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Normally I have a smiley on my posts but not this one.  :bluesad:

As most of you know, September 11 is my birthday and on that day in 2001, I had just arrived home with some takeout food to eat and had planned to go out to a movie later. Instead, I spent the whole afternoon and evening gazing blankly at the TV screen, stunned by what I was witnessing. I should just add that this catastrophe occurred at around 15h00 ~ 16h00 our time here in South Africa.

Within the space of a few hours, part of my life had been ripped away from me and I couldn't go out again that day. Our local news stations were broadcasting live feeds from CNN and Fox News and we were witnessing a true horror unfolding. If I close my eyes, I can still see the planes hitting the towers, the people falling to their deaths, the horrified onlookers and finally, the awful sight of those towers crumbling and falling.

I remember being angry at what had been done, I remember being angry at the bastards who had perpetrated this horror on a nation and people that I like. I still am angry at what was done on that day: I will never forget that day, not will I ever forgive what those idiots calling themselves true followers of the Muslim faith had done. They were no more Muslim than the idiots who called themselves Christians who started the Crusades and the Inquisitions were.

I didn't lose anyone that I knew personally on that day ~ some I knew of, like the producer David Angell and Berry Berenson, Anthony Perkins' widow ~ but I lost a lot. My life will never, ever be the same again. I would take it as a personal honor to be able to go to Ground Zero and lay some flowers down, in order to pay my respects. I would also go to the Pentagon and to the field where the plane destined for the Capitol crashed and lay flowers there too.

God bless America: rise up and be proud.  :smile:

It was quite a day when that happened.  I was sitting in high school, second period, Business class.  We hadn't seen the first plane around 8:45.  Another teacher ran in the room and said to put the tv on, that a plane had hit the first tower.  We put it on, and happened to see the second plane going in.  We kinda just tried to find out what was going on.  Within a half hour or some such, we saw that the Pentagon was hit.  Shortly thereafter, a plane crashed in PA, halfway across the state from here.  At that point, kids in school started freaking out.  Calling parents, leaving school to go home.  It was crazy.  For some of us, it hit home when a plane came down in our own state, but the people there actually stopped the hijackers, but it's still tragic.  Who knows what would've happened had it succeeded. 

I was angry, confused, and wanted information.  I wasn't as obsessive as some people, parked on the couch for a month watching CNN.  I remember being at school that day and as events unfolded, I had a little radio with headphones.  I actually put them on and started listening to Howard Stern.  He's based in New York, blocks from the Towers.  He fed me information as the attacks happened, and even did a longer show with no commercials.  He's usually over by 11, and stayed on til 1 or 1:30, or some such.  Some teachers didn't appreciate it, but I was just like: "We're not gonna be doing your little lesson plan today.  I'm just hearing what's going on."

All I know is, we graduated high school later on, in May 2002.  And at that moment, half the people I've grown up with and known my entire life joined the service and went overseas.  I almost did as well.  I commend and respect a lot of people who're able to do that, but things happened at home that prevented it. 

I'm still a bit angry about it.  I know a few people affected by that and I can't imagine going through that.   :bluesad: :hatred:

On another note, I do wanna add: I noticed at the time, a lot of unwarranted anger and cruelty to people who were Muslim, or looked and spoke slightly like the people from that part of the world.  That part made me mad as well.  Not all of them were involved with what happened.  I know a guy, who moved here from there.  Nice guy, great kids, went to college, runs a local convenience store.  Some people in the neighborhood all of a sudden were like, "Yo, what're you guys doing?", etc.  Shame.  I feel it was unwarranted.  I get that people were afraid and such.  But a tiny group of people don't represent an entire country or group of people.  I've been mugged a couple times by minorities.  I don't hate all of them based on the actions of a few.  Maybe it's just me.  Hmm.

Hard to believe it's been ten years already.

9/11 happened on a Tuesday, which was my day off from work at the time. My wife left for work and I had some errands to run that morning, so I was running around in the supermarket and Home Depot with no idea of what was going on just across the river from me in New York City. When I got home my wife had left several messages on our answering machine so I called her back. She sez "Are you watching TV?" I sez "No, of course not, why?" and she sez "A plane just hit the World Trade Center -- they think it's terrorists." Naturally I hit the "on" button for the TV ... .just in time to see the second plane crash into the other tower, live as it happened. I believe my exact words to my wife were "HOLY F**KING S**T!"

The rest of the day was kind of a blur. At the time my wife didn't have a radio in her office or Internet access so I ended up being her conduit for information for a couple of hours. I sat in front of the TV and called her every so often with updates. When the third plane hit the Pentagon her boss finally sent everyone home, figuring there wasn't going to be much business anyway, and in case things got worse he wanted everyone home safe w/their families.

Thankfully I didn't know anyone personally who died in the attacks but a few of my friends and neighbors did.

The next day I had to return to work. I usually traveled down Route 23 to Route 80 (I know this info is useless to anyone who doesn't live in New Jersey, just bear with me) but instead of taking my usual route I came down Route 17, because at a certain point in the Ramsey/Upper Saddle River area the road comes over a rise and for a brief moment you get a picture perfect view of New York Skyline off in the distance. I had to see the pillar of smoke for myself. When it came into view I actually had to pull over (into the parking lot of an IHOP restaurant if memory serves) and get control on myself before I continued the rest of the way.

I was actually asleep when stuff started to go down.  My mother literally woke me up with the line, "Mark the world is ending, some planes just hit buildings in New York and the Pentagon".  The first thing that went through my mind was about my wife's (then gf) family who were taking a group trip to CA.  I just wasn't sure of the date but it turns out they were leaving a week later.  I spent the day watching the TV.  I watched each tower crumble.  Anger and fear were definitely some of the things I was feeling.

I was 13 years old and in school at the time. They wheeled a TV into the classroom to show us the news and explain what had happened. We all sat staring at the screen in disbelief. Of course, at that age no-one fully understood the how's and why's involved in the incident but understood fully the level of tragedy and the magnitude of the "attack". I think lessons got stopped briefly (it was the afternoon here), then the normal schedule resumed until the final bell. By the time I got home it was still all over the news and I watched the replays and the interviews. I took in what I saw, what I was told and after a few weeks it started to get forgotten about as public/government outcry for vengeance took hold. I was very angry at the time, because I love almost everything about the Unites States and hate the evil motivational trio of contradictory religion, political brinkmanship and economical envy.

I don't want to go into detail and I am holding back from what I really want to post (which is rare) because I know it will cause conflict and derail the thread. I have no intention of upsetting anyone who was remotely connected to 9/11 nor do I think my views disrespect those who died directly. But, after taking an interest in the events of 9/11 over the last 5 years, analysing a hell of a lot of footage and documents, I am one of those people who believe the US government (not the puppet Bush) did not do enough and to an extent aided the "attacks" for their own gains.

   I was teaching school that day when I took the attendance slip across the hall to the office and heard that the towers had been hit.  At that time we had neither televison nor internet access in our classrooms, so I turned the radio on to WBAP out of Dallas and listened as the Pentagon was hit and the towers fell.  It was horrible beyond words. I was trying to comfort my students, but all I wanted was nothing more than to go get my kids from their first grade classroom a few miles away and spend the whole day hugging them.

   Anger came next.  A bunch of barbarian jihadists had just murdered thousands of my fellow Americans because our troops were in Saudi Arabia AT THE INVITATION of the Saudi Government!  We did nothing to deserve that kind of response.  I am still angry - angry at their sheer hatred for the Western way of life, angry at their relentless embrace of violence, and above all for their stated goal of permanently bringing down two thousand years of civilization.

   I'll be honest - while I certainly appreciate that all Muslims in general do not share this hatred of Western civilization in general and America in particular, I spent several years after the attacks reading up and learning about Islam itself, and studying the Islamic world as a whole. I was shocked at what I learned.  I learned that  virtually every value that Americans hold dear - religious freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of the press and women's rights - do not exist in much of the Islamic world. In fact, throughout the Middle East, fundamentalist imams daily denounce the freedoms we cherish as infidel values that must be wiped out.  I also learned that, while Muhammad himself in the Quran did say a few nice things early on about tolerance and respect for Jews and Christians, throughout his 22 year career as a "prophet" his attitudes hardened, and by the time of his death in 632 AD he was preaching jihad against ALL unbelievers, even the "people of the Book."  Muhammad was a man of the sword throughout his life, and urged his followers to be people of the sword.  According to the fundamentalists, there is a doctrine called "abrogation" that must be used when interpreting the Quran.  That is, that if Muhammad says one thing about a subject, and then later on says something entirely different, the later saying is the one that must be accepted as Holy Writ.  Nearly all of the infamous "sword passages" in the Quran were given near the end of Muhammad's career.  So according to the fundamentalists, war against the unbeliever is the Sixth Pillar, a fundamental part of the duty of every Muslim.
   Progressive Muslims despise this interpretation and are trying hard to pry Islam away from the toleration for violence that lies at the core of its origins.  They are heroic reformers desperately trying to drag their faith into the 21st century, and I salute them for it!  But sadly, in many Islamic nations, the fundamentalists still hold sway.  And where their interpretation of Islam prevails, freedom DIES.
  All these things led me to the conclusion that radical, fundamentalist Islam is the greatest threat that the world has faced since the darkest days of World War II.  But much of the West sleeps on, oblivious to the danger we face.  Before 9/11, such ignorance was understandable.  But, in the wake of the last ten years' events, it is inexcusable.

One last note -

  Circus buddy, you are a good friend, and I respect you tremendously, but frankly I find your assessment of U.S. government involvement in 9/11 to be appalling.  The conspiracy theories have been shot down again and again.  There simply isn't a shred of credible evidence that this was an inside job - merely a great deal of speculation, slander, and frankly fabrication or, at best, very selectively presented information by people who frankly either hate the U.S. government, or, more specifically, hated the Bush administration so much that they were willing and ready to believe any evil of it.

However, I agree with you that such a debate would completely derail this thread. I would enjoy discussing it in a separate thread with you, or via PM.

I don't buy into the conspiracy theories on 9/11. My response is more aimed at the earlier part of your post. What you say is true. The Muslim and Western worlds do not mix. The values are too different. All of these things are true. And while there is violent jihad, there is also peaceful jihad, which the Muslim immigrants are partaking in, and all the press that says the peaceful Muslims don't harbor anything against us and so on. I don't believe that either.

The problem is with the attempted  solution since 9/11. Instead of focusing on independence and defense, we chose more interventionist policy. This goes well beyond "was it all worth it." I knew then the war that began in 2003 was a bad idea. There were those talking about working on independence from foreign oil then too, but nobody listened.

No, instead the propaganda machine turned and 9/11 became the perfect excuse to invade. In my opinion, it was a slap in the face not to the Muslim world, as now, after all we've done, nothing has changed in Iraq. NOTHING. Now the Western world and it's goodwill is faced with all the cultural blowback that invasion inevitably brings. Cultural blowback by the very same people that despise our Western ways. I would say the invasion(s) have been an utter failure, and it's well beyond time to acknowledge it.

No, the real slap in the face has been to those that lost their lives on that day, and their loved ones. You can call me whatever you want, say I'm mistaken, until you're blue in the face, but one thing you CANNOT call me is unpatriotic. I love this country, and I despise our government who has not led us to independence and defense of all we hold dear, but to invasion and invitation of things to come that could put 9/11 to shame. And, yes, Indy, I'm talking about Bush AND Obama.

However, I do look forward to your response, as always.

Flick, I would never question your patriotism, nor your basic good sense. You and I have both worn the uniform, and served this country at different times. I only question your conclusions!

The blowback of 9/11 came BEFORE we went into Iraq or Afghanistan.  Hell, we HELPED the Afghans get rid of the Soviets, then left them to their own devices.  They paid us back with fire and blood.  I think 9/11 was an act of war, not a crime, and war was the only valid response.  The war was not always handled very well, it is true.  But I do think the people of Iraq are better off today than they were before, and I do think there is a small chance that a more progressive government may indeed take root there.  Time will tell the answer to that question.

  Incidentally, one thing of some note - the thing that really drove the decision to go into Iraq was not so much the horrendous events of 9/11, but an event that unfolded about the same time and is almost forgotten today.  That is, the anthrax attacks that were waged by persons unknown using the U.S. postal system.  Several people died, buildings were evacuated, public figures were targeted, and the entire country was panicked - by an amount of Anthrax that could have fit into a single Ziploc snack bag!  Knowing that Saddam had made and used similar weapons in the past (technically, he USED chemical weapons, but did experiment heavily with bio weapons before 1991), and given his chronic reputation as a trouble maker, it did not take too much imagination to see him handing off a five gallon bucket of weaponized anthrax to Al Qaeda, either directly or through an intermediary.  Or maybe giving it to Hizbollah.   Either way, in the wake of 9/11 and the anthrax attacks, getting rid of him was not necessarily a bad thing.

  But I do understand your position as well.  We have spent a great deal on two conflicts whose results are still uncertain.  You think we would have been smarter to simply stay home and beef up our defenses and our borders.  I am not sure that approach would have worked.  But I certainly see where you are coming from, and respect your thoughts on the issue.

In high school in another part on the opposite side of the world, it was quite interesting to watch how the events unfolded more through a morbid fascination, like rubber-necking at a car accident, than through any heavy emotions.  Don't get me wrong, it affected me like any other, and maybe because of time or what have you I'm looking over it with a colder view, but I can't help but look at it in that way. 

Over here, to me at least, it almost became an exercise in how the media/news cycle can take over, with every channel at every time playing the same image over and over.  It seems to me that it was the defining moment of the globalisation of media: the first real big event that captured the world's attention, live and in colour, all at the same time, and from a cultural point of view it is obviously quite important [of course beyond the actual attack, the deaths etc.]

Not to trivialise the event, but a lecturer at uni was talking about how media can give false perceptions or something along those lines and posed the question of whether or not 9/11 happened, asking if anyone saw it personally, or had a personal connection to it at all, and since nobody answered in the affirmative, commented that just because you saw it on TV doesn't mean that it happened.  Now of course that was a hypothetical and was just a commentary on conspiracy and how technology is approaching the point where you can fake any image.  Interesting thought to mull over, but a meaningless digression from here.

Trevor, I have a good friend who shares the birthday too, so he shares your pain, though he wasn't as affected so doesn't place as much attention to the date.  Hope you find at least some time to enjoy the day!  Sure bad stuff happened but its also the day we got you so, so we can't be too sad...  :wink:

I am not going to comment on the politics and ideas presented here. I've got a lot to say about those, but I'm just going to recollect my own experience.

It was a very weird day.

I first found out about 9/11 when I attempted to log into my email. I saw some pictures of the World Trade Center and was confused. What was this? I turned on the television and got a little better idea of what was happening. At that point I woke up my roommate. "You need to see this. Somebody just blew up the World Trade Center."

I had to go to work that day, which I did. As a personal aside, because it's such a weird thing to notice, I saw two people wearing wings on their back on that day. Doesn't mean anything to me, but it's burned in my brain as a part of that day.

At the library I still work at, they wheeled a television into the backroom so we could keep track of what was going on while we were still doing our job. There was a volunteer working that day who was from Ireland and lived through World War II, and she was not shy about sharing her memories of that time as it related to a new war-time.

Here's the thing I can never forget. In the days after 9/11, every single video that was shot made its way to national television. I remember, vividly, one video where a woman on the street was looking at the Twin Towers. When the first tower collapsed this woman's voice devolved into absolute terror. It was the sound of somebody's soul being absolutely crushed, and it remains to this day as one of the most absolutely terrifying things I've ever heard.

I detest 9/11. I hate everything about it.

F**k Osama bin Laden. I wish we could bring him back so we can shoot him again. 9/11 has proved to be the most destabilizing event that could have happened. It's awful. I don't even want to start with how many principles Americans stand dear for were thrown out in response to this terrible day.

We couldn't manage "Keep calm and carry on"? I detest everything about 9/11 and its response.

Mom will be with me on Sunday so the day will be quite a lot less lonelier, thanks.  :smile:


Awwww..... now that nearly made me cry: thanks, Dean. *HUG* :cheers:

I remember that well. That is another thing that haunts me about that day.  :bluesad:


I hear you loud and clear: I would quite willingly pull the trigger.  :hatred:

I was at work and there were people outside my office talking about it . . . but I really didn't understand the magnitude of what was happening.  Someone told me a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.  I was  working on a report or something for a client, so I really didn't get involved in conversations with my co-workers.  I envisioned a small, private plane crashing and killing a few people.  After awhile, I heard more and more people talking and I found out the news coverage was being shown on the big projection TV in our main conference room.  I went in and there were a lot of people in there watching, completely stunned.  I went home and watched the news coverage until late that night, and then every night after that for at least a week or two . . . maybe longer.  Sometime later, I read in the newspaper that a girl I knew in grammar school was killed in the attack.  It made me feel really bad for a long time.

I was a freshman in college barely awake for an 8 a.m. English class when I found out what happened when the professor told the class. Then I was worried I lost an uncle from Boston who flies frequently. He didn't die.


I spent the class trying to find videos of what happened and if I'm remembering right I saw the video of the first plane hitting the World Trade Center and it sent shivers down my spine that day. Still does.

I spent most of the day watching a huge tv in the basement on campus seeing what happened and then going away to go to my classes where pretty much the professors said basically this is what we were going to cover today but we'll cover it next time and handed back a few things.

As for what my thoughts are on politiicans using it for this or that I'll hold back like Circus did.

So, we went to war in 2003 as a response to 9/11 or because of Anthrax in envelopes? We still don't really know, do we? That's the problem: no clearcut justification and no clear way to measure success. Invading Iraq didn't make much sense as a reaction to the 9/11 attacks, so we certainly can't measure anything there, can we? So instead we were told over and over that the reason was because of WMD's. Again, nothing much to measure there, unless you want to say that the lack of Anthrax scares that was present then is an indicator, but even then, it's not a correlary that establishes causation. And in the name of national defense, we will really never know, will we?

And on and on it goes. Given the way the government operates and how wars are handled today, I would say that peacetime is virtually unseeable, and that our nation will be locked in perpetual war. The cost of this is far greater than you seem to be willing to acknowledge. And for what? Please tell me the measure of our success. Point out to me where the result has been worth the cost of lives, of families torn apart, of generations of service members suffering from PTSD, and not to mention the monetary debt that generations will be paying for. And please, please don't change the subject and say "what about what we spend on entitlements?" Because we're not talking about that. This country is so locked in stalemate political polarization that the best our elected officials  seem to be able to do is say "but what about what THEY do?"

No, I'm afraid we can't afford it anymore. We can't afford runaway entitlements, we can't afford runaway military spending on perpetual war to he point of bankruptcy. We can't afford generations of warbound Americans. Sooner or later it will break us. We will become the militant/socialist/nationalist regime that we are supposed to despise. We're being buried underneath it all and too few people have the sense to see it.

I live about 30 miles from Somerset County (where flight 93 crashed). I was at work and we took break at 10:00. I went outside to have a cigarette (no one else did they were glued to the news). I then hear and saw a jet coming. It was flying low and slow and the engines slowed way way down as it went by. I felt uneasy about it, but figured it was landing at a nearby airport. When I went back to work I heard about the crash, but it didn't occur to me that it may have been the same plane. Later on I put 2 and 2 together, but still wasn't sure it was the same plane until a month or so later when a friend told me that someone who works at the airport said it flew directly over our building. I sometimes wonder if the plane slowed down because they were storming the cock pit.   

I was half-asleep as the phone rang around 9:30 in the morning, and I missed it. My wife (at that time) left a message: "Turn on the TV but don't panic."

Turning the set on, and seeing the horror that unfolded, I soon awoke and like many of you, developed the same array of senses and feelings many of you have already described, and then some. And like many more of us, I too thought it was some sort of bad dream or some alternate universe we suddenly found ourselves in as disbelief set in. To this day, it still seems like it was a dream.

More personal memories include:

My next-door-neighbor was then a Navy Reserve officer (EO 3) and he was called to active duty. I shook hands with him a day or two before he left, and wished him good luck.  His wife was a nervous wreck the day he left, and tied a Yellow Ribbon around their tree, and on the antenna on her car. My wife (at the time) and I helped her out with as much as we could to help take the worry off of her shoulders.

Eventually her husband came back, and he's since left the Navy and is now a firefighter with our local dept.

One more thing: One fine morning about a week before the war began...our state, local and regional airbases deployed their attack choppers and aircraft as they went to their rallying points for departure.   For about an hour there were intermittent waves of aircraft thundering overhead, as some of our neighbors cheered and yelled for them to kick some ass (as well as some other things they should do to the enemy, LOL).

It suddenly hit me how big thins thing really was..

I'd never seen anything like that in my life, ever, and to this day the sights and sounds of Our Boys leaving for combat was something I'll never forget.

Flick - just so this thread doesn't get derailed, I'll respond later via PM.
I'd rather this be more about the memories of the day and less about the repercussions and politics, even if I did start that detour! :teddyr:

I was 10 years old when it happened and remembered being in either 3rd or 4th grade.  I think the teacher briefly mentioned or talked about it to another teacher, but no one really brought up (probably not to frighten us).  I do remember that the next mass we had (went to a Catholic grade school), it was brought up during the sermon.  I do remember a year later on the first anniversity that we had big memorial service for everyone affected by this and we released doves.

Back to the day it happened, my mother was horrified by it and pulled me out of school for a bit (she wanted me close at home).  I don't remember watching much about it, mostly because I probably couldn't comprend all of it.  I did watch some news reports about it though.

I was in second grade on 9/11, which would put at age 7 I believe. I still remember it fairly clear even if I didn't really know what was going on. My teacher explained stuff to us and told us we had to stay inside instead of going outside for recess. Of course being 7 year olds none of use got why we couldn't go outside. I guess I knew something bad had happened, but none of us could really understand it.

I did what I don't do.  I'm posting where I didn't read... I couldn't read any of it, except Circus and Trevor,  I can't read it guys, I can't look at it. 

I remember it being really surreal at first.  My brother'd woken me up and told me that one of the towers had just collapsed after having been hit by a plane.  I really didn't seem real at first, but the horror of it all sunk in before too long.  I remember being afraid that more attacks and tragedy would follow.  I had to work my theater usher job later that night and it was a weird shift.  Very few people came in to see movies, and I remember most of them saying that they were trying to take their mind off of things.  We kept the lobby televisions on the news and everyone just kind of stood or sat around talking about all of the events that day.

I'm not a big fan of extreme patriotism; I feel that too much national pride is unhealthy.  There's nothing inherently wrong with being proud of where one is from or lives, but I don't like the global separation or the hostility towards other nations that it can bring.  In spite of this it was kind of wonderful to see so much of US rally together.  I wish we could maintain that kind of brotherhood and I wish it'd spill out into and from the rest of the world, not in the sake of defense or retaliation, but for the sake of love.  It's impossible, I know.

I was in english class, pretty sleepy still...  When in came my science teacher wheeling a television, explaining a plane had struck the World Trade Center.  Minutes after he got it up, the second plane struck.  I remember feeling like my stomach was going to fall out of me.

We stayed in class, I have no idea why, and just watched the news until it was time to go.  I remember in third period, my teacher saying, "Anyone who says anything about how 'cool' or 'awesome' this is I will throw out the goddamn window".  I agreed, but still remember seeing one student with a big smile on his face.  Saying something quietly to that effect.  I felt like punching him in the face.  Probably should have.

Soon after that, I asked my teacher if I could go to the payphone and call my mom, since my sister lives in Manhattan.  He gave me the go ahead, and I found out they'd made it out fine.  Her husband is a lawyer, and had worked in the towers before.  They saw the planes hit out of a window. 

Another memory I have is of another teacher in my school crying.  Her son worked in the WTC in the top half, don't remember which tower...  But, he was working that day.  She later found out he'd run out to get donuts, and saw the planes hit from outside.  I presume his co-workers were not so lucky.

I'm not sure what else to say.  Ten years already.

I remember I was in Art class first day of high school junior when the principle made the announcement that a plane crashed into one of the towers. Didn't think much of it thought it was a accident. But kids were calling parents and such and seemed  serious. Than the second announcement and I knew something was up.

My grandfather picked me from school and he kept a straight face about it. Until that night. My grandfather cried. He was in WWII in Navy and was at Iwojima and Okinawa. Vietnam as a construction worker. He a only cried one other time. When my grandmother died.

Not only that we were New Yorkers. My grandfather was a retired carpenter Local 608. He built the Twin Towers. To see his work come crashing down must have been... I don't even know. About month later My mother (Who works for NYPD) and I went to the site to see it. The Mayor set up view to look. I can't describe the devastation. It was a shock really.

10 years. Wow.

I was in the Navy at the time. My ship, carrier USS Dwight D Eisenhower, had gone into dry-dock not long before for a complete rehab, so I was enjoying the benefit of virtual shore duty with sea pay.

Those that were living onboard like I was were assigned to temporary housing around the Newport News, Virginia area including apartments and barracks on Fort Eustis. I ended up in a barracks room at the latter.

I was at work onboard the ship on a pretty uneventful day thus far. My buddy told me that a plane had crashed into the WTC, so I stepped out with him to the smoke deck. We were at work in a shipyard, so we had little to no access to any breaking news. For at least an hour I was under the impression that some private aircraft piloted by some idiot had crashed in the WTC and figured no lasting damage had been done. Soon after the second plane hit, I started hearing the real story, little by little, and my heart began to sink, little by little. Then my workcenter pulled us all together and started going over security precautions and alerts, and informed us  that were staying at Fort Eustis to expect significant delays at the gates. I had no cell phone at the time, and of course my family was trying to reach me out of natural concern.

I remember feeling so confused and anxious, because I didn’t see any images of what had happened the entire day. I just kept hearing things people second hand. I kept hearing how horrible the images were, and could only try to imagine.

That evening, it took until 7 pm before I finally got back to my barracks room due to the delays getting onto the base, where normally I would have hit my room at 4 pm easily. I immediately picked up the phone to call home and flicked on the TV at the same time. As my mother answered the phone, during the first 30 seconds of the conversation, I was finally seeing the images for the VERY FIRST TIME. I was stunned into silence as my dear mother was saying “James. James, are you there?”

I just got back from work (early afternoon, European time) and was browsing the internet. I read a thread posted at my other forum about a plane crashing into the WTC. I thought it was an accident. Shortly after I turned on my TV and soon enough saw the second plane hit.
I was shocked and confused, and when I read the "U.S. under attack" news ticker thingie on CNN I was even more shocked.

The next morning two Iranian guys at work where seen laughing (apparently joking about the attack even though they denied doing so when called into the office by our boss) while everyone else was pretty much devastated.

I think most of us who lived through that day remember it and what we were doing at the time we first learned of this horrible tragedy. I recall family paying us a visit that day, my aunt and uncle. I wasn't working at the time. I recall the whole family gathering around the small TV I had in my bedroom at the time as the main TV set in the living room had given out. First when I saw it, I honestly did not think it was real. I really believed on first appearance it was some TV movie only to discover this really was happening. I was shocked and stunned as I saw replays of the events of that day on the TV. It seemed surreal. Then we learned that all flights in and out of the U.S. Airspace were cancelled and numerous planes that day landed in my home province. Many people from all over the world that day were unexpectedly stranded right here in my home province, in particular in the town of Gander and its surrounding area. I say with pride that my home province stepped up, the Red Cross and Salvation Army and numerous volunteers pitched in to provide food, shelter and a sense of relief to all these stranded people. Some even opened their own homes to take in strangers and treated them as if they were family and/or lifelong friends. Knowing that makes me proud to be a Newfoundlander. I was glad my people could provide a little something, however small, good on that day and the days that followed.

But this event has certainly changed the world. Do the same freedoms exist now in today's world of suspicion? Can they ever again? Whatever the case we cannot go on living in fear yet we must remain cautious as well. It isn't right to group all one group of people as this great evil threat as threats can come in any color or creed. Our world as an whole changed that day...everytime you take a plane, the extra security, etc..

I should add though that it wasn't only Newfoundland that pitched in to help stranded passengers. There were also considerable efforts made in the Canadian Maritimes and B.C. as well and most likely other Canadian ports as well.

I was asleep (worked a night job at the time).  My friend Jake called and woke me up awfully early to tell me we were under attack.  I watched the news for a while.

What I remember most clearly is the explosion of hate that followed the attacks, the calls for the eradication of all Muslims worldwide and the nuking of the entire Middle East, and all that.  My own thinking had been "find who did it and get them".  To realize that such a moderate attitude was apparently overwhelmingly in the minority and that most people just wanted to kill, kill, kill was heartbreaking.  I was always something of a misanthrope; that pushed it right over the edge.  I've never been the same.

I was listening to Howard Stern. There was an initial report and I think they thought it was fake then the word got in. I always remember Stern saying "We knew something like this was going to happen" I think about that sometimes.

My stepmother was in tower two and was I believe in the stairwell when the second plane hit. She had worked there in 93 and been through that so she didn't hesitate. She rounded everyone up and got them out quick. I called my Dad when it started and after that he ran over there and was one of those people outside.

Wow Lester, I didn't realize your family was that close to the scene of the attacks.  Glad they both got out OK.

My stepmom was a real hero that day. What I love is that they both went back to work the next day! She in the Brooklyn office. 

I second that notion, very glad to hear Les's family were OK  :cheers: :cheers:

It's here.  It's been 10 years.  I want tomorrow (today) to be over.  I feel sick, been dreading it.  I finally read all the posts.  I'm trying, really hard not to become crazed again.  I had many customers and friends right there, that day, but I know I'm fortunate.  Here's my thought: It's the most terrible single day in the history of man.  The insanity, the murderous cruelty, the single-minded evil, the epic destruction...  I can't stand to think about it.  I really avoid talking about this.  It decimates me.  It makes me hopeless. 

As cynical as I can be somtimes, I never feel hopeless. I do hope, in my heart of hearts, that this day is really without incident. I understand people's desire for remembrance and commemoration, something I do not share entirely. I just hope that the unthinkable does not happen. If it is a quiet and eventless day, I will be happy.

I can't sleep.  
Only that topic makes me feel that way, hopeless.  You don't understand.

I can't sleep.

People may have forgotten it actually took like 2 hours for the towers to fall which is why so many people did manage to get out.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you to anyone who has contributed in any way these past ten years to keeping us safe from a repeat of September 11, 2001, particularly members of the armed forces and the families who love them and miss them during their absence from home. To those who have fallen in defense of democracy, let their sacrifices never be forgotten. In tribute to those who lost their lives ten years ago, let there be meaning in their deaths by having we who survive use that terrible day as a lesson in the savagery of the foe, that we may never again be unprepared and never again see the like of 9-11-01. It is my deepest hope that those who once celebrated the events of that dark day will forever have cause to replace their laughter with bitter tears.

I was in 2nd grade when the bastards killed the innocents, but that's not the end. One of my class mates, her uncle was one of the first responders and charged into the building, but didn't come out alive.  :bluesad:

 :cheers:  :thumbup: :wink: :thumbup:

Best post of the entire thread.   Some karma coming your way too.


Double werd, brother!  Yamamoto said it on the deck of his battelship, and now these scumbags have found out, that they have "awakened a sleeping giant."  The ass kickings wil now continue...

God Bless America!

It's 12:30.  It's over.   :bluesad:  I'm glad.  I'm glad.   :thumbup: :smile:

I'm glad the day passed without any further attacks.  I was very nervous.

However, I was hoping that my Cowboys would administer a little 9/11 butt-kicking to the Jets, but it was not meant to be! :bouncegiggle:  I think NY had too much cosmic karma going for it on this day!

Yesterday afternoon at about 15h00 our time, Fox News broadcasted their 'Timeline Of Terror' feature and I sat watching the horror once again. At about 15h20, everything got a bit much for me and I went out for a while: the horrific visions in my mind and I could almost hear my heart pounding, just as it did in 2001 at almost the same time. I do believe that I cried then and I know I cried yesterday.  :bluesad:

I will add this:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2036119/9-11-Anniversary-Obama-rounds-day-remembrance-Kennedy-Center.html (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2036119/9-11-Anniversary-Obama-rounds-day-remembrance-Kennedy-Center.html) That final picture of a new dawn breaking in New York: wow.

And this, which I also put on my FB page:

God bless America ~ rise up, be strong, be proud.  :smile:

Since I am a frequent critic of our President, in the interest of fairness, let me just add that his remarks at yesterday's memorials were eloquent, dignified, and altogether appropriate.  Well done, Mr. President!

Well, he's magnetic and speaks very well, those are his strengths. If you gave him a set of instructions for a child's toy he would make it sound powerful. He's the Democratic version of Reagan.

Tomorrow is my birthday.

I trust that I will be able to enjoy it to the fullest without showing a shred of disrespect to the victims of that tragic day.

The victims in the planes, the towers and at the Pentagon.

Not the bastards that perpetrated this horror on the most special of days to me.

I may not have known any of you personally but all of you are remembered and never forgotten.

I hope that one day I will be able to come to New York to bring flowers, pay homage and by doing so, greet you with warm South African hugs.

I hope I will see those fountains one day and be splashed by the water which would then hide my tears.

May you all rest in peace.  :bluesad:

Today is a beautiful day here in NJ... just like it was on that day.  Just the same... sunny, dry, cool, a hint of Autumn in the air.  I remember on that day thinking how beautiful the day was.  Tomorrow of course is the eleventh anniversary.  I woke up early today, the windows in my house open all night, letting the cool fresh air in.  I've been out to breakfast and ate a lot for me.  I wasn't thinking about tomorrow at all.  Then I saw this thread revived.  Sometimes that anniversary is suddenly there, and my heart stops.  I feel hurt well up inside me.  My happy mood has evaporated.  I don't know that I will ever be able to really talk about it.

I was thinking much the same thing about the weather here when I saw this thread this morning, how today was such a similar day to what I remember. Sunny and cool, a nice day for September.

I was at work that dreadful morning and when the radio started reporting the first plane strike I thought this was a joke in very poor taste. Our manager ran into the office and pulled up the live reports over the computer....I came into the office just as the second plane hit. I hurried into the Ladies room,fell to my knees and started praying....I thought it was the end of the world.
It wasn't and life has moved on...however,I hope we never forget the massive loss of life and the heroes that saved those they could. When they announced that Bin Laden had been found and killed....shame on me,I rejoiced.
I've talked about this several times with my dear friend,Frank,who lost at least 6 close friends on 9/11.....I just saw the footage. I cannot even imagine actually walking through the clouds of dust that lingered as he did.


God Bless America......

I was teaching that day, and we didn't have computers or TV in our classrooms yet.  I had walked our attendance sheet across the hall to the office when our secretary said the Towers had been hit . . . I turned on my radio, and my students and I wound up listening in horror as the towers collapsed.  It was the first time I ever cried in front of my class.  The rest of the day passed in a blur.  My own children were in first grade at the time, in a different town from where I taught about 25 minutes away.  All I wanted was to go pick them up and hug them, but I couldn't do it till the end of the day.  Then we had a special prayer service that night at my church.

I can't believe it's been 11 years.

I'd gotten my truck that morning, and heard about it on the radio, then went inside where it was on TV.
It was a day of disbelief and stunned acceptance of this new reality.
11 years. Still can't forget.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OO5y2O_hv3I&feature=related

Weather today is exactly like it was then...clear blue sky, sunny, slightly chill, yet still warm.  Had I known heading into school how different things would be within the span of a couple hours, well. :bluesad:

Can't believe it's been 11 years :buggedout:

I am dreading tomorrow, not just because I am a year older but the connections I have to that day are too strong and almost too overwhelming. I had a pretty good birthday last year - going for a meal, seeing a movie I worked on (Searching For Sugarman) - and enjoyed it, while showing no disrespect to those who perished.

God bless America for tomorrow and always. :smile:

Trevor, I don't think anyone will hold it against you if you choose to go on living and enjoying life.  I think it's the best way a person can pay their respects to the dead. 

All I can say to that is HUG

I still want to come to New York to pay my respects at those beautiful fountains and also at the Pentagon and the field where Flight 93 crashed, just to let all of the deceased know they are never forgotten.

Trevor, I really can't remember 9/11, other than I was in the 1st grade when it happened.

On 9/11/2001 (a year and a day after my first son was born) I remember waking up and turning on the news, then sitting hopping between news channels thinking this was some horrible War of the Worlds kind of joke.  I sat there for an hour watching the news before I had to go to work.  I was listening to the radio on the way in and checking website after website while at work.  I didn't get much done that day.  I was smoking at the time and when I went to go smoke at lunch I noticed the lack of planes in the sky and remember being creeped out by that.

On 9/11 2002 though my second son was born.  I still think it's a little weird that we have a party on 9/11, but I'm not going to let my kid down.

I remember my wife back then calling me on her cellphone as she drove home from work, and  she woke me up around 8 I'd say, and in my half-asleep state, I heard her mesage on the answering machine, she said  "Turn on the TV but don't panic."  I did and saw the rest of the event in horror.

A bigger memory? The day the AH-1 Cobras and A-10's and other assorted aircraft flew over our house as they headed towards their deployment for the war.  For over an hour, aircraft thundered over our houses as our neighbors looked up and waved and yelled and screamed their well wishes for the Taliban and Al Qaeda.  People were screaming "USA!" and yelling all kinds of slurs and curses (again, well wishes for Bin Laden, lol) and I said to myself, "this is going to be BIG..."  And here we are 12 years later getting ready to take on Syria....

nope

You know what I have come to dread every year about this time are the nutcases who rise to the surface among more dignified remembrance events and make claims like:

"Ah defunutely think the Jews done 911. I seen a viduh on utube what proved it. Thats why there werent no Jews there in the twin towers that day. Some secret agent from Isreal done called everybody with a Jew last name and said dont go to work today there brother. Thats what I heard. Now the Pentagone? That was the A-rabs done that though."

Honestly, they'll come out of the woodwork tomorrow and I sure wish they wouldn't.

I have a former student, an active duty U.S. Marine, who is a conspiracy theorist on 9/11, apparently believing that the Bush/Cheney administration staged the whole thing in order to make money for their big oil and banking buddies.

No amount of reasoning will dissuade him, and it's very saddening - first of all that he would believe such a thing of our own government, and secondly that all the evidence debunking the conspiracy claims seems to make zero impact.

September 11, 2001 was the hardest day I ever spent in the classroom.  Looking back a dozen years later, I am still saddened by it.

But friend Trevor - put away the sadness and have a great birthday! 
Living life is the best way to honor the dead.

Ask that guy - although he is entitled to his opinion - if my continuing grief and stress disorder was also staged?  :bluesad:


That was the hardest day in my life, even my Dad's passing doesn't come close to it.


I will try: it's hard but I will try.  :smile:

Happy birthday to your young man for today.  :smile:

To the 9/11 victims: may you rest in eternal peace - warm South African hugs to you all.  :bluesad: :bluesad:

(http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/09/11/article-2036119-0DD3985E00000578-418_964x597.jpg)

Yeah I myself am against the action...we all know the Russians and Chinese are the wildcards in something that might blossom over to U.S. soil (if it hasn't already.)  Let the Middle East take care of their problems for once.

I guess we can all be thankful that we have no actual leader in the White House to drag us into another ego-driven war that we as the United States of America simply cannot afford as a country. No, all we have at the helm until 2017 is a self-centered, egomaniacal tycoon that imposes himself as King of the United States. I enjoy watching all of his policies fail, because the fraud of a president can't even keep all of his lies straight. How many foreign countries are laughing at him now? Even Vladimir Putin wrote a letter to the American people recently telling us that we all deserve a better leader than this one, and Putin is supposed to be our enemy!

So you were sad to see the fall of W. Bush when he lead us into war with Iran, who didn't have Osama Bin Laden in?

So Putin says we need a better president?

While I agree, Putin sure as hell isn't one to talk about being a good president.  Look at how the Soviets formed the post WW-2 World...they armed, trained and politically and militarily advised every Third-World Country and spread their seed to all of Asia and the Middle East.
And now they sit on the UN Security Council with their "comrades." the Chinese and step in the way of every Western interest or any sort of move against their client-states. And now the Chinese are arming Pakistan.

Look back to how Communism spread after WW2. It's always been my opinion that Germany should have won on the Russian front. We might not have had N. Korea or N. Vietnam or the Cuban missile crisis or any of the other stuff the Soviets were behind.

This in no way is to be conflated as support for the Nazis, but being I'm of German heritage, I have fallen prey to this unfair prejudice many times in the past and with some of the things I have heard some of the same people support on their own time, these individuals have no right to criticize. A lot of lives could have been saved with the eradication of Stalin and Kruschev and friends.

Even when Hitler studied Napoleon, he should have known NOT to attack Russia in the Winter. :tongueout:

I am one of this forum's resident right wingers, but even so, I would like to suggest that perhaps this topic should be steered away from becoming a political debate that will inevitably turn into a flame war and change nobody's mind?

We all have strong opinions, and obviously everybody but me is wrong about something.   But unless you are prepared to immediately elect me emperor of the universe, this is pointless.  And, to be honest, a bit disrespectful of the original topic.


Loves to you all, let's talk some movies!

We were deceived by faulty intelligence and a complacent Congress that funded the war in Iraq. We were also deceived by Saddam Hussein himself, who wanted Iran to believe that Iraq had WMDs to thwart a possible invasion from Iran. Saddam Hussein miscalculated: http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/01/27/saddam.cbs/ (http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/01/27/saddam.cbs/)

As for Osama Bin Laden not being in Iraq, we all knew of Bin Laden's involvement with Iraq's WMD program. The Clinton Administration certainly knew enough about it to indict Bin Laden in 1998: http://www.fas.org/irp/news/1998/11/98110602_nlt.html (http://www.fas.org/irp/news/1998/11/98110602_nlt.html)



The plot in this particular bad movie was pretty thick.

Well said, and I myself meant no disrespect.  I simply hypothesized that a German victory may have eliminated many of the post WW2 woes as the Soviets wouldn't have armed, trained, or established political beachheads in places like Afghanistan or Syria or China because they wouldn't have had Stalin or Kruschev.  

Don't forget that our original pre 9-11 involvement in Afghanistan was to help them topple the pro-Communist Najibullah regime, or that Libya was a Russian backroom darling and a major Soviet hardware client state. OR that the Russians have naval bases in Syria and that a certain day in October of 1961 almost led to WW3 for America.

If Communist Russia would had been wiped out by Germany, or by Patton's recognized dream of a follow-up strike on a weakened Russia, we may not have had all of this. and may not have had a 9-11 either. That's all I meant.  Always remember that all roads are connected at some point.

Indy, I wish the knuckleheads would listen to you. 

Hey. there's only one group of knuckleheads, watch how you talk about my boys:

VVHCWvlVfiw

 :bouncegiggle: :twirl:  

This sentiment bears threepeating.

How can you not be political about 9/11? Just another one of those "man-made disasters", like the JFK assassination, I guess. "Nothing to see here...move along...nothing to see here..."  :drink:

While I only partially agree with the statement on it being "man-made" as we all know what man (and his men) will continue to get the blame for it, I will say that as we get farther away from it, as time marches on, it will be just another day at the office in the minds of future Americans and people across the world.

However, at the same time, as historians and other analysts continue to advance, prove and\or disprove the reasons and theories behind it, I think one thing that will always remain will be the blame game. How future generations will shape and influence that, remains to be seen; as it will either be the same old, same old, or whether new ideas will arise.

So as we see, the more things change, the more some things stay the same.

Your attack on Obama had nothing to do with 9/11 and took the thread off topic.

My criticism of Obama was in response to someone else reflecting on the warpath that our current president is flirting around with, "and here we are 12 years later getting ready to take on Syria". I could go into where those WMDs in Syria obviously came from (Iraq, pre-2003 invasion), which would then lead us back to what I posted earlier about the Clinton Administration's 1998 indictment of Osama Bin Laden working in collusion with Iraq and their weapons of mass destruction program; Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, but Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda did. Then where would we be? Derailed still?

9/11 was all about politics. The people that died that day were simply the casualties resulting from those politics.

9/11 happened when terrorist hijacked planes, two hit the Twin Towers, one hit the Pentagon, the last one was unsuccessful- it crashed in a field. Many died, it was a day we never forget. TELL ME HOW THIS HAS TO DO WITH OBAMA? It doesn't, I find it personally as a checkey way to stab at him because some here are to uptight about him in office, S**T HAPPENS, deal with it. Now back to the topic or this gets locked, please.

It's true that you were not the first or the only one to take the thread off topic. Talking about Syria was already off topic. But no one had posted on that point for over two months before you reopened the thread with an attack on Obama. While 9/11 may have been brought about by politics, it was not brought about by Republican/Democratic rivalries.

P.S. Don't worry, El Misfit can't lock a topic.  :wink:

9-11 may not have been brought about by Democratic\Republican rivalries, but a certain Democratic president, y'know the one who did NOT have sex with that woman, let Osama Bin  Laden slip thru his hands 3 or 4 times in his presidency.

That said, some will still say that Bush may have been resp. for the second attack on 9-11 as some say, but Clinton's lack of action on crebible whereabouts of Bin Laden, and his excuse that the Taliban and Al Qaeda wasn't a certified threat at that time, were what made the first attack possible. That's all I'll say.

Thanks, guys.

I started this thread because 9/11 is my birthday and since September 11 2001, after the horrors of that day, I have never been the same and I struggle with the idea that what should have been the best day in my life gave birth to a never ending cycle of hurt, grief and disbelief at what happened. In fact, my severe stress and other health issues can be traced back to that day.  :bluesad:

I am not a political person and I never intended this thread to be pro or anti anything or anyone. :smile:

I wouldn't worry about it, Trevor.
You have a God-given right to ask others what they think or feel about any given subject no matter how controversial it may be. Naturally, some people will defer and not answer the questions and many more won't give the answers you're looking for, but that's man's nature. 
It's human nature to disagree, and disagreements happen. Each of us are responsible for our own thoughts\feelings, and we know you didn't intend it to be political. It's just that some of us are still incensed over the incident and the reasons some people speculate as the spark that caused it.

We all care about our country, as evidenced by the past arguments and the extremes they went to. If we didn't care we wouldn't be having this discussion.  Just try to remember to enjoy your birthday, and concentrate on life, not death. And remember that the people who caused 9-11 are weak cowards, and unworthy of life. And, also remember, that the weak destroy, but the strong rebuild. Enjoy your birthday, my friend., and have a drink on me  (or two!)   :cheers: :cheers:

Our webmaster and host would prefer we avoid political discussions on this forum.  Though I'm guilty of participating in such myself, he's right.  Let's avoid doing so in future.