This was obviously a defining moment in all of our lives. Although most of us here probably weren't directly affected by the events that took place, we all have a connection with them. I'm sure most of us will be bombarded with TV specials and remembrance celebrations in the next couple of weeks, but I thought I'd open up this topic for anyone who wants to chat about it.
Feel free to share your thoughts from that day, we all feel like telling where we were when a significant event happens. I guess it must bring us together as a society since we can all relate to each other’s stories.
This date is also a benchmark for our own lives. 10 years has past. We can all remember that day 10 years ago, and it seems odd to say it was 10 years ago. Are you where you wanted to be?
I wouldn't doubt if this turns into a conspiracy theory thread, I won't contribute to that discussion, my intention is to recognize the event itself, not why it occurred or who perpetrated it. If other people want to, go ahead I suppose, but let's try to keep some remembrance aspect to it.
Also, I'm sure there will be some ceremonies going on in Calgary on September, 11. If anyone has info to those, please post it.
On that note, I will put up some YouTube videos we should all be acquainted with: Those who had no idea what or why this was going on, yet did their jobs in responding to the disaster with courage, many of whom lost their lives.
343 New York Fire Department
37 Port Authority Police
23 New York Police Department
8 Private EMS/EMT
This is a fantastic documentary, if you have not watched it, you should. Has nothing to do with terrorists, conspiracies or political BS. It is a documentary about the Firefighters that responded in the hours after the tragedy and what they went through and felt. Nothing more.
The rest of the videos can be found on that fellow's YouTube channel.
RIP
The Following 3 Users Say Thank You to worth For This Useful Post:
I was pretty young when it happened (grade 7) but I remember getting ready for school and my dad was watching the news and I started watching it with him. I didn't really know what was going on but I saw the second plane hit live on the TV and it was nuts. Everyone was talking about it on the bus.
Was in 2nd year at the time and on my way to school listening to the radio in the car. At first, I had a dark thought that the pilot was drunk and crashed into the building. A couple weeks before, there was quite a bit of coverage about a United Pilot that was suspended for being drunk and was removed from the plane. However, it wasn't until they said that a 2nd plane has now crashed that my dad, brother, and I all got a chill when we realized that this wasn't an accident.
I was going to start my first day of University that day, my dad had woke me up saying the planes had gone nuts and flown into the twin towers in NYC. I thought I'd just drank too much the night before and was still dreaming and went back to sleep. Next plane hit and I really had to wake up then.
Looking back, 2001 was reaching to the height of American influence and power. Now it seems like the US is a tired and bankrupt country teetering on economic self destruction. End of the American century? Sad how things have declined so much for them.
I don't think they're finding remains, this is identifying remains they have previously found. The site has been pretty much completely excavated for a few years now and the new towers and memorials are well on their way to completion.
Living in NYC it's a little bit of a strange time of year, always is. I wasn't hear in 2001, but a lot of my co-workers were so I hear a lot of stories about the day and their experiences. I try not to really say too much about my experience or thoughts on the matter, it's not really my place when I'm around so many people directly impacted. There's a pretty wide spectrum of feelings around here when the anniversary rolls around, there's a sombre town all over the city, but there's also a lot of pride in the ability of the city to recover as it has.
I was in my 2nd year of University and feel really old when people say they were in junior high or younger on that date! I heard it on the Lethbridge morning show, I think it was Fraser who is now on x92.9. I thought it was a bad morning show joke and didn't give it much notice.
When I got to school that morning, there were TV's set up in an atrium and everyone watching it like zombies. I remember going to English class and the prof saying "Well I know it's tough but I'm going to try to transition to poetry today but it seems irrelevant giving what's going on."
The United States is still a MONSTER of economic clout. Their financial assets are $41 trillion dollars. Second place is Japan at only $14 trillion. Germany is third at only $6 trillion. It is the U.S. *government* that is bankrupt. Corporations and their CEO's are doing just fine, TYVM. I mentioned in another thread about recently flying over Chicago and seeing just how many large homes there were - all with huge plots of lands and large swimming pools. There is a LOT of wealth in the United States.
-=-=-=-
As for September 11th, I've said this before and got shot down for it, but none have adequately address it to my satisfaction. Approximately 3,000 people died in the attacks in NYC. While this is absolutely horrific and obviously and attrocity that cannot be ignored.... 3,000 people is the same number of people that die EACH AND EVERY DAY from malaria. There doesn't seem to be the same call to arms to fight malaria as opposed to the resources that have been spent on the response to September 11th. I'm not exactly sure why that is.
-=-=-=-=-
What stikes me most about September 11th was the firefighters that KNEW they might not make it through the day, and yet went in anyway. The same way as the workers around the Japanese nuclear plants went to work knowing that they might die, but also knowing that they had to do their job or more might die. That kind of bravery is deserving of every respect possible.
I was in Grade 12 the morning of September 11, 2001. I attended a school where it was largely unstructured and you could come and go as you pleased during the day. As a result a group of friends and myself watched the events of the day on the TV from my parents house as we really couldn't bring ourselves to carry on as if it were a normal day.
We all returned to school around 3PM for football practice. It was a drizzly cold September afternoon, and the scene kind of felt surreal as our coach, who was one of those inspirational Joe Paterno types, gathered the team around in a prayer (it was a Catholic school). In a speech he described the events of the day as life changing, especially to my generation. Looking around the huddle, I just knew that a war would ensue and some of those guys in the huddle would participate and sacrifice. Sure enough now ten years later one of those guys died in Afgahnistan and another(one of my better high school friends) lost his legs there. Our coach proved to be very prophetic, and I think in a lot of ways our team ended up closer as a result of September 11th, even after high school as a lot of its members participate in the annual 'Loops for Troops' run in June.
The Following User Says Thank You to Cowboy89 For This Useful Post:
That was my first day of my first year at the U of C. I skipped it to watch coverage at home. I remember seeing the 2nd plane crash on live TV, and that was nuts. I just watched X amount of people die live right on my television.
I legitimately thought that day we'd see the beginning of a new World War.
"The events of September 11 provided a pretext for a War on Terror that has led to military invasions and occupations, and attacks upon civil and human rights throughout the world. The credibility of the official investigation into the events of September 11, 2001, carried out by the U.S. Government between 2003 and 2005, has been questioned by millions of citizens in the United States and abroad, including victim family members, expert witnesses and international legal experts.
To date, open and transparent judicial hearings to question the official evidence provided by the U.S. Government have never taken place in the United States or abroad. Similarly, no perpetrators of the events of September 11 have ever been brought to justice on American soil."
"The events of September 11 provided a pretext for a War on Terror that has led to military invasions and occupations, and attacks upon civil and human rights throughout the world. The credibility of the official investigation into the events of September 11, 2001, carried out by the U.S. Government between 2003 and 2005, has been questioned by millions of citizens in the United States and abroad, including victim family members, expert witnesses and international legal experts.
To date, open and transparent judicial hearings to question the official evidence provided by the U.S. Government have never taken place in the United States or abroad. Similarly, no perpetrators of the events of September 11 have ever been brought to justice on American soil."
Do you really have to turn this into another one of these threads? We're all aware of your half-brained theories, can we keep them out of threads that are focused on the impacts upon peoples lives for once?
The 9-11 First Responders by the way, have been excluded from the 10th anniversary ceremonies....probably to not draw attention to;
1. The health bill that took a decade and excludes cancer treatments for first responders.
2. Alot of first responders and family members are for 9-11 truth.
Wow, I still have trouble believing that 10 years has passed.
I still remember it pretty clearly though, I woke up and did the typical thing of turning on the news, and turning on the coffee maker. I took a shower while the coffee brewed and I was drying off when I heard the news update that a plane had hit the World Trade Center.
Hmm, what a tragic accident, I envisioned a small plane accidentilly bouncing off of the building.
Then I went to throw on my suit and I was doing up my tie when I heard a loud Oh my god coming from the T.V. speakers, I went into the living room to see the second fire ball and I kew that this was deliberate.
I remember deciding that I still had to go to work, we're Calgary, as tragic as this is, it doesn't effect us. But I drove to work getting more and more somber as I went along.
On the radio they talked about Manhatten being evacuated, that there were more planes out there and that airports were accepting landings and then shutting down.
I remember getting to work in the NE and looking up and realizing that I had never seen so many planes just circling in my life.
I went into the office, some of the girls were bawling, our boss still wanted us to work, but we were hearing that people were leaving downtown Calgary, that there were planes heading to Vancouver.
I remember seeing the infamous George Bush picture, hearing about another plane crashing in a field.
One of my clients phoned me crying and telling me that it was the end of the world once the American's nuked whoever was responsible.
I had an American friend call me up and he was devestated, he figured that 10's of thousands were dead in Manhatten, the towers came down and we saw bodies launching themselves out the window. We heard stories of fire fighters and cops running to danger, and we saw the horrible dust clouds flowing through Manhatten while shocked residents stumbled towards the camera.
I called my parents just to make sure that they weren't having a heart attack, my sister was in Manhatten at a medical conference and they couldn't get through to her cell phone.
The planes kept landing at the airport.
My American friend phoned me up to tell me that a guy that we both knew in college worked in the World Trade Center, my buddy had just talked to his wife and she was devestated (he was killed)
People were phoning me and asking me what I thought, and it was a simple answer.
The day was a blur of emotions, anger, sadness, rage, uncertainty and indecision.
Every petty thing took a back seat to what was unfolding. I left at lunch and decided to take the afternoon off and went to a pub to watch the news, I thought that the American rage and thirst for vengence was going to be far more brutal then Pearl Harbor.
The planes on the way to Vancouver were a hoax, but we waited for the other shoe to fall and it kept us up all night.
We all aged that day, and the world changed that day and not for the better.
__________________
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
The Following 6 Users Say Thank You to CaptainCrunch For This Useful Post:
As for September 11th, I've said this before and got shot down for it, but none have adequately address it to my satisfaction. Approximately 3,000 people died in the attacks in NYC. While this is absolutely horrific and obviously and attrocity that cannot be ignored.... 3,000 people is the same number of people that die EACH AND EVERY DAY from malaria. There doesn't seem to be the same call to arms to fight malaria as opposed to the resources that have been spent on the response to September 11th. I'm not exactly sure why that is.
This isn't an issue with morality or what's more important to humanity, 9/11 is important because of the impact it made on people's lives who until that date only worried if their cable was working.
Malaria is a disease that is common in countries where people are born and raised with it in their consciousness. I'm not saying curing Malaria isn't more important but asking 9/11 not to have the system shock that it did is a little naive.
The Following User Says Thank You to Coys1882 For This Useful Post:
I had graduated with my PhD and was in my first year of post-doctoral studies when this happened. A friend who had graduated 6 months ago had recently moved to NY so we were desperately trying to get in touch with her that day.
At the time, people were focused on the economic destruction that the terrorists inflicted. But I think the 10 years have demonstrated that the terrorists won not by making americans financially poorer, but by turning them against each other.
Fear does a lot of things, but I never thought it was all-consuming.
I remember being in 2nd year of university and taking some joke of a management class... I arrived about 30 minutes late to the class and the prof actually asked why I was late.
"I don't know if you've noticed, but there's a world changing event going on right now and a 2nd year management course wasn't at the top of my priority list today"
September 11, 2001 - 10 Years Later
