I screamed downstairs to my mom, who was already on the phone, talking to someone about the first tower that was hit.

 

"Mom!!! Another plane flew into the 2nd tower! I saw it fly in live! What the f***!?" She didn't believe me at first that the 2nd tower was attacked, she thought I was talking about the first tower, but as the situation sunk in she became very sullen.

 

I left for school, and that was the quietest day in my life, because everyone at school was in shock. The whole day just felt gloomy, like there was an early morning fog, except the fog was in the form of everyone's silence. Even the sunny sky outside didn't seem as sunny through the windows on that day. My high school was also in the middle of remodeling and building a new cafeteria, so we were all eating in an area that used to be the commons/auditorium area that was now designated for a temporary cafeteria. The atmosphere was just so depressing, everyone was quiet, scared, nervous, and uncertain. Despite being in a cafeteria with about 300 other people, it was the loneliest lunch period for everyone in that room. We all wanted answers, and two guys were trying to watch the news coverage of the events that were unfolding in Manhattan with an old tv that had a really poor antennae signal. Combined with the grainy signal from the tv, and all the smokey footage that was being televised from Manhattan, no one was really able to see anything on the tv. So none of us were really getting definitive answers and we were stuck in school that day, in the quietest lunch hour of our lives. It felt so suffocating, even the huge cafeteria room we were in felt so dreary, dark, and bleak that morning, and with all the brick walls that were surrounding us, it really did feel like we were all in a nuclear bunker deep underground and isolated from the rest of the world that day.

 

To this day, it still disturbs me that I witnessed thousands of people die, live on tv, when the 2nd plane flew into the 2nd tower.

[Brian]

The story of United 93 fascinates me. I wonder if the last 30 mins on the black box will ever be made public.

[The Sir]

The story of United 93 fascinates me. I wonder if the last 30 mins on the black box will ever be made public.

 

Whatever that black box might reveal, those people on that plane were incredible heroes.