Where were you on 9/11? Any memories?

[noname223]

I am not sure whether this thread is a good idea. I don't have anything meaningful to say about my own experience. I was quite young when it happened. My parents told me we were shopping when it happened. My parents are really stupid (in raising kids) but at least they have protected me from seeing the pictures on TV.

Sometimes in the past I have wondered why 9/11 was seen as such a huge event. I thought everyday on earth there happen a lot of terror attacks. Admittedly this was a huge one but I have not really understood why the US and allies started a war with way more dead people. I was quite naive and young when I had these thoughts. Obviously it is horrible that so many innocent people died on 9/11.

There are probably many reasons why this attack was monumental (in a negative way, does this word have a positive connotation? It is not meant that way). It was the first attack on US ground since the second world war. My parents told me they were really scared that WW3 would start. (I can't really relate when other people tell me something like this. Always when I think about WW3 I have the inner wish that it would kill me pretty fast. This is probably a very selfish and dumb thought but what can I do against it I just have the desire for a fast and peaceful death...)
The fact that there were so many TV stations with the video footage was another reason why it spread all over the world.

It was a turning point in history. The fear of terror attacks in the West increased a lot. We have become paranoid societies with many prejudices about people from the Middle East. A change of the world order was likely because the US seemed to be vulnerable.

What are your thoughts on 9/11? Do you have any memories what you have done on this exact day?


Damn I have just made a research and there is a thread with the same topic. Sorry for that.

 

[motel rooms]

Most members were enjoying their blissful prenatal nonexistence.

 

[Smart No More]

I was taking care of my family home whilst they were away on holiday. They were flying that day so during the period we were in the dark on what exactly was happening I was a bit concerned.

 

[Al_stargate]

I came home from school and everybody was glued to the TV. I know I was eating lunch when the second plane hit the tower. Nobody was saying much except occasional 'oh my god' in language here.

 

[Tristan]

It was midday, and i was waking up from a huge hangover just as the second plane was about to hit. That kept me glued on TV till 8pm, then went with the gang to smoke weed!

 

[noname223]

Most members were enjoying their blissful prenatal nonexistence.

I don't think that. This would mean the majority would be under 21 years old. Maybe it is only a joke but I just wanted to say that.
Though I don't have any statistics which could prove my point.

 

[GentleJerk]

I was at school when it happened. They stopped classes all damn day and made us watch it on TV. I was not in the least bit interested, and had no idea why this was considered so important in Australia that we had to drop everything we were doing to watch it unfold.

Australian public school system was pretty screwed up, and I always had the feeling they were trying to sell the Aussie youth out to corporate America. They made us sing songs like "Mcdonalds! Mcdonalds! Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Pizza Hut!"

 

[markimobzzdeasui]

I was around 8-9 at that time and only came to know about it the next day's morning when my narcissistic father was reading the newspaper. I don't know if my memory serves me correctly, but I think I asked him about what happened and he didn't care to answer. I also don't remember my feeling afterwards.

 

[Foresight]

I was in a 5th grade classroom. We went home early and watched it on TV. My dad came home early because he worked at a military base. Sometime over the next few days we watched news and memorials in the classroom and our teacher cried. That's all I remember. I don't remember my feelings either.

 

[WhiteRabbit]

I was a junior in high school, sitting in art class. I didn't know what happened until the principal announced over the intercom that the WTC was under attack. We watched the buildings collapse live on the news. Some of the boys in my classes were talking about joining the army and "fighting the Arabs." When I got home, my mom was sitting in front on the tv, which was rare for her. The first thing she said to me was "Everything is going to be different after this." It was an extremely surreal day.

 

[Al Cappella]

I was working that morning in a restaurant in Ottawa that had tvs in the dining room. It wasn't anything fancy, so after lunch it doubled as a sports bar. So when the first plane hit, someone came running into the kitchen. I went out, we all did, in time to see the second one.

I will always remember, clear as day, these two guys cramming eggs and bacon into their fat faces, no concern or clue as to what was actually going on. I also remember a co worker saying this was something like another Oklahoma incident. Now I'm nothing special, not the slightest bit clever—but I will always remember saying "no, this was much bigger, to do that, to organize that, it had to be international. You could tell fairly quickly the world would never be the same. And of course it hasn't been…

 

[davidgeorge]

The 9/11 museum is, in my opinion, one of the best museums in the world.

 

[Smart No More]

Interestingly many people claim/believe they saw both planes hit the towers that day but there was only footage of one of the planes hitting. It wasn't until the next day that footage was released of the other. Strange how memories change over time.

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

I was six years old and in 2nd grade when it happened. I vividly remember waking up to the sound of my parents freaking out and arguing over whether they should send me to school or not because they were afraid the whole country was in danger of being attacked. The attacks had occurred before 6 am in my time zone so there had been plenty of time for them to worry.

As much as I hoped I would get to skip school, in the end I still ended up having to go. When I got there, my teacher was crying because she's from New York and her family lives very close there, luckily no one she knew was affected but it still impacted her pretty deeply. I thought it was very sad how she was sad, but when she tried to explain who did the attacks I tuned out because I couldn't understand that Al-Qaeda wasn't a country.

When I got home from school I was pissed off that instead of showing Sesame Street or any other kid shows, the PBS channel instead was showing constant news coverage, especially of the Pentagon thing which happened later. I didn't really know what was going on with that, I was only upset that I couldn't watch my shows. And that's always how I'll remember 9/11. Also about how for a while it was extremely taboo to joke about it which only made it all the more funny to me whenever somebody did joke about it.

 

[wljourney]

I was working for a US-German law firm. Right next to the US embassy.

It was early afternoon and once the first plane hit we all went to the large conference room to watch.
Everybody stunned. mostly silent. Gasping when the first tower came down. Very somber

Helicopters going low over our building (media/security). Police rolling up to support US embassy security.

Starting the very next day access to the office was only allowed via police check point. ID. Reason of visit.

I remember calling my sister and wondering if this was the start of WWIII.

 

[Someone123]

Whenever I think of 9/11, when almost 3000 people died in these terrorists attacks, something I also think of is that about 24,000 people starve to death every day, and the majority are children- 8 times as many people die every day due to lack of food, and where is the mourning in the news for them?

 

[deleted]

I was 1 year old and I was probably in the crib

 

[summers]

I was close enough to NYC to clearly see the buildings burning with my own eyes. Didn't have a camera in my phone back then...

Whenever I think of 9/11, when almost 3000 people died in these terrorists attacks, something I also think of is that about 24,000 people starve to death every day, and the majority are children- 8 times as many people die every day due to lack of food, and where is the mourning in the news for them?

Maybe their parents shouldn't have had kids if they couldn't support them. Don't be so naive as to think a coordinated attack and people's daily misfortunes are the same thing - they're definitely not.

 

[Foresight]

Whenever I think of 9/11, when almost 3000 people died in these terrorists attacks, something I also think of is that about 24,000 people starve to death every day, and the majority are children- 8 times as many people die every day due to lack of food, and where is the mourning in the news for them?

Is it reasonable for everyone to pay attention to everything going on all the time? People starving has been part of life since the dawn of man. Organizations do their best to raise awareness, get food, get contraceptives to areas in need, etc. All we can do is donate when possible. One thing I personally pay attention to is the homelessness problem in the US. That is covered. You have to seek it out when you care about it. Every individual in the world can't care about every single starving kid every day. It's just too much.

Planes don't crash into buildings every day. It's an unusual and violent event. It was an attack on a country, not an individual. It's the collectives' problem and it warrants collective attention.

I do agree with your sentiment when it comes to war though. Certain countries are ignored for no reason like Yemen. There's no reason to not cover that topic when we cover Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan, etc.

 

[Someone123]

Is it reasonable for everyone to pay attention to everything going on all the time? People starving has been part of life since the dawn of man. Organizations do their best to raise awareness, get food, get contraceptives to areas in need, etc. All we can do is donate when possible. One thing I personally pay attention to is the homelessness problem in the US. That is covered. You have to seek it out when you care about it. Every individual in the world can't care about every single starving kid every day. It's just too much.

Planes don't crash into buildings every day. It's an unusual and violent event. It was an attack on a country, not an individual. It's the collectives' problem and it warrants collective attention.

I do agree with your sentiment when it comes to war though. Certain countries are ignored for no reason like Yemen. There's no reason to not cover that topic when we cover Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan, etc.

I do think that if rich countries and rich people made it a higher priority and an emergency to feed all starving people that they could do it. Huge resources are paid to someone who can score more points in a game than someone else, which is extremely sad- these silly games have no inherent value compared to saving even one life. I'm just making a statement about how society's priorities are so out of whack, I'm not saying that each person has time to mourn 24,000 deaths every day.

 

[summers]

I do think that if rich countries and rich people made it a higher priority and an emergency to feed all starving people that they could do it. Huge resources are paid to someone who can score more points in a game than someone else, which is extremely sad- these silly games have no inherent value compared to saving even one life. I'm just making a statement about how society's priorities are so out of whack, I'm not saying that each person has time to mourn 24,000 deaths every day.

The US has a program to feed economically disadvantaged people: https://www.usa.gov/food-help

 

[Someone123]

The US has a program to feed economically disadvantaged people: https://www.usa.gov/food-help

That is true- but the u.s. corporations do exploit third world labor in a very cruel way, so the u.s. overall contributes very much to the worldwide poverty problem- though I live in the u.s. and most people here don't choose for things to be like this, it's really the power brokers at the top that perpetuate this system. The documentary "The Corporation" shows how large corporations from all countries perpetuate this- this is on youtube.

 

[summers]

That is true- but the u.s. corporations do exploit third world labor in a very cruel way, so the u.s. overall contributes very much to the worldwide poverty problem- though I live in the u.s. and most people here don't choose for things to be like this, it's really the power brokers at the top that perpetuate this system. The documentary "The Corporation" shows how large corporations from all countries perpetuate this- this is on youtube.

Basically what you're saying is that corporations from 1st world countries are providing work, money, and food in countries where there would be none. You think it's so bad now, how about all these corporations close down their textile factories and other factories in Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Phillipines, etc... You think they're starving now, imagine when all that cash from North America, Europe, Austrailia, China, Japan, and Korea stops coming in. Think they could pick up the slack without us?

 

[symphony]

I was alive but too young to remember. But I learned about it as a little kid and remember being terrified of "tourism" because the words "terrorism" and "tourism" were similar enough to confuse my child brain. I had nightmares about evil men coming and bombing my little neighborhood.

 

[Someone123]

Basically what you're saying is that corporations from 1st world countries are providing work, money, and food in countries where there would be none. You think it's so bad now, how about all these corporations close down their textile factories and other factories in Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Phillipines, etc... You think they're starving now, imagine when all that cash from North America, Europe, Austrailia, China, Japan, and Korea stops coming in. Think they could pick up the slack without us?

The corporations pay them the absolute minimum that they can and these people barely survive and the countries stay poor. In many cases people work 14 hour days 7 days a wek just to survive- that's why they have had mass suicides at some of these companies, groups of employees jumping off the roof together. The way this exploitation is done is highly unethical/evil. Even if they work 90 plus hours per week for years they can't save or get ahead at all- it is a sick system.

 

[summers]

The corporations pay them the absolute minimum that they can and these people barely survive and the countries stay poor. In many cases people work 14 hour days 7 days a wek just to survive- that's why they have had mass suicides at some of these companies, groups of employees jumping off the roof together. The way this exploitation is done is highly unethical/evil. Even if they work 90 plus hours per week for years they can't save or get ahead at all- it is a sick system.

I agree that corporations take advantage of the workers in those countries. But what would those people do for money if they didn't work in foreign companies' factories? Also, how much do those governments get in taxes from these foreign companies? Where would they get this money from if the companies pulled out?

Basically, I'm asking how would these countries and people be better off without the foreign investment they get?

 

[Famous Last Words]

I'd just graduated from university and was working as a holiday representative in Spain. It was my day off and a group of us had gone to the beach. The others left to go back to the resort around mid afternoon and I went to buy a pair of sandals (a pair of Converse that I still have today). I decided to go back to beach for a bit on my own and then headed back late afternoon. I remember the beach seemed really quiet for the time of day. Walking back, I realised I'd lost my bank card and then I spent an hour or so retracing my steps trying to find it before giving up. (I somehow spent another six weeks out there surviving without access to my bank account. We were paid pocket money in cash but it wasn't easy.)

Anyway, I was walking past a bar near the resort that we (holiday reps) hung out at a lot and crowds of people were stood around watching their outside TVs. I asked someone what happened and they told me what had been going on. The towers had already fallen at that point and Sky TV was showing it on a loop. I went inside and got talking to a guy about it and he was adamant that this was the start of World War 3. We got chatting and we ended up going clubbing until the early hours. I remember dancing in some basement club and thinking about how surreal it all was.

 

[ClownMe]

Was 6 months old.

 

[Someone123]

I agree that corporations take advantage of the workers in those countries. But what would those people do for money if they didn't work in foreign companies' factories? Also, how much do those governments get in taxes from these foreign companies? Where would they get this money from if the companies pulled out?

Basically, I'm asking how would these countries and people be better off without the foreign investment they get?

It's not really an investment, it's an exploitation- an investment would be if the people you invest in had a fair opportunity to grow financially from this situation. The richer countries don't put up with being exploited like this because they can fight back. The transactgions between the rich and poor countries could be structured in an ethical way so that people in both countries could grow, but this would take a long-term view from the richer countries, because in the short term they would make a little less.

 

[AtMostOkay]

On September 11, 2001, I was on my therapist's couch, trying to sort myself. She excused herself and came back crying. I consoled her for 15 minutes and went to work.