I was at the Viking Ship Museum outside Copenhagen, Denmark. When I went to the train station to get the train back into town, a stranger came up to me and asked if I was American. When he said I was, he told me that terrorists had blown up the Empire State Building, that it "wasn't there any more." Early confusion, I suppose.
I used to work across the street from the World Trade Center. I walked through the shopping concourse every day on my way to get the subway home. It's hard to believe it's not there any more. There was a bookstore at the northeast corner of the shopping arcade, and I can still tell you where the magazine section was, where the fiction section was, where the escalator was...
I think September 11 should be a day to remember all civilians who are intentionally targeted in acts of war, whatever their nationality or religion.
The death of soldiers is sad, but they are uniformed combatants who know what they are getting into. The loss of civilians in combat situations should be avoided whenever possible, but it is sometimes hard to avoid, particularly when civilians are used as "human shields" by the bad guys.
The intentional murder of civilians is inexcusable.
Thank You Enty for your rememberence. I stopped to get gas that morning and the lady pumping next to me was crying. I asked her if she was ok, she said haven't you heard? I said heard what................
Thanks Enty. I'll never forget those that died. I'll also never forget that day. I was watching the Today show with Katie Couric and Bryant Gumbel? Pretty sure it was him, anyway, I was writing something while the TV was on and heard them start to talk about how a plane had just hit the tower. I look up and watch for a minute and think it had to be an accident. Then my best friend calls and yells "are you watching this!" I said I was, and then he said "Osama bin Laden got us!" and just as I started to say "who the eff is Osama bin Laden?" they started talking about another plane on tv and I watched the second one hit. At the same time I was absorbing how this was *not* an accident now obviously, I am listening to him tell me all about the threats bin Laden had made about doing this. I spent the rest of the day in shock watching the news, like everyone I'm sure. There were no shows on, just news, for the next week or two. Even channels like MTV had their VJ's just sitting and talking with people solemnly about what this tragedy meant to them and showing footage of it. You could not escape it on television. I think even Home Shopping Network just went dark. I heard older people saying things like "everyone will remember where they were just like when Kennedy got shot" or some other event. The only difference is the world didn't seem to stop for two weeks when those other events happened.
I was on my way to work and listening to Mancow's Morning Madhouse when the news broke. I thought it was another one of his pranks and shrugged it off. When I got to work, everyone was huddled around the TV in the pharmacy (at the time, I worked for a major pharmacy chain that's based out of the Midwest) and watching with abject horror and shock. I clocked in and began my morning procedures. The only time I addressed the situation was when I asked my manager if we could go home if something happened to The Sears Tower. I think for the rest of the year, I avoided all news outlets because I didn't want to hear about it. The only thing I could think was that this was my generation's Pearl Harbor.
@Jessica - From what a lot of my older friends have told me, the world did stop when Kennedy got assassinated. Same with Pearl Harbor.
The Nightmare Child - my parents and other relatives all said it didn't. You have to remember, there was no CNN then. There was no 50 channels all showing the footage over and over. And the news that WAS available was very different than what it is today. Some called it whitewashed. It was a different era, and while there was sadness and mourning, there were not details flowing in by the minute for a solid two weeks. It's just not comparable.
I went into mental shutdown mode that day too, Nightmare Child, and it was for a very long time. It was like I just couldn't bear it. I finally watched that movie United 93 a couple of years ago, and cried like a baby the last quarter of the way through it.
I was managing a hotel back then - my desk clerk had taken the morning off, and I was at the desk checking out guests alone. My mother called and told me to turn on the lobby TV - same thing she had done a few years earlier when the Murrah building had been bombed. I stood at my front desk watching the tower burning on the TV and then watching in disbelief as the second plane hit - I remember asking one of my customers - "Did you just see that? was that another plane?" It almost didn't seem real - it was like watching some action movie... only it was all too real. All morning long guests came to the front asking me - is this really happening? And salesmen would stop in and ask - what is going on? Over and over again I had to explain. I live in a high tourist town and suddenly all the vacation things people were doing seemed so pointless. People started checking out to go home - they were saying they just wanted to be around family - wanted to be with their loved ones. I didn't turn off the TV for 24 hours - you just couldn't stop watching.
Today MSNBC ran the entire 9/11/01 morning broadcast from that day with Katie Couric and Matt Lauer and the other Today show staffers - watching that this morning was like reliving it all over again. The same sense of disbelief - of loss - and hearing them all try to make sense of what was happening and knowing now what really did was so surreal. Our country had become so complacent about our national safety since WW2 - I don't think we ever will be again. You can't look at that footage and not feel a sense of vulnerability.
@ Jessica - I'm well aware that there was no CNN back then, thank you very much...but the world DID shut down and it IS comparable, savvy?
Newspaper, the radio...from what I heard from a lot of my older friends...who all live across the country and were of different ages when it happened...they said the world pretty much came to a grinding halt for a bit....just not in a way that our poor little ADHD Facebook obsessed minds would ever recognize.
@brendalove - I didn't go into mental shutdown, per se...I was tired of hearing about it...and seeing it....and reading about it. Whenever someone would say never forget...I'd say...yeah, what about Pearl Harbor?
I was late to work and so I was on the train at South Ferry when I heard a thunder clap sound and remember being confused because the weather was so gorgeous. Then we bypassed Cortland Street because of "gunshots" and when I first got off the train I was relieved because I had an excuse to be late. Midtown was in chaos and I found out what happened, and I ran to my job, where everyone was so happy to see me bc I usually took the express bus that goes on West Street. I called my father, who is a firefighter and I never heard such pain-the towers hadn't fallen yet, but he was confused about why the staging area was so close. We watched them fall on TV in the VPs room and then we were evacuated-with no where to go. I walked from Rockefeller Center back to South Ferry. I had on heels and had to buy sneakers on the walk home.
I lost a lot of friends that day. The city still smelled terrible and eventually I worked down there too. I always think of how grateful I am to be here, and to honor those I lost and how all around the world people have to go through that type of pain on a nearly daily basis and how thankful I am that I live here, and don't.
I work in retail at the world famous outlet center about 50 miles north of NYC. Today I became angry when I realized not one person had on a flag pin, a twin towers pin, or anything that showed they remembered the significance of the day. What made it worse was someone suggesting that today should be a national holiday. I had to remind them that EVERY holiday becomes a shopping/sales excuse for shoppers/retailers and this was one I wanted no part of.
I remember the sky, the quietness of my apartment, where for the first time, the was no train, car, or boat sounds coming through my open windows, only the sound of the tv. I remember how beautiful it looked outside as I got ready for work. Today, the weather and the cloudless sky brought me to tears of sadness, anger and fear, as I realized that today looked like that day 9 years ago. I also remember the FBI agents closing the mall that day and being there for a long time after. Imagine, the FBI shutting a mall down!
I'm sorry - I'm still angry and sad. I could go on and on, but there's not enough space to write and never will be.
Terri Ann - I'm so sorry for your losses that day. Smooches, I too thought the same thing about how today's weather - it reminded me of how perfectly 9/11 started before the tragedy unfolded that morning.
I was 6 months pregnant, and stayed home with a nasty head cold. I headed to the gas station to grab coffee and OJ at just about 9am, and heard something on the radio, but listening to a rock station, thought it may be some twisted joke. The cashier and one of the patrons were discussing the plane crashing into the first tower. I ran back home, turned on the TV and watched, horrified, as the second plane hit.
I stayed glued to the broadcasts all day (and for weeks afterwards as well), crying. I called my friends and family to tell them how much I loved them. Although I didn't personally lose anyone, it deeply affected me. It made me so angry that someone could destroy so many innocent lives. I prayed for the families and their loved ones. I still do. I will never forget that day.
(Sorry to repeat-post the same story b/c I posted a version of the below story on Enty's 9/11 post last year, too. But sometimes it helps to retell my own experiences on each anniversary b/c I don't really talk about it much except for on or around 9/11 - so sorry to anyone who's read this before, but I guess I'm being a little selfish by using this Comments box to help me today :-b)
I worked on the 95th Fl of 2 WTC (South Twr). Was 15mins late for work, train pulled into the WTC E station right after the 2nd plane hit. They were telling ppl to get back on the trains, so I never made it past the turnstile.
Took the E back up 1 stop to Canal St, ran upstairs & saw the towers on fire. Burst into tears & started shaking. My beeper (yea, back then some of us still had beepers lol) & cell were going off like crazy but as anyone in NY that day could tell you, cell phones were all wacky & hardly anyone got thru.
Further up, I heard a loud "BOOM" & then everyone yelling, "NONONO!!". In the distance, saw my bldg 2 WTC collapsing. Pancaked & was gone. I was shaking even more & crying harder, grown men started crying. Practically ran up to Union Sq.
Realized then that I had not seen any news footage on this. Stopped @a bar that was packed w/ppl just quietly watching the news. It was so horrific to actually watch the planes disintegrate into the towers.
Saw so many cop cars & fire trucks whizzing by w/sirens blazing.
My company lost about 90 ppl that day. We moved to Rockefeller Ctr late Oct, right by St. Patrick's Cathedral. So we heard so many funeral processions down Fifth Ave for months after 9/11.
It's weird, as the # of yrs since then gets bigger, I can still remember everything from that day like it happened yesterday.
Anyways, sorry for the super long post. But thank you if any of you read it ...
Scat, I am so very sorry for the loss of your coworkers. Everything most of us experienced was from a distance... but being there - wow. It's a whole different perspective. Thanks for sharing.
It's so cute how bitter people get when they are wrong. It's also so cute when you try to deflect by making an inane comparison by throwing "facebook" around, as if that somehow makes your point correct and somehow belittles what was said previously. You just keep telling yourself your right Nightmare. It will make it all better. *pats you on the head* Nice name, by the way.
its the quiet afterward that still haunts me. standing in the middle of a street realizing that everything has stopped - no cars and trucks, no construction - just eerie silence
I have sympathy for everyone who suffered due to the attacks on September 11th. I too remember being glued to my television, and crying at the news footage.
However, for me, the biggest thing I remember when I think of that day is the chain reaction it set off in the middle east. Particularly with the un-UN-sanctioned invation of Iraq (justified by the lies of those operating with and around George W).
If you are counting the lives of civilians as being worth more than the lives of soldiers, then consier that while less than 3000 people were killed in the attacks on September 11th, almost 100,000 Iraqi CIVILIAN citizens have been killed during "Operation Iraqi Freedom" since 2003. That's 30 TIMES the number.
September 11th was a tragedy in so many ways, so when you remember those citizens of New York, don't forget about all the other citizens of the rest of the world that have lost their lives since then. The US government is not an innocent victim.
It is one of those days that you never forget. You know exactly were you where, what you were doing etc.
I was going to watch emmerdale farm (British soap) and instead I saw the planes crashing into the towers. At first I thougt it was an action movie and when reality hit me, I just sat down thinking - the world is going to change for the worst and it did. It has become an intolerant world, starting wars in the name of religion (take your pick)and oil.
Nightmare, When I'm an adult? Really? To show how ignorant you are - I'm 41. Now eff off with your "I'm so dark and emo, but I'll never admit I'm emo, I love tattoos and Bettie page and piercings and no one understands me and I want everyone to think I had a dark and rough life and I don't want any sympathy but I really do, but if you offer I will say I don't, and I know EVERYTHING. IN. THE. WORLD. and even if I don't I will google it and pretend I am an expert, even when talking about sh!t that happened when I was almost a c*m stain because I'm so edgy and witty and mature" BULLSH!T and buy a clue.
Char, in other words you're saying you would be more comfortable having sympathy for the people who died but you don't.
The US government didn't die that day -- individual human beings did. They didn't have leaflets dropped on them. They were given no warning to run and hide. No one was trying to minimize the loss of human life. The terrorists did what they did to maximize the loss of human life.
I was also profoundly against the Iraq War, but to suggest that somehow the deaths on 911 were made less awful because of the deaths in Iraq is simply to declare your own biases regarding ethnicities (and yes, American is an ethnicity). If we only blame one person, we should blame the terrorists whose mass-murder permitted George Bush to spin his lie.
Wow, for the guy that shared his story about being late to work, Thank you. Sorry to hear about the loss of your co-workers, but happy to know that you were later, because it is a second chance at life. Amazing...
I used to arrange trade shows for a large software company and we had a financial show at Windows on the World that day. Several of our people were out getting coffee when the planes struck. Three were not so lucky. It could have been me.
Yes, I remember the day...the Primary for the Mayor's race was on and everyone was trying to vote and get to work.....never realizing that this was a day that would change the way we feel about life as we know it. A senseless unnecessary war, motivated by greed, jumping at an opportunity. So to all the families who lost someone on 9/11 and in the conflict that came after, my prays are with you. 9 years later, a very very quiet Saturday in New York, Trader Joe's empty..the streets calm...and hearts are still broken.
My parents were both alive during Pearl Harbor, Kennedy's Assasination and for 9/11. I called and asked my mom (she's 78 years) & my dad (he's 82 years) this question, "Did the world stop during Pearl Harbor & Kennedy's Assassination like we believe it did during 9/11?" My mother said, "No." and this is why.
She said that during the days of Pearl Harbor, most people got their news via the radio. "Back then," she said, "the news media REPORTED the news." They did not give their opinions of the news and just reported the news as it happened or the facts as they knew them to be.
She said that Kennedy, had a camera on him (most of the time) when he was shot and the biggest question at the time was, "Was there only one shooter?" News reporters just reported the facts and there were only 3 channels on which to get your news but it seemed more real in stark black & white.
Her opinion of 9/11? Overkill on the day it happened but it was everywhere worldwide. Every channel was focused on this event because that's the way news is reported now. So much speculation and rumor was reported without waiting for facts. Everyone wants to know anything & everything NOW!. Her biggest regret is that there seems to be less patriotism and more division now than on the day that it happened.
It's an 'I-Me-Mine' and a 'I want it now-Now-NOW-NOW!' world and reporting seems to be all about the scoop and the opinions about who is giving the information...not necessarily about the facts.
We'd just moved to Texas from NJ, and I'd just dropped the kids off at elementary school and had stopped for a coffee. The clerk was telling everyone about the plane hitting the WTC, and I figured that it was a cloudy day and a small private plane had gotten lost on the way to LaGuardia. I flipped the TV on when I got home just in time to see the second plane hit, and spent the rest of the day making sure friends were ok. We got lucky, no one we knew died.
I flew into Newark the day after the planes started flying. The memory I will always carry with me is the skyline dominated by the clouds of smoke that were still rising from the wreckage of the buildings, and how wrong it looked with the buildings gone.
@Jamie's Girl, that reads like a troll comment. Nearly everyone knows now that the "mosque" isn't a mosque. It's a good two blocks away from Ground Zero and is definitely not AT Ground Zero. There is already a mosque closer to Ground Zero than this Islamic Cultural Center will be.
Would you want Christian churches controlled in Oklahoma City because of what Tim McVeigh did?
I worked in HR back them and I was conducting a monthly "new employee orientation" all day session that day from 8am-5pm for about 30 new employees and had a TV and VCR in the room to play the series of obligatory company tapes to the newbies.
An employee came in during one of my spiels and started wheeling the TV out of the room while I was talking. I was like WTF? I stopped him and he said he needed it because someone had bombed the World Trade Center and he needed to set up the TV for everyone to watch the news coverage TV.
I thought he was crazy but followed him out and after he'd connected the TV to the cable connection in the lounge area I was horrified to see that he was correct -- the WTC was on fire. We all stood around and watched, silent and horrified, as the WTC burned and people dropped to their deaths.
As noted, that was an all day class but I don't remember much of anything else, or how I conducted the remaining session.
I still get a little choked up when I'm watching a "Friends" episode (yeah, Enty, I know...) and they pan across the NYC skyline and show the World Trade Centers. Talk about a more innocent time!
Incidentally, when people (using the term loosely) like "Dr." Terry Jones want to burn the Koran I want to shake him until his teeth rattles and tell him
1) This is why they hate us!!
2) You and your ignorance-fueled hate is just a Western version of theirs. You are brothers in base stupidity; you should be buddies, you ignorant fool!
I was in school, teaching my third graders when our principal came over the intercom and calmly asked teachers to check their email. She didn't want us to have our televisions on, so she kept us up to speed with emails every few minutes. She told us to come by her office to watch the news there when we had a free moment. I remember trying to put on a brave face for the children, but having to constantly push down panic inside...
Very late to this thread, so I doubt anyone will read it.
Anyway, SCat07 - HUG. I feel for you. And everyone else touched by 9/11 as well as every civilian massacred as the result of these stupid,, effing, endless wars. As others have stated earlier.
Jessica, shame on you for making this thread about you and your opinion.
All of my stories are one step removed. Katie the flight attendant who traded shifts at the last minute and avoided working on one of the doomed flights. She's married to a San Francisco business associate. A friend's uncle who barely made it out of the towers and underwent hours of surgery for burns and embedded glass. And so forth. I wasn't personally touched by the tragedies that unfolded that day. The aftermath of economic failure is a different story.
I remember that day too well. The little things. The Four Seasons in Yorkville kept remotely turning down the volume on the television in the lobby because they didn't want the people gathered around it. I've never used the Four Seasons for anything else since. (I'm an event planner) Their response was disgusting.
I ended up with a group of US and Canadian film journalists in an English-style pub. The tv on the right had CNN. The tv on the left had CBC Newsworld. The stark differences in their reporting of the event sparked much discussion with us and the styles of reporting have stayed with me. CNN kept it local. CBC kept it international. It was surreal seeing the same story unfold in such completely different ways via the approach to report it.
@Char, I specifically said I do have very grave feelings about the Iraq War. I didn't couch my remarks in terms of reservations about sympathy for Iraqi victims where you specifically dated reservations about the 9/11 attack sympathies.
In assigning blame, we have to give the first of it to the terrorists who made it possible for Bush to lie us into a war.
Incidentally, I'm unbookmarking the page since it was only bookmarked through the weekend with 9/11 links.
Terri-Ann, Smooches and everyone else impacted, there's not a day that goes by that I don't think of that day -- and I live in California. There can be no reason whatsoever to belittle the deaths of those people by suggesting the US wasn't an "innocent victim." No nation is an innocent victim. We're a planet of warring tribes. But we die individually.
I know it's too late for anyone to read this, but Jessica, my parents were in Liberia when JFK was assassinated, and that country totally shut down. Everyone was glued to the radio. The world did indeed stop.
Thank your for this, Enty. I came by spefically today to see if you posted anything about Sept. 11th. You never cease to make me happy.
ReplyDeleteGOD BLESS THE USA and all those who serve to protect Her!
ReplyDeleteWhere were you "when the World stopped turning"? I was in a classroom full of innocent children just like the song said.
A day I'll never forget!
I was at the Viking Ship Museum outside Copenhagen, Denmark. When I went to the train station to get the train back into town, a stranger came up to me and asked if I was American. When he said I was, he told me that terrorists had blown up the Empire State Building, that it "wasn't there any more." Early confusion, I suppose.
ReplyDeleteI used to work across the street from the World Trade Center. I walked through the shopping concourse every day on my way to get the subway home. It's hard to believe it's not there any more. There was a bookstore at the northeast corner of the shopping arcade, and I can still tell you where the magazine section was, where the fiction section was, where the escalator was...
I think September 11 should be a day to remember all civilians who are intentionally targeted in acts of war, whatever their nationality or religion.
The death of soldiers is sad, but they are uniformed combatants who know what they are getting into. The loss of civilians in combat situations should be avoided whenever possible, but it is sometimes hard to avoid, particularly when civilians are used as "human shields" by the bad guys.
The intentional murder of civilians is inexcusable.
Thank You Enty for your rememberence. I stopped to get gas that morning and the lady pumping next to me was crying. I asked her if she was ok, she said haven't you heard? I said heard what................
ReplyDeleteThanks Enty. I'll never forget those that died. I'll also never forget that day.
ReplyDeleteI was watching the Today show with Katie Couric and Bryant Gumbel? Pretty sure it was him, anyway, I was writing something while the TV was on and heard them start to talk about how a plane had just hit the tower. I look up and watch for a minute and think it had to be an accident. Then my best friend calls and yells "are you watching this!" I said I was, and then he said "Osama bin Laden got us!" and just as I started to say "who the eff is Osama bin Laden?" they started talking about another plane on tv and I watched the second one hit. At the same time I was absorbing how this was *not* an accident now obviously, I am listening to him tell me all about the threats bin Laden had made about doing this. I spent the rest of the day in shock watching the news, like everyone I'm sure. There were no shows on, just news, for the next week or two. Even channels like MTV had their VJ's just sitting and talking with people solemnly about what this tragedy meant to them and showing footage of it. You could not escape it on television. I think even Home Shopping Network just went dark.
I heard older people saying things like "everyone will remember where they were just like when Kennedy got shot" or some other event. The only difference is the world didn't seem to stop for two weeks when those other events happened.
Nutty_Flavor nailed it on the head. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteI was on my way to work and listening to Mancow's Morning Madhouse when the news broke. I thought it was another one of his pranks and shrugged it off. When I got to work, everyone was huddled around the TV in the pharmacy (at the time, I worked for a major pharmacy chain that's based out of the Midwest) and watching with abject horror and shock. I clocked in and began my morning procedures. The only time I addressed the situation was when I asked my manager if we could go home if something happened to The Sears Tower. I think for the rest of the year, I avoided all news outlets because I didn't want to hear about it. The only thing I could think was that this was my generation's Pearl Harbor.
@Jessica - From what a lot of my older friends have told me, the world did stop when Kennedy got assassinated. Same with Pearl Harbor.
The Nightmare Child - my parents and other relatives all said it didn't. You have to remember, there was no CNN then. There was no 50 channels all showing the footage over and over. And the news that WAS available was very different than what it is today. Some called it whitewashed. It was a different era, and while there was sadness and mourning, there were not details flowing in by the minute for a solid two weeks.
ReplyDeleteIt's just not comparable.
I went into mental shutdown mode that day too, Nightmare Child, and it was for a very long time. It was like I just couldn't bear it. I finally watched that movie United 93 a couple of years ago, and cried like a baby the last quarter of the way through it.
ReplyDeleteI was managing a hotel back then - my desk clerk had taken the morning off, and I was at the desk checking out guests alone. My mother called and told me to turn on the lobby TV - same thing she had done a few years earlier when the Murrah building had been bombed. I stood at my front desk watching the tower burning on the TV and then watching in disbelief as the second plane hit - I remember asking one of my customers - "Did you just see that? was that another plane?" It almost didn't seem real - it was like watching some action movie... only it was all too real. All morning long guests came to the front asking me - is this really happening? And salesmen would stop in and ask - what is going on? Over and over again I had to explain. I live in a high tourist town and suddenly all the vacation things people were doing seemed so pointless. People started checking out to go home - they were saying they just wanted to be around family - wanted to be with their loved ones. I didn't turn off the TV for 24 hours - you just couldn't stop watching.
ReplyDeleteToday MSNBC ran the entire 9/11/01 morning broadcast from that day with Katie Couric and Matt Lauer and the other Today show staffers - watching that this morning was like reliving it all over again. The same sense of disbelief - of loss - and hearing them all try to make sense of what was happening and knowing now what really did was so surreal. Our country had become so complacent about our national safety since WW2 - I don't think we ever will be again. You can't look at that footage and not feel a sense of vulnerability.
@ Jessica - I'm well aware that there was no CNN back then, thank you very much...but the world DID shut down and it IS comparable, savvy?
ReplyDeleteNewspaper, the radio...from what I heard from a lot of my older friends...who all live across the country and were of different ages when it happened...they said the world pretty much came to a grinding halt for a bit....just not in a way that our poor little ADHD Facebook obsessed minds would ever recognize.
@brendalove - I didn't go into mental shutdown, per se...I was tired of hearing about it...and seeing it....and reading about it. Whenever someone would say never forget...I'd say...yeah, what about Pearl Harbor?
I was late to work and so I was on the train at South Ferry when I heard a thunder clap sound and remember being confused because the weather was so gorgeous. Then we bypassed Cortland Street because of "gunshots" and when I first got off the train I was relieved because I had an excuse to be late. Midtown was in chaos and I found out what happened, and I ran to my job, where everyone was so happy to see me bc I usually took the express bus that goes on West Street. I called my father, who is a firefighter and I never heard such pain-the towers hadn't fallen yet, but he was confused about why the staging area was so close. We watched them fall on TV in the VPs room and then we were evacuated-with no where to go. I walked from Rockefeller Center back to South Ferry. I had on heels and had to buy sneakers on the walk home.
ReplyDeleteI lost a lot of friends that day. The city still smelled terrible and eventually I worked down there too. I always think of how grateful I am to be here, and to honor those I lost and how all around the world people have to go through that type of pain on a nearly daily basis and how thankful I am that I live here, and don't.
I work in retail at the world famous outlet center about 50 miles north of NYC. Today I became angry when I realized not one person had on a flag pin, a twin towers pin, or anything that showed they remembered the significance of the day. What made it worse was someone suggesting that today should be a national holiday. I had to remind them that EVERY holiday becomes a shopping/sales excuse for shoppers/retailers and this was one I wanted no part of.
ReplyDeleteI remember the sky, the quietness of my apartment, where for the first time, the was no train, car, or boat sounds coming through my open windows, only the sound of the tv. I remember how beautiful it looked outside as I got ready for work. Today, the weather and the cloudless sky brought me to tears of sadness, anger and fear, as I realized that today looked like that day 9 years ago. I also remember the FBI agents closing the mall that day and being there for a long time after. Imagine, the FBI shutting a mall down!
I'm sorry - I'm still angry and sad. I could go on and on, but there's not enough space to write and never will be.
Terri Ann - I'm so sorry for your losses that day. Smooches, I too thought the same thing about how today's weather - it reminded me of how perfectly 9/11 started before the tragedy unfolded that morning.
ReplyDeleteI was 6 months pregnant, and stayed home with a nasty head cold. I headed to the gas station to grab coffee and OJ at just about 9am, and heard something on the radio, but listening to a rock station, thought it may be some twisted joke. The cashier and one of the patrons were discussing the plane crashing into the first tower. I ran back home, turned on the TV and watched, horrified, as the second plane hit.
I stayed glued to the broadcasts all day (and for weeks afterwards as well), crying. I called my friends and family to tell them how much I loved them. Although I didn't personally lose anyone, it deeply affected me. It made me so angry that someone could destroy so many innocent lives. I prayed for the families and their loved ones. I still do. I will never forget that day.
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ReplyDelete(Sorry to repeat-post the same story b/c I posted a version of the below story on Enty's 9/11 post last year, too. But sometimes it helps to retell my own experiences on each anniversary b/c I don't really talk about it much except for on or around 9/11 - so sorry to anyone who's read this before, but I guess I'm being a little selfish by using this Comments box to help me today :-b)
ReplyDeleteI worked on the 95th Fl of 2 WTC (South Twr). Was 15mins late for work, train pulled into the WTC E station right after the 2nd plane hit. They were telling ppl to get back on the trains, so I never made it past the turnstile.
Took the E back up 1 stop to Canal St, ran upstairs & saw the towers on fire. Burst into tears & started shaking. My beeper (yea, back then some of us still had beepers lol) & cell were going off like crazy but as anyone in NY that day could tell you, cell phones were all wacky & hardly anyone got thru.
Further up, I heard a loud "BOOM" & then everyone yelling, "NONONO!!". In the distance, saw my bldg 2 WTC collapsing. Pancaked & was gone. I was shaking even more & crying harder, grown men started crying. Practically ran up to Union Sq.
Realized then that I had not seen any news footage on this. Stopped @a bar that was packed w/ppl just quietly watching the news. It was so horrific to actually watch the planes disintegrate into the towers.
Saw so many cop cars & fire trucks whizzing by w/sirens blazing.
My company lost about 90 ppl that day. We moved to Rockefeller Ctr late Oct, right by St. Patrick's Cathedral. So we heard so many funeral processions down Fifth Ave for months after 9/11.
It's weird, as the # of yrs since then gets bigger, I can still remember everything from that day like it happened yesterday.
Anyways, sorry for the super long post. But thank you if any of you read it ...
Never Forget :-(
Scat, I am so very sorry for the loss of your coworkers. Everything most of us experienced was from a distance... but being there - wow. It's a whole different perspective. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteIt's so cute how bitter people get when they are wrong.
ReplyDeleteIt's also so cute when you try to deflect by making an inane comparison by throwing "facebook" around, as if that somehow makes your point correct and somehow belittles what was said previously.
You just keep telling yourself your right Nightmare. It will make it all better. *pats you on the head*
Nice name, by the way.
Oh, Jessica.
ReplyDeleteSomeday...when you're an adult, you'll understand.
But hey, you'll always have your looks....I hope.
Thank you all for your stories. I remember that day sadly, and I hope we never forget.
ReplyDeleteits the quiet afterward that still haunts me. standing in the middle of a street realizing that everything has stopped - no cars and trucks, no construction - just eerie silence
ReplyDeleteThanks, Sue, I appreciate it :-)
ReplyDeleteI have sympathy for everyone who suffered due to the attacks on September 11th. I too remember being glued to my television, and crying at the news footage.
ReplyDeleteHowever, for me, the biggest thing I remember when I think of that day is the chain reaction it set off in the middle east. Particularly with the un-UN-sanctioned invation of Iraq (justified by the lies of those operating with and around George W).
If you are counting the lives of civilians as being worth more than the lives of soldiers, then consier that while less than 3000 people were killed in the attacks on September 11th, almost 100,000 Iraqi CIVILIAN citizens have been killed during "Operation Iraqi Freedom" since 2003. That's 30 TIMES the number.
September 11th was a tragedy in so many ways, so when you remember those citizens of New York, don't forget about all the other citizens of the rest of the world that have lost their lives since then. The US government is not an innocent victim.
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ReplyDeleteIt is one of those days that you never forget. You know exactly were you where, what you were doing etc.
ReplyDeleteI was going to watch emmerdale farm (British soap) and instead I saw the planes crashing into the towers. At first I thougt it was an action movie and when reality hit me, I just sat down thinking - the world is going to change for the worst and it did. It has become an intolerant world, starting wars in the name of religion (take your pick)and oil.
The lifes lost on 9/11 will not be forgotten.
Seriously, Char?
ReplyDeleteNightmare, When I'm an adult? Really? To show how ignorant you are - I'm 41. Now eff off with your "I'm so dark and emo, but I'll never admit I'm emo, I love tattoos and Bettie page and piercings and no one understands me and I want everyone to think I had a dark and rough life and I don't want any sympathy but I really do, but if you offer I will say I don't, and I know EVERYTHING. IN. THE. WORLD. and even if I don't I will google it and pretend I am an expert, even when talking about sh!t that happened when I was almost a c*m stain because I'm so edgy and witty and mature" BULLSH!T and buy a clue.
ReplyDeleteChar, in other words you're saying you would be more comfortable having sympathy for the people who died but you don't.
ReplyDeleteThe US government didn't die that day -- individual human beings did. They didn't have leaflets dropped on them. They were given no warning to run and hide. No one was trying to minimize the loss of human life. The terrorists did what they did to maximize the loss of human life.
I was also profoundly against the Iraq War, but to suggest that somehow the deaths on 911 were made less awful because of the deaths in Iraq is simply to declare your own biases regarding ethnicities (and yes, American is an ethnicity). If we only blame one person, we should blame the terrorists whose mass-murder permitted George Bush to spin his lie.
Wow, for the guy that shared his story about being late to work, Thank you. Sorry to hear about the loss of your co-workers, but happy to know that you were later, because it is a second chance at life. Amazing...
ReplyDeleteSorry, i mean that you were late to work, therefore, you are safe now...
ReplyDeleteI used to arrange trade shows for a large software company and we had a financial show at Windows on the World that day. Several of our people were out getting coffee when the planes struck. Three were not so lucky. It could have been me.
ReplyDeleteYes, I remember the day...the Primary for the Mayor's race was on and everyone was trying to vote and get to work.....never realizing that this was a day that would change the way we feel about life as we know it.
ReplyDeleteA senseless unnecessary war, motivated by greed, jumping at an opportunity.
So to all the families who lost someone on 9/11 and in the conflict
that came after, my prays are with you.
9 years later, a very very quiet Saturday in New York, Trader Joe's empty..the streets calm...and hearts are still broken.
My parents were both alive during Pearl Harbor, Kennedy's Assasination and for 9/11. I called and asked my mom (she's 78 years) & my dad (he's 82 years) this question, "Did the world stop during Pearl Harbor & Kennedy's Assassination like we believe it did during 9/11?" My mother said, "No." and this is why.
ReplyDeleteShe said that during the days of Pearl Harbor, most people got their news via the radio. "Back then," she said, "the news media REPORTED the news." They did not give their opinions of the news and just reported the news as it happened or the facts as they knew them to be.
She said that Kennedy, had a camera on him (most of the time) when he was shot and the biggest question at the time was, "Was there only one shooter?" News reporters just reported the facts and there were only 3 channels on which to get your news but it seemed more real in stark black & white.
Her opinion of 9/11? Overkill on the day it happened but it was everywhere worldwide. Every channel was focused on this event because that's the way news is reported now. So much speculation and rumor was reported without waiting for facts. Everyone wants to know anything & everything NOW!. Her biggest regret is that there seems to be less patriotism and more division now than on the day that it happened.
It's an 'I-Me-Mine' and a 'I want it now-Now-NOW-NOW!' world and reporting seems to be all about the scoop and the opinions about who is giving the information...not necessarily about the facts.
Exactly caydian. Nightmare doesn't have a clue. Maybe one day when she's an adult she'll get one.
ReplyDeleteYou are so mature, Jessica. ^__^
ReplyDeleteStill pissed about a Mosque replacing these 2 towers.
ReplyDeleteWe'd just moved to Texas from NJ, and I'd just dropped the kids off at elementary school and had stopped for a coffee. The clerk was telling everyone about the plane hitting the WTC, and I figured that it was a cloudy day and a small private plane had gotten lost on the way to LaGuardia. I flipped the TV on when I got home just in time to see the second plane hit, and spent the rest of the day making sure friends were ok. We got lucky, no one we knew died.
ReplyDeleteI flew into Newark the day after the planes started flying. The memory I will always carry with me is the skyline dominated by the clouds of smoke that were still rising from the wreckage of the buildings, and how wrong it looked with the buildings gone.
@Jamie's Girl, that reads like a troll comment. Nearly everyone knows now that the "mosque" isn't a mosque. It's a good two blocks away from Ground Zero and is definitely not AT Ground Zero. There is already a mosque closer to Ground Zero than this Islamic Cultural Center will be.
ReplyDeleteWould you want Christian churches controlled in Oklahoma City because of what Tim McVeigh did?
I worked in HR back them and I was conducting a monthly "new employee orientation" all day session that day from 8am-5pm for about 30 new employees and had a TV and VCR in the room to play the series of obligatory company tapes to the newbies.
ReplyDeleteAn employee came in during one of my spiels and started wheeling the TV out of the room while I was talking. I was like WTF? I stopped him and he said he needed it because someone had bombed the World Trade Center and he needed to set up the TV for everyone to watch the news coverage TV.
I thought he was crazy but followed him out and after he'd connected the TV to the cable connection in the lounge area I was horrified to see that he was correct -- the WTC was on fire. We all stood around and watched, silent and horrified, as the WTC burned and people dropped to their deaths.
As noted, that was an all day class but I don't remember much of anything else, or how I conducted the remaining session.
I still get a little choked up when I'm watching a "Friends" episode (yeah, Enty, I know...) and they pan across the NYC skyline and show the World Trade Centers. Talk about a more innocent time!
Incidentally, when people (using the term loosely) like "Dr." Terry Jones want to burn the Koran I want to shake him until his teeth rattles and tell him
ReplyDelete1) This is why they hate us!!
2) You and your ignorance-fueled hate is just a Western version of theirs. You are brothers in base stupidity; you should be buddies, you ignorant fool!
barrilove: Thank you ...
ReplyDeleteWhere did I say I didn't have sympathy for them? I actually said I DO have sympathy for them.
ReplyDeleteI also said I have sympathy for the fact that since that day, 30 times as many people have since died as a result of the US action in Iraq.
Are you saying you DON'T have sympathy for those Iraqi civilians who have lost their lives?
I was in school, teaching my third graders when our principal came over the intercom and calmly asked teachers to check their email. She didn't want us to have our televisions on, so she kept us up to speed with emails every few minutes. She told us to come by her office to watch the news there when we had a free moment. I remember trying to put on a brave face for the children, but having to constantly push down panic inside...
ReplyDeleteVery late to this thread, so I doubt anyone will read it.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, SCat07 - HUG. I feel for you. And everyone else touched by 9/11 as well as every civilian massacred as the result of these stupid,, effing, endless wars. As others have stated earlier.
Jessica, shame on you for making this thread about you and your opinion.
All of my stories are one step removed. Katie the flight attendant who traded shifts at the last minute and avoided working on one of the doomed flights. She's married to a San Francisco business associate. A friend's uncle who barely made it out of the towers and underwent hours of surgery for burns and embedded glass. And so forth. I wasn't personally touched by the tragedies that unfolded that day. The aftermath of economic failure is a different story.
I remember that day too well. The little things. The Four Seasons in Yorkville kept remotely turning down the volume on the television in the lobby because they didn't want the people gathered around it. I've never used the Four Seasons for anything else since. (I'm an event planner) Their response was disgusting.
I ended up with a group of US and Canadian film journalists in an English-style pub. The tv on the right had CNN. The tv on the left had CBC Newsworld. The stark differences in their reporting of the event sparked much discussion with us and the styles of reporting have stayed with me. CNN kept it local. CBC kept it international. It was surreal seeing the same story unfold in such completely different ways via the approach to report it.
@Char, I specifically said I do have very grave feelings about the Iraq War. I didn't couch my remarks in terms of reservations about sympathy for Iraqi victims where you specifically dated reservations about the 9/11 attack sympathies.
ReplyDeleteIn assigning blame, we have to give the first of it to the terrorists who made it possible for Bush to lie us into a war.
Incidentally, I'm unbookmarking the page since it was only bookmarked through the weekend with 9/11 links.
ReplyDeleteTerri-Ann, Smooches and everyone else impacted, there's not a day that goes by that I don't think of that day -- and I live in California. There can be no reason whatsoever to belittle the deaths of those people by suggesting the US wasn't an "innocent victim." No nation is an innocent victim. We're a planet of warring tribes. But we die individually.
I know it's too late for anyone to read this, but Jessica, my parents were in Liberia when JFK was assassinated, and that country totally shut down. Everyone was glued to the radio. The world did indeed stop.
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