9/11 Anniversary

[Erin]

As the fifth anniversary of the World Trade Center collapse pushes nearer, there is some compaign asking "where were you". Well I have two words for you campaign: "IN BED"! It was 5:46 in the morning when the first plane ran into the first tower (whichever one it was). I was trying my hardest to stay asleep.

 

I was a senior in high school when it happened and it seemed too far away to really affect me. I mean the towers are 3000 miles away. It's not like it's in my backyard or something.

 

I was really pissed that day but for all the wrong reasons. The deal was that everything after school was canceled (I was the high school volleyball manager at the time, and I took my job very seriously, but I had no job to do). The baseball season was halted for NEARLY A WEEK! I also happen to enjoy watching baseball very much and it was going to be one of the few games I'd actually be able to see. Stupid contracts.

 

The only reason I was so mad at the attacks was that everything I liked doing was cancelled for a week. I didn't care about the lost lives or the rescue effort or the fact that the nation wasn't safe anymore (which still hasn't hit me yet). I just wanted to do something after school, instead of the usual homework, tv, bed.

 

And then, there were the curtailing of my civil liberties. I wanted to be able to check out books without my choices being scrutinized. I wanted the freedom to be able to criticize the job that the government was doing without the risk of being watched or thrown in jail. I want speak out against the unnecessary war.

 

Any thoughts?

[Caretaker]

I have felt in recent years that the terror attacks were used to "legitimize" an Orwellian government. Yes, I felt sad about thousands of people dying senselessly. But I couldn't take much of the patriotism and nationalism that suddenly came out of the woodwork. I suddenly felt like everyone expected me to kiss America's ass, or be labelled a traitor.

 

It also sickens me when someone makes claim that America is THE place with freedom. Bull-fucking-shit. I can't find a more arrogant view than that. If it weren't so far away from my own family, I would probably find a way to move to Europe.

 

American by birth. Lived in Washington all my life. I think the Cascades are a beautiful. But it would be arrogant of me to think that no other nation on this planet offers beauty.

[Vigile]

Watching the Pentagon in flames from my office window on the 17th floor of a 24 story building in Rosslyn, VA. Scary day. The radio announced that bombs were going off at the State Dept, about three blocks from George Washington U, where my wife was working. We knew there was another plane in the air and since we were in one of the tallest buildings around, we scrambled to exit. It took me 3 hours to drive home (in what normally took 10 mins). My wife took the metro and arrived home after 4 hours. It sucked.

 

We felt very patriotic in the days afterword and even put up a flag in our window in solidarity with those who had died. After a few days I tore down the flag in disgust as I saw the president and the conservative idiots using the patriotism to rally the country toward war. I felt bile in my throat as I was passed by Ford Excursions flying flags from all 4 corners on GW parkway. I resorted to flipping off the patriotic idiots waving flags from the overpasses. I felt sickened that the symbol of the flag, which had meant so much growing up, was sullied so quickly.

 

Five years later, I feel even more disgust at the direction the country has gone.

[roman]

I was at home; I watched it happen on TV and was talking to someone about it when we both saw the second plane hit. Then we heard about the Pentagon and we both said, "well I guess we are at war, now."

[Dark Helmet]

I was reading at the college library and I met a friend who told me a plane had crashed in a tower in new york and they had a tv in the corridor to watch the devolopments. I got there just in time to watch the second plane crash. Our collective jaws just dropped. I mean, that was definitively not an accident the plane even turned to get a better hit. We had some interesting discussions afterwards in our philosophy class that afternoon but I don't think any of us could have foreseen the shit america is knee deep in Irak.

[Caretaker]

...I don't think any of us could have foreseen the shit america is knee deep in Irak.

You misspelled Amerika.

[starelda]

I was at work. I'd just returned from a meeting when a person who'd spent their lunchtime at the bar (which has a TV) walked past my desk and said "America's under attack!". I tried to get onto a news website to see what was going on....every website I tried took ages to load because of the number of people trying to look at what was going on. Then when I got home later that day, you couldn't get away from the news...almost every TV channel was showing it.

[godlessgrrl]

When the planes first hit I was still in bed. I didn't learn that something had happened until an hour or so later, when I was up and getting ready for work and had the radio on to the classical station. I heard a news brief that mentioned little more than that there was something going on in NYC; other reports trickled in over time until the story was more complete. It didn't sink in until I was on the way to work and heard that the FAA had grounded all aircraft - then I looked up at the sky and it was empty.

 

Then I got to work, at an art supply store a couple of miles north of Boeing Field. The place was hushed and subdued all day, we hardly had any customers at all, and it was eerily quiet because there weren't any planes flying overhead. I didn't really know what had happened until I got home, plugged in my TV, and turned it on.

 

It hit me kind of hard then because I'd been to NYC in the 90's, and went up the towers as a tourist. The thing that got stuck in my mind initially was that I couldn't reconcile what I'd experienced of those two massive towers with the idea that they simply weren't there anymore. (The reality of all the deaths sank in later, never completely.) I still have a hard time watching news clips of the buildings falling. It just seems unreal.

 

In the few days afterward I was obsessed with disasters. I re-read Alan Moore's "Watchmen" comic, because I knew the world was going to take a couple of weeks to pretend that everyone was united by the issue. I read a lot of articles & books on shipwrecks too, for some reason. It was kind of weird.

 

I was in the relp with FundieBoy at the time and I learned later on that the relationship had ended on that day, though he had neglected to tell me this for several months afterward. Seems he thought my asking him to talk to me when all he really wanted to do was hide in bed with the covers over his head was selfish of me. (How dare I ask to have my needs met when they weren't the same as his! How dare I put him in a position where he'd have to say "no"! The nerve of me!)

 

But anyway.

 

I kind of got a sinking feeling in the weeks afterwards. I thought it was helpful for W and his ilk initially to tell people to live our lives and don't be afraid... but then I watched as the W administration started a global war against a shadow enemy, eroded our civil liberties, and rallied people into useless, patriotic complacency with nationalistic speeches and urges to go out and buy, buy, buy. SUV sales skyrocketed, and suddenly we were invading Iraq, and the economy tanked... and now you can't even take a fucking water bottle on a plane.

 

Fear happened to my country and it's been a mess ever since.

[Guest JP]

My dad woke me up after the first plane hit; I didn't really think anything of it and took a shower and started getting ready for school. Then another plane hit. I started freaking out and called my mom, who was staying at a hotel in town, and told her to turn on the news. As I told her that, another plane hit the Pentagon. My mom was supposed to fly back home to Washington that day; needless to say she spent about another week in Carson City. I didn't go to school that day; instead I spent the day with my mom and stepdad and watched the news. I remember I had to work that night at the grocery store; the town paper ran an extra all about the terrorist attacks, and I was lucky enough to grab one. I still have it.

[Japedo]

 

 

 

 

 

I was on my way to Boston that morning, meeting up with a friend I was going to help him start his business. We were going to meet in Saugus MA and drive into Boston together to meet with his lawyer. I was near hysterical by the time I got to Saugus as all I had to rely upon with Peter Jennings on the Radio who said that the mall in DC was on fire, the US Supreme court building was under attack and the scariest of all there were 80 something planes still unaccounted for. All I could think was about my kids and Husband as we lived near Seabrook nuclear plant and what if a plane hits it??

 

I told my friend that I wasn't going into Boston, he looked at me as if to say , "you've gotta be fuckin kiddin me". Then came across the radio that they were evacuating the tall buildings in Boston, shortly after that I heard the first tower fall via radio. We looked at each other in horror, and I said I'm going home...I had no cell phone and remember driving while crying fighting outgoing traffic on Rt 1 to 95, keeping one eye on the sky and one eye on the road.. I was wondering what my kids were thinking.

 

Once I got back home, first place I went was to the kids school. Most kids had already been dismissed by the time I got there, Second place was to see my husband while in passing saw my sister who was hysterical cuz she thought I was still in Boston. We all went back to my house and watched the horrors unfold on the TV.

 

5 years later, there are almost no questions answered, and massive power grabs by the US Government. I'm extremely skeptical of the official story for the two reasons I just stated above.

[nirrti]

I woke up around noon that day and saw the crawler at the bottom of the screen for school/business closings. You know, the ones in which they usually show cancellations due to inclimate weather. But that day was sunny and mild and I knew there couldn't have been any snow. So I wondered what the heck those were for.

 

I then noticed that the news had preempted every TV station and knew something big had happened. I found out soon enough when they showed footage of the planes hitting the twin towers, then the buildings collasping. That was one of the most unreal, dream-like moments I've ever experienced. It was like something out of a "Die Hard" movie and I had to make sure I was actually awake and this wasn't just a nightmare.

 

Incidently, I had just gotten laid-off from my job a few months earlier and was searching for work. When I saw that we were under attack, I knew right then my chances of finding gainful employment anytime soon went down with those towers. And I was right.

[Onyx]

The day the towers collapsed, I was in school, when the teacher turned on the TV to show the breaking news to the class.

Everybody went mad. Shouting, shaking and some sobbing even here in NZ.

I just sat in my desk, watching George Bush looking all sorrowful about the attacks. It felt like Apocalypse Now with all the evil, insanity, the good, the deaths and nasty moments condensed in that one day.

 

That day will never stay out of my mind till I die, Looking at the explosions and the towers collapsing set the tone for 21st Century. Pleasant, eh? Not!

My mum looked aghast, my dad started to mutter about the end of the world and the signs of the Second Coming and my brothers fidgeted a lot.

 

It is also noteworthy for me that it was the only time that I felt sorry and sympathised for George Bush. But when I found what a droog he was as the years went, I have a rather low opinion of him now.

 

September 11 was one of the most world changing days ever and not in a good way.

Fuck you George Bush and Osama Bin Laden!

Without you both, there wouldn't be stupid governments, iraqi wars, fear, terrorists, paranoia, hate on both sides and things like that.

So fuck you both who made this world miserable on that day!

Haven't you got any humanity and decency to leave these poor people alone?

Any chance of leaving the happily married people, gay, black, disabled, white, islamic (yes, even these islamics), etc cetera?

No.

Why?

You both want to perputate fear, paranoia, oil stakes, death, greediness, religious fundamentalism, reducing of vital freedoms and rights, tore families apart and worst of all, you changed the world with THAT!

Bush and Laden, I think you both are human feces, you are not worthy to be real men and you can both go to hell and be vaporized.

Oh and I include John Howard and Tony Blair along with Bush and Laden in my contempt.

My final words for Bush, Laden, Blair and Howard:

Fuck off and die, you testicle shitting, wart ridden, shit vomiting bastards!

 

That's my feelings on the whole thing.

[Gaura]

I was in bed still-- Mike called me and asked me to put on the TV-- only to see a screen with the Pentagon aflame. Not a good start to the day. The base where he was working at the time c,osed to all but a few personnel and he got four days of paid time off. So he came home.

 

That was a strange day.

 

In the years since, I have seen terror attacks used as a rationale for so many unconstitutional measures that it makes me weep. The torch of Lady Liberty is barely flickering today in a land that used to be afire with the passion of living a free life.

[MQTA]

I was in my office, heard on the radio that a plane crashed into one of the towers; I ran downstairs to the break room with a TV, turned on the TV just in time to see the 2nd plane hit the other tower. Then I ran to my wife and daughter's school, then off to take my son out of his school. It took so long we didn't get out until after both towers came down. I only got to see the tower collapse on replays.

[LadyFeline]

I was in my Art class at the time, fresh out of Chorus (funnily enough, we were singing "Joy In the Morning" that day...) I was sitting at my table with Vulgaris and another classmate, making handmade paper and talking about Beast Machines-era Megatron...

 

Our Art teacher was paged to the front office. We didn't think much about it, because that happened sometimes.

 

But she came back a few minutes later, and just sat at her desk. She didn't say anything for a few minutes, and when we looked over, she was almost in tears.

 

She then proceeded to inform us that her husband, who is a commercial pilot, had called to tell her that all flights across America had been grounded, because someone had flown a plane into the Twin Towers.

 

We pretty much passed the rest of the period, and lunch, in nervous semi-silence, wondering what was going on.

 

Then, in 3rd period, we watched the newscasts. And saw the towers fall.

 

No one said much. Most of us were crying. Some of us had friends and family in that area, some of us were just scared. All of us were worried.

 

Some of us still are. Just not about terrorism anymore.

[Dhampir]

I was probably in my living room at 6 pm on Saturday, September 15th. That's where I was on 9/11. Let me explain: I woke up at about 10 am that day, my sister had woke me up to come look at what was happening on the news. The first tower had fallen, and the second one was aflame. I remember seeing a few people falling from the windows, explained later as people throwing themselves away from a more painful death by immolation.

 

Then they showed footage of the first tower falling, followed by footage of the first tower being struck, then the second tower being hit. That woke me up. My sister went out to make a few frantic calls, and a half hour later, the second tower fell. I was standing up the whole time and I didn't register anything until a few days later. I went to a friends house, and some dumbasses were talking about beating up the indian guys for looking like the guys that hit the tower.

I was spoiling for a fight myself, and they (the dumbasses) were looking like a prime target.

[Gretchen]

My grandma woke me up that morning and told me to turn on the news. I couldn't believe my eyes. There was the first tower, on fire. Moments later I watched as the second tower was hit by a plane. I was scared to say the least. My son was in kindergarten at the time and I debated on whether or not to send him to school. Being in Indiana, I thought that we were far enough away from the danger. (Well, unless you count that popcorn factory here. Terrorists are just itching to blow that up. Thanks Indiana homeland security, you've made us look like tools.) So I ended up sending him to school.

 

I remember my grandmother and I talking about the events that were unfolding. She was a very devout christian and was talking about how she was glad that a "godly" man like Bush was in office. Back then I was still under the net of christianity, still I thought this was a ludicrus thing to say. After all, I was still pissed that he was even in office. I was sure that the fucker was going to be sent back to Texas with his tail between this legs. But he wasn't. He was at the helm of our country and I knew it was only a matter of time before we were going to go to war.

 

Here we are five years later and he is still using this tragedy to further his own sick cause. It diminishes the tragedy of it. And it makes me sick.

[woodsmoke]

I was, appropriately enough, sluffing my second period chemistry class.

 

I'm with you, actually. I had shit I wanted to do, and all of it was postponed for at least a week or just flat cancelled. Not to say I didn't feel for those affected by the disaster, but... again, I didn't know a single person involved, and the whole thing was taking place thusands of miles away.

[comix]

I live in a small town in the mountains of southeastern Arizona, on the mexican border. At the time we did not have TV and there were no radio stations that we could get except the ones from Mexico. I was playing with the radio when I heard the announcer say something about America being attacked. I went to the neighbors house and asked if I could check the news. As we watched the first tower went down, I felt as though I wanted to be sick. Later as I drove to the nearest big city for a meeting I was just trying to wrap my head around it, the whole way I saw people in their cars crying. The film of Bush getting the news made me sick, he was so obviously clueless. Now I am afraid of the Orwellian government that uses fear of another 9/11 attack to control the people and pass new restrictive laws. I still feel as though I need to be sick.

[Dark Helmet]

...I don't think any of us could have foreseen the shit america is knee deep in Irak.

You misspelled Amerika.

 

Indeed. Heil Bush! Amerika's noble and compassionate (not to forget, clueless) tyrant. :rant:

[Amethyst]

I was at work at a crappy temp job that I had at the time when I heard about it. They had the TVs in the break rooms set to Fox, and everyone hovered around them when they went on break. The non-peon types who could actually get away from their desks for more than five minutes without being yelled at were there when they weren't on break.

 

I remember saying something about Osama bin Laden, and nobody else at the time had heard of him. I was apparently the only one there who even knew the guy's name.

 

How times change.

[pandora]

I was in my car listening to NPR on my way to class.

[DucorpsToo]

I was on my way to work early that morning while listening to the radio. Initially I was listening to the hip-hop station Power 106 (I can get this LA station even in San Diego) where there was a nice tune playing in the background and the DJ's were rambling a bit about learning of a plane crashing into WTC. I was thinking " come on guys, shut up and play the tune" as morning DJ's are usually known to have warped senses of humor at times. However they kept rambling after which I said to myself "wait a minute..maybe they're onto something here". I then immediately switced over to the AM all-news station which, of course, was monitoring the events that were just unfolding.

 

I then called my husband, who was still sleeping and told him , "Get your ass out of bed now and turn on the news. There's some really heavy shit going down in New York!" Needless to say the rest of that day was shot to hell and my workplace allowed us leave early.

 

To this day this event still remains fresh in our minds. What makes my husband shudder even now is the thought of those hopeless indivduals who were located in the many floors above the plane's point of impact and what was going through their heads knowing that death was imminent; and there wasn't a goddamned thing that they could do about it. He constantly contemplates their last thoughts, did they attempt to contact their families?..what were their last words if they were able to do so...etc.?

[SilentLoner]

I was in El Salvador, getting ready for school. Since the time zone in El Salvador is about and hour or two (i forget) behind U.S time, I had woken up not long before and was eating breakfast in front of the TV.

 

The first plane had already hit, and of course I assumed it had been some accident. The female parental unit was in the room watching it with me, male parental unit was preparing to go to work, I don't recall where my younger brother was, probably asleep.

 

Anyways, female parental unit left the room, then about a minute afterwards I saw the second palne hit the second tower. I remember it so clearly, I was chewing on a piece of toast (i don't know why i recall that), then all of a sudden this plane appears on the side of the screen (I'm thinking "what is that for?") and then there was this explosion.

I yelled out: "a second palen just hit!" my mom came running to look at the screen, then I ran to get my dad, who was in the shower, I pounded on the door and yelled what had happened. He thought i was joking, but came out a few minutes later to see.

 

At school that day (I was in the 8th grade) most of my teachers were glued to their computer screens with crowds of students around them, checking updates on what was going on. During the day I heard all sorts of rumors like:

 

"There are still four hijaked planes in the air!"

"Camp David was hit!"

"The White house is on fire!"

 

I heard about the towers collapsing while walking down the hall, this kid runs up to his friend and says "the towers collapsed!"

 

During lunch and break students crowded the library to watch the news on the TV and find updates on the computers.

 

When i got home the parents were pretty shaken up. Male parental unit so much so that he had come home from work to watch the developing story on the news.

 

Didn't know how bad things would get at the time, but we expected the US gov would abuse this situation in some way.

 

Next day at school we had a moment of silence and a speech by the principal on what had happened.

 

Thats the most I remember.

[RankStranger]

I was working on a backhoe at an equipment dealership in Colorado. One of the kids that helped out around the shop told me that a plane had hit the world trade center. Thinking he meant something along the lines of a little privately owned prop plane, I said "heh- I bet they won't do that again".

 

I was wrong.

 

Once I found out what had really happened, I was pissed. I had barely begun questioning my political views at the time, and I was still your average dittohead-bushbot. I wanted them brown people over there to PAY. I didn't care WHO had actually done it, or even WHY... I just wanted Uncle Sam to make somebody HURT.

 

Well, I got my wish... and I was a complete fuckin' idiot.

 

In the years since, I've had to totally re-evaluate my political views. I don't know the solution... but I do know what's NOT the solution. We've given those people PLENTY of reasons to hate us that have nothing to do with "freedom". I'm not against amerika defending 'ourselves' in theory... but that hasn't been our response. We've responded with much the same misdirected $hit that we've always done.