Remembering 911

[x808drifter]

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.

[Stonehorsw]

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

[Spuds]

Originally Posted by alphasaur

Hyde park?

Holy. Shit. Yep.

[spike021]

Originally Posted by Spuds

Holy. Shit. Yep.

(sorry but had to)

[spike021]

Originally Posted by Stonehorsw

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

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.

[Atmo]

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/

[Irace86.2.0]

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?

[weederr33]

Originally Posted by Irace86.2.0

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.

[wbradley]

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.

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by weederr33

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.

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.

[x808drifter]

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.

[Capt Spaulding]

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.

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by wbradley

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. They were attempting to create widespread fear while damaging the economic 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.

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.

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

[x808drifter]

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.