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So It's September 11th Today....

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Ovid

Member
ryan-ts said:
I was in the 7th grade but living in Canada and having no clue of the WTC made me pretty oblivious to the entire situation and how big of a deal it really was. Seeing the teachers leaving class and talking between each other throughout the day got me interested. As soon as I got home I turned on the television and watched CNN, maybe for the first time ever. I must have watched for a couple hours and after turning it off I decided that it wasn't my place to talk about it and just shut up the next day when the teachers (and a few students) spent the entire next day talking about it in school.
I don't get this. When I was 7th grade I knew about significant landmarks in other countries. If an event like this took place elsewhere when i was that age I would feel just as bad. Why do so many foreigners say they had no idea what the WTC was? That just boggles my mind.
 

Mr. Sam

Member
Wazzim said:

I just don't like the phrase "The terrorists have won." It can be used at the most inappropriate of times. The implication often is that terrorists are tantamount to trolls, where they "win" as long as they get a reaction.

In this case, I'd say pretty much all of Americans (like, 99.9999999%) are united against terrorists. Some might have different views on tax or wealth or healthcare or, well, where community centres are allowed to be built. There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, that's a sign of a healthy democracy - as is, for example, two groups being allowed to protest against one another.

However, nobody is supportive of "the terrorists". Arguably, the terrorists have won when everybody drops everything, including discussion and debate, in favour of hunting them down/whatever it is you're supposed to do with terrorists.
 

Wazzim

Banned
Mr. Sam said:
I just don't like the phrase "The terrorists have won." It can be used at the most inappropriate of times. The implication often is that terrorists are tantamount to trolls, where they "win" as long as they get a reaction.

In this case, I'd say pretty much all of Americans (like, 99.9999999%) are united against terrorists. Some might have different views on tax or wealth or healthcare or, well, where community centres are allowed to be built. There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, that's a sign of a healthy democracy - as is, for example, two groups being allowed to protest against one another.

However, nobody is supportive of "the terrorists". Arguably, the terrorists have won when everybody drops everything, including discussion and debate, in favour of hunting them down/whatever it is you're supposed to do with terrorists.
Hmph I actually think they are just big trolls but you're right 99,99% is against them.
 

WedgeX

Banned
I was a sophomore in high school then. Was in French when the first plane hit. By the time I got to american literature class, which actually had a tv in the room, one of the towers was just about to collapse. Then it did. And yet the teacher made us take a quiz. Our class had just witnessed thousands of people perish before our eyes, and we had to take a quiz.

Its near unbelievable how different the world has turned out since the few months shortly after. Near every nation loved the US at that moment, stood in solidarity even. Things even seemed apolitical for a time. And yet nearly a decade later....here we are.
 

Canova

Banned
cartoon_soldier said:
Is it fair to say that on this 9th anniversary of 9/11, the US is the most divided it has been?

no I don't think so.

differing opinions != divided.

The strength of America and other Western democratic countries are that you are free to express your opinions and free to argue with different parties without fear of prosecution.
 

ryan-ts

Member
tarius1210 said:
I don't get this. When I was 7th grade I knew about significant landmarks in other countries. If an event like this took place elsewhere when i was that age I would feel just as bad. Why do so many foreigners say they had no idea what the WTC was? That just boggles my mind.

Guess it just wasn't that significant of a landmark at the time, I remember hearing a plane might have also hit the Pentagon and that bothered me a lot more until I found out what the WTC was.
 

Crazylegs

Member
I had just quit a crap programming job a few days earlier and was feeling kind of anxious about things. I remember I was sitting at the kitchen table reading the Want Ads. Regis and Whatsername were on TV as background noise. Then the news reports started cutting in.

I watched all day.

A few days later, I learned a former work associate was killed in the Towers. He was starting a new job - attending a breakfast meeting on the top floor. My problems felt so small after those few days.
 

El Sloth

Banned
It's pretty amazing how well some of you guys recall specific details of that day. I believe I was in 6th grade at the time and some general memories, but everything else is pretty fuzzy. I can't recall which specific class we had when it happened, but I do remember we were on the side of the building with a good view of Manhattan and we were to see the smoke rising up from Manhattan.

Then eventually the teachers got the one TV we had on the floor to watch the news. And for the rest of the day there were announcements of kids to report to the main office since their parents had come to pick them up. I remember being pretty mad at my dad that he waited for 20 min before school let out to come pick me up.:lol

After we got home and started watching the news I got a better understanding of what exactly was going on, and got really worried for my mother and brother who both worked in Manhattan at the time. I think I believed at the time we were being attacked by a country of terrorists and thought all of Manhattan was in danger. I used the constant jets flying overhead as my basis. Wow, looks like I remember more than I thought.

One of my biggest regrets in life is not being able to go to the Twin Towers when I had the chance.
 

Volcynika

Member
Was in 9th grade I think, freshman in high school, in my Spanish class. They had the TV on for a while, then they explained it to people that didn't have them, after an hour or so we kinda just continued on with the day.
 
Even though I am from the UK I can still remember the specific details of that day and the following few days after more than I can of the terrorist attacks in London. Coming home from school and watching the second plane fly into the tower was harrowing. Then when it emerged that Al Qaeda was behind the attacks I can remember, even at 8 years old, fearing a backlash against Muslims.
 

Pimpwerx

Member
Isn't it time to get over this shit already? Hell...it was time to get over it in 2006. If people in the Middle East mourned a terrorist act the way we do, they'd never have time to do anything else. The first WTC and OKC bombings were not treated like this. I blame Bush and his shitty exploitation of this event for this continued fixation on the past. PEACE.
 

AnkitT

Member
I was in the 10th grade or whatever. I remember hysteria over it even though I dont live in the US. I didnt care much.
 

StoOgE

First tragedy, then farce.
Kagari said:
What are they even putting in those giant imprints where the towers were? I'm still disappointed they didn't just rebuild them :/

reflection pools with waterfalls coming down the sides.

It is also silly to think they could have rebuilt the towers. They are having a hard enough time leasing Tower 1 as it is (or were until recently) and it is the safest skyscraper ever designed.
 

erpg

GAF parliamentarian
8th grade, skipped class to watch it on TV in the HS atrium. We had some bomb threats on Parliament Hill (Ottawa) too, but those proved to be false.
 
I woke early that day because I needed to be at work earlier than usual. When I wake up I usually hang out in bed and watch tv until I'm fully awake. I was still bleary eyed when I saw the first tower on fire. I had no idea what was going on then the second plane hit and I was immedietly paying attention.

That whole day I was in a haze. I left work early and went to football practice. (At the time I was coaching the JV Football squad) At practice we barely did anything. Everybody was just talking about what had happened.

For the next few weeks my friends and family were all glued to our tvs watching the news. It was a crazy time and I can't believe that it has already been 9 years.
 
I was at school in the U.K and nothing was mentioned of it to any of the students throughout the day. When in i was in a shop on the way home i remember so over-hearing some heated conversation about something or other but it wasn't til i got home, and all the channels were fixated on it that i realised what happened.
 
I went to high school in downtown Jersey City, NJ. I was a junior, in US history class around the time it all happened, and when that ended and we were going to Chemistry, our principal came to our class and told us what had happened. One girl started crying. I was concerned since my father worked at 14th Street in NYC and he didn't get home until about 9 that evening. By the time I went home, around 12:30, Grove Street was in chaos with cops directing cars everywhere. Took me two hours to get home.

Nine years. I was in high school nine fucking years ago. Jesus.
 

Fuckwit

Banned
Respect to all lives lost..

But as a pacifist...
Noone learned a thing why they attacked, and soon you guys will be in Iran fighting a war for big busness while the supposed Bin Laden is still loose..
 

StoOgE

First tragedy, then farce.
So, I guess my two personal stories.

About 2 years ago I was having beers with this guy who worked at Morgan Stanley in Dallas. We were bullshitting about companies flying us all over the country for training ans wasting money on the trips... which took a turn for the worse.

He had been flown to Morgan Stanley's headquarters for training in two world trade center in September 2001. He was waiting in one of the skylounges with 5 other trainees on 9/11 on the 70th floor when 1WTC was struck. The security guard for Morgan Stanley got every one of their employees together on the skydeck and told them they were evacuating down the stairs. Building management was on the intercom telling everyone it was an accident and to remain calm where they were in building 2. Their security guard told them to ignore it and keep going and to only look at the person in front of you's head.

When the second plane hit their tower all he could hear was explosions and smell jetfuel. Then they heard an elevator next to the stairwell falling and they could hear the people on the elevator screaming as the plane had severed the cables when it crashed into the building. He had to carry a woman who had not followed directions and looked to her left, there was part of the planes landing gear an a severed torso sitting in a gaping hole next tothe stairwell.

They all got out, the security guard told them all to get to safety and then he went back in the building with the other Morgan Stanley security personnel to help evacuate others. He was seen on the 20th floor heading up by other people evacuating but died when the building collapsed. Because of him, only 6 of Morgan Stanleys 2700 people who worked in 2WTC died that day, which is amazing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Rescorla#Actions_on_9.2F11

I googled the story to make sure it wasn't BS after I got home from the bar that night, and the guys name was Rick Rescorla. The guy was a bad ass and a hero who saved a lot of peoples lives that day.

The guy I met still can't fly on planes because the smell of jet fuel makes him ill. For 3-4 days he couldn't get a call to connect to his wife back in Dallas, but could call the Morgan Stanley office in Dallas.. so one of my current coworkers (how I met the guy) had to route calls between him and his wife using their phone system as it was the only way he could contact home at the time.

Talk about one debbie downer of an evening at the bar, but I wouldn't have otherwise have heard of the security guards story, and I'm glad I did because it's people like him who give you faith in humanity and think that we might be alright even though we have assholes who would kill innocent people. A glimmer of hope in a shitty situation.

My other story is much shorter:

About a month ago I was in NJ interviewing for a job in finance. Halfway through the interview the guy mentioned they used to work in lower manhattan but moved the office about 10 years earlier.

Me being a dumb ass asked him why they moved from Manhattan.

He looked at me and just said "because the world trade center fell on top of our building."

I felt like a complete ass :(
 

StoOgE

First tragedy, then farce.
Barry Obama said:
Respect to all lives lost..

But as a pacifist...
Noone learned a thing why they attacked, and soon you guys will be in Iran fighting a war for big busness while the supposed Bin Laden is still loose..

Keep your conspiracy bullshit out of this thread and into the thread that is designed to keep you fucking nut jobs from infecting the rest of us with your stupidity.
 

El Sloth

Banned
Barry Obama said:
Respect to all lives lost..

But as a pacifist...
Noone learned a thing why they attacked, and soon you guys will be in Iran fighting a war for big busness while the supposed Bin Laden is still loose..

wut
 

Brinbe

Member
Gooster said:
I went to high school in downtown Jersey City, NJ. I was a junior, in US history class around the time it all happened, and when that ended and we were going to Chemistry, our principal came to our class and told us what had happened. One girl started crying. I was concerned since my father worked at 14th Street in NYC and he didn't get home until about 9 that evening. By the time I went home, around 12:30, Grove Street was in chaos with cops directing cars everywhere. Took me two hours to get home.

Nine years. I was in high school nine fucking years ago. Jesus.
Yep, I was a sophomore in HS. We had just come back from Mass (went to Catholic school) and was sitting in American History class when the initial news came down from the PA, that was 9:30 or so I think.

Coincidentally, we had a TV in the room, so our class watched the news together (around this same time actually) and together, we watched the horror as the towers came down live... Just fucking awful, and something I'll never forget. They eventually shut it off, and for the rest of the day, we all had images racing through our mind, wondering what was happening in NYC, the Pentagon, and that other crash in our state of PA. And when I got home, I just spent the rest of the day watching news, saddened by the repeating images and the sun setting down on the smoldering devastation.

Honestly, I think next year will be a huge smack of realization for many in our generation. I mean ten years, God, we've grown from children/teens into adults during that time. It's scary.
 
Ah, yes. the 9th anniversary of me going out to buy a playstation 2.

I remember the clerk mentioning something about planes hitting new york city, and my response being "I don't care, give me Tekken Tag Tournament".

I didn't actually find out what happened until 2 days later. Playstation 2. So awesome.
 

StoOgE

First tragedy, then farce.
Some awesome pictures from the NJ side of the Hudson over the last few days:

web.jpg


web.jpg

web.jpg
 

StoOgE

First tragedy, then farce.
animlboogy said:
Maybe specifically saying which war we could end up fighting in was a bit much, but with how politicians used this horrible event as a tool for war previously was and still is horrifying and incredibly disrespectful to everybody who experienced the attacks on that day.

Give him some slack for having a pessimistic view on the situation when it went so badly before.That was a hard thing to see happen.

He edited his post from the original version to make it less assholeish. By the time I got my reply in he had changed it a good bit.

Plus there is still the "fight war for big business" and "supposed bin laden" bits in there.

All signs point to truther.
 

Kagari

Crystal Bearer
I can't even bring myself to watch the coverage on TV today... :((( Glad to see they're continuing with the light memorial this year though.
 

MisterHero

Super Member
I'm watching the Today Show from that morning again

back when it happened I was in Gym class, and the first I heard of it was that someone supposedly bombed the Twin Towers. At first I was laughing but then as the school spent the rest of the day watching news coverage, I didn't produce a significant emotional response (except maybe shock perhaps).
 

StoOgE

First tragedy, then farce.
I was a freshman in college. I walked out of my 8AM (7AM?) german class and went to the coffee shop on the corner I always went to and everyone was huddled around a small TV watching the coverage. At that point I don't think the second plane had hit yet.

It took all my friends could do to keep me from walking in a recruiting office 2 hours later to join the army. Which is probably best for both me and the army as I am weak and question authority too much. But I was a little ball of rage for several weeks.
 

smokeymicpot

Beat EviLore at pool.
MisterHero said:
I'm watching the Today Show from that morning again

back when it happened I was in Gym class, and the first I heard of it was that someone supposedly bombed the Twin Towers. At first I was laughing but then as the school spent the rest of the day watching news coverage, I didn't produce a significant emotional response (except maybe shock perhaps).

Watching the Today show from that day is creepy. They were still worried about the economy.
 

Pctx

Banned
Crazy. It just will always feel like yesterday.

And WTF at half of these GAF posters being in grade school? Good lord. :lol I was a Sophomore in college and now I'm 7 years into my profession. I feel old I guess.

Here's to the Liberties and Freedoms we hold and may we never become a lesser nation even when attacked.
 
MSNBC is playing a minute by minute recap of that day (as in, as it happened at the time it is now on that day).
Still as depressing as it was that day.
 
Uh wow.
Never heard about the bomb threats in schools in Manhattan.
That's pretty fucked up for people to use this event to get out of school.
 
Watching the MSNBC replay of the morning coverage. It's pretty amazing/disgusting how much these reporters were "enjoying" bringing this coverage.
 
animlboogy said:
In all seriousness, I liked this post from the original 9/11 thread:

"Stop me if this seems filippant...

Wonder if this will delay Gamecube imports into the states?"

It's just such a timestamp for the time, and I see it as significant of how scrambled our brains were that day.

I was playing Shenmue because it was our school's late start day. Then I got a call about the event from a friend. And I went back to playing, because I didn't really process it.

Heh. In the week or two after it had happened I remember wondering what would happen to Propeller Arena for Dreamcast because I was so looking forward to that after months of Phantasy Star Online and Alien Front Online, but it never came to be. I remember it was in jeopardy of being canceled for a while until Sega flat out said "Not happening."
 

vermadas

Member
The posts in this thread make me feel old.

One of the great things about being a college senior was that you had high priority when choosing your course times. My schedule that semester didn't have me in class until noon on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So when the planes hit the two towers, I was sleeping. One of the guys who I was living with knocked on my door after the second plane hit. He peeked his head in and I heard him say "Dude, you really should get up and look at this".

We sat and stared at the TV in disbelief at the events unfold. I eventually had to go to class, but as I was walking into the building, students were pouring down the stairs. Class had been canceled. I talked to a friend of mine outside the building for a while. Then I drove back to my apartment and got stuck in the traffic and listened to the news on the radio.
 
BolognaSoup said:
Watching the MSNBC replay of the morning coverage. It's pretty amazing/disgusting how much these reporters were "enjoying" bringing this coverage.


I think it's unfair to say they're enjoying it.
Professional broadcasters are taught two emotions.

1. Happiness.
2. Apathy.


You can hear disbelief in the on the scene reporters.
 

industrian

will gently cradle you as time slowly ticks away.
One minute I was working on chicken station in McDonalds, the next minute my buddy (who was on his break) ran through into the kitchen and told me that America had just been attacked. It's weird to think that so much time has passed.

I had dropped out of high school just a month before, now I'm working in web commerce in Taiwan. It's been a good journey.
 
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