As 9-11 Approaches...

I was in 7th grade. We got called into the main assembly hall at school where we were told that a plane had flown into the WTC. I was thinking, "Wow, a little Pipe Cub could get lost in New York and hit a building? Wonder if the pilot suffered a heart attack..." Then a person came up to the speaker, whispered something, and he said, "We've just been told that the first tower has collapsed." Then I saw the news footage and realized I was witnessing history.

For one brief moment, our nation was united. We put aside our petty bickering to help one another. Our leaders sang "God bless America." Prayer services were held everywhere. The world seemed to really care about our loss.

But now, all I can think about it how much we lost after that day. More freedoms with idiotic legislation like the Patriot Act. Ten years of war that degenerated into Vietnam 2.0. More infighting. More flailing. Global opinion turned against us in that same decade.

We got Bin Laden, yeah. Didn't bring a single victim back to life. The full effects of that day won't be measurable for many years to come.

That was, indeed, a surreal day... one of the few times I've had to attempt my lucid-dream test while actually awake. (If I can push my finger or thumb through a solld surface, I know I'm dreaming, even if I feel awake. I had just woken up when I heard the news...)

Even more surreal was the three-odd days of air traffic silence. There's almost always an airplane somewhere in the sky, or one just about to show up, where I live.

Yeahp, a surreal day. My then-wife and I were on top of the South Tower (WTC-2, hit last but the first to collapse) just four months prior to 9/11. We did the tourist thing at her insistence. What a view! Glad she talked me into it. Anyway, got pictures of the huge antenna on top of the North Tower. Unbelievable to see that antenna fall as WTC-1 collapsed.

That day brought the reality of 1984 closer, and far faster, than any of us realized at the time. Opened the floodgates to loss of privacy, snooping, spying and more. Today I feel that no matter where I go - I'm being filmed. Bet you do, too. Digitized and catalogued for later viewing.

I was working at a vet hospital when it happened. I'd been there for about an hour and at first I just shrugged it off. I figured some idiot had gotten lost in low cloud cover, like when when someone hit the Empire State Building in 1945. I just kept on working, then I noticed I hadn't seen anybody else in a while. I went looking and found them all in the lounge room watching the TV. The second plane had already hit.

Definitely one of the most surreal days of my life.

I was in NYC, I saw the towers fall, and I'll probably stay off the internet altogether on 9/11 because frankly, I really don't care to relive it every year, and this year in particular.

Lavern08 said:

...(I know, cliches galore - so sue me)

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I will. I have a country lawyer who learned law on the streets, interned for big fancy firms in the summer and will see you in court, Counselor.

One of the big things I did soon after this colossally tragic event was take on the conspiracy theorists online, some of whom went so far as to claim the Gubmint blew up the buildings with a particle beam from space. I was appalled at how these wild-eyed loons just spun anything at all to get attention. Forgetting completely about the depth of the tragedy, the casualties, the brave men and women who pitched in selflessly... Eventually we quieted them down with logic, reason, science and perhaps an appeal to their lost sense of humanity.

Every time that day rolls around...honestly I always feel a sour taste in my mouth over it. Yes, the people killed that terrible day deserve to be mourned, but I find myself thinking of the neverending conflict spawned as a result, how we've killed several times as many innocent Iraqis and Afghanistan civilians, in addition to many others (because we're also fighting several undeclared wars all over the Middle East in addition to Iraq and Afghanistan), all in the name of some 3000 people. If Iraq Body Count.com can be believed, we've killed over 150,000 civilians just in Iraq alone, civilians whose only crime was being born into the wrong country. The way we so glibly dismiss civilian deaths, refusing to acknowledge the pain their parents feel, calling them "collateral damage..." It makes me sick, honestly. I was less than a month away from turning ten when the OKC Bombing happened and I can remember how outraged everybody was when Timothy McVeigh referred to those killed as "Collateral Damage." Yet somehow we're shocked that those foreigners don't particularly enjoy having their grief and suffering dismissed as "Collateral Damage."

I also think about how long this war has gone on, how people too young to remember 9/11, are now old enough to fight and die in wars started as a result of 9/11. Not to mention all the civil liberties we've trampled in the name of protecting freedom. People keep saying "It's war time!" and blathering about sacrifices, but thing is, no one can point to exactly when this war is supposed to end and when we get said civil liberties back. WWII ended when the Axis Powers and Japan surrendered; when exactly is the War on Terror supposed to end? When all the bad people in the world promise never to do bad things again?

But I live in the buckle of the Bible Belt, a very conservative part of the United States, so I can't say much of what I'm thinking when that anniversary rolls around. I keep my thoughts to myself and quietly mourn the losses on all sides.

I heard first about the Pentagon (was on my way to work), and immediately thought of Clancy's Debt of Honor. A couple of minutes later, when I heard about the Towers for the first time, I nearly dumped my bike. I was escorting a funeral procession shortly after the towers came down. It was a little unnerving. I had to brief the drivers to make sure they were paying attention. Traffic was surreally calm.

And the whole time this is going on, I'm trying to reach my ex-wife in Pennsylvania, because at the time I had no idea where Shanksville was in relation to Pittsburgh.

A friend of mine had left work at Cantor about 6-9 months prior to the attack.

Brightdreamer said:

That was, indeed, a surreal day... one of the few times I've had to attempt my lucid-dream test while actually awake. (If I can push my finger or thumb through a solld surface, I know I'm dreaming, even if I feel awake. I had just woken up when I heard the news...)

Even more surreal was the three-odd days of air traffic silence. There's almost always an airplane somewhere in the sky, or one just about to show up, where I live.

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There wasn't air traffic silence in NY - there were fighter jets, patrolling overhead. They sound disturbingly close and loud and strafing.

Write_At_1st_Light said:

I will. I have a country lawyer who learned law on the streets, interned for big fancy firms in the summer and will see you in court, Counselor.

One of the big things I did soon after this colossally tragic event was take on the conspiracy theorists online, some of whom went so far as to claim the Gubmint blew up the buildings with a particle beam from space. I was appalled at how these wild-eyed loons just spun anything at all to get attention. Forgetting completely about the depth of the tragedy, the casualties, the brave men and women who pitched in selflessly... Eventually we quieted them down with logic, reason, science and perhaps an appeal to their lost sense of humanity.

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I think the conspiracy theories come from a combination of things. During Vietnam, it was proven that the government had lied about a number of things, so there has been a long-standing mistrust of those in power. The counterculture spread the idea that you should never trust those above you.

But I also think that we refuse to accept that just a few people, a bunch of nobodies, could change the course of history and pull off one of the most sophisticated attacks on the most powerful nation on Earth.

Emermouse, I live in the Bible Belt too. Not sure who you associate with, but the folks I am around are sick of the fighting and disillusioned with war.

I was a senior in HS when 9/11 occurred. With us as with most it took us a couple hours to realize that what really was happening. In that class of 19 people, 5 of them were already signed up to go into different branches of the armed forces. Over the next couple months till graduation a sort of somber mood slowly crept into the room and it truly reflected in the end of year presentations we all had to do. I am happy to say that all of them completed their tours of duty. So every year I don't think of the people in NYC, the Pentagon, or the plane that crashed in PA, but my friends in that classroom.

What I find surreal now is that my students, who are fully fledged adults, only remember 9/11 as that scary thing that happened when they were a little kid. It was so big; how did it slip into the past so quickly?

I was sitting in a sales training class when the first plane hit. The secretary in the office heard it on the radio and broke into the class, we were all stunned for a moment but the class broke up quickly.

The second plane hit as I was driving back to my office, I heard the news over the radio. At the time I owned an IT consulting business based on Providence. Two of my guys were down with a client in DC.

We got in touch with them eventually, "Yeah, we're sitting here in the hotel bar watching the Pentagon burn."

I think it took two days to get those guys home, they had to scramble to find a rental car.

We lived in NYC when we were first married until 1996 when we moved away, and knew a lot of people in the city still. We were there for the first attack in 1993. I'd attended job interviews and had acquaintances that worked in the WTC but had been out of touch with most of them. I still can't tell you today if people like the recruiter that interviewed my for a job in the WTC made it out or not, I didn't know him well enough to track him down but I often wondered.

It is odd being out of the U.S. for 9/11, its not a big thing in other countries. Some of them have their own holidays and tragedies they observe. Most of what I will hear for 9/11 remembrances will be through Facebook.

Emermouse said:

Every time that day rolls around...honestly I always feel a sour taste in my mouth over it. Yes, the people killed that terrible day deserve to be mourned, but I find myself thinking of the neverending conflict spawned as a result, how we've killed several times as many innocent Iraqis and Afghanistan civilians, in addition to many others (because we're also fighting several undeclared wars all over the Middle East in addition to Iraq and Afghanistan), all in the name of some 3000 people.

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^^^ This for me as well. I am American but I live in the UK now, and 9/11 is one of those days where the cultural gap becomes most apparent to me, and not in American favour. There have been terrorist attacks on European soil, Asian soil (Indonesia, anyone) ... but none of them are as memorialised as 9/11.

9/11 was a tragedy, but there have been many tragedies in the last twenty years that have claimed more lives, but none are as continually publicised.

I almost feel like keeping it fresh in popular memory gives the terrorists more of what they wanted?

Shocking in '01, still sad fourteen years later. Also angering and demoralizing and criminal how Wolfowitz and company chose to distort and misrepresent starting in '03, the repercussions of which still have profound effect. I had a cousin go down in the second tower, an exec with a big insurance firm who got all of his employees out but went back for a straggler and lost his life.

I was living in New Mexico when it happened, but now I'm in NYC. While the attack was shocking for every American no matter where they live, the attitude is definitely different here. The city has a different vibe, especially the people that lived here when it happened. I think it's hard to prepare for the date, except to plan to have a personal moment of silence and remembrance.

grose said:

I was living in New Mexico when it happened, but now I'm in NYC. While the attack was shocking for every American no matter where they live, the attitude is definitely different here. The city has a different vibe, especially the people that lived here when it happened. I think it's hard to prepare for the date, except to plan to have a personal moment of silence and remembrance.

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As someone who lived here before 9/11 and still does, I really do not think the city has a different vibe -- or, to the extent it does, it is more because of other factors (e.g., rising rents driving out mom and pop stores and the less affluent). Certainly there was a big difference in the weeks and months that followed. Certainly it was a while before that big pit at the world trade center was cleared and rebuilt (alas, for a couple of years, my office had a lovely view of the pit, and I got to walk by it every day*). But IMO, NYC has mostly picked itself up and moved on. And IMO, that's a good thing.

Everyone I know who lived here on 9/11 wishes that we did not have to relive it every year and listen to all the patriotic/anti-patriotic rants. (I'm sure there are plenty of exceptions, but not among my acquaintances.)

I will commemorate the event by leaving my TV off, avoiding downtown and any demonstrations or memorial events, not picking up a newspaper, and to the extent possible, staying off the internet. In fact, I think I'll start now.

I wish you all well in whatever you decide to do tomorrow.


*ETA:

Fortunately for me, on 9/11, my office was far enough away from the trade center that I was not in immediate danger (though I had a full-on view of the entire catastrophe from the office windows; we were on the 42nd floor). Afterward, we moved offices to one next door to the site and immediately overlooking it. How I hated it.

I have an unfinished draft of a 9/11 poem. I had considered trying to finish it this summer, but as events played out, it was pretty much the last thing I wanted to work on, and the truth is, I'm not sure I'll ever finish it. Perhaps I'll post the draft for those who like that kind of thing.

I agree with Cassandra. I don't think it has a different vibe, and I think the 'vibe' right afterwards was different here than in a lot of the country that wasn't here.

People went to help, but that's what people do, I think all over, and certainly here, in a crisis. For lack of a better term, and I'm not sure how to put it so it won't possibly offend anyone, I think NYC is less sentimental over 9-11 than many other places. I mean obviously people are, and tons of people knew someone or many someones who were killed, but ... I dunno; I feel people other places view it very differently than people here, and not just in an 'experienced it' way.

It's like how shocked people were. Again, obviously, people here were shocked; it was here, it was real, and it looked like a damn movie. However, no one I know in NYC was shocked at the basic fact that terrorism happened here. The specific was shocking, but not so much the general. Like the old video for some Van Halen song that had all these 'facts' scrolling across the screen - one was something close to 'there's a madman loose on the streets of your town.' I remember seeing that a long time ago and laughing because, well, no shit.

I'm not being particularly articulate here, but it's sort of, from my perspective, that people elsewhere (I'm generalizing, of course, not speaking about every person each place), seem to feel a loss of innocence about 9-11, a turning point that the U.S. was attacked, the first real, 'the big, bad, they could actually get us,' thing, that people in NYC were mostly well aware of and inured to. Not that anything that big had happened, but it wasn't some loss of innocence that it did. New York was and is a target. Has been for more than the lifetimes of anyone here, and everyone here knew it September 10, 2001, and knows it now.

I actually was sleeping, worked late the previous night. By the time I woke up both buildings had come down. I never considered it a loss of innocence, that happened in 1993.

I had been working on Long Island for several months on a contract job when the attacks happened. It was completely surreal and horrific for me, but the most emotional thing was standing in the break room of the company hosting me and watching all of those people fall apart. The grief, the anger, the fear. One man actually tore his own clothing. It felt very voyeuristic to be an outsider witnessing that.


(On a shallow, personal note, I also ended up breaking up with my boyfriend because even though I wasn't near the towers, every single person in my life frantically phoned, and sent a bazillion emails when they couldn't get through, just to make extra sure I wasn't in danger... except my boyfriend. When I called him a week later, he asked, "'S'up?")

I get angry every time the day rolls around. 911 and it's aftermath was the most shameful period in recent history as far as I am concerned. At first we were united against a common threat, but it quickly devolved into a period where citizens turned against one another at the prompting of a corrupt administration that used the tragedy to their own benefit. I still believe 911 to be a false flag operation that the administration used to manipulate its citizens. We were willing to surrender certain freedoms for a false sense of security, we believed outrageous lies told to us by a corrupt administration to go to a war against a country that had nothing to do with 911, we never sought to punish those who lied to us, and all this resulted in the formation of ISIS.

I still cringe thinking about our smirking president, blowhards like Cheney, Rumsfeld who discredited all that came forward to challenge the administration bent upon war. I cringe when those of us who protested against going to war with Iraq were called traitors by the administration. I feel embarrassed when we turned again countries like France and started calling french fries, freedom fries. I don't feel any sort of pride for our country when I think of 911, but shame. Shame for the way we handled it as a nation.