Today, at least in Washington, D.C., is a solemn day. No matter what you feel or believe about the attacks and the aftermath, the world changed 25 years ago today.
For me I was a kid in first grade. My mom did not pull me out of school that day, even though the majority of the students were. When I got home, I remember just seeing my parents shocked and our TV showing footage of the towers burning, collapsing, and first responders and regular people running to Ground Zero to help.
My mom had picked up one of my best friends, DJ, at the time and brought her to my house. Her parents had been in the towers in 1993 when the bombing attempt was made in the garage under the towers. Both of her parents ended up suffering from lung damage and ended up changing jobs to get away from NYC after that attack. Even though it was 8 years later, the whole family still had a ton of friends there, and many of them did not survive 25 years ago.
DJ stayed with us for a while that afternoon, while her parents were on the phone for hours. My parents tried to keep the two of us from watching TV because of what was on; however, living in an open-concept house worked against my parents and still let us see more than we really should have seen.
Never Forget.
I was about to head to work and my wife yelled to look at the TV. As I came around the corner and saw it, the first tower collapsed.
I was in college. Feeling stunned and heartbroken. Wrote this rictameter prayer
I pray
the fragile heart
be bestowed quiet strength
Not be devoured by bitterness
The mind rid of torturing images
Free to react decisively
Aided by tender peace
Earnest wishes
I pray
I like that. good that you still have it
hullo! Hope you have adjusted well to your pregnancy. Take care
Representing a client for a DWI. The court doors were locked. Cops let me in and I sat with about 10 cops watching a small TV in a back room just after the first tower was hit. We watched the second tower get hit live. The cops immediately jumped up after the second plane hit, told me to send my client home, and asked me to let myself out while they ran down the back stairs.
Wow… the stories that we hear from everyday people like yourself, I think, really capture the sheer scale of what happened.
I have a lot more from that crazy day. Someday I'll write them down.
You should! I, for one, would read it! Were you on Long Island at the time?
Yes. I used to race around in my car back then representing people all over NYC, Long Island, and Westchester. I had a second appearance in NYC after that DWI. I was driving to the city, maybe 20 minutes away from lower Manhattan, when I heard on the news that the Pentagon was hit. That really got to me. I got off the road and headed back home to my wife and infant daughter. I later found out that the kid we had just hired to serve food at my daughter's christening was also a worker at Windows On The World. He died that day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11_advance-knowledge_conspiracy_theories
Just read it.
I was in high school in Taiwan. Walked past the living room where my parents were watching the news and saw the planes go into the towers. I thought they were watching a movie. They only told me about 30 minutes later what actually happened.
I went to an American high school in Taiwan at the time. Classes were cancelled for the week, and in the following week we had soldiers guarding the campus.
interesting, was there a lot of fear?
I don't recall feeling a lot of fear. Taiwan is not very relevant to Islamic extremism. There was of course a lot of chatter, a lot of meetings, etc. But the kids seemed to be more abuzz about the drama of it rather than feeling fear, iirc.
I was in college. I had a class that morning but I didn’t go. I ended up hanging out with a bunch of friends watching the news and trying to make sense of what had happened.
The stories like yours always catch me by surprise because it shows how out of left field this was to everyone. Reading about it and listening to broadcasts when people thought it might have just been a terrible accident with the first one, only to have live coverage of the second plane hitting the tower, is just so, so crazy when you think about where technology was at that time....
Nice try, fed!
Lol its nice to see even with Darth gone I got someone calling me a Fed!
Cheers
Sweet!
My school library and I didn't understand what was happening but all the adults were obviously scared and so was I.
It definitely left a massive impact on all of us who were just kids growing up. My first-grade teacher asked us the next day if we knew what had happened, and according to the teacher, I said, "Some really bad people flew planes into buildings."
The simplicity of my response just showed how we had no idea what had happened and what we were going to be in for.
Now can you imagine how the citizens of the multiple nations USA invades and terrorises feel?
Whole generations of children from Vietnam to Indonesia, Iran, Afghanistan, Chile, Iraq, Laos, Nicaragua, Palestine and multiple other sites globally where the US has bombed and killed in the name of its global resource hegemony.
In doing so you sow fear and hatred in the minds of millions.
US imperialism sowed the seeds of 9/11.
Reap what you sow.
I was only 8 years old at the time... I have some memories from that time... living in Cuba, one has a completely different experience, but I remember only finding out late at night. At home, my mother turned on the TV from that era; it was a black and white TV. We lived in the countryside, outside the city, and the TV was connected to the battery of the tractor that my father used for work at that time. We were sitting at the table eating, and the news was coming on. That day, I think it was almost entirely about the attacks on the towers.
Wow..... thank you for sharing this perspective. Seeing how the attack was seen by the rest of the world is a critical viewpoint that I feel like a lot of Americans miss.
Sitting in class across from a girl I had a crush on. I was more concerned with inside of that room than the outside world. Kind of want to go back to that place.
Looking back now, it does seem that life was so much simpler back then...
At the bar, having a coffee after lunch. I was shocked by what was playing on that little TV in the corner.
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Since 9/11 USA has become a perpetrator and sponsor of terrorism.
Drone strikes weekly since Bush, kidnappings, torture and constantly increasing aggression, violence and repression both internally and externally.
Sponsoring the genocide in Gaza and attacking numerous other nations in breach of international law and upon no sound basis except petrodollar resource hegemony and subservience to The Zionists Greater Israel Project.
The 9/11 attackers achieved their goal of pointing out the hypocrisy of US Exceptionalism and its imperialism and provoking a response that has led to the steady decline of the US as a global power.
I was waiting for a friend at a hamburger place. There was a small old TV hanging on the wall right above me. Suddenly, all those terrible images and news started coming one after another. It was such a sad and frustrating day. :(
Music class. Third period, right after lunch.
Teacher comes in looking somber and opens with something along the lines of
"Alright we need to talk before we begin. You may be hearing people clamoring about talking about World War 3 and...."
It was a wild thing to hear. I remember thinking "wtf happened during lunch?"
No one had cellphones back then so news travelled slower. The kids who went to eat lunch at home brought back the news upon their return.
Twenty-five years have passed since 19 al-Qaeda hijackers seized four commercial aeroplanes and slammed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing nearly 3,000 people.
What followed was a series of US-led wars that reshaped Washington’s foreign policy for a generation, in which every year since 2001, US forces have bombed a country somewhere in the world, devastating the lives of millions.
Successive wars after 9/11 have killed at least 4.5 million people and displaced more than 38 million others.
I was in the children concentration camp(school)
Getting ready for middle school
Was surprised by the ingenuity of it, but not by the motivation of those who did it.
Certainly a very effective example of asymmetric warfare.
It gave the US a taste of the violence it has dished out to the rest of the world for decades.
It had the desired effect of throwing the US off balance and hastening if not actually precipitating its decline.
https://www.wsj.com/world/sept-11-changed-world-order-1508c504?
'Sept. 11 Changed the World Order. But Not for the Reason We May Think.
The terrorist attacks consumed U.S. resources and attention, and left the country unable to address the bigger threats to its economy and global leadership'
How about just for today you kindly.... Shut the fuck up.
I know that's a hard concept for you, but today is a day of remembrance, honoring the victims of the horrific terror attacks, and being there for our fellow Americans.
Yeah nah I will speak up for the estimated 900,000 people killed by the US in its response since then...and it continues on and on as families and children and innocent people are still being attacked and murdered by the US imperialist Zionist combine.
How about you consider WHY USA was attacked on that day - it was not without provocation.
You continue to provoke with your attacks on other nations in your US Exceptionalist arrogance.
Today is a good day to reflect on that.
I was working in a factory making garage doors. My manager said something like "this is going to change the world" I didn't know what he was talking about till lunch break.