Remembering 9-11

[darth los]

I don't remember if we did this last year but this is a thread dedicated to the memory of the fallen of 9-11 and or brave men and women serving in our military fighting the war that it has wrought. Every genration has an event on which they will never forget where they were on that day. For some it was Pearl Harbor. For some it was the assasination of JFK. For this one it was 9-11, maybe as world events altering a tragedy as there has ever been if you look at it. It's interesting to talk to children and teens who don't remember the towers or that day and how they view the world, because all they know is a post 9-11 world. They don't remember how it was before that. Try it, it's sure to be an interesting conversation. It's good to remember. To remember why it is we're in this war we're still fighting. To remember how it felt when we were all united, all Americans. I'm sure everyone has a memory of that day and of how they feel the world has changed since then, if at all. Jesus. Every year I can't watch the footage of 9-11 a it happened and not bawl like a baby. Apart from the political and military ramifications it's had, but the people, my god, all those people. I'd like to hear your story.

[Legion2213]

Not much to tell my friend...like most folks, I watched it happening live, a horrible plane crash/accident...then I watched as a the second plane came in and hit the second tower. Like millions of other people I then realised that it was no accident, but an attack against innocent civillians. It was like watching a movie in a way...seeing all that going on on the screen, it seemed unreal. I do remember that the radio station I regularly listened to suspended programing all day and continued reporting and taking public phone calls well into the night...they also suspended all adverts which I thought was pretty classy of them considering that it was a UK station. Bad, bad day that did change the world IMO. There was a pretty damn good documentary on the tele the other night BTW, no narration, no voice overs, just pure amature footage from the day ("102 minutes that changed America"). Incredibly grim but absorbing stuff. My best regards and wishes to all of our American friends and cousins. (I know it's now the 12th, but I wasn't around yesterday).

[MinionZombie]

I've seen most of that "102 Minutes" programme, but was away on holiday when it re-aired, and missed it the first couple of times it was on a year or two ago ... but yes, there's something morbidly and horrifically fascinating about 9/11 ... there are so many incredible stories to tell and to listen to, and I think that yes, this is the "big event" for the next few decades. The effects of it have been wide and far reaching around the entire globe and it has defined the new millennium. As for my personal experience, I was in the Sixth Form at the time and one of the girls passed through the common room after we'd just had our history class (which a teacher was oddly late for - presumably watching the news, but she never said anything to us about it ... strange really, or perhaps she was simply running properly late) ... anyway this girl passed through and said "a plane has gone into the Twin Towers", but clearly at that stage nobody knew the magnitude, and we all thought "oh like when that plane went into the Empire State Building" and didn't think an awful lot more about it (we didn't have a TV in the common room). Finished up the day and went home - I got picked up and immediately it became apparent that it wasn't anything small. Got home and walked into the lounge and saw a replay of the first tower to collapse (or perhaps the second, not entirely sure) ... and I remember being really confused, but also not getting it at all at the time ... it was something out of a movie for me at that moment (I had the same reaction with 7/7 - came downstairs, saw a brief clip on the news and didn't figure out what was going on until I went online, and it took me hours to figure it out) ... and then it was just watching the news as it happened and seeing all the stuff about it. Naturally everybody was doing the same, and the following day there were newspapers everywhere that we all crowded around in the common room trying to figure out what was going on. I saved a bunch of newspapers and magazines from the following few days, and then again at the end of the year when papers do their retrospectives of the year. I've pretty much watched a documentary about 9/11 every year since, it's just so horrifyingly absorbing and fascinating and it's still unbelievable. I've actually got one that showed on Channel 4 last night to watch. There was a documentary called "9/11" by a couple of French brothers doing a doc on firemen ... if anyone hasn't seen it, check it out, it's incredible.

[acealive1]

i remember being on my way to college when it happened. got there, signed online and there it was on msn's front page. scary shit. they wouldnt show a replay of the actual plane hitting for the next 2 days. so i didnt see it til then. it was very surreal. but not once did i think "oh no we're doomed" it was more of a "who's fault was this and who let it happen?"

[Danny]

Man, i think i was... 12 at the time? got back from school and just saw a still photo behind the news reader and thought "wierd, wonder why the cartoons arent on, is that building on fire?" and being a 12 year old whos world is incredibly small and self centered whent and read a book or something. I dont' actually remember, aside from that, not getting its impact though. The one thing 9/11 reminds me of most is when two meatheads took the piss out of it, in poor taste, but just being stupid jocks, in drama class and the drama teacher, this big camp attention whore of a bloke fake cried about how his cousin bill died in one of the towers collapsing and they were spitting on his grave and he left the class "in tears". We all felt bad till the same bill showed up to class to tell him there grandad had had a stroke a few months later.

[Yojimbo]

My wedding anniversary is September 7 2001. On the 11th of 2001 I was on my honeymoodn in a suite in Las Vegas Nevada the morning the planes hit. I was shaving when my wife called me into the living room where I stood with shaving cream drying on my face while I watched tv coverage of the first tower burning, later I watched the second plane hit in live time. Then, the announcements that all airplanes had been grounded, airports closed indefinitely, and we were scheduled to fly to Hawaii in a few days with non-refundable tickets. Later that day, we walked through empty streets and empty casinos where instead of gambling everyone was staring at the multiple tv screens in the sports bars that were not showing games but instead were tuned to different news broadcasts. talk about surreal and scary! Luckily the airlines resumed their scheduled flights and we were able to make it to Hawaii to have the rest of our scheduled honeymoon. But as I drove around the island, I passed several millitary bases where, in front of each one, was a machine gun emplacement and an armed humvee where nervous looking soldiers would train their machine guns on the cars that were passing by on t he highway. As I watched American soldiers draw a bead on my rental car as I drove past I realized that our lives had been inexorably altered.

[SymphonicX]

102 minutes that changed america is the definitive timeline of the events of 9/11 - its a superbly made program that links amatuer footage together in a linear minute by minute fashion detailing the entire event as seen through the eyes of people filming - there were some simply AMAZINGLY thought provoking moments in that film - people's reactions from laughing and smiling, to shock, horror, fear and anger - the whole gamut was there. People didn't know how to behave at all, completely dumbfounded, shocked, bewildered, and very scared - some people obviously so painfully unaware of the magnitude of the situation that they seemed on the outside to be enjoying it - but you very quickly realise people just don't know how to react, how to govern their emotions in such a fucked up time - and people reacted very differently from each other. It shows perfectly the colour of human emotion in such a fucked up time... I still remember the day well - I was in bed with my girlfriend at the time when our flatmate bashed on our door and yelled "two planes have just hit the world trade centres in new york, they're calling it world war 3!!!" - so we got up and sat in front of our telly and watched the towers fall, live, and subsequently the deaths of nearly 3000 people. Cue discussions about war, military drafts, blah blah blah - and the world was never the same again. One thing that I did find poignant was watching a documentary on the events of the day and hearing how you were allowed to take blades onto a plane if it was less than four inches - things have been so fucked up at airports since this happened that I just don't remember a time when you could do that - and only 9 years after the event the idea of bringing a knife onto a plane seems very very alien to me. Now you can't even bring liquids - in just 9 years the entire face of aviation has changed for passengers. Each year we have certain channels dedicating days of programming to the events of this day, and each year we are reminded of the truly tragic and heartwarming stories that emerged from there - some of it is just too much to bear - for instance the story of one guy who survived the collapse in the WTC Hotel below the North and South towers whilst his sister was actually on the first plane that hit the towers at that instant - some of that stuff is just too much to hear. This year and the preceeding few years has also seen programs about people faking deaths or injuries in the events to secure donations, funding, insurance etc - last year told the story of a couple who faked the wife's death when she was nowhere near the events, and this year saw the story of a women who eventually headed up the survivors support group whilst basing her story on almost complete lies. It was a very very sad day for humanity and for the modern world.

[MinionZombie]

I saw that 102 Minutes was on Sky Anytime, so I transferred it over to the hard drive to watch later (I saw some of it the other week, but haven't seen the whole thing). Watched 9/11: State of Emergency yesterday, and again it's a horrific thing. Interesting to see Rumsfeld and Rice interviewed too ... Rice had this weird smile on all the time, but no doubt that's just her face and/or a nervous reaction ... which was interesting, because a lot of the interviewees had half-smiles on their faces as they talked about horrific things. Some people had the face on you'd expect, but some had the nervous smile face on - no doubt enhanced by being on camera - but I guess that's how some people react to horrendous things ... kind of like with a horror movie, you get a fright and then you laugh, but this being on a far larger scale and for real. It was interesting to see just how caught-off-guard America really was, and based on other documentaries telling how airport security checks were lax, there must have been a false sense of security. I do think that nowadays security measures are too strict, and combined with the fussy nonsense of getting on a sodding plane in the first place, I'm surprised so many people still bother to fly when they could choose not to. It just sounds like an endless line of hoops to jump through - some of which are rightfully in place, but sometimes you think "seriously?" ... I do think that our way of life has changed a hell of a lot, and everything has become far more complex - particularly travel - so, well ... I've lost my train of thought. The tales of United 93 always choke me up too, the whole 9/11 story does, but United 93 is particularly haunting - you think to yourself 'what would I do in that situation', and I can only ever think of two possibilities. Being so horrified that I'm paralysed with fear, or joining the gang who took on the terrorists, but in-so doing taking leave of any sense of humanity by gouging eyes and going for throats of the hijackers. Then again, I suppose that's the only two options they had anyway... The Greengrass film United 93 is an incredible film too. Meticulous in its pacing, and when the final charge on the plane takes place you are so fired up as a viewer that you - or at least I - leapt out of my chair and growled "get those motherfuckers!" ... the last few minutes of that film are just insane and incomprehensible. I was thinking about an earlier comment about 9/11 being "the event" of this generation, and I'd have to agree ... indeed you could say it's the biggest world-changing event since the fall of the Berlin wall.

[Publius]

I was on my way to law school when the planes hit the WTC. I would drive to a commuter lot then take a bus the rest of the way. While I was driving the news came in about the first plane. The radio anchors had sketchy information -- assumed at first that it was some kind of small plane that had had an accident. The second plane hit while I was on the bus and other passengers with radios mentioned it. When I got to school they had set up a TV in the student lounge and people were packed in there watching it. I saw the towers fall. A short while later they decided to cancel the rest of classes for the day. Additional classes were cancelled over the next several days as some professors were caught travelling and unable to make it back.

[Danny]

The radio anchors had sketchy information -- assumed at first that it was some kind of small plan that had had an accident. Yeah, i think thats why i don't remember seeing it as such a big deal, at first the news was sketchy, sumpremely so. If memory serves the bbc where vague like "we think some bi-plane has had a minor collision and started a fire" whereas channel 4 was saying something close to "this may be the start of the final war. collect your supplies and head for the hills" or some such crap, i'm amazed the white haired bloke kept his job when he mentioned something about 'nukes flying soon'

[Tricky]

I remember I was 19, pretty fresh out of college & had just come back from work, I called in to see my grandma and cousin as he was living with her at the time, and they had the news on with the first plane hitting the towers, and I just thought it was a trailer for the first spiderman movie which was nearing completion at the time! Took me a minute or two to realise it was actually real, then like everyone else I just watched without really knowing what to think other than being shocked & knowing that war would shortly follow, which it did & is still going on. How many people around the world from all sides of the conflict, have died as a result of what 9/11 started? all the coalition soldiers from various nations that have died, iraqi & afghan combatants & civilians, the guy killed mistakenly on the london underground by anti-terror police, the people who died in the london tube bombings, the Bali bombings, the fighting in Pakistan between the Taliban & pakistani forces, the Mumbai massacre, all post 9/11 & all linked. Crazy how the world changed really. The west doesnt have the stomach for the fight anymore either, both civpop & the politicians are pushing for a quick exit, and by playing the long game, the fundamentalists will win in the end. In 50 years time I wonder how the history books will describe the last 9 years?

[bassman]

Yeah, i think thats why i don't remember seeing it as such a big deal, at first the news was sketchy, sumpremely so. If memory serves the bbc where vague like "we think some bi-plane has had a minor collision and started a fire" Same thing happened to me and a few of my friends. They were claiming it was a small plane so we were kinda joking around like "what kind of dumbass could not see the twin towers? Dar har har." Then we watched the second plane hit in real time and realized they were passenger jets. Our attitudes quickly changed. This past weekend I watched a show about the 9/11 conspiracies. My god.....some of their "ideas" were absolutely insane. "A plane couldn't have hit the Pentagon at that altitude! It had to be a missile!". There's fucking footage of it, morons.

[SymphonicX]

Is there footage of it though? sorry - don't entertain a conspiracy theory or anything - I'm not big on those - but all the pics I've seen of that particular event do not show footage and tbh, it does feel just a little sketchy....I dunno, I highly doubt they plowed a missle into their own building - but something doesn't hugely add up to me...all I really wish is that the camera was better and there was something definitive - the conspiracy nuts have had a field day with this one....

[bassman]

The footage is a bit blurry, but with a fish eye lense and an oobject traveling several hundred mph, I think that would be expected. Here's something with a detailed description.