Reflections on 9/11

[chemchok]

Well, it's been three years since the terrorist attacks on 9/11. This post isn't a rant, it's just a reflection. The last thing most people want to talk about in NYC is 9/11; they'll talk about the memorials or the plans for the site, politics, etc. but nobody wants to discuss the actual day and I don't blame them. It's something I don't really talk about, but it still kept me up late last night, so I thought an anonymous post on a board might help.

 

I've been living in NYC since 1997. I never visited or shopped at the WTC; thankfully I don't know anyone who died there. I was living in Brooklyn on 9/11, I could see both towers from my kitchen. They were not architectual marvels to me, they were my compass. I always knew what direction West was from Downtown Brooklyn because they were always visible. I can't even remember if I saw them on fire or simply saw the two columns of smoke replaced them that morning from my window. Seeing the planes crash over and over again on TV has replaced my own memories.

 

I remember walking over to my friend's apartment who lived across from the docks in Brooklyn and had an unobstructed view of Lower Manhattan. Walking there was surreal, as I came closer to the water, these sparkling particles appeared in the air, probably from the fiberglass and other assorted particles that had been blown to the SE from the wind. Piles of dust and random papers and memos from the offices swirled around on the streets. A fine layer of ash had covered the cars and sidewalks. I had to pull my shirt over my nose to breathe right. My friend's apartment was a mess, the same ash was everywhere.

 

From her apartment I could see helicopters swarming about like little gnats. Lower Manhattan was covered with dark smoke. Then it became late, and the sunset was one of the most horrifingly beautiful things I have ever seen. The late day sun made the most beautiful pinks, reds, and oranges as it reflected off of the airborne remains of two of my city's former landmarks.

 

I remember going to work in midtown Manhattan the next night. The wind had turned North. Those same shining particles danced in front of my eyes outside. The smell of burning plastic wafted about the empty streets. Everyone was depressed and paranoid. Rumours of bombs in the Empire State Building were being spread by random passerbys on the street.

 

The next months had daily reminders of 9/11. Makeshift shrines appeared everywhere; on street corners, church steps, fire departments, subway stations. Every day on my commute I had to pass by pictures of people who were gone. Every day on my way to work my subway car would emerge from it's tunnel to cross the Manhattan bridge. From there you could see the smoking clouds that marked the towers' former place in the skyline. When I came home at night by car I would see the same scene again, this time lit up by worker's spotlights. I can't remember how long this went on. At least till December. After the remains eventually stopped burning after several months, the dust stirred up by the workers would rise to the sky. In the first few weeks after 9/11 everyone in the subway car would become silent and look out at the plumes. Then it became common, people would use their cell phones to call in late to work when they left the tunnel. Now it's just memories. Every day my subway car would pass through Cortland station, with it's turnstyles covered in police tape and large wooden timbers buttressing the damaged street above.

 

Sometimes when I was in Chinatown I would see flatbed trucks drive by on their way to Staten Island, carrying the twisted and blackened girders of the towers like goulish bones. Then I would look around and see tourists taking pictures next to cheap commemorative memorabilia lying around on the blankets of sidewalk vendors.

 

It's horrible remembering what happened, but it's even scarier when everyone pretends it didn't. And to anyone reading this who worked at ground zero, Pennsylvania, the Pentagon, or who lost someone close to them you have my deepest sympathy.

 

I would prefer that anyone who felt like posting their memories or feelings in this thread not involve politics in it.

[Product of the Cosmos]

I'm not sure how reflections on 9-11 can be without politics.. Unless your just posting in rememberance.

[chemchok]

Well, I assumed most people in the US had some sort of visceral reaction that day. I guess that's what I'm interested in. Not who's fault it was or what was done wrong or right afterwards. I just want to know how you felt that day. So yes, rememberance would be a better word.

 

Anyway, I just had to let go of it today, so to speak.

[DemonKing]

I was in the dentists's chair getting drilled on 9/11, and of course the guy had a TV on and he kept pausing to look at the screen (with the drill still whirling in my mouth) and saying "look at those poor bastards".

 

I was lucky the terror attack in the US didn't inflict grevious dental harm in me in Australia!

[mkreku]

I remember playing an online game at the time (a MUD called Medievia) and someone yelled on one of the channels in the game "A plane has crashed into WTC!" and I didn't believe him. So I checked one of the big news sites in Sweden and it had just crashed from the enormous amount of pressure when everyone in Sweden had tried the same thing as me at the same time. Then I understood this was for real. So I went home and everyone in my dorm (I was living in a dorm at the time) were glued in front of the public TV. Then came the other plane..

['JN]

I was in the dentists's chair getting drilled on 9/11, and of course the guy had a TV on and he kept pausing to look at the screen (with the drill still whirling in my mouth) and saying "look at those poor bastards".

 

I was lucky the terror attack in the US didn't inflict grevious dental harm in me in Australia!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Are you serious? I was at the dentist as well that morning. First time I had gone in a while, in fact I remember scheduling the appointment for that day. They only had a radio there, so I listened to the reports coming in and the rumors flying around. There was a sort of eerie silence after the news of the second plane striking the other tower came in, a silence that I'd imagine was very similar to that heard on many radios in December of 1941.

[~Di]

I remember that day all too vividly. I watched the television in horror, because I have so many friends who live/work in Manhattan. I've been up in the WTC on one of my trips to NYC. And I knew several people who worked in and around the WTC. Two of them died. I knew them only casually, but still their loss has affected me deeply.

 

Someone dear to me, a long-time friend and my one-time editor, was in the city that day. She was 8 months pregnant with her first child. Her husband worked in a building right next to the WTC. It was a building I saw buried in rubble before my eyes. I was certain her beloved husband was dead.

 

He wasn't, because he'd been called to a meeting uptown at the last minute. His best friend was dead, though... the person who had been his dearest friend since childhood and best man at their wedding. The loss devasted him and his wife; and since they are both so dear to me, the loss devasted me as well. So close to home, even 4000 miles away.

 

Another friend of mine in Texas called that week. Her brother was the pilot who had been scheduled to fly the plane that was hijacked into the Pentagon. His wife had been taken ill and hospitalized the night before, so he asked his best buddy to take the flight. You can only imagine how devasted he was by 9/11.

 

There are millions of personal stories of how 9/11 changed lives in this country, even the lives of those who lived thousands of miles from Ground Zero. One of the things that touched me most was seeing Brits pay their respect by playing the Star Spangled Banner; one of the things that hurt me the deepest was seeing various groups around the world that were celebrating our loss. I will never forget either of those things.

 

I cannot imagine, chemchok, how horrific the experience of living there, seeing the devastating, tasting the debris in the air, must have been for you, day after day, month after month. My deepest condolences.

[Product of the Cosmos]

I was at a party on 9-10.. at about 4-6 in the morning I turned on the TV(most everyone had left) and there it was, right when I turned on the TV 'breaking news few minutes ago blah'. Then as I smoked and watched in awe, the second plane hit on live TV while I was watching.. I woke up all the drunken passed out people, and we had a bigass debate. lol. One of my friends was so pissed he signed up for the military that day(he later died in a car accident a month later ). He was so pissed that almost every night he wanted to fight people.

 

As for yesterday. When I was talking about genetic virus engineering genocide possibilities in the future done by malicious groups with a microbiology/DNA student I felt a feeling of nerviousness by anyone we walked by with this conversation for sure.

 

I also had a fighter jet fly over my car while i was driving. Sprung curiousity. But I imagine it is a ploy to make people be more comfortable with their security.

[Weiser_Cain]

I was monitoring the news(CNN to be exact and working on something).

The thing's I remember are the sky clear of air travel for the first time in my life sans the ocasional fighter. The rest of the world saying they're sorry for us then saying it was our fault in the same breath.

[ShinIchiro]

I was monitoring the news(CNN to be exact and working on something).

The thing's I remember are the sky clear of air travel for the first time in my life sans the ocasional fighter. The rest of the world saying they're sorry for us then saying it was our fault in the same breath.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Really Really don't want to go political so I won't say that second of the second part part is wrong...

[Adria Teksuni]

I was online with some online RPG friends, some of whom live in Washington DC. One of them said something had happened in New York as per his CNN feed. As I was the only one at home and had access to the television, I turned it on.

 

I'll never forget it.

 

I saw the second plane hit the second World Trade Center when it happened, live. I was in shock. I remember my legs stopped supporting me and I just crumpled to the floor, unable to take my eyes off the television. I remember thinking that it wasn't happening, it wasn't real, it was like the old War of the Worlds radio broadcast...initial stupid denial reaction.

 

My computer started going mad as my friends started pinging me and I came back to myself, wobbled to the computer, and tried to explain what was going on. I became the unofficial news center for everyone at work.

 

When the Pentagon went, I nearly went into hysterics. It was all so surreal, I couldn't believe it, but I did believe it, and it was horrible beyond my wildest imaginations.

 

I was in Berlin during the LaBelle Disco bombing. I was at Ramstein at the Flugtag disaster. I thought I had seen carnage and destruction. I was wrong.

 

And it was all transmitted across a television screen. I tried to imagine what it was like there and in person, and my mind simply shut down on that score and refused to cooperate.

 

Later, while I couldn't do anything directly to help, I did what I could, giving blood and supplies and donations.

 

Friends of mine, however, who are in the safety equipment manufacture industry, had to go up to New York to help, several days after the attack. When there was no hope left of survivors. They were to dig through the rubble, showing the firefighters how to use their equipment.

 

The told me what they saw, what they went through. I will never, ever forget it.

 

To this day I still get shaken up whenever I hear the words, "Let's Roll."

 

And part of me doesn't want me not to.

[Weiser_Cain]

I was monitoring the news(CNN to be exact and working on something).

The thing's I remember are the sky clear of air travel for the first time in my life sans the ocasional fighter. The rest of the world saying they're sorry for us then saying it was our fault in the same breath.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Really Really don't want to go political so I won't say that second of the second part part is wrong...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You could always PM me.

[mkreku]

One more thing: When the skyscrapers were both burning heavily the people in my dorm were screaming, "They're gonna collapse!", and I tried to calm them down by saying, "No, they won't! Skyscrapers are built to withstand the impact of a Boeing!". Of course, minutes later the towers did collapse and four years of studying construction and mechanics of materials went down the drain.