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Thread: Remembering 9/11

  1. #141
    Stuck on the Border buffyfan145's Avatar
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    Default Re: Remembering 9/11

    I can't believe it's been 15 years as well. I had the same thought about the kids and teens today too. For me I was 15 when it happened. I remember we were getting ready for my sophomore English class to start which was my 2nd class of the day. I had just gotten out of choir and something felt off when we were singing. When I got to class another English teacher from across the hall came in and took my teacher aside. He looked grave after whatever he was told and nodded to her as she left. He told us that something had happened in New York and went to turn on our classroom's TV.

    When the TV came on we were all shocked to see the fire coming out of the building. We didn't know what caused it and thought maybe it was a bomb. I remember my teacher saying it weirdly reminded him of the song "Smoke on the Water" and now I still think about this when I hear it. Then when the 2nd plane hit we knew something was really wrong.

    I had never been so frightened in my life. We had no idea what exactly was going on and then the Pentagon got hit and the plane went down in Pennsylvania. We may have been teenagers but we were all scared and didn't know what to do. I remember so many of us crying and hugging. The teachers trying to console us but didn't know what to do either. Most of us started to leave early as our parents got off work and picked us up. It's weird too now to think back as it inspired so many of my male friends to go into the military and one of them died in Iraq 4 years later and another, my dear friend Mark, after serving three tours in the Middle-East would die in a car accident 10 years later.

    I remember too my Grandpa was visiting family in Boston at the time while my Grandma was still here in Ohio and she was worried sick. After he flew back home he's never flown on a plane since. I also stuck really close to my parents that day, as did my younger brother. We ended up watching old comedy movies since all the TV networks had non stop coverage.

    The weather that day was so sunny and nice out that you would never think what was going on. I used to love going outside to listen to music so I did that day and I remember I heard Don's song "The End of the Innocence" on the radio and how weirdly it fit, especially from my point of view. I also loved when the Eagles released "Hole in the World" as it was such a lovely song, as did my Mom.

    It really changed everything and I will never forget and always think of the families who lost loved ones that day too.
    ~*Amanda*~
    "So often times it happens that we live our lives in chains and we never even know we have the key."

  2. #142
    Border Desperado WS82Classics's Avatar
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    Default Re: Remembering 9/11

    I was in 2nd grade when the terrorist attack took place. The teachers didn't show us television footage of what was happening in NY or DC, which I fully realize was for the best--I can't imagine what it would have been like to watch an event like that one in real time. Without any inkling of what was going on, I ultimately found out after I got home and saw the footage re-played on cable news channels. It was truly unlike anything I had ever seen before. I had visited family up in Queens, NY, around Thanksgiving of the previous year, and my thoughts immediately turned to them.

    It took years for the true scope of what took place that day to fully dawn on me. I remember seeing, in the months after the attack, these television footage reels of men and their families getting together around the Thanksgiving/Christmas season just before their deployment. It really tore me up, as I sub-consciously thought about what it would be like if my own father were to be deployed out to a war zone. That no small number of them didn't make it home alive is surreally awful.

    I watch the MSNBC "Living History" show, a re-air of the "Today Show" from the morning of September 11, 2001, every year, and it magnifies the horror of what happened in so many different ways. This morning, around 10:21 AM, I saw the footage of those firemen valiantly bee-lining for the North Tower, which collapsed within 10 minutes, and I realized that they probably did not survive the attack. To this day, every time I watch 9/11 footage, there is nothing about it that feels or seems at all real.


    I had a conversation 4 years ago with a young girl I briefly knew and really liked, and she gave me the ultimate "Wow, what a small world" tidbit--Somehow or another we got to talking 9/11, and she mentioned that in the years she lived in South FL, her dad was a flight instructor and, in his capacities, had unknowingly helped teach 3 of the 4 hijackers how to fly(the ones who hit both towers and the pilot of the downed flight in PA). He didn't find this out until about 6 months after the attacks, when the FBI came knocking at the door. He described the students as unassuming and very good learners.


    It is a day which no one, old or young, who lived through will ever forget, and that's what makes travlnman's point so strange and scary. Very soon, we'll have people coming of age who view 9/11 as little more than that thing mom and dad get all emotional about(likewise with December 7, 1941, and their grandparents). It will be interesting to see what the next few years have in store for this country.

    This is one of my all-time favourite songs, and the video for it features pictures of the Trade Center and particularly the Windows on the World restaurant at the top of the North Tower. America and NYC in happier times. Really, I think, seems to evoke the feelings and the spirit of a bygone era: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uF9hyogNurU
    All carrot, no stick.

    "He's just another power junkie, just another silk scarf monkey. You'd know it if you saw his stuff. The man just isn't big enough."--Glenn Frey/Don Henley

    "You think you know me, but you haven't got a clue."--John Lennon/Paul McCartney


  3. #143
    Stuck on the Border AlreadyGone95's Avatar
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    Default Re: Remembering 9/11

    It's hard to believe that 15 years have passed since this horrible event. It's even harder to believe that people who weren't born when 9/11 happened will be of age in a few years. Granted, I was only (nearly) six when it happened, but I can remember it very vividly in my head. I saw more than most kids my age because the adults at the therapy center listened and watched some of it unfold. Any time I watch something related to 9/11, I usually have to hold back a tear or two.

    The phrase "Never Forget" is very appropriate, I think. 9/11 changed the states (and even the world) in so many ways. My generation has grown up in the midst of this change. Children in the 1950s learned what to do if a nuclear bomb hit; we've had to learn what to do if a terrorist attack happened or if an active shooter came on campus.
    -Kim-


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  4. #144
    Stuck on the Border shunlvswx's Avatar
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    Default Re: Remembering 9/11

    I was 21 and in college. I had just left my internship at my local tv station heading on campus to my Chemistry lab class. I really don't remember seeing anything on the attacks when I was leaving at the tv station. The first time I heard about it was when I got in my car heading to my department building and I heard the late Peter Jennings on the radio. I had wonder what the heck he was doing on the radio not know what happened. Its strange. Those two hours I was in Chemistry lab, I didn't hear anybody talked about what happened earlier.

    Every time I see the second plane crash into the building and seeing the twin towers fall, I always cry.

    I watched the movie World Trade Center that starred Nicolas Cage for the first time last year. He played John McLoughlin. The guy who was stuck in the collapsed World Trade Center for 22 hours. Another guy was in there with him and got out in 13 hours. It was a great movie.

  5. #145
    Moderator Brooke's Avatar
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    Default Re: Remembering 9/11

    It seems impossible that it's been 15 years! I know I'll never forget.
    https://i.imgur.com/CuSdAQM.jpg
    "They will never forget you 'till somebody new comes along"
    1948-2016 Gone but not forgotten

  6. #146
    Stuck on the Border Jonny Come Lately's Avatar
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    Default Re: Remembering 9/11

    A few days late for the 15th anniversary of the tragedy but I wanted to pay my respects to all those affected by it. Some people very close in age to me have provided some very thoughtful contributions to this thread and I feel that whatever I have to offer will be inadequate in comparison. I cannot remember much about it apart from the sense of confusion and seeing the footage of the Towers falling - as a 7 year old and a non-American I wasn't really aware of the significance of what was happening apart from knowing that it wasn't at all good. My parents were quite protective of us as children so I think we were sheltered from the worst scenes.

    (By the way (on a far less serous note) - Shun, I had no idea that you did Chemistry. I wouldn't have been surprised if I was the only chemist on the board).

  7. #147
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    Default Re: Remembering 9/11

    September 11th is not a day I will ever forget. I am from NYC, Greenwich Village in fact, but was living in Boston at the time. My parents still live there. It's not very far at all from where the Twin Towers once stood. I kept calling them over and over as well as everyone I knew in NYC and kept getting busy signals as all of the phone lines were down.
    I had to work 3-11pm in the ER that day and I honestly cannot remember anything about that shift as I was so worried as to what was happening back home.
    I was supposed to go to a Christening not far from the World Trade Center in September 2001, but it was obviously delayed until December. When we went, the air was filled with the smell of burnt debris and carnage. Although I was so happy to welcome my good friend's little girl into the world, I was sickened at all the lives that had been lost and what had been done to our country. It makes me tear up just writing this and to be honest, I think I block 9/11 from my memory a lot of the time.
    There are not many people who are born and raised in NYC. I am 3rd generation. But after 9/11/2001, NYC no longer felt like home anymore and I look for any excuse to avoid going there.
    If I stop and think about all the lives that were lost and the families of the victims, I can go to a very dark place.
    It was a horrible, senseless act that brought so much needless pain and suffering to so many people.

  8. #148
    Administrator sodascouts's Avatar
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    Default Re: Remembering 9/11

    Another year, another anniversary of the day that changed the way we viewed the world.

    Always in our hearts, Never forgotten

  9. #149
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    Default Re: Remembering 9/11

    This is always such a sad day for us here in NY/NJ Metro area. So many innocent lives lost. We lost a family friend, 12 people in my town died and appx. 22 people in the town where one of my sister's lived. I will never forget how beautiful the day started out - one of the nicest days all summer. Crystal clear blue skies. I remember talking with friends as we waited for our train about how beautiful the weather was. That of course changed shortly thereafter.
    I think about all the people who went to work and never came back. I remember coming home from work every day for the next two months and seeing the smoke from Ground Zero - and I live almost an hours train ride south of the city.
    All the crazy "but for the grace of God that could have been me" stories. My cousin's wife retired from the Port Authority of NY & NJ which had offices in the towers the Friday before. She had decide to move her retirement up one week. One of my best friends brother had a HVAC business and was set to begin working that day at the towers but the parts needed had not come in. Another friend had a sister who worked there. Her dog ran out the front door and she had to chase him down the street. She missed her normal train and was forced to take a later train. Had she been on the earlier train it would have just been pulling in at the station under the first tower when it collapsed. At work, the guy who sat across from me had a brother who worked in one of the towers and got out safely.
    That day changed everything. All the brave lives lost that day and the last 16 years fighting terrorism. Hard to believe it has been 16 years. When I was watching the memorial ceremony this morning on our local NY tv stations, you could see the victims families will never get over that day. My parents used to talk about what they were doing the day they heard Pearl Harbor had been bombed. I remember talking to friends and saying "This is our Pearl Harbor" Sadly, the world has never been the same since that day no matter where you live.

  10. #150
    Moderator Brooke's Avatar
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    Default Re: Remembering 9/11

    No it will never be the same and I remember every year what I was doing. Even though we are way over here in Missouri. For a few days the world did stop turning, it seemed. Can't believe it's been 16 years.

    NKIT, those are some amazing 'close call' stories!
    https://i.imgur.com/CuSdAQM.jpg
    "They will never forget you 'till somebody new comes along"
    1948-2016 Gone but not forgotten

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