9/11 - Ten Years Later

[ReconRat]

Ten years since 9/11. A decade of change. There will be about 20 different TV shows on Sunday about 9/11. Prepare for sadness.

I guess it's time to reflect upon life as we thought we knew it. Maybe time to teach the kids a bit of history also.

The History Channel and A&E will broadcast a documentary on Sunday 9/11.

102 Minutes That Changed America:Sun., 9/11 at 8:46am

102 Minutes That Changed America:Sun., 9/11 9/8c

9/11: Ten Years Later — History.com

One more:

I'll teach some history right now. In the months after 9/11, I ran across a compelling short article in The New Yorker. I present it here:

The Real Heroes Are Dead - A love story. by James B. Stewart

A Reporter at Large: The Real Heroes Are Dead

And if you want to read the long version:

"Heart of a Soldier" by James Stewart

Biography of Rick Rescorla

Edited September 8, 2011 by ReconRat

[4DAIVI PAI2K5]

been a slew of shows on natgeo and science channel for the past week or two. I dvr'd most of them

[Josh1234]

Where were you guys when you got the news?

I was on my ship, in the Navy, in port at Norfolk, VA. They told us we had 3 hours to get out to sea (it normally took 2 weeks). We ended up being a radar picket ship off the coast of Washington D.C.

[drew95gt]

I was in bed after working the night before...my girlfriend was on her way to work and called me on the phone after the first plane hit and said turn on the news I think something bad is happening. I turned it on shortly before the 2nd plane hit and was glued to the tv the rest of the day. In all of the sadness and tragedy that happened that day, a beautiful thing happened as well...I have never seen so many American flags being flown and so many people being so nice to each other as I did that day and shortly thereafter.

[4DAIVI PAI2K5]

I wish I felt as strongly about my country then I do now. The thought never really crossed my mind back then about joining the military. I wish I would have now. You cant go back and change things tho so I just try my best to support those that defend us all now.

[scottb]

Ok, my turn. I was at work, got a voice mail message from the wife that a plane hit one of the towers. I thought maybe it was like a small tourist style plane. Then about a minute later, after jumping on the Internet, I realized it was a full size plane. As the morning went on, learned of the scope of what happened that morning.

The wife worked downtown Cleveland and her building was evacuated.

I remember there was a gas station ( on 185th) near my work that changed the price of gas to $5 a gallon.

I got home from work, and all the neighors just got together and we socailized and agreed to look out for each other.

The weirdest part was not seeing or hearing airplanes over head.

[Joey614]

I was in third grade in class and they had it on the news and we went into lock down

[gen3flygirl]

I was on my way to school after swim practice, they came over the radio with a special news broadcast. My mother immediately called my dad then all of his coworkers we knew to make sure it wasn't them. That was the exact route, type of plane and airline my dad was flying at the time.

[DGTL GRL]

I was at work (where I worked with Casper aka Ben, but I don't think he worked there at that time) and my husband was oddly enough unemployed at that time. I was writing up a Apple Dispatch when my husband called me and told me about the first plane.

I thought too that it may be a small commuter plane, then I learned otherwise.

I remember thinking about all the passengers on the planes and how horrible that was. For some reason the actual people in the Towers, Pentagon, etc hadn't occurred to me at that time.

I couldn't get any video online as CNN, etc was being hit hard.

I had to run out to a customer of ours and deliver a Drum Kit for a printer.

I was listening to Howard Stern and I remember saying OH MY GOD when the 2nd tower fell.

You could just tell that the other people on the roads were also listening to a newscast. We all were driving kinda frantically and had looks of concerns on our faces from one car to the next.

I didn't actually see any video of the planes hitting the towers until I got home that evening at 5pm.

My husband was in shock that was the first time I was seeing it. I just watched stunned and sat down on the couch with tears streaming down my face. My husband comforted me.

After we recovered we made a mad dash to go get gas (took over an hour at the gas station due to the line) as we were afraid gas was going to go sky high. I think it was only $1.70 or something.. little did we know that would be a price per gallon we'd never see again.

[2talltim]

I was in bed, got a phone call from my sister and the first words out of her mouth were "quick turn on your tv, the united states is under attack!!"...that woke me up real quick

[Jst2fst]

I was in my science class when another teacher told us to turn on the tv and we saw what was happening.

[Anden]

I had just stepped out of the shower and was listening to the tv. I ended up being late to work that day. All o did was watch tv cause I wanted to know more. It was very odd not seeing or hearing any planes over head.

I had a conversation with a old blind man once. And he was telling me about Kennedy getting shot. He said that was the first time he felt fear. Or not secure in the US. I often wonder if that's what I was feeling that day.

Edited September 8, 2011 by Anden

[TheBrown57]

I was in 6th grade in my science class when they came over the radio that the US was being bombed we didn't pay much attention for some reason then they announced it again that it was a terrorist attack and we went back to our home rooms and turned on the T.V. and watched everything unfold everything else is just a blur to me...

[Simplysix]

I was in high school history class. After they first plan hit they made a PA announcement for the teachers to turn on their.tvs. After watching the news for only a minutes the teacher goes over to the blackboard and writes Osama Bin Laden. He said " you are going to start hearing this name a lot". Man was he right.

[jblosser]

5 of us couples and our kids had flown back to Columbus on Monday, 10 September, from our annual Labor Day big group vacation. Good thing we decided to only extend it a day...

Tuesday, 11 September, 08:40 or so. I had dropped my then almost 9 month old off at my buddy's house - his wife watched him and their two (now 5 ) boys during the day.

Was listening to Howard Stern on the radio on the drive to the office - back in the old days, kids, he used to be on "regular/free" radio. Howard said something about a plane hitting the North Tower, and had the different cable news channels on the TVs in his studio, and was giving a play-by-play, for lack of a better term, of what was happening.

Got to the office right about when the second plane hit the South Tower. The entire office was abuzz with a lot of "WTF is going on?" conversations. One fella had a conversion van with a TV in it, so about 15 of us were huddled around the van's backdoors watching a little 9" or so television. Even with the giant pipe we have directly to the Internet, most major sites at the time, e.g. Yahoo!, CNN, Google, USA Today were mostly unresponsive - they were just completely overwhelmed.

When the South Tower fell a little before 10, I think that's when it really hit us that "Jeez, this isn't just a fire that the firemen can douse, they're both going to fall".

I recall the initial news reports were saying that 20-30,000 people combined worked in the Twin Towers on any given day, so during most of the day after both towers collapsed that's how many people we (Americans) thought had been murdered.

At some point in the morning we were told to go home, so I did. Grabbed the kid from the babysitter, went home, flipped between the news channels all day. For the next 3 or 4 days there was nothing on any of the 300~ish channels on TV except coverage of what had happened.

It was strange when I wandered outside in the afternoon to burn a heater that no planes whatsoever were flying, except for when I went to the Hills Market around 17:30 or so to grab some dinner. I heard airplanes, looked up and saw 3 planes flying WAY up high; it was Air Force One and its two fighter escorts taking President Bush somewhere, probably back to D.C. at that time of the day.

One of my co-loafers at work lost her sister that day - she was a military officer that worked in the Pentagon. I don't have any siblings, so I can only imagine how awful that must be - to not only lose a sister, but to lose her to a cowardly act of terrorism.

One thing that has stuck with me to today: A day or two after the attacks I was looking through the passenger manifests of the 4 planes on the off-chance I might know someone, and I saw 3 last names in a row: Hanson: Peter, 32, Sue, 35, and Christine, 2. Jesus H. Freaking Christ, an entire family - Mom, Dad, and baby girl wiped out in an instant. Every time I remember reading that I hunt down my now 10 year old and hug him tightly.

Like I saw written on one of the thousands of candles laid out in NYC, "No, it's not raining, those are our tears."

[LongDogRacing]

wow. i am amazed at how many of you were kids when this happened. i was just out of college and working for the navy at patuxent river, MD. since then, i served two combat tours in an effort to reclaim our nation's dignity.

i'm going to commemorate this sad anniversary with a trackday. i'm going to ride with the freedoms that my service (and of those who didn't return) gave me. this is a great place to live. there are other places in the world that aren't so lucky; that live in fear for their lives every day. just sumpthin to think about.

[Helmutt]

I was home but clueless to what happened that day as I hadn't even turned on the TV until my wife called me at home and filled me in at about 11am......crazy shit for sure.

We plan on attending a memorial that our city is throwing via local food/money donations to show our support for this tragic day in American history.

[Siacono]

Man lot of young ones here... I was in bed after working the night before....

Heard my gf screaming thats what woke me up... Was glue to the tv the rest of the day..

[alienpi]

[ohdaho]

I woke up at 855 for my 900 freshman bio class at Texas A&M. People weer whispering all over campus already. Found out what happened and skipped the rest of my classes that day. Went to some candlelight vigils...it seemed like it had a greater impact to the college if you know anything about the history of Texas A&M.

Couple years later closer to graduation I signed up my USAF OTS...and the rest was history.

[Monstrosity]

Where were you guys when you got the news?

I was on my ship, in the Navy, in port at Norfolk, VA. They told us we had 3 hours to get out to sea (it normally took 2 weeks). We ended up being a radar picket ship off the coast of Washington D.C.

I was on my way to a funeral that morning. My parents were listening to the radio and during the 45 minute drive to the funeral home we heard the terrible news. The first plane was thought to be an accident and then the next two the guy on the radio had put two and two together. Very scary... RIP

[4DAIVI PAI2K5]

Come on man. This isnt about a conspiracy theory. 10 years later your still stuck on that and not remembering the thousands that lost their lives that day and how it changed America forever.

Edited September 8, 2011 by 4DAIVI PAI2K5

[ReconRat]

...I had a conversation with a old blind man once. And he was telling me about Kennedy getting shot. He said that was the first time he felt fear. Or not secure in the US. I often wonder if that's what I was feeling that day.

Good point. Very similar. Only 9/11 we knew we'd kick somebody's ass for it somewhere. With the Kennedy assassination, it really wasn't clear what was going on, but it was pretty much the exact same fear of the unknown.

The moment with Kennedy was aggravated by the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the Cuban Missile Crisis, the year prior. The effects of that were still being felt. The entire country had mobilized and moved military assets South to fight in Cuba. The roads were full of troops, and the skies were full of aircraft, all moving South. You could feel the fear everywhere. The Soviets and the USA were on the trigger. We were at a DefCon 2 and 3 for way too long. We were about to do the big one. The entire country thought we were goners. That feeling lasted a long time. And it changed the way people think, forever.

Edited September 8, 2011 by ReconRat

[4DAIVI PAI2K5]

Good point. Very similar. Only 9/11 we knew we'd kick somebody's ass for it somewhere. With the Kennedy assasination, it really wasn't clear what was going on, but it was pretty much the exact same fear of the unknown.

The moment with Kennedy was aggravated by the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the Cuban Missile Crisis, the year prior. The effects of that were still being felt. The entire country had mobilized and moved military assets South to fight in Cuba. The roads were full of troops, and the skies were full of aircraft, all moving South. You could feel the fear everywhere. The Soviets and the USA were on the trigger. We were at a DefCon 2 and 3 for way too long. We were about to do the big one. The entire country thought we were goners. That feeling lasted a long time. And it changed the way people think, forever.

You think the Kennedy Assassination diluted the CMC or was it over by then? I'm way to young to know how it was back then.

[ReconRat]

You think the Kennedy Assassination diluted the CMC or was it over by then? I'm way to young to know how it was back then.

It was over, or immediately forgotten, as people tried to figure out if there was a Soviet connection to the Kennedy assassination. But all of it was part of the Cold War. Touch and go everywhere around the world. There's a lot of things that happened in the military and politics, for many years, that isn't a part of history that we can go and read, or see on TV. Clashes between Soviet and US troops, that never made the news. Some of it started in WWII, Korea and Vietnam didn't help, and some of it started when Gary Power's U2 got shot down. It lasted a long long time. Basically it lasted until the Berlin Wall came down. And now it's a different political game. Basically one with a lot more players. Not just the USA and USSR. But not by much. That's where the real world power still is located. If the USA and USSR (Russia now) ever actually become good friends, the rest of the world isn't much.

Edited September 8, 2011 by ReconRat