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OK, we have two 9/11 threads going but they are specifically in response to articles. So lets try a more general topic.

Please do not attack other peoples feelings or thoughts on this.

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I was working at a college that morning in Dobbs Ferry, which is a small suburb about 20 miles from Manhattan. I was born in the Bronx, and lived there till I was around 20, when I moved to Yonkers (about 10 miles away). I spent a lot of time that morning on the internets as always, probably surfing Lum the Mad or some other Everquest related site, and alternating to random news sites, a standard morning. I think it was CNN I saw it on first, and then I knew it was something pretty big because CNN kept timing out. I called home, but all the lines were jammed, and I was freaking out at least some. There were all sorts of wild rumors, as I recall - that planes had been flown into the Capitol, that there were half a dozen planes up there. I walked across the hall to Admissions, where I had spent most of my time working (I was a relatively new transfer to the Bursar) and I remember some of my admissions counselor friends were crying. They wound up closing the school pretty quickly, and I snagged a ride with a friend. The ride home was usually only about 10 minutes, but it took nearly an hour to get home. Really jam packed traffic. We could see the plumes of smoke on the way, kind of a dirty smudge in the sky.

My best friend came over, and we watched it without really talking. We got home before any of the towers had actually fallen, but we really did know what to say, so we didn't say anything. We speculated a lot over who it could be but I don't remember anyone focusing on religious extremists yet that morning. Later, when it came out that they were Islamic terrorists (well, Wahhabist terrorists, actually, but too subtle a point for cable news) I was worried about my co-worker, Joe, who was a Sikh. The fact he was an Indian also seemed too subtle a point for the moment. I remember having a nightmare that night, that Godzilla was chasing me and no matter how fast I ran, I couldn't shake him. Sounds pretty stupid, in retrospect, but it was pretty surreal then.

Since then, I've actually done pretty good at not thinking about it. I tried watching one of the movies they made (Flight 93, I think) but I couldn't do it, I started to have a panic attack pretty quickly. It doesn't bother me much, so long as I don't think about it.
And that's what I remember. Kind of a morose 3k post, but there you have it.

I had just gotten back from my morning run. (at the time I was actually in really good shape)

I turned on the news to wind down and saw it. A single plane had hit the towers. I thought it must've been some sort of accident. I called up my buddy and started talking to him asking if he'd seen it...he was watching the news as well. We were talking about whether or not it was a terrorist attack, whether it was some accident or something, then BOOM! Since it was on live we saw the second plane come in and hit.

My words..."Oh, man...that's enough already!"
His words..."Time to strap up...we're going to war!"

My wife (at the time) was already deployed overseas somewhere towards the middle east. Eventually I went in to work, I was there for about an hour before I got into a shouting match with my boss quite literally telling her to go F herself and F this job in front of about 20 customers. (classy, I know) Needless to say I was a little stressed with my wife being overseas at the time, I was worried.

I walked out of work, I was unable to call my wife. (like I said, she was deployed) So I got blitzed on about a two day bender.

I was just stepping into social studies in middle school and the teacher had it on the TV. We lived at Fort Bragg then and all the parents were pulling kids out of the schools on base. When my mom came and got me and my sister, the streets were already lined with soldiers from the 82nd and mountains of vehicles and equipment. Quite a sight that.

I was about 2 months out of boot camp, eating breakfast at my A-school in Pensacola. There were a lot of fearful looks in that room as we were all thinking close to the same thing.

One hell of a war is coming as I just enlisted.... !

I was 5 years old in a daycare that smelled like piss and bleach.

I was asleep, got a phone call from a buddy of mine (Military) franticly telling me to turn on the news..
Switched on the TV , at the time the second plane had not struck the towers and the reporters were still speculating if it had been some sort of accident...then the second plane hit.
I vaguely remember my buddy shouting and cursing over the phone, but was pretty much shocked by what I was watching...

FITZZ wrote: I was asleep, got a phone call from a buddy of mine (Military) franticly telling me to turn on the news..
Switched on the TV , at the time the second plane had not struck the towers and the reporters were still speculating if it had been some sort of accident...then the second plane hit.
I vaguely remember my buddy shouting and cursing over the phone, but was pretty much shocked by what I was watching...

Sam deal here except it was my mother on the phone. I thought what the feth is she on about until I turned on the TV in time to see the second plane hit.

I was in my 10th grade art class. 9/11 also happens to be my birthday. Strangely, I don't remember what I felt. Possibly detached mostly because detachment is my default emotional defense mechanism.

Slacking off between classes in HS, was walking past the Teachers lounge headed to my mom's office and saw what looked like a plane hitting a silo on their TV.

When I made it to her office I found out what had happened and that we were going into lockdown.

I was in preschool.

I was at school, before all the other kids came in (mom was the secretary, I was too young to NOT be with her.), when suddenly the third grade teacher came in and we ran up to her classroom as the second tower was crashing down. I remember not caring too aweful much (was only 10), and not knowing what was going on until about a week later.

School. I was 7. Mrs. ????? class 2nd period, 2nd or 3rd grade (I forget been a long time) we were talking about History and that we should learn from the past.
School Priniciple came on and said "Please keep all students inside the building right now this is not a drill. All 7th Grade and 8th grade Teachers please turn on the television."

Sad day. It is my half birthday. At the time it was big, alot of things happened that day. I remember i was downed by the fact all the channels were the same thing on each channel.

Now I look back and wonder why i didn't found out what was happening.

Argh Ignorance of the young-lings is bliss?

I had just arrived to band practice at my drummers house, everyone was in the livingroom crowded around the tv.

I remember saying something along the lines of "what the heck is going on" and then the second plane hit, live on air.

Had to sit down, I was stunned/shocked.

We watched coverage instead of having practice, and then discussed what we could do from Oregon, and if we should write a song about it or not.

I was still in russia, I didn't hear about it until december.

In school.

I felt confused, as I didn't really understand the true extent of what was happening at the time and wasn't sure on why class had stopped.

Middle School, my dad picked me up and told me that some planes hit the world trade centers and the pentagon. I didn't believe him and thought he was just messing around with me(we would always see the WTC from the car when we drove near NYC to Rhode Island so I thought that there was no way this happened) and thought that it was some sort of big joke or a prank like the War of the World's broadcast. It didn't hit me as being real until I saw it one the news at home.

I was in highschool in lower manhattan. It was chaos. It was.. just.. surreal.

I used a payphone to call my friend Walter. He snuck into Manhattan by the Bus bridge access in his Handi-capper Van and drove me to my Grandma's house in the Bronx.

I've never been so scared in my entire life.

I was at my first teaching job, walking into the basement that
was the teacher's lounge at the school. Everyone there was
listening intently to the radio and people on the computers were
looking up news on the event. With it being the basement and
all, it felt very much like a bunker.

That day, parents came from all over to pick up their kids.

(I think a lockdown would have been more appropriate, but
that's just me)

The very next day, one of our teachers who was in the military
left work and I don't know what happened to him.

I think I was in high school Biology. They sent us home early, which was cool, but that was the sum of my feelings about it.

We were living in Leavonworth, Kansas at the time (father was attending CGSC) and I was in the 8th grade. I was at a school when I saw the news. I knew we were going back to the Middle East as soon as I saw it. 9/11 was simply the largest and most ambitious of terrorist attacks that had been going on for 20+ years.

We had been at Yongsan Garrison, in Seoul, Republic of Korea, when the USS Cole was bombed so I was made very aware at an early age of threats to the US.


Looking back at. I'm mainly amazed at how poor the terrorist attack was, they could have attacked the White House and done more symbolic damage, they could have attacked a major sporting event and caused a much greater loss of life. I've always been unimpressed with their tactics and understanding of the American psyche.

Amaya wrote:I knew we were going back to the Middle East as soon as I saw it.

Afghanistan is in Central Asia.

Amaya wrote:
Looking back at. I'm mainly amazed at how poor the terrorist attack was, they could have attacked the White House and done more symbolic damage, they could have attacked a major sporting event and caused a much greater loss of life. I've always been unimpressed with their tactics and understanding of the American psyche.

As I recall the stated aim was to start "bleeding wars", and in that respect the attacks were very successful.

Also, from the perspective of a conservative Muslim New York is a much more prominent symbol of America than anything in Washington.

Hmm. I would say that the terrorists who committed the 9/11 understood the American psyche pretty well, actually. I don't think most Americans ever thought such a potent attack could be executed on American soil - that such a thing could occur is obviously a major blow to American national pride, which, as most of the rest of the world is aware, is considerable. I mean, it's obviously left a massive scar on the American national consciousness. At the risk of sounding callous, I do think some of you guys tend to wallow in it - 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' deals with this excellently.

For my part, I was coming home from a shift at work with my mate, when his missus called him and told him what had happened. I found it interesting, which is my general reaction to things like that, the London bombings being no exception. I just don't feel much connection to events that don't affect me - it's just the way I'm wired.

Albatross wrote:....that such a thing could occur is obviously a major blow to American national pride, which, as most of the rest of the world is aware, is considerable.

We're aware of it too, but only some of us find it hilarious.

Albatross wrote:
I just don't feel much connection to events that don't affect me - it's just the way I'm wired.

I knew you were a capital fellow.

It's the same with wars and such. When the whole Libya thing kicked off, my first thoughts were 'nice one, something cool to watch on TV' (I watch BBC News 24 pretty much constantly).

Not trying to sound like an insensetive tough-guy, it's just the way I usually feel about stuff like that, and I believe that most people probably do, if they're being honest with themselves.

This thread is going mental, posts are rearranging/disappearing like mad.

Oh no alby and dogma are dueling in two threads both about 9/11, we need to cut down on 9/11 threads.

MOAR 9/11 threads!:

How did your pets react to 9/11?

What where you eating on 9/11?

Help, I'm having difficulty eating bread rolls, sausage rolls and driving my Rolls Royce, because it reminds me of 'Let's Roll'.




Hmm. I think I may have crossed a little too far over the line into irreverence. My apologies.

To be fair Alb, British TV pretty much stopped to cover the events of 9/11 and carried on like Princess Diana had died again. So going by that reaction we would bee seen in a similar light to the US I think. Plus added to the fact that you put someone on camera and they inevitably turn into a simpering fool and you often see the sort of coying behaviour usually reserved for more touchy-feely types not like us propa fallas.

Back OT

I was having a meeting with a client in the Canteen of the MPs offices about 100 yards from the Houses of Parliament.

As we sat there enjoying our subsidised freshly made ham salad sandwiches (to die for btw) discussing the project finances we noticed people taking more interest in the TVs dotted about the place.

They were still presenting it as a plane crash at the time, then the second plane hit. At that point we discussed the likelihood of the buildings falling down (being Construction Professionals) then came to the conclusion that it really didn't matter at that point and that the Houses of Parliament might well be a target if this sort of thing was going on and left.

Fortunately we managed to get out of London before the rush to get home/closing of the train lines for security reasons.

Wentback to the office and didn't see that the towers had tumbled until that evening. Pretty fethed up day all told.

I was back in Cornwall, got up a bit late, flicked on the telly and it was on iTV, its was after the first plane had hit. Aurelia came home from doing something in town, and I said to her, something hit the Two Towers, they think it was a small plane.

She came in, looked at the scar, and said thats not a small plane impact, then literally as we are standing there, the second plane came in.
Pretty surreal moment, and we just watched the rest of the morning is disbelief.

It seems a really strange thing to say, but we both equate a lot of empathy to New York, as although it really seems an odd connection, we had set a large ammount of time running a World of Darkness game in New York since around mid 98.

I'd spent ages looking up info on New York, trying to get a feel for the place for the games, so I was pretty gutted. Especially when you then consider the lives lost, and the broken families it left behind.

Was one of the few in the (old) office. One of the Canadians came over and said he heard that a plane had crashed into one of the towers. We dragged a TV from one end of the office to the room overlooking Hobby. Right when we got it working the second hit. We called a bunch of guys and the central phone lines to the NY office but just ringing, then it wouldn’t even connect.

Later, we watched as the planes started landing at the airport and some Cobras started circling. That’s when we heard from (Chase, then Chase) that they were evacuating that tower and we all bailed as well. I spent the rest of the day drinking heavily.

I apologise if this sounds callous to people that might have friends or some such that died on that day, but i'm just being honest here. Take solace from the fact that I am well aware that you don't care even slightly that some of my best friends got KIA.

I was at CTCRM and I just did a boring ass 6 month tour in Northern Ireland.

I was genuinely happy about it, not only because I care little for people I have never met, but because I joined the RM a few years earlier on the back of the Luxor tourist massacre, and that rage and blood lust got me through my commando tests, and as soon as this happened I knew It would absolutely guarantee me the chance to go and feth some people up that I desperately wanted to feth up.

I was right, and it was awesome. I got two tours of Iraq and Afghanistan under my belt, so it turned out perfectly for me.

The same goes for the London/Madrid bombings, and ive been saying this for years.

I get off on this stuff, because the more this type of thing happens, the more people start thinking my way, and that is far more important to me than the lives of perfect strangers.