7 Years removed from 9/11

[Scorp]

Keep this shit out of the thread.

You brought it up.

[Sharmai]

I was in Columbia, Missouri headed to my morning class. I walked through the bookstore for something i forget now and it was so silent. Eerily silent. Columbia, MO isn't a small university. Its the flagship college for MO and there are a LOT of people in the bookstore in the morning. Well there were a lot of people but everyone was quiet.. Everyone. All looking up at the TV's.

I remeber looking up at the TV and watching the second plan hit. I don't know how long I watched it but i finally went to class. Everywhere on campus it was so quiet. The people talking were whispering an no one knew why everyone else was so quiet. I kept wondering why no one was yelling it, running around yelling it but neither was I.

When i got to class i sat down and the teacher comes in to start teaching. She apparently has heard any of the news and since its a speech class she starts wondering why half the class is missing and why we are so quite. Some girl was in and says the twin towers were hit with two planes and the teacher stares in disbelief. She asks us if this is true and we just kind of nod like "yeah"...

She says "Class canceled" and grabs her stuff and leaves. She doesn't show back up to classes for 3 weeks after that.


I went to my dorm and watched the news day and night for at least a week if not more. Classes were canceled for so any classes I stopped being able to keep track. No one cared. It didn't matter.



It was a sad day.

[Gilgamel]

Maybe it's some psychological problem I have but when something like that, or the invasion of Iraq, happens I just kind of shut down to my normal every day life. I remember after 9/11 I spent about three days just watching all the different news channels, reading everything I could find, and trying to make sense of it all, with no sleep. Then during the invasion of Iraq I did the same thing. I skipped class for three straight days, slept very little, and watched history happen. Now normally I can compartmentalize my own personal life and the bigger happenings about the globe, but for some reason when I see something historical happen I feel an urge to make sure I don't miss anything that is impossible to resist.

[Ssinurn]

I was at Enron at the time on the 20 something floor of downtown Houston. We saw and watched in horror and all started silently gathering our things and leaving. Shortly after building security was asking everyone to leave. Had I just been at home or in a smaller building it probably wouldn't be as terrifying.

So I went back home and worried about my aunt who had an apartment in WTC and was scheduled for a meeting that day who we couldn't get in touch with for three days. She ended up being ok but at that time we really didn't know much about what was going on.

[TheCutlery]

Originally Posted by Gilgamel

Maybe it's some psychological problem I have but when something like that, or the invasion of Iraq, happens I just kind of shut down to my normal every day life. I remember after 9/11 I spent about three days just watching all the different news channels, reading everything I could find, and trying to make sense of it all, with no sleep. Then during the invasion of Iraq I did the same thing. I skipped class for three straight days, slept very little, and watched history happen. Now normally I can compartmentalize my own personal life and the bigger happenings about the globe, but for some reason when I see something historical happen I feel an urge to make sure I don't miss anything that is impossible to resist.

What? Seriously?

I was working overnights at the time, I was already asleep when the first tower got hit. My wife came in and told me some asshole rammed a plane into the WTC. I went back to bed. Why? Well, shit, when I get up, there will still have been some asshole who rammed a plane into the WTC. It's still gonna be on every single channel and everyone in the media is still going to be saying the exact same things. I wasn't gonna miss a thing. Well, except maybe some sleep. I gotta work tomorrow, and unfortunately, in Saint Paul, MN, there's a pretty goddamned good chance my employer doesn't give 2 shits about what's going on in the world and expects me to be at work. Besides, I got bills to pay.

[Gilgamel]

That's probably the way most people see it. I just find all the other little things I usually care about in my life rendered insignificant in the shadow of something like that. School, work, my hobbies, those will all be there in a week. This historic situation and how it evolves will not. Looking back now seeing how people view that day and how I remember it I still feel making yourself take some personal interest in it is worth the time lost. I snap out of it, but I do become almost obsessive for a period.

[Eyashusa]

Originally Posted by Gilgamel

Maybe it's some psychological problem I have but when something like that, or the invasion of Iraq, happens I just kind of shut down to my normal every day life. I remember after 9/11 I spent about three days just watching all the different news channels, reading everything I could find, and trying to make sense of it all, with no sleep. Then during the invasion of Iraq I did the same thing. I skipped class for three straight days, slept very little, and watched history happen. Now normally I can compartmentalize my own personal life and the bigger happenings about the globe, but for some reason when I see something historical happen I feel an urge to make sure I don't miss anything that is impossible to resist.

I did this during Katrina 3 years ago. I didn't miss sleep or class over it, but I rushed home from class and pissed off my roommates because all I wanted to do was watch CNN/MSNBC/Fox News constantly...they were all showing the same shit but I kept on flipping between the three for like 8 hours a day for what seemed like a week.

It's like you said about watching something historical happen, I like seeing history unfold before my eyes, even if its on a 32 inch Sony.

[Erronius]

I was actually doing some wiring on a half-finished house at the time. We had a radio set up, and as the morning progressed it went from rumor - hope it's a rumor - Holy Fuck, it's not a rumor. Everyone pretty much quit working, and eventually we called the office to tell them we were going home. Apparantly everyone was trying to go home (that company had maybe 50-60 people in the field, all trying to call in) and they were pretty pissed, telling us that there was nothing we could do and unless we had family involved and wanted to keep our jobs, we needed to stay at work. IIRC, we still left early, fuck em.

Originally Posted by Zeste

Oh! And in 2004, I was flying first-class to vegas from Chicago, and I was in line for security screening. I was waved through (white privledge), and honest to god, the woman behind me was from India and hindu, and she got selected for a "random" security screening.

Was the only time in my life so far that I actually SAW all the stuff the big-city and east coast people talk about, which I previous thought was just fantasy, being from rural Utah and such.

Being white isn't an advantage when going overseas. I've been stopped, searched, questioned, etc particularly in the Middle East. Having Iraqi stamps in my passport may not have helped.

I also have had only a single thing confiscated at an airport, ever. And that was a p-51 can opener. I'd had it forever on my keyring, and had been through tons of airports with it. Only once in the states did anyone ask me what it was, and they allowed it after I told them. In Dubai, however, I actually got harrased for it one time (I'd been through there many times before) and they insisted that I either give it up or I wouldn't be allowed on my flight. I asked them what they thought I was going to do with it...like open the side of the airplane up like a soup can, which may not have been a good thing to say. IMO they were just looking for a reason to harass an American, but who knows /shrug.

[hauwk]

IMO they were just looking for a reason to harass an American, but who knows /shrug.

Indeed

[Jedite]

Originally Posted by Gilgamel

That's probably the way most people see it. I just find all the other little things I usually care about in my life rendered insignificant in the shadow of something like that. School, work, my hobbies, those will all be there in a week. This historic situation and how it evolves will not. Looking back now seeing how people view that day and how I remember it I still feel making yourself take some personal interest in it is worth the time lost. I snap out of it, but I do become almost obsessive for a period.

I did sort of the same thing, but I did get some sort of sleep.

I don't know if it was waiting to see what happend next, what kind of response we would make or what. Those few days were just surreal. If someone asked me to explain how I felt, I don't think I could give an accurate account of it.

Today I watched MSNBC rebroadcast theyre 9/11 broadcast, even though I still knew exactly what was going to happen and when, it still brought shivers down my spine watching those towers crumble, and the picture of Manhattan covered with a cloud of smoke is still embeded im my mind.


I guess thats what people must have felt like during Pearl Harbor and the Cuban Missle crisis. However I think this was more personal for everyone, because we were right there watching it unfold, it wasn't second hand knowledge, thanks to television we saw when the towers fell.


Thanks to everyone for keeping this thread civil.

[Regime]

Originally Posted by Scorp

You brought it up.

no shit what a hypocritical fucking moron

[Nark]

I was walking from gym class to history class in HS. When i got to history class the classroom tv was on and we watched the 2nd one hit. I think the entire school watched tv the rest of the day.

[Warrian]

Originally Posted by Regime

no shit what a hypocritical fucking moron

Learn how to read you fucking idiot. If you stick your nose a little further up my ass you'll get to smell what I had for lunch.

[Gilgamel]

I watch this 102 minutes thing on the history channel every year. Basically a documentary of it as it went down. People want to move on, to put it behind us, to move forward. But we can't, and we shouldn't. These....animals...these subhuman monsters....they destroyed America's innocence.

99% of the people in this nation believed we were for the most part a good and honorable nation; that our people worked hard and helped each other and for the most part loved thy neighbor. These people destroyed that, maybe forever. Perhaps a little introspection is a good thing, but America and it's actions have now been demonized both inside and outside our borders. No one will ever say it this way but in many ways their actions have been rationalized by those who take issue with our foreign policy decisions, and some even believe we brought it upon ourselves. Yes, we are flawed. Yes, we have made mistakes in our reaction. But no one, NO ONE, has the right to judge us for any mistakes we have made the last seven years. These people have taken from us something we can never recover. And I sit here, every year, growing older and coming to the realization that that righteous fury, that commitment to making sure this never happens to my children or grandchildren.... is slowly slipping away.

We are going to be hit again. We're tired of tough choices, tired of the mistakes we have made, tired of the rest of the world being displeased with our shaking up the status quo, and slowly but surely we are becoming complacent once more. Never forget...never again...we say it, but we don't mean it. It is not even eight years later and, no matter who you support, stopping this from ever happening again is not even the most important issue to the average American voter. We want to regain our status as the pillar of the global community. We want to get back some sense of normalcy. We want it to be over. But it isn't. And until it is we will never truly be able to put this behind us.

They say stuff like this fades over time. That you move on, and learn to deal with it. But I haven't, and I don't think I ever will. Whatever it takes, whoever is elected, we must find the son of a bitch behind this and let whatever the rest of the world thinks of us be damned.

[hamrlik]

I was in the Marines, stationed in New Orleans, and working nights, so was still sleeping when the first one was hit. My girlfriend came over and turned on CNN and I thought it was some crazy ass movie at first and continued to sleep. Slowly the stuff being said worked its way into my head and I woke up in time to see the second plane hit. Remember telling her "Guess I wont have to work today" and about 30 minutes later, I got a call saying work was cancelled. After that, things get foggy.