Wow guys, by tomorrow it's go to be ten since the terriost attacked our soil. Can you imagine how long that has been? I feel really old. Now here's a question, has America been any safer? I think so
9/11: Ten years later
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I suppose in here'd be a more adequate place to talk about it than the 'Post Your Day' thread.
Any of you any plans to go to New York for the tenth anniversary? I know Zeph has expressed desire to do that once. Any fruition there? They're doing the Tribute in Lights again, right? I'll need to find some kind of livestream for that.
Man I've been welling up over this Flight 93 documentary all day.
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My mother and sister are flying for work tomorrow.
I don't believe in superstition, and I'm not going to live my day in fear, but I do hope they will be okay.
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Its been 10 whole years but it doesn't feel like 10 years have passed. For the 10th year anniversary I'm participating in the '9/11 Memorial Stair Climb' in Greenbelt with firefighters from across America.
http://greenbelt.patch.com/articles/greenbelters-invited-to-join-firefighters-in-stair-climb
Participants will climb the stairs in the Maryland Trade Center I high-rise at 7500 Greenway Center Drive on Sunday morning. In hand, they'll carry the photograph and biographical sketch of a firefighter who was lost that day.
I'm pretty happy I'm doing something productive and memorable that day. As for the question on America's safety, I don't know, but I hope we are so that another tragedy like what happened 10 years ago never happens again
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10 whole years since that terrible day. Hard to believe.
Well, I have to admit I don't plan on doing much tomorrow. I'll go into work (as I always do on Sundays) and I may try to watch a 9/11 documentary, but other than that I'm not planning much.
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I'll never forget where I was that day. I just remember getting to leave school and being really happy about it since I would go home and watch cartoons. Little did I know what was really going on. Watching some of the videos they have been showing on TV recently really scare the shit outta me. The news station I was watching said "the possibility of another attack is not likely but still very real".
Anyways, I will say a silent prayer tomorrow in honor of those who died 10 years ago.
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September 20, 2001
With Jon Stewart
Good evening and welcome to the Daily Show. We are back. This is our first show since the tragedy in New York City and there is really noother way to start the show then to ask you at home the question that we asked the audience here tonight and that we’ve asked everybody we know here in New York since September 11, and that is, "Are you okay?" And we pray that you are and that your family is.
I'm sorry to do this to you. It's another entertainment show beginning with an overwrought speech of a shaken host–and television is nothing if not redundant. So I apologize for that. Its something that, unfortunately, we do for ourselves so that we can drain whatever abscess is in our hearts and move on to the business of making you laugh, which we haven’t been able to do very effectively lately. Everyone has checked in already. I know we are late. I’m sure we are getting in just under the wire before the cast of Survivor offers their insight into what to do in these situations. They said to get back to work. There were no jobs open for a man in the fetal position under his desk crying. . . which I gladly would have taken. So I come back here and tonight’s show is not obviously a regular show. We looked through the vault and found some clips that we think will make you smile, which is really what’s necessary, I think, right about now.
A lot of folks have asked me, "What are you going to do when you get back? What are you going to say? I mean, jeez, what a terrible thing to have to do." And you know, I don’t see it as a burden at all. I see it as a privilege. I see it as a privilege and everyone here does. The show in general we feel like is a privilege. Even the idea that we can sit in the back of the country and make wise cracks. . . which is really what we do. We sit in the back and throw spitballs--but never forgetting that it is a luxury in this country that allows us to do that. That is, a country that allows for open satire, and I know that sounds basic and it sounds like it goes without saying. But that’s really what this whole situation is about. It’s the difference between closed and open. The difference between free and. . . burdened. And we don’t take that for granted here, by any stretch of the imagination. And our show has changed. I don’t doubt that. And what it has become I don’t know. "Subliminible" is not a punchline anymore. Someday it will become that again, Lord willing it will become that again, because it means that we have ridden out the storm.
The main reason that I wanted to speak tonight is not to tell you what the show is going to be, not to tell you about all the incredibly brave people that are here in New York and in Washington and around the country, but we’ve had an unenduring pain, an unendurable pain and I just. . . I just wanted to tell you why I grieve--but why I don’t despair. (choking back tears) I’m sorry. . . (chuckles slightly) luckily we can edit this. . . (beats lightly on his desk, collects himself).
One of my first memories was of Martin Luther King being shot. I was five and if you wonder if this feeling will pass. . . (choked up). . . When I was five and he was shot, this is what I remember about it. I was in school in Trenton and they turned the lights off and we got to sit under our desks. . . and that was really cool. And they gave us cottage cheese, which was a cold lunch because there were riots, but we didn’t know that. We just thought, "My God! We get to sit under our desks and eat cottage cheese!" And that’s what I remember about it. And that was a tremendous test of this country's fabric and this country has had many tests before that and after that.
The reason I don’t despair is that. . . this attack happened. It's not a dream. But the aftermath of it, the recovery, is a dream realized. And that is Martin Luther King's dream.
Whatever barriers we put up are gone. Even if it's just momentary. We are judging people by not the color of their skin, but the content of their character. (pause) You know, all this talk about "These guys are criminal masterminds. They got together and their extraordinary guile and their wit and their skill. . ." It's all a lie. Any fool can blow something up. Any fool can destroy. But to see these guys, these firefighters and these policemen and people from all over the country, literally with buckets, rebuilding. . . that’s extraordinary. And that's why we have already won. . . they can't. . . it's light. It's democracy. They can't shut that down.
They live in chaos. And chaos, it can't sustain itself--it never could. It's too easy and it's too unsatisfying. The view. . . from my apartment. . . (choking up) was the World Trade Center. . .
Now it's gone. They attacked it. This symbol of. . . of American ingenuity and strength. . . and labor and imagination and commerce and it's gone. But you know what the view is now? The Statue of Liberty. . . the view from the south of Manhattan is the Statue of Liberty. . .
You can’t beat that.
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Robby posted all the good stuff…
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I remember seeing Jon Stewart's speech on YouTube somewhere, but I can't find the video.
I found another one, but the jackass put background music behind the speech (and not suitable background music AT ALL).
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Mmm still remember when they were showing this in my classroom on that day. Where it started off as "airplane accident" and the news was covering it as usual. And then that second plane came out of nowhere and…let just say things got very frightening after that. All the kids predicting the towers were gonna fall. We didn't want to believe it, surely they could withhold such a brunt attack. But the unthinkable happened and everyone was just in total shock as they came down. I didn't know what to feel as I saw that, my mind just went a total blank. Looking at it now, I still can't fathom how that could happen, but it just really show that sometime life can be unpredictable for better or worse, this just happened to be horrendous case of the latter.
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The network did a copyright claim, apparently and youtube pulled clips. Its up on the actual comedy central website, but that thing is atrocious for sharing and posting in forums.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-september-20-2001/september-11–2001
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I remember mostly seeing kids all day during school being pulled out of class, and rushing to phones in the office and stuff, lots of people in southwest CT work in New York city so nobody knew who was dead or alive or even at that point what exactly had gone down and what would still go down.
And I remember all the planes and helicopters I started seeing overhead in the coming days, coming from Sikorsky and Boston and stuff to go help with rescue and clean up I guess.
I'm just glad I didn't see the smoke, my friend who lives in Jersey wasn't so lucky, I guess they were downwind and saw these huge nightmarish black smoke clouds just oozing toward them in the skyline.I don't emotionally remember much, I was 13 so I was pretty immature on that front and stuff. I think I mostly observed other people. Thankfully I didn't know anyone personally which might have changed that situation.
I get more emotional in retrospect, especially when I think of New York and how much I love it. I think if there's a good heart to the world it's New York, I can't imagine any city being more the capital of all humanity. And to think of someone just stabbing her deep right in the face is absolutely horrible in every way, it's the last place on earth that should have to go through that, I'd rather my hometown be bombed than New York I feel that strongly about it.
I still get really really sad whenever I see images of the towers in old movies and stuff. And I remember having dumb arguments with my friends when I was a kid about what the tallest buildings were. My best friend was a diehard Sears Tower advocate, I always argued for the Twin Towers. They were just one of those mythic things you think about growing up like the Grand Canyon or the Pyramids, to a little kid anyway. The New York skyline isn't the same anymore.
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I was 8 when 9/11 happened. Still remembered what happened that day in school. I live in New Jersey about 30 miles away from NYC. The teachers didn't want to tell any of the kids about what was happening but I remember being pissed since we weren't allowed to have recess outside that day. Ahh the innocence of childhood. Really miss that part. Anyway, I went home and my mom called me from work and asked me if I was okay. I remember her crying since she worked closer to NYC and was able to see the smoke. Still didn't understand what was going on around me but it was very weird at school the next day. We didn't do much and the teachers were constantly talking to each other in the hallway. Really it's funny that I have so few memories from my childhood yet i can remember such little details about those 2 days.
I lived so close to NYC and yet by that time in my life I never even been in the city. The closest I got was one time when i went to a party with my grandfather which was in Jersey City and as we went home my grandfather pointed the Twin Towers out. The thing about that memory is that my grandfather still had pretty good vision and still was pretty independent. He used to take my everywhere with him. Not so much anymore. "All changes are more or less tinged with melancholy, for what we are leaving behind is part of ourselves." Yeah, that sounds about right.
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I was 6 when it happened so I don't remember much but I do remember my mom was scared and said we had to go away back at home fast evn if we didn't live in America.
Also has there been any new news about the car bomb that they were planning today aswell? Sounds fucking scary
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I lived so close to NYC and yet by that time in my life I never even been in the city.
Yeah, same here (about 40 miles). It felt distant even though it was right there because I was too young to really have come to know the neighborhood or city so well.
Thinking how freaked I am about the notion of NYC being fucked with like that just from how I've grown since, I can't even imagine what it would have been like to have that appreciation and familiarity while it was happening.–- Update From New Post Merge ---
@metteminne:
I was 6 when it happened so I don't remember much but I do remember my mom was scared and said we had to go away back at home fast evn if we didn't live in America.
Also has there been any new news about the car bomb that they were planning today aswell? Sounds fucking scary
Well the news was that they were aware of it and even had located the suspects so I'm not too worried.
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I appreciate that the country remembers this event, I really do, but I also wish other things:
1. That politicians and companies didn't use this to promote themselves.
2. That people don't use it to promote retarded nationalistic and racist propaganda.
3. That americans put as much effort in remembering what was done to them as what they've done to others.That last one matters to me a lot because, in the end, I'm an american myself. And this wrong that they committed on us happened because we as a country allowed our leadership to do stupid shit to other countries as well, in the past. Not saying we deserved it; No one deserves murder and fear. But as a people we need to have stuff like this be a wake up call to be involved in our government and politics so we can keep tabs on what our leaders can and can't do to others.
So I ask my fellow citizens to respect these people lives and remember them not by crying and holding a flag for one day a couple days a year, but by actually being conscious citizens and learning from history and from what's around us of ways we can be better people. I hate that the country blows this up but by september 12 the same stupidities in congress are done, the same hypocrisies continue, and the same hate and narrow-mindedness of the citizens exists.
I'm hoping we learn to change that before another idiot pulls another stunt like 9/11 for the purposes of furthering hate and fear against the U.S./rant
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IDK if I should put this up since the quality is pretty bad but thanks Robby. That was a very good speech.
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Hmm, ten years already, eh?
I've already told where I was the day it happened, and being so far away from it all it didn't really effect me on the same level as others.
I was emotional the day it happened, but so much has happened in the last ten years, so much I've caught up about and listened too that 9/11 is almost buried beneath my concern for the present and future.
But, even then, sometimes I think we're still sifting through the proverbial rubble, or that our culture still has a certain, lingering 'smell' to it since that attack.
That's the best I can put it. There's actually more, but this always feel like a sensitive topic to delve into in a public forum, and I've voiced my concerns anyway in private chats.
My thoughts are with the families of all affected by this tragedy. -
@Monkey:
Well the news was that they were aware of it and even had located the suspects so I'm not too worried.
Oh they are already located huh? Good. Thanks for replying
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Well, rather than talk about what I was doing on that fateful (which I already did not too long ago on another) I'd like to talk about something I've never even realized until this very moment.
The only time I ever went to New York City was approximately 4 months before the terrorist attacks. And, to be perfectly honest, it really wasn't a great experience for me. Not because I thought NYC was terrible or anything, it was all circumstantial. I had gone there for a field with the rest of my 7th grade class and for the whole day it was overcast, rainy, and I had a splitting headache, so it was pretty hard for me to appreciate all the sight-seeing.
Now, here's the thing: I remember seeing the Statue of Liberty. I remember seeing the UN building. But I have no recollection of seeing the World Trade Center. I mean, maybe I actually did look at it, but the point is that I had no interest in it and now I have no actual memory of seeing it. In retrospect, it's honestly kind of sad. The one chance I had at seeing the towers in person, even if from a distance, and…well, it's gone. If only I had known what was going to happen 4 short months later.
Now, don't get me wrong, this isn't just about the actual buildings. I'm not so shallow to say "Aw man, I really wish I had seen those towers before they got blowed up and killed 1000's of people!" The point is I had no appreciation for it at the time. I mean, it's not like I could've known what was going to happen, but it's a shame that one visit there has to have such negative feelings attached to it and to think it happened so close to the 9/11. Honestly, I feel more compelled than ever that I should really revisit this city some time. It's one of, if not the, greatest city in the entire country. It's strong. Resilient. A magnificent city with even more magnificent people.
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I was twelve years old. At that time we lived on Dad's camping park. My mum was working in the reception and was in a bad mood. I was going backward into their private space where a tv stood. The Pictures were just fresh. It just happened all. I saw that and thought it was a movie at first. Then I heard the news reporter. Then I started crying. I felt like it was my duty to cry. Like it was the only thing I could possibly do.
Next day in school we held a minute of silence in every class we had. For two weeks or so every magazine, every tv channel, every radio channel was full of 9/11.I'm watching N-TV all day today.
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! $200,000,000,000 spent after the attacks
1,506,124 tonnes of debris removed from the site
3,051 children lost a parent
2,819 lives were taken in the attacks
1,609 people lost their wife/husband/boyfriend/girlfriend
99 days the buildings continued to burn
20 percent of Americans knew someone hurt/killed in the attacks
1 day changed the world.
We will never forget. 10 years.–- Update From New Post Merge ---
There's one more thing.
Every day when I get home from work, I see a number plate on the wall of a building from the tram's window. It says "9/11".
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Wow, has it only been 10 years?
It feels much longer.
I was only 6 when this happened, but I still remember it. I was in the 2nd grade. My teacher was, well, teaching, and then she stopped suddenly. Looking out the window, she mouthed "oh my god". From the window in the back of our classroom you could see Manhattan. You could see the black smoke billowing up into the sky, like despair emanating from the earth itself. Blah.
We all rushed to the back of the classroom and watched, then we were reassured that "everything was fine" and to go back to our seats. We got out of school early that day, which we thought was cool. None of us knew exactly what was going on, so we were pretty clueless. My grandmother picked me up from school that day, and she took me back home. I met up with my mother, who was getting off the bus from work (much earlier than she usually would). I walked down my block and saw my Uncle standing across the street talking to my neighbors. He looked like he was telling a very long story.
He worked in the World Trade Center for years. The 2nd tower. He was there that day and he was able to escape. When the first tower was hit, they didn't know at all what was going on. He and many, many of his coworkers walked down the staircase. Of the World Trade Center. That's a lot of stairs, in case you're wondering. I still remember how he tells the story. About halfway down the stairs, security came over the intercom system and they told people that everything was okay with their tower and that it was safe to return to their offices and return to work. Many people did just that. And they're not here today.
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First grade. The principle came in halfway through the lesson and took our teacher out in the hall. She came back in ten minutes later and said that we were heading home early. All I remember.
Now my cousin worked at Wall Street when the plane hit. He walked back to Long Island from the city, and died of cancer from the fallout two years ago.
Ten goddamn years.
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I was five and I don't remember anything, to be honest.
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I was sixteen… I remember all the channels broadcasting the whole thing live... and the hordes of arguments between politicians on who was the actual culprit, back then there were a LOT of conspiracy theories and stuff... I guess they are still there. Being on the opposite end of this all, I remember my parents going on and on about how now we are in danger of retaliation. Then after seeing all those videos of families who lost their loved ones and being blamed for it all... it was tough.
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10 years ago huh? I was 12. I had just gotten home from school and it was on the T.V. I remember crying because it was so shocking and so awful to see so many people die just like that and the image of the towers falling, was simply horrifying… Man. 10 years... :(
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I think I was in 3rd grade when the towers fell. I was in class, goofing off, when the teacher turned on the television.
I didn't know what was going on at first. Until I saw the smoke billowing out of the towers.
At first, I thought it was an explosion from inside the towers, then I heard that two airplanes crashed into both towers. Our teacher said that there were people in the airplanes who were being held hostage. I was so depressed that all I remember doing was staring at the television screen for the rest of the class period, perplexed and saddened.
It wasn't until I got home that the full impact of the situation hit me, and I started to cry. It was too much for me to handle at that young age.Ten years later…It's still too much to handle.
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I was 8. I heard it from my coach when I was in line to jump at this rhythmic gymnastic thing I had going on back then… Then I told my mom and she started to cry. My biggest concern back then was that they moved "Disney fun" to another channel and comforting my mom. Needless to say I didn't understand the meaning of what was going on at all. It was just so far away to be real.
At the moment they are showing clips and documentaries on almost all the channels, and I know I'll cry but I can't just "click" away from it. Like that's even an option. For every clip I just wanna sit on the balcony lit a cigarette and stare.I hope everyone is doing well and will get through this day.
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I was 5 at the time, and had just started the first grade. I remember during recess, my Mom had come to pick my brother and I up from school, and I thought my brother was trying to play tag with my friends and I, so I kept running, but I knew something was up when my Mom came outside to the playground. My Grandma and Dad where home which was weird, and my Mom let my brother and I play outside with our neighbor(Also 5).
Now I know why my grandma was crying; My grandpa is a New York City firefighter(We live on Long Island). Thankfully he is alright, but he lost a lot of friends. One of the ones he lost is one of the guys on that picture, of the three firefighters holding up an American Flag.
Did have some harsh after effects though. My neighbors were Turkish, and at the time right after the attacks my parents where confused, and unaware of who exactly did this, and who could be allied. My mom thought she heard them cheering on 9/11 so she slept with a knife under the bed….However on 9/11 it was my neighbors 5th birthday, So but of confusion there :/
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I was 11,had just come back from school and in a hurry for card captors to start. So when I saw the footages I thought I was watching clips of a new movie on the news. It's only later when I read the captions that I realised what happened and only years later that I properly realised what happened on that day. It's still schoking to watch these footages 10 years on, unbelievable.
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I remember I was 10 and I also just gotten home from school when I found my mom and brother glued to the TV. My brother told me I couldn't believe what just happened if I didn't see it myself. Everything looked just so freaking unreal, like an over the top action movie.
I think the exact moment the gravity of it all sank in, was the moment I saw the first person jump down and the camera zooming in and following him spin down and down like a puppet all these seconds, that just felt painfully endless. And all we could do was watch.
That's when shit hit me in the guts hard and I knew things wouldn't be the same anymore. I still can barely bear to watch those moments even after all those years.I'm just glad Bin Laden was caught before this very important date, so to help the wounds heal atleast a tiny bit better.
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I was 11. During the day the teachers would occasionally congregate in the hall and discuss what was going on amongst themselves. They didn't really tell us what had happened except in the most vauge terms possible, so I didn't find out what had happened for sure until I turned the television on once I got home, and 9/11 newscasting was all that was one. It was very, very surreal to watch what normally happens in action movies and video games play out in real life. There was a particular shot of the camera following the descent of a jumper all the way down until they were obscured by the buildings at street level that I will never, ever forget until the day that I die.
It's been ten years now, has it? So much has changed since then, both in my personal life, and more importantly for the world at large. I can only wonder how things would be different had that terrible day never had taken place.
But it's too late to be worrying about things like that. This is our reality now, and on this day the greatest thing we can do is to honor the memories of all the victims of the tragedy, as well as the courage of the heroes who gave their sweat, and in some cases lives, to help them.
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10 years already? I can't believe that. It feels like it just happened yesterday.
I was 11 years old during that time, and I remember I came back from swimming, and my mother and my sister told me a plane crashed into a building and thousands of people died. I spent the whole day in front of the TV and watched the news. And I also remember my thoughts: "What will happen to this world?"
Next day we had a class trip. The mood was just depressing, and then our teacher told us that there will be another world war, one with nuclear weapons and we will all die .__.
It was so clever to tell that to a class of 11 year olds, because after that I was so fucking scared and thought I would die before I could even celebrate my 12th birthday one month later.
Later, a German magazin (Der Spiegel) published a big reportage about 9/11 and about the fates of some people who survived. I cried after reading that.I hope something horrible like 9/11 will never happen again.
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Ten years. I was 15 and remember walking into my living room where my grandmother was watching the television. She was sitting forward in her chair with an intense look on her face, and as soon as she saw me she exclaimed that a plane had flown into one of the Towers and that it was all all over the news. I was confused and just stood there, staring at the smoking building on the tv for some unknown amount of time, trying to take it all in, when the second plane streaked across the screen and crashed into the other Tower. My grandmother and I cried out in shock, and I remember calling for my mother in the other room to hurry, come see this (I think she was on the computer at the time, trying to find out what was going on, but not sure). We were all watching when the first Tower collapsed; I remember the cold drop in the pit of my stomach as I saw it crumble in a geyser of smoke and debris. It seemed so unreal, knowing that there were people still inside, dying. And I remember that cold feeling intensifying when the second one fell, feeling like I couldn't breathe, my skin in goosebumps, my hands on my mouth. I still remember that feeling very clearly all these years later, even though the later events of that day are now something of a blur of upset phone calls and fearful commentary between friends and relatives. We were lucky enough not to have any loved ones lost or harmed in the attack, but that did not lessen the nature of the tragedy for us in the slightest, or the grief felt for those who were not so fortunate.
Ten years. Seems longer….and yet somehow, not that long ago at all.
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Well, I just got back from the memorial and it was very much an honor to participate in it. I may upload pictures later if I ever get them.
Let's see, I was 12 years old at the time and in Spanish class when we were called into the multipurpose room. The principal wheeled in a tv there and turned it on to a news station (doesn't matter which one because they were all concentrated on 1 thing obviously) and we just watched scared and confused until we were picked up. My Spanish teacher was crying. I'm glad they let us watch rather than being left in the dark and even more confused. I didn't see any of the planes hit.
For days after I was a lot more cautious of my surroundings and people I hung around. You see, I'm Muslim and after the terrorists were identified as extremist Muslims and the attacks on American Muslims hit the news in waves my parents told me to be….well be careful wherever I went. Fear and paranoia were high and people lashed out in many wrong ways, but luckily I wasn't directly affected. I guess you could say I'm not easy to identify as a Muslim anyway. People usually don't know unless I tell them or they hear my last name. Anyway, it was a scary time added by the fact that I could be unjustly attacked and blamed for stupidity and murder that I had no part of whatsoever. Truth be told though, the main reason I was most scared was the same reason as most Americans. Fear of another attack and an uncertain future. I wasn't too scared of a personal attack on my being because everyone around me was nice to me. Nothing changed in that respect but I was cautious.
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I was five years old and had such bad Aspergers that my parents figured I wouldn't have even been able to understand what happened. So the only thing I vaguely remember was people turning off the television whenever I entered the room.
What was really scary for my family was that my aunt worked at the World Financial Center and we couldn't contact her for a while. That day she had therapy earlier in the morning and was about to enter her building when she saw the first plane hit the North Tower. She also brought home a dog who was found by a pet shelter at the site weeks later, and then brought that dog down to DC for us to keep as our first dog. She was such a wonderful dog, but she died 6 years later from bone marrow cancer, which possibly could have been related to the WTC dust or something. I still miss her sometimes :C
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I was 9, in 4th grade. Teacher told us about it, and then said that the back-to-school picnic was cancelled. I didn't know what the big deal was, and I was much more upset over the picnic than the disaster. People kept on trying to tell me it was a big deal, but I was being stubborn in my apathy. Later my mom talked to me about it and I cried, more from embarrassment at being an unfeeling ass than actual sadness. I understand and comprehend the thing today, but I still don't empathize with it very much. Which I feel guilty about.
for context: I was living in Oregon, and I have never been further east than Indianapolis in my life. New York was the other side of the world. I didn't even know the twin towers existed.
I'm really sorry if I'm offending anyone here. I'm not trying to be cool and edgy, I don't mean to be like that, but this is just how I honestly feel. I feel very unattached to the whole thing. I realize I'm in the minority here, and I can delete my post if people get upset. I just wanted to get that off my chest.
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So my grandpa who's a NY firefighter is at a service in Brooklyn for some friends that died on 9/11, and two guys from Seal Team 6 where there. They said "We can't say much, but let's just say we got a lot more than Malaria down there". Awesome!
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I was 11 years old. I was in middle school, and was talking to a few friends while walking to our homeroom class. We walked into the class, talking up a storm, and then our teacher screamed at us, "SHUT UP! SOMETHING HORRIBLE JUST HAPPENED! WATCH THE TV, BECAUSE THIS IS SOMETHING YOU'RE GOING TO TELL TO YOUR GRANDCHILDREN!" I always hated that teacher. She was always too melodramatic about everything, and I don't mean this (she had every right to be loud over this case, though). She was a health and body teacher, and let me say, I've never met an 'anti-drug/alcohol' teacher who gave more negative connotations toward alcohol/drugs in my life. Seriously. "ALCOHOL IS PURE POISON! POISON KILLED MY DOG (true story)! YOU WOULDN'T PUT POISON IN YOUR BODY!" Shut up….
But like I said, she had every reason to freak out about this. I remember just staring with my mouth wide open. It scared the shit out of me, and it just felt like a dream. I didn't know anyone who was killed in the tragedy. I did know someone at Gym who's mother was in New York during the time. I was so scared for him, but she was okay. I was eventually called home, since my sister's university closed down for the day and the two of them didn't feel safe with me being in school. Majority of the students went home, as well, anyway.
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I was living in New York. I wasn't at school that day, but rather at a dentist appointment. We got the news in the waiting room, but business went along without delay. That didn't stop anyone from talking about it while doing their work, even me. I dunno what's the point of saying this every single year, but I like sharing. And to think a day at the dentist could be even a topic to bring in up conversations or remember :D
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I was 9 years old still living in Illinois at the time, I remember me and the other students walking into class and saw the teacher had the radio on with a somber look on her face.
At that time the plane had struck the north tower and we all assumed that it simply an accident but after the principal brought in to the auditorium where we saw the south tower and then pentagon being struck that the principal told us everything that was happening and how confused and frightened we all were. The most horriifying part was seeing all the jumping from the towers to their deaths.10 years, it's a bit surreal that it's been that long.
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I can't believe ten years has passed already.
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I just got back from class and when I saw the clips on TV I didn't realize what happened. The Unibomber trial was in the news and I assumed that what it was.
My uncle mike was working in the second building that day. Thankfully they left after the first crash otherwise they wouldn't have got out in time. My uncle kevin was a firefighter. His oldest daughter got married only a couple of years later.
It was really hard on my mom. She not only knew him, she dated him for a while and was the one who introduced him to my aunt.
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i was 9 years old at the time, coming downstairs to get a drink.
i remember walking into the living room and seeing the smoke on the tv while my mum sat there in shock, gazing at the screen intently.
i sat myself down and tried to figure out why the building was smoking so much, not understanding much of what was going on.i think it was barely 5 minutes later that we saw the 2nd plane crash into the other tower, causing us to jump out of our seats and cry out in surprise.
it was so shocking and unreal, we couldn't believe it was happening.
it was at that point my mum started tearing up in shock saying "oh my god" over and over.
i wasn't old enough to fully appreciate the gravity of the situation, but i at least knew that it was something very very bad.
i hugged my mum to comfort her while the panicked reporters tried their best to talk about what just happened.then when they fell down… my jaw metaphorically hit the floor and i sat there wide-eyed with shock. it was like watching something from a movie.
my mum couldn't stand it anymore and left the room. after she calmed down she called my grandma and told her to turn on the tv.
for the next few weeks, the events of that day were all that me and my school friends could talk about.my great aunt also lives in CT near the border on New York's side, and she regularly takes day trips to New York City by train.
i'm so glad that she didn't have any business over there on that particular day. -
I appreciate that the country remembers this event, I really do, but I also wish other things:
1. That politicians and companies didn't use this to promote themselves.
2. That people don't use it to promote retarded nationalistic and racist propaganda.
3. That americans put as much effort in remembering what was done to them as what they've done to others.That last one matters to me a lot because, in the end, I'm an american myself. And this wrong that they committed on us happened because we as a country allowed our leadership to do stupid shit to other countries as well, in the past. Not saying we deserved it; No one deserves murder and fear. But as a people we need to have stuff like this be a wake up call to be involved in our government and politics so we can keep tabs on what our leaders can and can't do to others.
So I ask my fellow citizens to respect these people lives and remember them not by crying and holding a flag for one day a couple days a year, but by actually being conscious citizens and learning from history and from what's around us of ways we can be better people. I hate that the country blows this up but by september 12 the same stupidities in congress are done, the same hypocrisies continue, and the same hate and narrow-mindedness of the citizens exists.
I'm hoping we learn to change that before another idiot pulls another stunt like 9/11 for the purposes of furthering hate and fear against the U.S./rant
Please and thank you.
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I was 6 at the time…...honestly, I don't remember anything about that day. And to think, it changed the lives of so many people.
Perhaps I should be glad I don't remember…...nobody I knew (thank the heavens) perished.
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Its very strange, seeing how many people in here are saying they were 9 or 10 at the time, and in elementary or middle school. It must have been a different experience for you all, half your lives have been in a post 9/11 environment.
My story is like nearly everyone else's, I suppose, except I was in college at the time. I went to school, and had some time to kill before class, so I was surfing the internet, and checked the message board I frequented at the time.
One of the posts was "What the hell is going on,now the Pentagon is on fire!!!and the Whitehouse has been evacuated!!"
And that's probably the first thing I saw. Just a line of text.
And it completely went over my head, it was a meaningless sentence to me. There were a couple other posts about planes and the WTC, but I had no context, I didn't even realize what a WTC was at the time. I thought he was just talking about a game or something non sequitur. Single line, I ignored it and kept looking at other stuff.
And then some more time passed, and the board started talking about it more and more, and I started to grasp what was going on. A couple people that I considered close friends DID live in New York, and they'd reported in safe and sound… But it still hadn't really registered. It was impersonal, it wasn't real, it was just a few lines of text. A couple people on that board that I considered close friends DID live in New York, and they'd reported in safe and sound... But it still hadn't really registered. It was impersonal, it wasn't real, it was just a few lines of text.
Going back and actually checking those archives, apparently my first response to it all was "Holy crap! The world trade centers AND the Pentagon? What the HFIL is going on? Normally I'd toss out some kind of wisecrack, but this just isn't a laughing matter... Eeesh..." Note the "HFIL" and the "Eeesh" joke words. the enormity of it just hadn't set in yet, it was impossible to grasp.
At about that point, my best friend arrived (we'd scheduled most of the same classes that year and so had the same free time in the morning) and the first thing I asked him was, perhaps excitedly, crossed with disbelief, "Dude, have you heard the news?" "No, what news?" I told him, but still in that way of not really understanding at all what it meant, and noted "Oh, and XXX has already checked in, they're okay."
We spent the next several minutes looking at CNN.com and other news sites, and started seeing the actual pictures. (the internet didn't really have streaming video yet, or at least computers and internet couldn't handle it) I think the other two planes crashed by then, and my friend made a comment about it being like being in a bad movie by a certain director. (The actual quote is long forgotten, but the sentiment still holds.) And then we went to class, still unsure of what to do, it still not sinking in that it was a nationwide threat.
The teacher started the class, in tears, and briefly told the room what was happening. (And with a much, much higher estimated death toll, as I recall. 50,000 was the number for a couple days before they eventually settled on the much lower 3,000? ) and then... proceeded to give a normal history lesson. Which nobody could concentrate on.
After class, we both agreed that, well, there wasn't going to be any concentrating on class today, so we drove to my house (which was only a few blocks from the school.. why I went there.) to see it on tv. With actual moving footage, and the towers collapsing. And we just stared, dumbstruck by what we were seeing. It hadn't been real until then, and we could actually see it. We'd been attacked, it was a declaration of war ,and thousands of innocent people were dying. Even before the news started sayng all those things... it was clear. My friend headed home, and I called my girlfriend, and talked to her for most of the rest of the day.
And then I don't really remember anything else. Those first couple hours are pretty vivid, but the rest is just a total blank.
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I have the flag in front of my house flying at half in honor. Even though 10 years has gone by since the attack, I've just been seeing people having a normal day. Even me, I lived today just as I would had nothing happened at all 10 years ago. I don't know if it's a big deal but I always pictures the 10th anniversary to be a solemn day of remembrance.