I remember it like it was yesterday. I happened to have a little black-and-white portable TV here at work, because my step-daughter had appeared with her school group on the Deborah Duncan Show a couple days prior, and I had brought the tv in so I could watch. And the tv was still here. So, when a ripple began to pass through the office that.. something had happened to a building in New York, I turned on that little tv, and we began to watch. At first, nobody knew what had happened. A few years earlier, someone had flown a little single-engine small aircraft into the Empire State Building, and that's what everyone seemed to thing at the beginning: some terrible accident, nothing more. Nobody understood the sheer SIZE of the thing at that time. But shortly, news began to spread that several planes had gone missing, that it had been an *airliner* which had hit the WTC building, and this might have been some kind of terrorist attack. Remember if you can, those days when such an idea was unthinkable. Watching that building slowly but surely being engulfed in smoke and flames.. I don't remember the exact order, my memory is hazy, whether the Pentagon crash happened next, or the 2nd building was hit, but I do know I was watching as the plane hit the 2nd building. And I was watching when the building went down. It was there, surrounded by smoke, and then all of a sudden, there was only smoke, but, no more building. It went straight down. The loss of life, the loss of.. well maybe *everything*.. it was impossible to wrap the brain around it. Across the entire country, everybody anywhere near a tall building began to scramble away from it.. convinced theirs was next. Another plane went down, crashed in a field. Rumors said that one was headed for the White House. Or the Capitol Building. Or who knew where? But that meant the sky could have been filled with those enormous exploding harbingers of death. We were all just.. stunned. It was unbelievable. Terrorism is the effort to cause terror among a population. It succeeded, 100%. And I knew, from that day forward, the world had changed forever. I took it upon myself to learn, to really learn, what made those.. others.. those animals who could murder innocent men, women and children, for no sin other than being.. not like them.. what made them tick. Everything changed. Everything is still broken. The worst thing is, I sometimes get the sense that people would rather just forget about the whole thing. Never forget. Never forgive. Never accept it. Never let your children forget. Never forget those innocent people whose lives were snuffed out for no reason by inhuman monsters who only seek to harm and destroy. 09/11/2001
I was brushing my teeth when I heard the radio telling people to open their TV, and I saw another plane hitting the WTC. Then I saw the VP Cheney with a group of demolition expert pressing something .. and.. wait a minute.. forget about the second line.
I remember watching it in the band hall before school my 8th grade year. I remember my mom coming to tell me that my dad was safe, I had no idea he was on a flight to DC at the time. I remember going home and watching the news non-stop, alone, for days. I remember desperately wishing I was 18 so I could join the military and fight back. Every year I watch the same videos. And every year I shake my head when I think about how Americans seem to have given up on the effort to stop those who would do such things. I will never forget, and I will never forgive.
The more time passes, the more I'm convinced that "forgetting" 9/11 means progress. Too many people remember 9/11 for all the wrong reasons, it seems, as evidenced in the OP. Lots of people haven't learned anything from it, and the annual reminder to be pissed off, sad, and/or patriotic, has worn out its welcome for me. The next September 11th that comes where I'm not force fed hatred, sorrow, or national pride, will be the day we've truly healed.
9/11 is going to be like 12/7. I was sleeping than was abruptly awake around 9am by my brother to watch replay of the tragedy. I remember so fondly that it was a clear, blue day in Houston. I went to the restaurant to eat because of prior arrangement and the crowd was mostly quiet with the TV on. Then it was a week of just news and news.
Agreed. Here's a good article: http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-6-weirdest-things-weve-learned-since-911/
Just posted this WTF pic in the picture thread. Found it on reddit. Everything about this is so bizarre...
This I remember. Waking up to an early cool front and the gorgeous day outside, and then listening to Stevens and Pruitt or whoever was still on their show when Eddie "The Boner" Sanchez came on the mic and told us about it.
My mom actually used to work in DC. She passed by the Pentagon (i think on the beltway) 5 minutes before it was hit. My mom worked for Marsh at the time so she knew some people that passed. My gfs dad actually died 9/11/95 so it's just an all round sad, sad day. "What separates us from the animals, what separates us from the chaos, is our ability to mourn people we’ve never met." -David Levithan
the year clutchfans hangout doesn't see this thread lol and that free muffins bc ppl died thing is a joke. who thought of that?
I remember the raw rage and emotion and how GWB captured it that day so perfectly. <iframe width="480" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/MkiHWjX1yX0?t=21s" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Rep to someone that can find the clutchfans thread from that day, I'd really like to read through it.
I was a freshman at Texas A&M, just starting my second week of school. I remember I was at the computer lab, printing out an assignment, about to go to my first class of the day when the girl I was majorly crushing on called me up. I was excited at first to hear from her (we had an awesome night of staying up and talking about anything and everything the night before), but then when I heard her voice, something was wrong. I decided to blow off that class, and go to her dorm to see what was up (turns out only about 3 people showed up for class that day anyways, and all classes were later cancelled), and we watched everything unfold in her room. It was such a surreal time, that I think back on it with mixed feelings of sorrow, pain, sadness, with tinges of nostalgia of a better time before that day. But, like others have said, the day we can think back without feeling anger is the day that we have truly healed. I look forward to that day.
