9/11 Memories

[RED DAVE]

My reminiscenses of 9/11. Comrades, please post your own.

My wife and I live about 2.6 miles from what is now called Ground Zero. On that day, I wasn't working: my job during the week, was at a school only about a mile from the Twin Towers. My weekend job was two 12-hour shifts working for a law firm on the 59th floor of One World Trade Center: the north tower. I went home from there about 26 hours before the attack. Tuesday was never a workday for me.

At a few minutes to 9:00, my wife got a call from a friend that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. My first thought was an executive jet or some small plane. It was unthinkable that it could have been an airliner as they fly over Manhattan way over the height of the Twin Towers (~1100 feet). We went outside and walked to the street corner nearest us, about 100 yards from our apartment building, where there was line of sight to the World Trade Center. The upper floors of the north tower were covered with smoke. We couldn't see the flames, but it was obvious that this was a terrible disaster. (Something like this had happened before in '93 when terrorists attacked the north tower with a truck bomb. And in 1944, I believe, the Empire State Building was hit by a fighter-bomber lost in a fog.)

We went back to our apartment, and a few minutes later, I was watching on TV when the plane hit the second tower, and the true nature of what we were seeing, a terrorist attack, was clear. Again, we went outside. I think we were back inside when the south tower fell. I couldn't believe it. I kept insisting it was just covered in smoke and that I could see the outline of it in the smoke. We went back out, and it was clear that my mind was deceiving me, and the truly unthinkable had happened. A few minutes later, we watched as the north tower fell.

As we stood on the street corner (6th Avenue and West 16th Street - you can google it), I noticed large groups of people walking north, away from the disaster scene. I realized after a moment that they were people who worked in the area, some fugitives from the towers, who were walking away from the scene. A tall, distinguished, older man, very well dressed and covered with dust from the buildings' collapse, stumbled in front of my wife and myself. We caught him and kept him from falling. He sobbed out: "I feel so guilty!"

Soon after, my wife and I walked over to our local hospital, St. Vincent's, one of the closest large hospitals to the site (about 2 1/2 miles; closed a few months ago due to the recession). People were already lining up at the bloodbank to donate. Then, I saw that across the street at the emergency entrance to the hospital, there were dozens of teams of doctors, nurses and paramedics, waiting with stretchers for the victims. I remember seeing the fear on their faces as they waited for the ambulances to arrive that never arrived. Virtually everyone who couldn't get out was dead.

The rest of the morning and early afternoon are a fog. Quickly, the police and the National Guard took control of the lower portion of Manhattan, below where we live. At about 4:00 PM, I trekked down towards the site hoping to volunteer to help comb through the wreckage. I walked down the west side of Manhattan with a bunch of construction workers. When we got about 1/4 mile from the site, no one could get through. There were crowds of people, fugitives from the neighborhood, which was evacuated, people trying to get home, volunteers, cops, firemen, paramedics. I quickly realized that they didn't need someone like me.

From where the crowds were, we could see 7 World Trade Center, which hadn't collapsed yet. The lower portions of the building were engulfed in flames, which were climbing higher. I saw the fire penetrate one floor from the floor below. It was obvious that the building would collapse soon. I'm not a morbid type, so I headed for home. On the way back, I passed through Greenwich Village. The bars were full of people drinking. What amazed me was that some of them seemed to be acting in a normal way for a late summer afternoon: drinking, chattering, even smiling, oblivious to the horror that was being shown over and over again on TV.

I got home just as it was getting dark. My wife insisted on watching the horrors over and over again on TV, including one remarkable video, taken from street level, where you see the dust cloud from the collapse of one of the towers rolling up the street like a wave, everything goes black, and then, gradually, the street reappears. At one point, we walked over to Union Square Park, where people were gathered with candles. Some time during the night we fell asleep.

It was a bad day, a very bad day.

RED DAVE

[Sir Comradical]

I woke up, turned on the TV, was all like 'WAGAFAHALAHA', told my parents how insane this shit was and that I wanted to stay home to watch this crazy shit, however my parents forced me to go to school. My Dad blamed Pakistan (because he's Indian, he blames Pakistan for everything). At school kids were like, 'it was the Russians, man', lol. I was 12 when it all went down. Crazy times.

[Il Medico]

Well, I was ten in 2001. But I remember it pretty well. I was home sick from school and was watching tele. I thought that the news footage was some building getting demolished or what not and didn't care. It seemed to be on every channel though, so I went out to ask my mom why. My mom has a habit of over exaggerating everything and she told me that terrorist had stolen all the planes and were crashing into things all over the place. She told me that I couldn't go to school (I had planned on it after my doctor's appointment) because they could blow up my school (yeah, she siad that to a ten year old.), so naturally I was freaking out. After a few weeks though I understood everything and was pretty apathetic. I cared to some degree for a few years. You know, feeling bad for those who died and whatnot. But Now, I can't really say that I care all that much. All the emotion of that tragedy has been beaten out of it over the last nine years, for me at least.

[DecDoom]

I was in 3rd grade in 2001, so I think I would have been about 8. At some point during the normal lessons, the PA system came on and announced that two planes had hit the WTA (the information was delayed for us until the buildings had came down). As a child raised on Hollywood, my first thought was "That's not unusual, buildings explode all the time." Also, I had no idea what the Twin Towers were or why I should care. After I got home, I was able to see the footage of the buildings collapsing, but frankly, I still didn't care, so I wandered away to play some N64.

In retrospect, I can (obviously) see the magnitude of that event, but back then, I couldn't give a shit.

[bailey_187]

I was 10. I was at the park near my house with friends, when another group of kids ran up to us telling us how World War 3 had started. I thought they were justing talking nonsense (which they were tbh), but then saw what really happened on TV when i went home.

[Who?]

I was in the 3rd grade and being that I live in suburban New York I suppose they decided not to tell us to avoid causing panic among the children whose parents worked in the towers (my friend's father actually worked in the World trade Center but didn't go to work that day because he had to see a doctor). Anyway students started to get picked up from school, slowly. Children were being pulled out of the class by their parents and I remember looking out the window I could see cars outside waiting for the children.

I had no idea what was happening and eventually I was one of the five who were left in the classroom. Eventually I pulled out of class and went home, my mother told me what happened and when I got home footage of the attack was all over the news. I primarily was concerned by the level of panic, no one was really sure what was going to happen next, if there was going to be another attack. I remember hearing jets fly by over head patrolling the air which scared me a bit given that they were so goddamn loud.

That's pretty much all I remember...

[Magón]

Damn, all of you are young as hell. Well except for Red Dave, I was 18 when the towers went down. I didn't even hear about it actually till later in the evening when we were on the US/Mexico border. My parents and I were visiting family down in Southern Mexico, and were trying to get back to some other family in the US, before coming back to Mexico. Long story short, we were stuck in Mexico for about three extra days; which was fine with me, because I didn't want to really go see family in the US. (Angst Riddled Teen years I guess you could say.)

[The Red Next Door]

Anyone have words for 9/11/73?

[Weezer]

I was five when the towers went down. I remember seeing the news before going to kindergarten.

I didn't really process 9/11 until much later.

[Il Medico]

I was five when the towers went down. I remember seeing the news before going to kindergarten.

I didn't really process 9/11 until much later.
Holy fuck, I thought I was young.

[Pirate Utopian]

I was 10, just got home from school and my mom called and told me to put on the news.
I saw the news of the incident and was like "news is boring" and switched to Cartoon Network.

I was 10.

[Widerstand]

My friend told me about it after school. He described it rather weird, I thought he talked about an advertisement or something. Then I came home and watched the news and was like "lol this is big".

[MooseCracker]

Holy krap you are all young! Sorry if some of this sounds callous. I was off work that day, turned on the tv right after the first hit. Right away messaged friends on ICQ saying what happened and linking video footage of the first plain. I remember saying something like 'holy sh!t somebody finally hit the US' at first I was even going ' who is it, should we be there joining with the attackers or fighting them?' I had always figured it was bound to happen sooner or later.
Then I went to a friends place, we smoked and watched TV all day. The next day there was a bomb threat at work, the whole week was messed up after that...

Laboranta mentioned '73 this compels me to post something I did up a while ago with an addition from this year - It's long so I apologize in advance

[MooseCracker]

I massively apologized in advance. Hopefully it's not so long as to get cut off...
I get pissy on 9/11 and am the first to admit that my personal opinion is interjected into the facts in this rant.

I commemorate this day with a recollection that it is not only a day of destruction for Americans. Interestingly, In the Coptic Orthodox Church, September 11 is the feast of Nayrouz, when martyrs and confessors are commemorated. I move that it should be an international day of peace.

Well without further adieu, let us break down a brief history of some 9/11s:
September/ 11/ 1609 – Henry Hudson discovers Manhattan Island and the indigenous people living there. By 1626 it was bought from Native American Lenape people in exchange for trade goods worth 60 guilders, comparing the price of bread and other goods, amounts to around $1000 in modern currency (calculation by the International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam). Lenape territory was collective, but divided by matrilinear clans. Their first experiences with capitalism and the European view that natural wildlife is a resource (as opposed to a living relative) proved disastrous as beaver population was massively depleted.
Later, there are documented cases of germ warfare too. During a parley at Fort Pitt (admittedly by this time they were in Pittsburgh, PA so I'm going a bit off track) on June 24, 1763, representatives of the besieging Lenape were given two blankets and a handkerchief that had been exposed to smallpox, hoping to spread the disease to the Natives in order to end the siege. William Trent, the militia commander, left records that clearly indicated that the purpose of giving the blankets was "to convey the Smallpox to the Indians."
This bit is a little one sided so let's say, I also realize that the Lenape made decisions that affected these things.

September/ 11/ 1813 – (During the War of 1812): British troops arrive in Mount Vernon and prepare to march to and invade Washington D.C. This culminated the next summer when the Capitol, Treasury, and White House were burned and gutted during the attack. Of course, September/ 11/ 1814 was a major naval victory for Americans in the Battle of Pittsburgh.

September/ 11/ 1857 – The Mountain Meadows Massacre: Mormon settlers and Paiutes massacre 120 unarmed emigrants after their surrender at Mountain Meadows, Utah. It apparently started with fears that the president was sending troops to "restore US authority" to the area. Initially intending to orchestrate an Indian massacre, local militia leaders including Isaac C. Haight and John D. Lee conspired to lead militiamen disguised as Native Americans along with a contingent of Paiute tribesmen in an attack. The surviving 17 children (all under 8) were kindly adopted by Mormon families.

September/ 11/ 1897 – Ethiopian generals captured the last king of Kaffa, Gaki Sherocho, bringing an end to an ancient kingdom. He reportedly had many more fields cleared from the jungles during his reign than any of his predecessors, and that he organized the districts of Kaffa to destroy the wildlife that harmed the crops and livestock. The tradition also reports that he ruled with an iron hand, and traveled widely in the countryside to enforce his laws. So maybe the loss of Gaki wasn't terrible. But maybe the loss of independence and right of self determination for the Kaffa people is another story.

September/ 11/ 1919 – U.S. Marines invade Honduras. The US has regularly used Honduras since then as a region to, recruit terrorists (sorry resistance groups), and as somewhat of a base of operations for conflicts (largely with leftist groups like the Sandinistas in Nicaragua) in Latin America.

September/ 11/ 1922 – The British Mandate of Palestine begins. While it isn't directly responsible for current issues in Palestine (some have even suggested that it may be best to return Palestine to British administration) it was the beginning of it. Or was it September/ 11/ 1921 when Nahalal was established in Palestine? Actually at that time and during Ottoman rule Jews were basically welcome as long as they obeyed the regional laws. This makes me wonder if it makes another case for the people's right to self determination. (It's speculative mind you, anti-Jewish sentiment was already becoming rampant and certain leaders in the Muslim world seemed pretty open to it/ so the issues may not have been contained anyway). Some people question whether raising the anti-western-imperialism and pro-Palestinian sentiment was part of bin Laden’s strategy for picking this date though.

September/ 11/ 1941 – Ground is broken for the construction of The Pentagon. Surely that was to herald impending doom. (Only half is kidding).

September/ 11/ 1941 – Charles Lindbergh (who resigned his commission as a colonel in the U.S. Army Air Corps on September 14, 1939 and in late 1940 became spokesman of the antiwar America First Committee) gave his Des Moines Speech accusing the British, Jews and the Roosevelt administration of pressing for war with Germany. He believed that peaceful solutions would be best for the US and result in deterring the spread of the Soviet Union. He said " "No person with a sense of the dignity of mankind can condone the persecution of the Jewish race in Germany." and "I am not attacking either the Jewish or the British people. Both races, I admire. But I am saying that the leaders of both the British and the Jewish races, for reasons which are as understandable from their viewpoint as they are inadvisable from ours, for reasons which are not American, wish to involve us in the war. We cannot blame them for looking out for what they believe to be their own interests, but we also must look out for ours. We cannot allow the natural passions and prejudices of other peoples to lead our country to destruction."
On one hand I support the sentiment of peace and his determination. He had an audience of millions. On the other hand I don't agree with siding with fascism in order to deter communism (he was talking about Stalinism mind you...)

September/ 11/ 1943 – Birth of Raymond Villeneuve founding member of the Front de libération du Québec / FLQ (Depending on your bent this may not be a bad thing but he was considered a terrorist). On 9/11 2001 he said, “I'm really jealous of [what happened in New York]. Those types of actions, we could never do that. But me, I was thinking about tank trucks. Apparently even Bin Laden has thought about that. Blowing up tank trucks is way easier than hijacking planes. It could happen in Toronto or it could happen in the West Island of Montreal where there are a lot of Canadians.”

September/ 11/ 1961 – Hurricane Carla strikes the Texas coast as a Category 4 hurricane, the second strongest storm ever to hit the state. 500,000 people were evacuated and caused over $2 billion (2005 US dollars) in damages.

September/ 11/ 1965 – The 1st Cavalry Division of the United States Army (Airmobile) arrives in Vietnam. I won't comment much about that.

September/ 11/ 1968 – Air France Flight 1611 crashes off Nice, France, killing 89 passengers and 6 crew members.

September/ 11/ 1973 – A coup in Chile headed by General Augusto Pinochet, with CIA support, topples the democratically elected socialist president Salvador Allende. Pinochet's U.S.-backed military junta remains in power for almost 17 years. It is one of the worst things to happen to the left in Chile and one of the worst crimes committed by the capitalist right. Allende's program included advancement of workers' interests, replacing the judicial system with "socialist legality", nationalization of banks etc. Admittedly the country was beginning to have a lot of financial trouble related to over spending of public funds, and printing too much cash, etc. It's possible that this situation would have been short lived during transition to socialism but we'll never know. Richard Nixon's administration organized and inserted secret operatives in Chile, in order to quickly destabilize Allende’s government. In addition, American financial pressure restricted international economic credit to Chile. The first years of Pinochet's regime were marked by human rights violations. On October 1973, at least 72 people were murdered by the Caravan of Death. According to the Rettig Report and Valech Commission, at least 2,115 were killed, and at least 27,265 were tortured (including 88 children younger than 12 years old). There is some dispute as, American media and capitalists say that all of that was ok being that, Pinochet's Economic advisors following the advise of Milton Friedman's Chicago school of business, completely opened up the country to the free-market and private enterprise which "saved the country from economic disaster". They blame all financial issues on Allende and socialism. The dispute from the left is that this really just widened the gap between rich and poor so the rich didn't realize what was going on. While the lives of wealthy business owners improved dramatically, the reforms left poor workers without labour and wage rights. Teachers reported children passing out during those years regularly due to malnutrition and the cost of food skyrocketed as the wealthy were now able and willing to pay the inflated prices. A friend from Chile says that at one point during Pinochet's rule, the price of 1 loaf of bread was about 1 week of pay for the average worker.

September/ 11/ 1974 – Eastern Air Lines Flight 212 crashes in Charlotte, North Carolina, killing 69 passengers and two crew members.

September/ 11/ 1980 A new Constitution was approved by a controversial plebiscite on September 11, 1980, and General Pinochet became president of the Chilean republic for another 8-year term.

September/ 11/ 1982 – The international forces that were guaranteeing the safety of Palestinian refugees following Israel's 1982 Invasion of Lebanon leave Beirut. Five days later, refugees are massacred in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps when Israeli forces enabled the entrance of the Kataeb Party group to the refugee camps, by providing them transportation from outside Beirut with Israeli military Helicopters (pick up and drop into the camps) and firing illuminating flares over the camps to enable the killing to continue during the night.

September/ 11/ 1992 – Hurricane Iniki, one of the most damaging hurricanes in United States history, devastates Hawaii, especially the islands of Kauai and Oahu causing $1.8 billion in damage.

September/ 11/ 2001 - We all know that date. Where were you during the destruction? Did you lose loved ones? Thoughts on it?

September/ 11/ 2003 – Ylva Anna Maria Lindh, Swedish Social Democratic politician/ Swedish foreign minister, dies after a brutal stabbing on September 10th

September/ 11/ 2007 – Russia tests the largest conventional weapon ever, the Father of all bombs, yielding the equivalent of 44 tons of TNT using 7.8 tons of a new type of high explosive developed with the use of nanotechnology. Because of this, the bomb has the same destructive power as a small tactical nuclear weapon.

September/ 11/ 2010 - "The Dove World Outreach Center", a Baptist church with only 50 members and it's imbecile leader Terry Jones, after being catapulted by the media to super sensations from being nobodies in the middle of nowhere planning to something stupid, may or may not burn some books. Terry wants his Qur'an burning to "send a message to radical Islam" which I believe will read something like this:
“Dear Radical Islam, it's good to know that you're still around for us to be angry with. Just so you know, radical Christianity is still around too and our leaders are equally ridiculous. Just to prove it, we are willing to either buy copies of the Qur'an (and financially support the production thereof) or accept them as gifts which were provided by charities (essentially stealing from charity as opposed to letting the interested readers that they are intended for get them). Please do not take the moral high ground and leave our powerful group of 50 Americans alone, we enjoy the fighting too much. - God Bless, love TJ”

LOL - I doubt that even I would read that whole thing... let me know if you managed to wade through it all.

[anticap]

I had a doctor's appointment that morning. The doc asked if I'd heard about the plane that had just crashed into a skyscraper in NYC. I hadn't. He didn't sound too excited, so the image I had was of a small plane leaving a scorch mark and a dead pilot 100 stories up -- a tragedy but not a major one.

After that I went to a big-box store to return something, and there were TVs behind the workers in the service area. All heads were turned backward so I looked up and there were the towers. A crowd of customers gathered 'round and we all just stood there, slack-jawed, watching it unfold.

I later heard from a friend who lived in Brooklyn that paper from the offices and other debris had been raining down all the way over there.

[Ele'ill]

I remember Church of Euthanasia's 'I like to watch' video.

[Tablo]

I was 10, like many people on this thread. I was at school when they told my class. When I got home I watched the news for a few hours(which was an amazing thing for me back then since all I watched was cartoons). 9/11 wasn't the horror story o me that it is for some older people. It just didn't connect well with me since I was so young.

[Ele'ill]

Jesus Christ you're all young

[Widerstand]

Jesus Christ you're all young

or mb you are old!?

[Tablo]

Jesus Christ you're all young
Course we are! This is the internet after all.

[Sir Comradical]

I was five when the towers went down. I remember seeing the news before going to kindergarten.

I didn't really process 9/11 until much later.

Hold up, hold up. You're a 14 year old? You must be one bright kid.

[Sir Comradical]

Anyone have words for 9/11/73?

Yeah, fuck Pinochet.

[AK]

I was in grade 1, so I was about 6. I walked into class late that morning and the teacher had started a whole classroom discussion about a plane "crashing in the city" and lots of people dying. I broke down crying because I thought it was the city centre of Melbourne they were talking about and my mum worked there. Only later did I find out that they were talking about New York and I felt stupid for crying.

[AK]

Hold up, hold up. You're a 14 year old? You must be one bright kid.
I'm 15 and I joined when I was 14. Was that a mindfuck?

[Sir Comradical]

I'm 15 and I joined when I was 14. Was that a mindfuck?

Ya'll some bright kids. Well done.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Yeah, it was a surreal thing even viewed from the West Cost. Obviouslly I had little personal connection, but it really was one of the stranger things to go through along with watching the Katrina disaster and the bombing start in Iraq.

Here some scattered things I remember:

- all the people closest to me, including my soon to be girlfriend, called and said - "holy shit, turn on the TV right now!"

- after the initial shock, my first thought was about how the US was going to crack down on people (domestic activists) because of this.

- I called work when the local TV affiliates said that some LA schools were closing because of the attack. The school I worked at at the time stayed open which was too bad because hardly any students showed up and everyone was walking around in a daze and asking for news updates.

- On my way to work I took the 10 freeway from Culver City to my job in Santa Monica and on one of the overpasses (this was probably 7 AM on the west coast) someone had put a banner that said something like: "Palestinians did this, kill them all". It was strange because the banner was professionally printed - like whoever made that banner had it sitting in his trunk and had just been waiting for the right time to advocate this genocide.

- the kids who did come to school that day were all shook up about the possibility of a war. I had just joined the ISO a few weeks before so I at least knew enough to realize that the US would use this to invade or bomb something. It didn't occur to me then, but now it's strange to think that some of these 5th graders could potentially be in the military now - then again it was a upper middle class school in Santa Monica so, if anything, they might be training to be officers somewhere.

- after work I went to a coalition meeting and all the anti-globalization movement stuff I had been working on evaporated and that meeting on 9/11 was the last for that particular coalition formation.

- in the days that followed, it was strange and kind of exciting doing public political work. I had no idea if I was going to get the shit kicked out of my unpatriotic ass at any moment or not.:lol:

- the anti-globalization list-serves and so on went totally off the rails in the days and weeks after the attack. There was tons of rumor-mongering and paranoia that the government was going to round-up tons of anarchists or that our emails were being watched and so on. I think, in retrospect, it was evidence of how politically disorganized the anti-globalization movement was that when this shocking thing happened, the main left-wing movement of the day instantly fell apart and people swung wildly from being radicals to being pro-war or timid liberals and so on.

[#FF0000]

I was 11 then. When I heard about it I was pretty much just surprised and sort of expected that when I we went out to the busses after school we'd be dodging russian MIGs strafing our school, for some reason.

They didn't really give us a clear idea of what happened at school so I was like "woah" when I got home. Then I figured out like half my family worked in one of the buildings and they were all hella late that day which was weird.

[#FF0000]

- On my way to work I took the 10 freeway from Culver City to my job in Santa Monica and on one of the overpasses (this was probably 7 AM on the west coast) someone had put a banner that said something like: "Palestinians did this, kill them all". It was strange because the banner was professionally printed - like whoever made that banner had it sitting in his trunk and had just been waiting for the right time to advocate this genocide.


omg israel did 9/11

[Weezer]

Hold up, hold up. You're a 14 year old? You must be one bright kid.

Thanks?

[Jimmie Higgins]

omg israel did 9/11Yeah, good thing I'm skeptical (to say the least) of conspiracy theories.:lol:

Another pseudo-conspiracy I remember is that there was a spin-off of the X-files around 1999 or 2000 and I never watched the show, but a couple of months after 9/11/01, I was watching a tape I used for recording TV shows (this is before TiVo yall!) and when what I had recorded the night before ended, there was an old Simpsons episode and after that was the X-files spin-off. Anyway, the plot of that show was about a conspiracy by people in the US military to crash a plane into the WTC to justify military spending or something like that.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0635314/

:lol:

[the last donut of the night]

I was 6 and lived in Argentina at the time. I actually have little memory of the event; so I'm not really sure if I remember actually hearing news of it on the actual day. I remember going to my parents' room and asking them about it. Then the memory ends. I think I only understood what happened 4 years later, to be honest.

[Widerstand]

omg israel did 9/11

... the pieces fall into place!

[Nuvem]

I was in 4th grade. I remember the kids at school making up rumors and nobody really seemed to know what happened. Finally our teacher sat us down during our canceled recess (apparently the terrorists were going to attack my elementary school with 250 students next) and had a long, carefully worded talk with us, which did nothing to actually explain the fact that two planes had struck two towers. Something about fear and shock and anger and talking to our parents and trying to not be afraid; more than half of us hadn't the slightest idea what had happened. I remember thinking, "Those poor people."

Now all these years later, I don't think about it much. I consider the greater tragedy of the day to be the overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile, which shares the same date. This is what happens with imperialism; the victims lash back, and unfortunately do so blindly. At the very least they had the good sense to go after the pentagon with limited success. While I condemn the methods of the people responsible, I can't help but feel that this is just a tiny taste of what people in the poorest countries in the world deal with on a regular basis, the slightest taste of America's own medicine.

[The Red Next Door]

I was 11 when it happen too, I was a radical at the time before i became a social dem and my teacher told me to look, to shame for being anti American and it work. so i became a liberal out of shame after that.

[ellipsis]

I lost my virginity on 9/11/2004. we are together to this day. thats what 9/11 means to me.

[Devrim]

I suppose my memories of it will be a little different from most people's. I was at work in the afternoon, and I remember seeing it on TV at the office. It was nearly time to go home and me and a friend slunk off to the pub to watch it live. In general the atmosphere was pretty jovial. Even people who weren't pleased about it were saying stuff like "they had it coming". I tried to talk about the class politics of it to a couple of leftist, but they were too busy celebrating.

I went home, cooked dinner for my girlfriend, who was too wrapped up in a problem they had with their boss at work to give anything more than the monosyllabic "good" with me.

Then a couple of relatives from Beirut rang up 'to share this happy moment with me'. I still remember the exact words that my daughters 84 year old great-grandmother said, which were oddly poetic in Arabic "When you can't bite the hand that bleeds you, pray for God to burn it".

As I said probably a little different.

Devrim

[Rusty Shackleford]

it was a frosty morning in western wisconsin and i was riding with my mom to middle school. it was announced over the radio which we were listening to and i had no real feeling of shock. all i though was "oh it must have been terrorists"

when they talked about the twin towers i mistook them as the twin cities in Minnesota. St. Paul and Minneapolis.

due to my youthful impressionability i turned into a bit of a jingo as a child. i dont remember being explicitly racist which im glad about though.

[Zeus the Moose]

This thread makes me feel old, and yet I was only 13 during the events of September 11th.

I'm from northern New Jersey, about an hour or so away from NYC, and a number of parents of kids I knew worked in the City. What first made me aware that something had happened at the World Trade Center was the principal coming on over the PA system and saying that a plane had hit one of the Twin Towers. That's really all the info we were given at the time, and my first reaction was that some air-traffic controller was going to get fired for this, as at the time I thought it was a small plane.

Then we heard about the second plane, and I think the gym teachers put the TV on for us to watch during our gym periods (it was class picture day at school, too, which was going on during our gym periods.) We ended up doing very little in classes the rest of the day, especially because a number of kids were worried about their parents (my mom worked in Midtown at the time, but all I knew was that she worked in NYC, so I did end up calling her to see if she was okay relatively quickly.) I also remember doing very little that night besides watching the news. Several people from my hometown died on September 11th, including the father of a classmate of mine.

At the time, I remember suspecting that the Taliban were responsible. My dad pointed out that they apparently released a statement condemning the attack, but I ended up being somewhat correct. Later that year, I wrote a short story in English class where the United States invaded Iraq, though my timeline had it after Bush won a second term.

Interestingly, I had just started getting into Marxism before September 11th. I believe I brought my recently-bought copy of the Communist Manifesto to school around that time to read when I had free time. In this respect, I was already starting to get interested in critiques of capitalism and the United States, so I didn't end up being particularly jingoistic, and in some respects the political aftermath of September 11th was responsible for my move towards communist politics.

EDIT: I have a Lebanese-American friend who turned 21 on September 11th. He decided to not go out drinking that night to celebrate his birthday.

[blake 3:17]

I was working very early mornings then, and got home from work not long after the 2nd tower was hit. I had a few messages from friends on my answering machine to turn TURN THE TV ON NOW!!! and did so and didn't understand and then ran an errand and talked to someone I've known for years and years and years, but didn't really know, for nearly an hour on the sidewalk. I finished my errands and then probably collapsed in bed.

[Sir Comradical]

Thanks?

How could that possibly be an insult?

[NGNM85]

I was about fifteen at the time. I was in Resource Room which, for those who don't know, is a kind of guided study hall for kids with learning disabilities and troublemakers. Anyhow some kid ran into the room and was yelling "Turn on the TV!!! Turn on the TV!!!" The teacher turned on the TV and then I saw something that looked like a scene from some Jerry-Bruckheimer-big-budget-action-flick. I couldn't believe it. It was too big to understand at the time. I'd like to say I thought something profound, but my internal monologue was something more like;"Fuuuuuuuuck....." It took me a long time to actually come to grips with it, actually grasp the reality of what I was seeing. It's like the Holocaust, or Sudan. When a family member or an acquantance dies, you get sad, you mourn, you deal, maybe a busload of people die, that's very said, ok, but when it gets into the thousands it just becomes so enormous it's like trying to conceptualize infinity. Hell of a day. I'm not tooting my own horn or anything, but before the day was over, when I was starting to sort of come out of the haze, it occurred to me that the Bush administration was going to use this as a pretext for something enormously destructive and massively stupid, like the Reichstag, or the Gulf of Tonkin. One time I would've been glad to be wrong.

[Invader Zim]

I, being British, was on the other side of the world, and as a result the attacks occured in the late afternoon here so I was on my way home from school on the train and another lad I sat with told me that a plane had crashed into the WTC. When i got home the full extent of what had occured became clear. I was 15 at the time.

[TwoSevensClash]

Anyone have words for 9/11/73?
I wasn't born and my parents had just graduated high school.

[TwoSevensClash]

I was 10 and my mom let me skip school that day to see my aunt who was visiting my cousin. My aunt was staying at my cousins apartment in Hoboken NJ. Hoboken is right across the river from NYC and the towers were in direct view. We heard the first crash and looked outside and saw that one tower was on fire. We weren't sure if it was the one my cousin worked out by were we worried as hell. We turned on the T.V. for more info and learned that a plane had hit. Then 10 mins later a second explosion happened. It was then confirmed another plane hit. I was freaking out since my cousin worked there and the fact people were crashing planes into building. Then the news about the pentagon . The CNN reported about a car bomb at the state department and a bunch of other shit that didn't happen. Then the plane crashing in Shanksville PA. Then the towers falling. I thought my cousin was dead. My mom decided we could stay and wait for my cousin with my aunt. She came home around midnight and told me about people jumping to their deaths rather then burning to death. My day off from school sure did blow.

[AK]

I wasn't born and my parents had just graduated high school.
I wasn't born yet and neither were my parents.

[x359594]

I was waiting at the bus stop about 7:30 AM PST to go to work. A nurse who takes the bus at the same time and who I often chat with was listening to her transistor radio with headphones and pulled them off to tell me that two planes crashed into the World Trade Center and a third crashed into the Pentagon. My immediate thought was that this was a terrorist attack and that the US would retaliate in some disproportionate way.

When I arrived at the job I tried to phone my neighbor in NYC; I lived in a six floor walk-up in Lower Manhattan for a number of years before moving to Los Angeles. I couldn't get through until the next day, and his eye witness account was dreadful.

[Invincible Summer]

For 9/11/01: I remember sitting in school and ppl going "HOLY SHIT PLANES CRASHED INTO THE WTC!"

When I got home, I watched the stuff on TV, was like "Shit!" I don't think it really sunk in how crazy the event was until about a week later. I wasn't too terrified or anything, just thinking "Shiiiiiiit!" a lot.

Then I got over it.

[La Comédie Noire]

You guys are all really young it's bonkers, I was 12 when it happened one of you was in kindergarten holy shit!

Well anyways no one in my school had any idea, but we all knew what was up because all the teachers were acting funny.


the Empire State Building was hit by a fighter-bomber lost in a fog

I saw a history channel special on this incident a week before it happened and remembered thinking "well at least it wasn't a commercial air plane."

the only thing about that day that was of note for me was I was pissed when I got home cause Darkwing duck was taken over by news.

[JacobVardy]

I was 22 at the time, and in Australia, so it happened late at night. Its was also the 1st anniversary of some big protests against the World Economic Forum. My house mates an i had just demolished a couple of bottles of wine watching Buffy and Angel (TV vampire shows for you younglings) when the news came on . When the second plane hit one housemate said, "Shit, a lot of people are going to die." I agreed with "Yeah, the Yanks are going to turn the world into Cambodia." Another housemate (who had lived in the US) pointed out that it might have been a Yankee, like Oklahoma. We spent the rest of the night discuss what it meant and watching the news.

Its strange, we didn't really think about the people in the towers but who was going to get killed when the US struck back. So, like Devram, a different experience to many of you.

[Amphictyonis]

I woke up, turned on the TV, was all like 'WAGAFAHALAHA', told my parents how insane this shit was and that I wanted to stay home to watch this crazy shit, however my parents forced me to go to school. My Dad blamed Pakistan (because he's Indian, he blames Pakistan for everything). At school kids were like, 'it was the Russians, man', lol. I was 12 when it all went down. Crazy times.

Well, the ISI did fund it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/jul/22/usa.september11

[Manifesto]

I don't remember too well I was only 7. But I do remember coming home from school because god forbid they say anything there (not even to those in high school besides "There was a plane crash, you and your parents are safe"). For some reason I was at my dad's apartment, maybe I was pulled out if I was there after school anyways, he is just saying how there was a terrorist attack and put in a tape from the news. I didn't think it was that big of a deal, I was only 7 and death happens all the time, what made this any more significant?

[Wanted Man]

This thread makes me feel old, and yet I was only 13 during the events of September 11th.

Yeah, seriously. What also surprises me, though, is people who say that they were "radicals" or "social-democrats" at 11 or 13 or whatever. Maybe the US is insanely politicised, but I seriously doubt that there are lots of middle-school revolutionaries. It seems more likely that these people just followed the news and had some idea of politics as kids, and are trying to frame this experience as a particular ideology retrospectively, because leftists have the tendency to try to pigeonhole everything within convenient categories ("X is bourgeois", "I was a social-democrat", etc.)

Anyway, I was just 12 when it happened. I didn't go to school because I was ill. I was on the couch, flipping through the channels, and then I saw the one tower that was hit on CNN. Then I saw the second plane flying in live, if I recall correctly. The first idea initially was that it was the Palestinians.

It was a pretty important event, obviously, although in the Netherlands it was a bit eclipsed by the rise of Pim Fortuyn, his murder, the assassination of Theo van Gogh, etc.

[Sir Comradical]

Well, the ISI did fund it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/jul/22/usa.september11

Yeah I forgot about that. The ISI also funds a host of Islamic militant groups to fight India in Kashmir so it kind of makes sense.