Memories of 9/11/01

[Animeman73]

Okay folks usually I like to talk about nice things. But considering what today is I feel the need to bring this up here.

9 years ago today America suffered an attack far worse than the one at Pearl Harbor.  9 years ago today a small group of religious zealots from an abomination of a noble faith used two planes full of innocent people to kill even more people.  A more terrible act of of barbarism I have not seen ever.

I recall on 9/11/01 I was getting ready to go to work when I saw the news flash and the images that followed. It didn't take me long to put 2 and 2 together and come up with who was responsible. So many innocent lives destroyed just because a small group of people hate not just this country but our culture, our way of life, and our differing beliefs. One small group of bitter power hungry old men masterminded mass murder. I will never forget 9/11 and how it changed everything. It was the first time sometthing really scared me. It was a reminder that we must stand the vigil against tyranny from without and within. I believe 9/11 was indeed a terrorist attack and that this abomination of a noble faith will be stopped for the simple fact that their leaders are running out of pawns. No matter what you believe, if you're Republican, Democrat, Independant, Liberal, Conservative, Moderate, rich, poor, or whatever on this day let us stand together and let the world know that now and forever we will never forget!!!!!

I'd also like to hear from you where were you on 9/11/01 and what you were doing. Speak only if you feel up to it and thank you for your time.

[Darknight2433]

Well, let's see...I think I was in third grade at the time. My mom was crying and I didn't know why, so I did, and she had me watch the news with her.

They had all this news coverage of different aspects of the falling of the towers, so I actually thought towers all over the world were falling. I was afraid to go out for about a week until I was told it was only two in New York, then I learned more at school. We had an assembly to honor everyone and it was pretty sad. I still thought the world was ending.

I don't know what to think of it. I cried a lot for the poor people who died, but I feel sorry for the people who caused it. Everything seems so warped. Maybe I'll have a concrete opinion when I'm older.

[DemonSpawn]

Well, let's see...I think I was in third grade at the time. My mom was crying and I didn't know why, so I did, and she had me watch the news with her.

They had all this news coverage of different aspects of the falling of the towers, so I actually thought towers all over the world were falling. I was afraid to go out for about a week until I was told it was only two in New York, then I learned more at school. We had an assembly to honor everyone and it was pretty sad. I still thought the world was ending.

I don't know what to think of it. I cried a lot for the poor people who died, but I feel sorry for the people who caused it. Everything seems so warped. Maybe I'll have a concrete opinion when I'm older.

You musta been in second 'cause I was in third.

[Darknight2433]

Well, let's see...I think I was in third grade at the time. My mom was crying and I didn't know why, so I did, and she had me watch the news with her.

They had all this news coverage of different aspects of the falling of the towers, so I actually thought towers all over the world were falling. I was afraid to go out for about a week until I was told it was only two in New York, then I learned more at school. We had an assembly to honor everyone and it was pretty sad. I still thought the world was ending.

I don't know what to think of it. I cried a lot for the poor people who died, but I feel sorry for the people who caused it. Everything seems so warped. Maybe I'll have a concrete opinion when I'm older.

You musta been in second 'cause I was in third.

Then must have been second. I was only 7 or 8!

[@random]

Please note: This is only my opinion. It reflects on no one and nothing but myself.

I was actually living in New York at the time, and my workplace was about a mile north - it was so strange to walk outside and see a giant pillar of smoke rising from where the towers were. It seemed like a horrible joke. But the only TV channel still on the air to give news was a Spanish-language channel rendered doubly-unintelligible by static. And the plume of smoke that rivaled the clouds in size seemed surreal.

Everyone's first thought was to quickly locate their loved ones. But cell phones went down along with the towers, and ground lines were overweighed badly. Those who were able called out of the city to tell loved ones they were okay, because the lines in were completely swamped. Then there was nothing to do but wait, or go insane with worry if you were "missing" someone.

In the days that followed, we all hoped or prayed or tried to find a way to help. But the wide buildings full of beds for the wounded and rescued stayed eerily empty. And finally, a night of cold rain made clear what we already knew - there would be no more survivors. If you hadn't lost a loved one, someone close to you had. In a city of ten million, not one of us was truly a stranger to the others.

In the weeks that followed, we were incredulous to hear the rest of the nation calling for vengeance, for making someone pay and it didn't seem to matter who. We'd just learned a horrible lesson about how precious life is, and how easy it is for some crazy person to take it away if they decide the wrongs inflicted on them by people of the same religion, or color, or nationality, justify killing innocent people. And we were horrified to hear people talking about doing this in our names.

The next time you hear someone say that it's an acceptable loss for innocent people to be killed as "collateral damage" in war because they're different - or because people who look like them once hurt us - please remember 9/11. Please remember that nothing is worth that.

[DemonSpawn]

Well, let's see...I think I was in third grade at the time. My mom was crying and I didn't know why, so I did, and she had me watch the news with her.

They had all this news coverage of different aspects of the falling of the towers, so I actually thought towers all over the world were falling. I was afraid to go out for about a week until I was told it was only two in New York, then I learned more at school. We had an assembly to honor everyone and it was pretty sad. I still thought the world was ending.

I don't know what to think of it. I cried a lot for the poor people who died, but I feel sorry for the people who caused it. Everything seems so warped. Maybe I'll have a concrete opinion when I'm older.

You musta been in second 'cause I was in third.

Then must have been third. I was only 7 or 8!

Nooooo, cause you're a year behind me and Mr. Day was my third grade teacher. o3o

[TurboSaiyanJason]

I woke up one morning and wondered why I wasn't being rushed off to school that day. I saw my parents watching the news recapping the reports of smoke coming from one of the towers in New York City, and then the reports of the second tower being hit, and then both eventually crumbling down.

As one who's seen many movies of disasters impacting our cities, such as Independence Day and Armageddon, It's hard for me to admit, with everyone else weeping over the tragedy, that it didn't shake me at all. I will admit though, that if the Koin Tower and Wells Fargo building, or any other building in Portland was struck in the same manner, I would feel no different than the people in New York on that fateful day...scared, confused, and hungry for justice. I do however realize how close I was to the danger, by recalling my return from the Boy Scout National Jamboree, where we toured Washington D.C. among other places and stayed in the open fields of Fort A.P. Hill one month before. I feel blessed to be alive and out of there before it happened, but also guilty that others had to suffer while I got the luxury of watching helplessly as it all unfolded on my TV.

Back in world war 2, Japan's assault was its slap with a dueling glove to the face of America. On September 11th, another renegade nation sucker-punched us twice in our pride. I feel no pain from that day, but I don't know why. I only have the wish that others also have, after almost 10 years of our sleeping giant wide awake and pounding the snot out of terrorist nations, to get the job done and come home to peace once more.

I know others may have stories of their families and fiends who were much closer to the danger or were touched more by this incident than I am. As the song goes: "Do you feel guilty because you're a survivor? In a crowded room do you feel alone?" I feel blessed that it wasn't near home, and that I still have my hands and feet to provide help to those still affected by the ground zero attacks. I don't have the soft enough heart to cry for the ones who died, but I have the strong enough heart to cheer on the ones who have the power to avenge them. I can't help the way I am, I can only accept what I have and hold onto it tight.

That's all I have to say. I don't want to take up a whole page now.

[RemSaverem]

@ randompvg: I appreciate both your eloquence and your heartfelt pleas for tolerance and peaceful contemplation rather than bellicose action. I come from that space as well, while certainly great horrific unimaginable travesties elicit Pavlovian responses towards thinking that vengeance would be deserved or somehow fill the void of all that loss.

I do not pretend to have all the answers. But I do believe that cycles of violence are self-perpetuating, and at some point, will kill the whole planet, not just our species, if we do not agree to step off the cycle.

To do nothing in response would've been illogical & could've been mistaken for an open door to come do more or G-d forbid worse....Yet, every week, I pick up the Eugene Weekly, & there's a column listing the week's increases in war dead in Iraq & Afghanistan, war wounded, war-related suicides, and expenses so astronomical they're mind-numbing, & could solve a huge slate of economic & ecological problems back home if the funds were applied locally....

I pray for those murdered that day and for their families. I pray for those murdered by any form of terrorism, be it fanatical religious group-sponsored, fanatical poltical group-sponsored, or state-sponsored. I pray for a cessation of all forms of violence people enact against each other, and against the planet in various ways. I pray for a safe return of all military personnel & all civilians with them stationed overseas presently.

Thank you for listening. Respectfully, Rem.

 

[Saberchan]

I was getting ready for work when I first heard the news. I was watching the news and saw the report of the planes hitting the towers. I thought to myself: "This can't be real...This must be part of a movie or something..." You know those movies where they have those fake news reports, right? I thought this was one of them. But it kept going...and going...longer than a movie's fake news would. But I still didn't want to believe it. It was too horrid to be real...that kind of thing just doesn't happen...

Later at work, everyone was talking about it. How angry they were. It's then that it hit me that it was indeed real. It was then I felt angry, sad, and a bit scared. My sister was in DC when one of the planes hit the Pentagon. She said the ground shook and there was panic in the streets.

Later, my mom asked me if I had heard about it. When I told her "yeah", she asked why I didn't tell her...it was because I didn't think it was real that morning...it was denial...

[NeonFoxRocks]

I wish people were less like oh attacked! grrr mad/stereotypes/drama, and more like well what were the reasons and try to meet a philosophical equilibrium. I don't think I've heard a solid argument about our situation that wasn't biased by emotional means or selfish needs =/

[Washougal_Otaku]

First of all, Animeman73, let me say this to you as a person...



Second...

I was asleep when it happened.  Around 7:30 or so that morning, either my mom or one of my sisters called out to me, saying that I needed to see "this."  I got up, went out to the living room, and thought they were watching a movie.  I think I said something like, "Weird, they're showing a movie this early in the morning..."  A little bit later I saw the local channel's logo at the bottom of the screen; that was when I realized what I was looking at was no movie.  Since they had to leave (Mom --> work, sisters --> school) I decided to stay home and watch all the news I could to learn as much as possible about the events.

[EveofAbyss]

Someone just tell me how 9/11 was worse than Pearl Harbor. That's all I'm curious about.

[NeonFoxRocks]

Someone just tell me how 9/11 was worse than Pearl Harbor. That's all I'm curious about.

Eh pearl harbor was a military operation to destroy a military base, and the majority of casualties were military (although it was just about as underhanded.) In addition to destroying a 100% civilian building there was about double the amount of deaths compared to pearl harbor. But I do agree with you I don't see how this particular event 'Changed everything.'

[EveofAbyss]

Someone just tell me how 9/11 was worse than Pearl Harbor. That's all I'm curious about.

Eh pearl harbor was a military operation to destroy a military base, and the majority of casualties were military (although it was just about as underhanded.) In addition to destroying a 100% civilian building there was about double the amount of deaths compared to pearl harbor. But I do agree with you I don't see how this particular event 'Changed everything.'

Okay, that's what I was assuming, just the comparison of civilian and military casualties. Thanks.

[Kimiski]

I was in sixth grade.

I remember waking up and my family was sitting together in the front room watching TV and talking silently... I came in and asked what was going on. They told me what happened and then I watched TV for a bit before I got ready for school. I think for a while too they debated sending me to school or wondered if school would be cancelled, but in the end I went to school. (I only live a block away from the middle school)

I remember everyone was talking about it at school, and in every class all we did was watch TV, and the TV's were on at lunch too. Then all we did when we got home too was watch T.V. That's really all I remember of that day... but it was a very quiet TV watching filled day at school.

[Washougal_Otaku]

Someone just tell me how 9/11 was worse than Pearl Harbor. That's all I'm curious about.

Eh pearl harbor was a military operation to destroy a military base, and the majority of casualties were military (although it was just about as underhanded.) In addition to destroying a 100% civilian building there was about double the amount of deaths compared to pearl harbor. But I do agree with you I don't see how this particular event 'Changed everything.'

Okay, that's what I was assuming, just the comparison of civilian and military casualties. Thanks.

Also the numbers, and the fact that it was the first time in several decades that America was attacked on its own soil by a foreign threat.  There were some changes, but not to the extent that former President Bush indicated.

[Dubaby]

I remember my mom coming into my room to wake me up, telling me that something really bad had happened and then breaking down crying on the foot of my bed. We went upstairs where my dad and brother were watching tv and just kind of watched the news in silence, I remember seeing my dad crying for a bit. My mom took me to school and once all the kids got to class my teacher told everyone that we were going to have a free day and watch the news, it was a room of 5th and 6th graders glued to the television. I will always remember that day not just because of all the people who were lost, but it was one of the first times I can recall feeling less like a child, and beginning to understanding how cruel the world could be....

[RemSaverem]

I was on a Greyhound bus coming back from my exboyfriend's concert in Oakland and had had a vague dream about  the White House and my friend Rachelle & danger (really).

Got home, someone told me to turn on the TV, which was wierd because I at that time almost never watched it. I asked why. They said "Because the World Trade Center doesn't exist anymore."

Very shortly thereafter I had to fly across the country for my gramma's funeral. I was *very* scared. Someone gave me a stuffed animal to hug on the flight. I decided to go because to my way of thinking, if everyone curtailed from their lives all the things/activities/ceremonies important to them and their loved ones because of the terrorism, then that would be a way the terrorists had "won", that I wasn't willing to grant them. I don't know if that makes any sense to anyone else, but I remember making it as a decision, even if I would be risking my life to say goodbye to gramma.

[Kallika]

I was 6 living in NY at the time..I was pretty far away but could still see lots of smoke and things like that. Wasn't really sure what was going on though but I cried because my mom was crying...

Also it's my dad's birthday..and the day after my parents anniversary.

[Washougal_Otaku]

^ Wow...

[Cassiopeia]

I was 8. I had just moved to Israel that year. I remember watching the TV in a mostly empty house, and it was really shocking and surreal. Seeing the footage was pretty scary, and it was hard to grasp that the most iconic part of the NY landscape was just gone. We were also worried about my grandparents from New York; though they didn't live in the city, my grandpa used to work somewhere there, I think.