Remembering 911
 

Twenty years ago today.

I was in a restaurant eating and saw the second plane hit. I knew for sure who was behind it from reading Time magazine for a few years prior.

Incidentally, also did a fairly good size business transaction later that day with a fellow in NYC that could see the plume of smoke out his window.

The victims were robbed of their precious lives as were the first responders.

RIP

I was in 6th grade English and we watched the towers on the news. Teachers finally turned it off when it showed people jumping out of the building.

I was in 6th grade social studies. The teachers we confused as to whether to tell the kids or not. Mine did, others didn't. Turned into a half day at school anyway. We were just inside commuting distance to the city, so a few kids had to be taken out of classes.

My parents were pretty upset because we couldn't get in touch with various relatives in NYC, and I think one was supposed to be in the wtc at the time, though everyone in my family was fine afterwards. Never really heard the full story there.

I lived in Charlotte and was at work without a TV in my office. I remember the radio reports when the first one hit and thinking that a small plane had an accident. As soon as the second one hit, I closed up shop, sent everyone home, and went next door to watch the news.

The next day I went and bought a Kia Sportage 4x4 as it was the last carbureted 4x4 sold in the U.S. No one knew what the hell was about to happen and having an analog 4x4 was suddenly very important to me as I was on the east coast and had/have family on the west coast.

The day after that I started the process of trying to get back in the Air Force which ended up not panning out.

To this day I am never without an analog 4x4 in my personal vehicle inventory.

I was working at Delta Air Lines and happened to be involved with the IT side of Situation Management. Just by happenstance I was the one that reported the second tower being hit to the Situation Room as it was being set up, having seen it on a newsfeed.

At that point we didn't know if it was one of our planes or not. It was a very stressful day.

I worked at the Delta Atlanta offices in what is known as the Reliability Center (their data center) which is in full view of the Atlanta runways. I was in a conference room when, after several days of no activity at the airport (9/14 as I recall), the first plane came in for a landing. The meeting stopped and we all just watched it land, then broke into applause and tears. it was more emotional than I ever thought it could be.

Oddly enough, the date 9/11 has other significance for me, just not the same year. It's the date that I got my pilot's license in 1994, and was my start date with Delta in 1996. My Father also passed away the week of 9/11/2001 (on that Friday). He had a heart attack while napping in his recliner after having come in from changing the starter on his truck.

I was in third grade and my mom was dropping myself and my sister at school when the news came on the car radio.

The craziest bit is that my family had just visited NYC in August that year, gone up to the observatory deck on one tower, and then visited a family friend another day in the other tower who was a chef for the cafeteria on the 43rd or whatever floor. Fortunately he made it out but IIRC he had to walk home to New Jersey that day with no way to tell his family he made it out, and he was covered in dust or whatever.

I was only like 8 but still remember when we visited those buildings. Kids in the lobby playing on game boys, seeing how small everything looked from the observation deck. Etc.

I was in my junior year going to school. Remember our history teacher that morning did not want to commute and we had a PE substitute with a military background. I sort of remember him talking about speculative responsible parties and how it wouldn’t be long before we attacked.

I also recall bringing up the subject of these war innovations ww1 and gases, ww2 and atomic energy and asking what innovations we would see. I proposed some subterranean military vehicles because that’s all I could imagine. Definitely didn’t imagine unmanned aerial drones.

Was in 8th grade social studies. My dad was supposed to work at Windows of the World that day I believe but we had a storm the day prior and lost phone service so he never got called in.

I was in my college photography class in the darkroom for four hours from (I want to say 7-11). School didn't cancel. Made no announcement. Texting, ubiquitous cellphones, instant news alerts were still science fiction. Had no idea the world changed.

The halls, lounges, quad, etc. were a bit off when the lab let out, but there was no indication our lives were upending. The school left those of us that made it to campus that morning in the dark about our future (no pun intended). We followed our routines.

It wasn't until after lunch, while killing time in a low traffic computer lab, in the basement of the science building, that I finally learned. The professor on lab duty had a TV showing the news in the far corner. I could barely hear it, but the host reading a list of public venue closures like Disney and museums caught my attention because what could warrant the extent and variety of closures?

I called across the lab (it was only me and the Professor) asking what was going on. I'll never forget the look of absolute devastation on his face when he turned to me replying, "You don't know?” in a trembling voice.

I didn’t know.

I do not recall if a went to my next class or not. My memory hangs on watching that TV and seeing replays of the morning's events. At some point I had to have left the computer lab (I’m not still there), but whether it was 30min or 3 hours later, I have no idea. I can’t tell you anything else I did that day. I have no idea if I sought out friends and family or retreated to comfortable, secure isolation.

Fun fact, those were around since the first Gulf War. Lots of expanded roles from post 9/11 though.

Dude, if you were in Dutchess County at the time, we might have been in the same school.

I was flying one day before from Berlin to Athens. Germans were insisting to stay a few more days, but I wanted to go back. Then the disaster happened and I felt lucky of not extending my stay. I remember that all flights were canceled for several days.

I was coaching a high school string quartet in my orchestra room where I taught. One of the chorus teachers, who was kind of a "drama queen" at times and liked to stir things up (not in a good way), came into my room during the coaching session, leaned over and whispered in my ear, as the kids continued to play, "A plane just hit the World Trade Center." I nodded, said thank you, then continued on with the lesson, thinking that it was tragic, but probably a Piper or Cessna being piloted by an idiot who died in the process. Her boyfriend at the time, also a friend of mine, was a private pilot (and I ended up co-owning a plane with him for years later), and I figured that's why she was telling me.

About five minutes later, I realized just how wrong I was. The way the students, faculty, and administrators handled that day was very inspiring. Typically, this group of kids dislikes that group of kids, this department's faculty thinks another department's faculty doesn't understand what they do, this administrator is out to get that teacher, blah blah blah... ALL of that went away instantly, and stayed away for quite a while and we all pulled together. Saw that across the entire country in the days that followed.

Out of tragedy and true evil, a lot of goodness and kindness arose. I pray that we, once again, pull together having learned as much as we can from that awful day.

Hyde park?

Jr year of HS.
Woke up in a cold sweat at 2:46am HST. Yes at the same time the first plane hit.
Decided to just get up watch some TV before getting ready for school.
By time I get a bowl of cereal and get to the living room my mom is already up and watching the news since she worked graves and got home at 2:30am.

She's freaking out and I try to calm her down saying maybe the plane had some sort of control surface problem. Mid sentence the 2nd plane hits. At that point I know it was no accident.

We are flipping in-between CNN and the local affiliates incase something happens out here.
3rd plane hits the Pentagon and we start to wonder how big is this going to be.

My mom is losing it at this point and when the first people start jumping she leaves the room.
I continue to watch.

None of the news agency's know WTF is going on and its all speculation beyond the shutdown of airspace over the USA.
Fighters are scrambled here. Or at least put on patrol.

The first tower collapses.
After the dust clears I see that the other tower is still standing. I had feared that both came down at the same time.

The 2nd tower collapses.

We hear about another plane crash in PA

About 6:30am I give my mom a big hug and tell her everything will be fine and skateboard to school.
My HS has a large military population I think it was 30-40% at the time.
The bases were of course on lock down and would be for something like 2-3 weeks.

Only 50ish students showed up for school that day.
Less the next day.
By the start of the next week I was one of 8 kids at school and would be until October.
Parents were worried someone was going to crash a plane into the school or some BS like that.

Nothing at school really changed beyond that.

RIP to all the ones lost their lives during that tragic day. Cheers to all heroes that perished giving their lives to others.

Holy. Shit. Yep.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e7/0e...88826ddb56.jpg

(sorry but had to)

On this topic, I caught part of an ABC 20/20 special last night, which I usually don't watch. It's always crazy to learn more about first responder individuals from that day.

There was a firefighter who carries all the heavy steel equipment and he basically ran up to the 40th floor or something, was radioed that reinforcements were behind him, and then the tower he was in collapsed like 30 mins later.

I can't imagine running in and not only that but lugging stuff that probably weighs 50+ pounds for what amounted to basically nothing.

Or the others on the ground who would run back to find someone else who needed help several times.

Can't even imagine having courage like that.

What I most remember about 9/11 is the incredible selfless acts of heroism by so many who paid the ultimate price.

One of those was Todd Beamer who was on United Flight 93. Here's the transcript of his last phone call:

https://www.bookwormroom.com/2021/09...al-phone-call/

I was in my dorm room and watched it unfold on TV. School got cancelled, and we went to the mall. Several marines in uniform were walking around looking for recruits.

I thought it sucked, and I was stunned it actually happened, but it didn't really come off as an attack. It was more like a unabomber or Oklahoma City bombing event. If there were missiles or something then yeah. Homemade bombs or flying hijacked planes into buildings just comes off as an isolated incident that could happen at any time. Even now, how hard would it be to rent a large, private jet and fly it into a building? Would that even be hard? The country acted like it was Pearl Harbor 2.0, and because of that, it felt like that, but not personally.

Obviously I commemorate the bravery of the first responders and mourn the loss of those who died when I think of the day, but I don't really do anything the day of.

So I am going to say something that is probably not very popular: why are we still memorializing this event? Do we need to cover this each and every year? It has been twenty years, but the news coverage is like it happened one year ago when turning on the TV every September 11th. Is it time to move on?

We still make movies, games, and books about WWII. So I doubt we will move on from it anytime soon. There are some things I do think we can/should move away from that came from it. Notably TSA. But it's a significant attack on US soil and it's not exactly something that happens often.

It's also the the first time there was so huge an attack on civilians in the US. That makes it unique as it served as a wakeup call and changed security forever. Pearl Harbour was a military attack on a military installation whereas the 911 perpetrators were attempting to create widespread civilian fear while damaging the financial system.

Both were surprise attacks except 911 demonstrated how a handful of people could inflict devastating damage with a kill ratio of probably 300 to 1.

Those are a little different to me than having the president addressing the topic or having every news station all day long addressing the topic. Sometimes it just seems like it gets glorified more than commemorated.

My coworkers ad I literally had that very discussion at work this weekend.
Every single one including me wondered the same thing.

It is slowly getting to the point of being like Pearl Harbor though.
The only stations running stuff about 9/11 were the news channels and the "educational" channels.
Whereas maybe 5 years ago they still had stuff on channels like AMC, TNT, ECT.

I was dropping my oldest off at high school and heard on the (radio) news that a small plane had hit one of the WTC towers. When I got home one of the news stations was running a video of the first impact. My first reactions were "that's not a small plane" and "that is NOT an accident." Then I watched as the second plane hit and after that it was non-stop unhelpful speculation.

I have a childhood friend who had an office in one of the towers some years earlier. I called his parents to see where he was and was relieved to hear he had closed that a few years earlier. But watching the images seared the idea that so many people had died in an instant. It was only later, as the story unfolded and the stories of first responders started coming out that the scope of the suffering began to dawn on me. On one hand I was (and still am) surprised so few people were killed. On the other hand, I was horrified (and still am) that so many people were killed.

With a 20 year perspective on it, my principal regrets about the response to 911 are that we in the US missed a good opportunity to reconsider and reevaluate our approach to dealing with the rest of the world and that we chose the path we did.

But really, nothing could prevent a similar type of low skill attack if someone has the resources and will to carry it out. 9/11 did provide a large number of deaths all at once, but it was one day, and yet it shapes a lot of policies and our mentality about what to think about terrorist attacks in the nation. This is why I say it is glorified more than commemorated. On a per year basis, more attacks and deaths come from domestic terrorism related to home grown politics and racism.

https://www.csis.org/analysis/escala...-united-states

Do you remember this? Luckily this guy didn't want to kill anyone but himself. Luckily there wasn't a stadium with 25k fans near by or a cruise ship with 5-10k workers and passengers, and he wasn't feeling homicidal. If an individual or group was motivated and willing then little would stop a MCI. Have you seen Tread? That guy was a single guy wanting to destroy a town in a rampage of revenge.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeYVtVg6aGs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb1hQfo4nFY


Meanwhile, the US has killed more than 22k Afghan civilian men, women and children since 9/11 in the name of fighting foreign terrorists. I think it is time we call a spade a spade, and understand that 9/11 was a successful, but rare and isolated incident in the history of domestic terrorism and move on. Just saying.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-d...analysis-finds

2 weeks ago some guy from Venezuela drove his car through the Hilo airport fence and tried to steal a Beechcraft. He got the engines going before being arrested.
Honolulu some kid drove onto the airfield and stole a Cessna and promptly crashed after takeoff.

It gets kind of scary when you realize how easy it is.
Hickam AFB is connected to Honolulu International.
Wouldn't take much to steal a plane and F up a few VERY expensive military aircraft.

Let's be honest, unless you are at a major passenger plane airport, there is no security at most small airports, we couldn't afford it. I still go walk the flight line at a lot of general aviation airports. All you have to do is look like you belong and no one questions it. I have the advantage of having a pilot's license in my pocket but no one has ever asked me for it.

There is a GA airport near me where there are at least 5 Citations parked. The company that owns them, besides using them for charters also uses them to tow target drones for the military. At midnight there is no security, and maybe a couple of cameras.

For that matter, the closest GA airport near me has an flyable F-14 in their museum that is parked outside.

https://www.ft86club.com/forums/atta...1&d=1618878969

Honestly, I don't disagree with you about moving on. I think its important to remember (those that don't remember history are doomed to repeat it, etc) but I also think it provides ammunition to "the enemy". I think the 20 year anniversary is a bit different but not every year. Actually, as I recall the coverage has died down in recent years.

I have to ask though, can we also apply the same logic to Lady Dianne's death! Talk about something that is over memorialized....

So true.

It would be super easy for someone to make a bomb from fertilizer and blow up a crowded area like Oklahoma City. People just aren't that messed up, and terrorists of any type don't seem to want to waist their time on just killing randomly in order to have a huge death toll for the hell of it. If someone wanted to add ricin to mail and hand deliver it like people do when they leave stuff on your door or on your car as advertisements, a person could kill thousands of people. It wouldn't even be that expensive. So many public events from marathons to sporting events, etc have little to no security, and it wouldn't take much to bring an automatic weapon close enough in range to mow down a huge group of people. Add multiple gunmen, and the death toll could be in the hundreds. Multiple SUVs breaking through the "barriers" at a marathon or at a parade at highway speeds would do massive damage to lives, but this doesn't really happen, especially in a coordinated way from multiple attackers.

We have all these things from domestic terrorists on a much smaller scale, but nothing like 9/11 in size, even though we are no more shielded from these events than we were before. People say a plane couldn't be highjacked now, but all the terrorists had then was box cutters. Ask anyone in prison if a shank couldn't be made in short time from anything. I wonder what the plane would do if multiple terrorists took hostages and demanded the crew to open the cockpit. They say the cockpit is locked, and they have a gun now, but if a shank was held up to a baby or other hostage throat, I don't know what the pilot would do. Even still, the pilot could be in on it, whether the person was radicalized or paid off in some way.

Bump.

I was thinking this afternoon about being 20+ years after the fact. I have an intern this semester that I am twice her age, born the year in graduated high school. When I was a kid thinking about the sixties it seemed so long ago. Like 20 years prior to being born, the voting rights act happened.

Almost a lifetime later after 9/11/01, I can’t help but wonder what kids think about what happened at the turn of the century.

I doubt it is any different than any other generation, it's a historical footnote unless your family was directly impacted.

My version of this is WWII and Korea. When I was 10 years old (where I might have thoughts about these things) WWII was behind us by 24 years and Korea 18 years. I knew about WWII from my Grandfather, but had no clue that Korea was a thing until 5 or 6 years later when we talked about it in a high school modern history and later an JROTC course.

I remember Bush holding a kids book upside down while receiving the news.... then the patriot act.

I'm assuming you know that photo wasn't real...but just in case.

Now, the Patriot Act, yea, it was real.

I hate to say it but I've met kids born after 2000 and it ain't pretty. They barely know what life was like ten years ago let alone 20 years ago.

And knowing how history classes were taught between like 1998 and 2011, I don't have much hope for this generation because it's surely gotten worse plus now they're obsessed with TikTok lol.

But then again I'm sure people born in the 70s said the same about us born in the 90s. :iono:

He's just trying to be edgy. We all know the real fun came in with the TSA doing body scans.

I need you to take off your shoes sir.

Body scans came years after 9/11/01