September 11, 2001 - 10 Years Later

[Super_Jason]

I was 8 and in grade 3 when this happened, I vividly remember my parents glued to the television the entire night. I still get the chills thinking about it.

I was in NYC three weeks ago for vacation and the new Freedom Tower is going up quite fast.

[4X4]

Evman, I can only think of three possible ways you're telling the truth about nobody at your school acknowledging the events of September 11th...

1) You were in school in Siberia (not Edmonton, the real Siberia).
2) You were in school in your parents basement, and your teacher (your mom) decided not to bring it up.
3) You were so baked that you forget the actual events of that day.

The whole continent shut down. Air traffic landed at the closest available airport. Employees and managers and owners of businesses gathered around radios and TVs. Kindergarten kids have recollections of this and you don't? This was the biggest news since the Challenger exploded, and y'all just carried on with your physics equations? You're so full of it.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by Super_Jason

I was 8 and in grade 3 when this happened, I vividly remember my parents glued to the television the entire night. I still get the chills thinking about it.

I was in NYC three weeks ago for vacation and the new Freedom Tower is going up quite fast.

Some of you are annoyingly young.

2001 doesn't seem like that long ago at all, yet in 2001 when I was nineteen, 1991 seemed like when the Dinosaurs died out.

[burn_this_city]

I was in bed when my mom woke me up to say that a plane hit the WTC. I didnt think airliner, and said well that sucks but whatever. She told me get up and see, it was just a couple minutes before the 2nd plane hit. I'll never forget that moment watching it on live tv. It didnt seem real. I also remember my buddy phoning with his mom hysterical in the background because she believed we would be drafted and going off to war.

[Beerfest]

I was in grade 5, I remember sitting in the family room before school and my mom's friend called her and told her about it, I remember watching it before going to school. I remember being in the school library and all the teachers that were there standing around a TV, watching the coverage.

I remember going home at lunch either on the 11th or 12th and printing off as much information as I could about the incident.

[PIMking]

Seeing those videos boils my blood, then to think that some limp wrist tin hat wearing fool comes in with some conspiracy makes it worse, Adding less is some fool that tries to convince us that his school didn't talk about it at all that day, ( it's not like your sex life that was non existent, this was a global affair.) and Puckluck putting that stupid picture up is the topping to the cake. Now I'm going to go to bed pissed.

[ResAlien]

Originally Posted by MrMastodonFarm

Some of you are annoyingly young.

2001 doesn't seem like that long ago at all, yet in 2001 when I was nineteen, 1991 seemed like when the Dinosaurs died out.

You were 19? Eff it all, now I feel old. I was a few years out of college laying in bed with a batshinguard crazy ex gf. I remember one of my friends calling and saying "turn on the tv". After my standard "you jackwagon it's too early to call me on my day off go die, fine, what channel, why?" the answer of "any channel" was odd.

Then I flipped it on to see the second plane hit.

[Dion]

From the archives.... Excellent post written by Rick Charlton

Calgarypuck.com Remembers:

Hockey was the last thing on anyone's mind.

http://www.calgarypuck.com/archive/Charlton_091102.htm

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by puckluck

I don't know whats worse, the moron who created this and couldn't get the facts straight, or the idiot who thinks that this is funny and posts it in this thread.

[3 Justin 3]

I was in grade 6, came to school and all we talked about were the planes crashing into the buildings.

Can't really remember anything else. I was the buildings collapse on the TV though, that was ****ed up to watch.

[JohnnyB]

Looking at the age differences in this thread, it's sad to think that those who were very young when it happened will only ever have a mature experience of North America after 9/11. There's no doubt North America changed in very negative ways starting that day. The time before was a bit like a dream in retrospect, and 9/11 shattered it.

[Beerfest]

Originally Posted by JohnnyB

Looking at the age differences in this thread, it's sad to think that those who were very young when it happened will only ever have a mature experience of North America after 9/11. There's no doubt North America changed in very negative ways starting that day. The time before was a bit like a dream in retrospect, and 9/11 shattered it.

What do you mean by "a bit like a dream" just wondering.

[JohnnyB]

Originally Posted by Beerfest

What do you mean by "a bit like a dream" just wondering.

I don't mean that everything was perfect back then, but if you compare the time prior to with the time since, there was certainly a lot more confidence in the stability and prosperity of Western society back then. Aspects of North American life which have really been shaken since then (security, individual liberties, economic security and prospects, a functional American government etc.) were maybe taken for granted prior to 2001 and are less so now.
I suppose in a sense I feel that what has been shaken in the time since September 11th has been more than the sum of its parts. Life has gotten tougher and the outlook has become more bleak on several fronts, but the bigger thing that was so damaged was the ideal that represented American life. The optimism and idealism that was such a strong characteristic of the culture is not what it used to be, and that is sad.

[c.t.ner]

Originally Posted by JohnnyB

I suppose in a sense I feel that what has been shaken in the time since September 11th has been more than the sum of its parts. Life has gotten tougher and the outlook has become more bleak on several fronts, but the bigger thing that was so damaged was the ideal that represented American life. The optimism and idealism that was such a strong characteristic of the culture is not what it used to be, and that is sad.

I've definitely got to agree with this.

I remember the days following and people saying that this would for ever change our generation and it was another loss of innocence (akin to Kennedy's assassination). The kept saying on the news that this would be a defining moment that we would all remember.

Up until that point, the only defining moments that I could remember exactly where I was when the news came down was the Fall of The Berlin Wall, Iraq's Invasion of Kuwait (mainly because you could see the tanks roll by our old Ex-pat Apartment), the announcement that G.W.B won the 2000 election and of course when OJ was acquitted (because they announced it on the speakers at Western Canada High).

At the time I didn't think it would leave such an impact on our lives as it has. Call it being a naive University Student or what will you, but it's crazy what this one day has done to Western Society as a whole. Before that day, everything always happened on the other side of the world or to others. It was like a massive protection bubble was secretly popped. Every day tensions between "Westerners" and "Muslims" didn't even exist. Politics in the US and Canada weren't nearly as vicious. There were agreements, but political leaders generally got along and the mud slinging wasn't nearly as embarrassing as it is today. You didn't see a reverting back to McCarthy-era name calling and words like "Socialism", "Liberal" and "Conservative" weren't used as insults to others.

It was just a different time of innocence, I remember on more than one occasion before that time hearing people debate whether Canada even needed a military. (I never did agree with this). But that was the type of sentiment in many people's minds at the time.

(Please note that I could also be experiencing baz-luhrmann-sunscreen-atitis in regards to political discourse in the past)

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by JohnnyB

I don't mean that everything was perfect back then, but if you compare the time prior to with the time since, there was certainly a lot more confidence in the stability and prosperity of Western society back then. Aspects of North American life which have really been shaken since then (security, individual liberties, economic security and prospects, a functional American government etc.) were maybe taken for granted prior to 2001 and are less so now.
I suppose in a sense I feel that what has been shaken in the time since September 11th has been more than the sum of its parts. Life has gotten tougher and the outlook has become more bleak on several fronts, but the bigger thing that was so damaged was the ideal that represented American life. The optimism and idealism that was such a strong characteristic of the culture is not what it used to be, and that is sad.

I think what happened is that after the fall of the Soviet Union there was a sense that Western philosophy and its way of life would go on forever unchallanged. That 'optimism and idealism' was really only a one generation wonder. In reality it was too much euphoria about the state of the world post-Cold War. September 11th reminded us that once again there were parts of the world that were at odds with each other. For people in my generation we only knew a post Cold-War world where there was no fear of the bomb, no fear of terrorism, and no fear that the world might not really be ours to inherit. We were led to believe that everyone else in the world supported us and was trying to emulate us.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

I think what happened is that after the fall of the Soviet Union there was a sense that Western philosophy and its way of life would go on forever unchallanged. That 'optimism and idealism' was really only a one generation wonder. In reality it was too much euphoria about the state of the world post-Cold War. September 11th reminded us that once again there were parts of the world that were at odds with each other. For people in my generation we only knew a post Cold-War world where there was no fear of the bomb, no fear of terrorism, and no fear that the world might not really be ours to inherit. We were led to believe that everyone else in the world supported us and was trying to emulate us.

I don't know if that was true, there was a realization that with the fall of the Soviet Union all of the groups that they funded and the failed states that they controlled would suddenly spiral out of control and we'd end up with a enemy that wasn't right in front of us.

[The Goon]

I was worried because a buddy on my beach volleyball team and I were talking about his trip to his company's NYC office in one of the towers that week. I had stayed in the Marriott WTC the year before and we were comparing notes about things to do/restaurants in that area.

It turns out he was at his meetings the day before and back home on the evening of the 10th.

I was working at an IBM call centre in Toronto at the time, and as we supported the USA, business pretty much became non-existent for the rest of the week. TVs were set up in the conference rooms for people to watch the coverage, and that's where we watched the second tower collapse.

It was a very sad day. I do worry, however, of the endless news coverage about this that's going to dominate airtime for the next couple of weeks.

[TheyCallMeBruce]

Chilling audio of all that happened on 911 released.

A selection of audio recordings from the Federal Aviation Administration (F.A.A.), North American Aerospace Defense Command (Norad) and American Airlines from the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. The recordings, some of which have been published previously, are being released in a multimedia report originally intended to be part of the Sept. 11 Commission’s 2004 report

It's quite long, if you got the time, worth a listen. So much confusion revolved around that day.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...911-tapes.html

[North East Goon]

Watched that show the other day about the children of 9/11, man that was tough to watch. Just heartbreaking! Any other documentaries on this event going to be aired over the next few days?

[RedJester]

Originally Posted by TheyCallMeBruce

Chilling audio of all that happened on 911 released.



It's quite long, if you got the time, worth a listen. So much confusion revolved around that day.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...911-tapes.html

I don't have the heart to listen to these, but years ago I stumbled across a recording of one of the 911 calls from inside after the second tower was hit. It still makes me nauseous to this day thinking about it; hearing the guy yell out "Oh God!" before all you hear is rumbling and crashing and then a dial tone.