Five years later
POSTED BY: HKCavalier
UPDATED: Tuesday, September 12, 2006 20:57
VIEWED: 2341
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I was getting up for work. The night had been restless. My two cats had been crazy all night, meowing constantly and clawing at my head to wake me up--last time they did that there was an earthquake, so I was vaguely aware that something was up. I think that was why I turned on the t.v. that morning, which I almost never do. A plane had crashed into one of the World Trade Center Towers. I think I tuned in just before the second tower was hit, but anyway, that's the next thing I remember. Then they started falling. I remember thinking to myself, "So that's how it happens."
I told my roommate who was half asleep at the time and all she said was, "Yeah," and went back to sleep (she's pretty hardboiled, that one).
Watching the towers fall (over and over and over again), it came to me that the folks responsible had only intended to crash the planes into the towers, it never occured to them that they could demolish the buildings entirely.
It occured to me that this was happening on September 11th, 9/11. "Call 911, we're in trouble." I take bizarre coincidences like that very seriously. The country's in trouble. The planet's in trouble. Every person with "911" on their minds would be sending out a distress signal.
My work with addicts and abusive cycles taught me to anticipate something like this. As I watched the towers burn, I thought that this could be a signal for healing, a kind of national "hitting bottom." America had to admit to itself that it was no long invincible, never was really; only, bigger and tougher than anyone left on the field. We went around the globe bombing anyone we felt like, whenever we felt it (my roommate's father was a military man, so we knew how trigger-happy Clinton had been in the Middle East), because we were the good guys and because there was no one left to stop us.
The days after the attack were amazing. People stopped and talked to one another on the streets. Strangers would offer to help you at the slightest sign of need. I got to know everyone at my job better in the next few months than I'd known them in the 10 years before 9/11. So many people were sharing their grief. All these famous men were crying on t.v., Dan Rather, David Letterman, others I don't remember.
I watched the Daily Show back then. Before 9/11 the show was absolute fluff. For the longest time after 9/11 John Stewart didn't even joke on the show. His guest list changed from Goldie Hawn and Andrew Dice Clay to obscure political analysts and senators, over night. It was amazing. That show kept me sane that year.
Anyway, I wanted to start a thread where folks could share their memories of that day and the weeks and months that followed.
I would like folks to be able to share all their thoughts and feelings from those days, so please, fellow browncoats, no flame-wars, no links, no name calling. Just, "where were you?" and "what happened next?"
HKCavalier
Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
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I was living in London working for a British company. A co-worker called the office to tell me that "your Worldtrade Center" had been struck by an airplane. I remember laughing at how ridiculous that was. "Planes don't hit the World Trade Center!" I squealed. "Its a HUGE F
G building! It would be impossible to not see them!". My boss sent me home not long after, when it became apparent that something really really awful was happening, and when he became aware that I had friends that worked in the financial district in New York. I remember that my son was due for an orthodontic appointment. We stopped at home in time to see the second tower fall. I rememeber being absolutely stunned and sick to my stomach as they should those poor souls jumping and falling from the towers. I remember for months afterward having nightmares about those falling bodies.
Being in a military family we were put under increased security. I remember stopping and watching low flying planes that flew over our building at work or on the base. The base was "locked down" and it became difficult to get British friends on.
But I was really amazed at the reaction of the people around me. The Muslim family from my sons school that sent food round. The Lebanese couple next door, people whom we had only said hello to, coming to the door to tell us how badly they felt. Everywhere we went for months the outpouring of grief and sorrow on "our" behalf. These people of all Nationalities didn't know any other Americans and for them we became the symbol of this country. It was heartening. It was beautiful. It made for the beginning of a better world.
And then Ole GW opened his fat mouth.
We are not better off now. What a relief that those that lost their lives that day can't see what a mockery we have become.
----
Bestower of Titles, Designer of Tshirts, Maker of Mottos, Keeper of the Pyre
I am on The List. We are The Forsaken and we aim to burn!
"We don't fear the reaper"
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I was at work. Someone popped their head in to tell us that a plane had hit a building in the US. I went onto an internet message board and some people were joking about it being like a Spiderman comic or something. Then news of the second plane hit came through and it was clear this was no accident.
It was strange that almost immediately some people posted that they were glad Americans were going to find out what terrorism felt like. Bear in mind that it was mostly Americans who had funded the IRA who had been bombing us for the previous 25 years - there's no denying that in a bizarre karmic way, the shoe was going to be on the other foot.
Mostly I just remember feeling sad. My sister was in tears. My parents couldn't quite believe it. I think afterwards I mostly clung to the stories of hope - those rescued out of the rubble, the steadily falling casualty rate, the way the world united in support of the US.
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I was in Turkey that day, in Instanbul and just the day before there had been a huge bomb blast in the city killing several people just down the road from the hotel I was staying at... Istanbul is frantic at the best of times but with this explosion there was a real sense of anxiety and fear...
I went to bed. Fearful of any noise and activity all through the night. I slept as though I were sleeping on a ledge.
When I woke up I turned on the TV in the hotel room just as the second plane crashed into the second tower. I was so totally disorientated from the previous days explosion. As I watched what was going on in the US I could barely make sense of the world at that point... I still haven't made sense of it since.
www.cirqus.com
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I live in Denmark so it affect me directly.
I was actually playing Red Alert 2 when my brother told me that they hit the WTC. I was only 13 back then, so I barely knew what it was. He also told me they hit Pentagon. For those who know Red Alert 2, you actually have to destroy the pentagon in the first mission as the ruskies, and it was actually that mission I was playing. Strange.
Anyways, I couldn't comprehend it. Couldn't really understand what it really meant other than people died. My thoughts and reactions are of course very different now.
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I forget which of the major networks it was, but the channel I was watching had a pair of anchors talking over the live feed of the burning tower. One man, and one woman. Over and over, the lady kept asking if there could be some sort glitch in the Air Traffic Control system which would explain why a airplane flew into a sky scraper on a perfectly clear Sept. morning. A faulty beacon, some navigational error....( like any pilot wouldn't recognzie the WTC looming up dead ahead ).This lady was in flat out denial as to what she was seeing. It COULDN'T be that a plane intentionally do that. Had to be another reason. I guess that's what she was thinking....until the 2nd plane hit.
What baffled me were the first reports that a "small commuter , or private plane " had slammed into one of the towers. While that would make more sense...( some dude just wanted to off himself ? or had a heart attack ? ), it was soon evident from the amount of smoke that this wasn't a small plane.
People love a happy ending. So every episode, I will explain once again that I don't like people. And then Mal will shoot someone. Someone we like. And their puppy. - Joss
" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "
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I was going to my friend's house so we could walk to smart math together (the junior high school started earlier than our elementary, so it was about 7:30).
She opened the door and said something simple like, "The planes crashed into the towers."
I thought that was interesting, and didn't quite understand why she was so upset. We walked to school, and our math teacher let us watch one of the repeating loops the news shows were playing, and she tried to explain it to us. I honestly didn't understand what the big deal was - New York being over 2,000 miles away - and I wasn't affected by it.
In fact, I've never been affected by it. It's as if I read it in a history book, or it happened when I was a baby. It didn't frighten me, or worry me, or anything - it was just something that happened. I'm completely detached from the memories because I was only in sixth grade, and there were no emotions for me - whereas my friend had an uncle who lived less than six blocks away.
I'm not sure if I should think that my reaction (or lack thereof) was bizarre.
::shrugs::
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I think the very first words out of my mouth were... "And thus we reap the bitter harvest we have sown."
I was upset, but expecting it (Having read the PNAC primers long before that), and even more so expecting what came after - to the point of writing several blistering editorials of where the Patriot Act was gonna take us, and how quickly - which (although two were printed) were laughed off because "That'll never happen."
I wish to hell I'd been wrong - and I feel pretty damn horrible about the casualties cause folks like me feel indirectly responsible for not being ABLE to stop the stupidities that were going to lead to something like this sooner or later.
And what gives me the shivers now is that our actions these days are guaranteeing another serious incident, only worse, and quite possibly from our own citizens this time as the jackboots stomp louder on our spines.
You mark my words, it won't be too long before we start seeing terrorist incidents and bombings, on american soil, by pissed off american citizens - and if history repeats itself, likely at all the wrong targets harming no one but ourselves even worse.
Never understood that, why rioters burn down the mini-mall, but leave city hall alone ?
It just totally escapes me that angry people would not attack what they felt was the source of their problems....
Anyhow, it's comin here, it HAS come here before (McVeigh for example) and if things continue, will be here to stay...
I wish I had an answer, but I don't.
-Frem
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When the buildings fell I was watching TV, I had to go to someone's house, I don't have a tv. What was my reaction?
My first response was "no way" which I meant literally, before the buildings fell I said they wouldn't fall. I called it as I saw it, and knowing something about the buildings. Later, my wrongness, and the shouting down I got caused me to cave. I must be wrong, the buildings would topple if planes flew into them. Years later, I was again convinced they wouldn't.
Because you asked, that's what happened. There was no implied conspiracy theory. I didn't know if it was arabs or timothy mcveigh cooks or the IRA, or whoever, but if those buildings were going to crumble, they had something else other than planes, a bomb in the building or something.
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I had just finished a contract out for a client. The company I was working for was in 1 World Trade. I already knew I would start work in September for the same client at a different location. We were going to start building the servers and assembling the new infrastructure in the test lab. The actual start date was loose. We had discussed coming up to NYC for 2 weeks starting either September 10th or 17th. The project manager had tried to contact me late Friday, but I had already left town to attend a Jimmy Buffett concert in Bristow VA. On Monday I contacted him and we arranged to start on the 17th. I either would have been in tower 1, at my employer's office on the 78th floor or in 7 WTC at the client's office.
There were literally two offices full of people I knew and had worked closely with for the past 6 months smack dab at ground zero. My girlfriend woke me up after the first plane hit. We watched the second plane hit, and it impacted at about the same level as my company's floor. Hours of frantic phone calls, social networking and leaving messages on home phones later and I got the news.
I am one of the lucky ones. Nobody I knew died. Nearly everyone had a story where if they were a few feet over there, they wouldn't be here anymore. One of the guys in WTC 7 had just left his office for coffee when flaming debris smashed through the window and demolished the desk and chair he had been using a minute before. Another teammate described the sounds of people from the upper floors jumping to their deaths to escape the flames. Another teammate hit the street from the subway just in time to run for his life as the first building fell. So many close escapes, like someone was watching out for the people I knew.
The more I get to know people the more I like my dogs.
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