Do you remember 9/11? or would you rather not?

[Lily Valley]

I had just dropped my son off at school and biked to an early internet cafe in the French Quarter to start my homework.  The proprietor came out on the balcony above me and yelled, "We are at war.  The Pentagon is on fire!  The twin towers have fallen!"

 

I got back on my bike and picked up my son.  The school admin looked confused when I checked him out at 11am.  By the end of the day she called me 6 times to pick him up.

 

New Orleans doesn't do well under stress.  We had a massive crime wave during a blackout a few months prior.  So by 2pm I had holed up with two other single mums, 6 dogs and 4 guns in a small apartment.  We took turns watching the TV and keeping the kids away from the TV.  

 

I had to go to the bank, I was worried about infrastructure failure and wanted to get some cash.  The president was finally tracked down at that point.  I had thought he had been assassinated.  It had been hours and hours without comment from the oval office.  A clerk quoted his speech to me.  "We'll find the folks responsible," our president said.

 

"FOLKS????!!"  she said, "FOLKS???! I have a lot of words for those responsible and FOLKS is NOT one of them.  WHERE WAS HE?"

 

I shook my head.  I really wanted to know too.

 

We stayed indoors all weekend.  The mayor cancelled an ill-conceived "moment of silence" gathering blocks from our own World Trade Center.

 

In the aftermath, our tourist economy died for nearly 2 years.  A lot of people I know ended up suffering enormously.

 

My favorite quote from the following Mardi Gras was this:

 

"Can someone send Al Qaeda some pictures of Bourbon Street?  If they see these idiots with their beer-bong hats they'll realize we're going the way of Rome anyway and leave us alone."  -a bourbon street stripper, unable to pay tuition for two years.

[PyroclasticFlow]

Remember it and still am unsettled by the images, especially of those who leapt from the Towers.  I was a junior in H.S. on Long Island, and just remember hearing rumors about planes crashing in NYC, the airports, and still some hijacked in the air.  Tried calling my father who was working at JFK that morning and couldn't get through.  Watching the coverage at home was numbing. 

 

It also happens to be my cousin's birthday, which put a weird mood over the celebrations the first couple of years.  Also, living a mile or so from LI-MacArthur Airport, it was very odd not hearing any planes landing or taking off in the week following 9/11

[Rubies & Jade]

I live in NYC, watched the towers burn from our roof, and lost friends & neighbors that day. I can't forget it. I also am generally in the camp of not forgetting or glossing over tragic events. History is too important.

 

I don't want to be angry, horror-stricken, and filled with sorrow every year this day. 

but I get this too. Maybe there with enough time there will be some middle ground here. I do't much like being angry, horror-stricken or filled with sorrow either.

 

And in the years afterwards, I'm afraid we've lost a lot more.

This is the truth. the aftermath continues in a lot of ways--we still occasionally hear of people that were in the buildings that day or 1st responders that die of what they were exposed to or were forever effected in ways that make them unable to work.  I feel like there are a lot of people that fell between the cracks in the system and have been forgotten. That is also tragic. 

[TrackerNeil]

Ugh...I won't post my thoughts here and clog up the thread, so those who are interested can check out my blog. Suffice to say, the whole thing is hard to discuss.

[Larry of the Lawn]

Ugh...I won't post my thoughts here and clog up the thread, so those who are interested can check out my blog. Suffice to say, the whole thing is hard to discuss.

Thanks for sharing that, I think there are many people that feel similarly. I know I do.

[Reny of Storms End]

I was a sophmore in high school at the time. I was late for class and remember walking the halls and noticing not only were they completely empty (which was unusual), but the tv in every classroom was on. I finally got to my class right before the second plane hit. Only my English teacher decided to have class that day, every other teacher let us watch the news.

Edited for spelling

[TrackerNeil]

I personally hate to confess this, but I feel that there is a lot of manufactured drama around "9/11", for those that weren't in New York and didn't directly know anyone affected. Although of course the loss of life was terrible.

 

I think so too. Maybe it's a way for people to connect with what happened, but whatever's at work, the impulse is just disturbing.

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

I was 21, woke up eating a bowl of cereal when I seen the second plane hit. My best friends uncle worked there. My first instinct was to get in touch with him and see if his uncle was out. They didn't hear from him all day. I spent that day and the next with his family, offering my support. His uncle was a lucky one and got out. It was a day I will never forget, nor do I want to. What I remember most about that was how this nation came together. How everyone had each others back, and people seemed to treat each differently, the right way. Its sad we went back to the bickering and division in this nation, and it took 9/11 to bring us together. Democrat/Republican, Black/White, North/South, none of that mattered. We were Americans, and that's all that mattered.

[3CityApache]

I was at work, at the daily newspaper, when one of our office TV's showed the image of the the tower smoking. For a time being we were all sure it's just the small private plane and that it was an accident. Most of us journalists didn't even stop what we were doing until we saw live the second plane crushing. That was a shock, that chained us all to the screen for the reminder of the day.

[DireWolfSpirit]

I always boycotted work on 9/11 for many years and wished that we could have coalesced as a country in a grassroots sort of a way, a populist demand for a day of commemoration. A holiday that would be as meaningful to this generation as any of the other days we set aside officially. Unfortunately there are strong lobbyist and corporate pressure to squash any calls for another holiday/commemoration day because of the associated expenses and lost time. I think its nonsense and people shouldve used their collective weight to force the will of the population over the will of these well funded lobbies.

I guess in short i'd love to see many states start referendum votes to make 9/11 a state holiday and eventually build to a national one. That would be nice imo.

[Arkhangel]

I personally hate to confess this, but I feel that there is a lot of manufactured drama around "9/11", for those that weren't in New York and didn't directly know anyone affected. Although of course the loss of life was terrible.

 

 

 

I think so too. Maybe it's a way for people to connect with what happened, but whatever's at work, the impulse is just disturbing.

 

 

As a non-American I find the way in which 9/11 is memorialised through this kind of intense personalisation really interesting. People seem to put themselves at the centre of the remembrance of 9/11 in a way which they wouldn't for virtually any other tragedy, which makes me very curious about what sociological/political purpose it serves.

[Tears of Lys]

I too agree with Tracker Neil's excellent blog.

In the OP I said I would like to forget the whole thing ever happened, and then I start a thread about it. :dunno: There's really no way to put it behind us, mainly because our country has changed so much as a result of it. And that makes me angry. And when I say "forget about it," it's not that I don't grieve the loss of life, but I feel this experience was such a blow and hurt us so deeply that in order to carry on from it you have to put your anger and hatred behind you. I guess it's similar to a murder victim's family that forgives the killer. It's not for the killer's sake, but for their own.

Also, with all due respect, I think a "holiday" commemorating 9/11 is a pretty awful idea, IMO. I think that's all it would take for the day to lose all its meaning.

[Whitestripe]

I'm in upstate NY at a small liberal arts college. Many of our students are from the NY Metro area. A lot of their parents work in Manhattan and NYC is a popular place for recent grads to move. We also have a program here called "A Better Chance" which takes 15 or so disadvantaged male students from NYC and enrolles them in our local high school. They live in a large house on the college campus with a college administrator and his wife as "parents." I felt as though I was in a unique position of being strangely connected to the events while at the same time being completely safe, five hours upstate. My family (being terrible at geography and prone to panic) all called frantically to ensure our safety, when we were much more concerned for my husband's parents and sister, who are in NJ in a NYC bedroom community.

[polishgenius]

I personally hate to confess this, but I feel that there is a lot of manufactured drama around "9/11", for those that weren't in New York and didn't directly know anyone affected. Although of course the loss of life was terrible.

 

 

I can't say for certain, because I'm not American, but I think it was the symbolic  loss of safety and some kind of innocence. America's obviously suffered losses before but it's the first time in living memory you got hit at home by an outside power and that hurt the national psyche. Don't think people needed to be personally connected to be personally affected. That's why it was so easy for the bamboozlers Neil mentioned to bamboozle.


I do find the way it's elevated in history above tragedies and crises elsewhere to be a bit irritating, but it's part of American culture to add things that happen to some kind of national mythology (I'm not sure if that's the right phrase since these things really happened but I can't think of a better one to get across the concept I mean) and American culture is the most influential in the world, so it's not surprising. And, of course, it did change the world.

[Altherion]

As a non-American I find the way in which 9/11 is memorialised through this kind of intense personalisation really interesting. People seem to put themselves at the centre of the remembrance of 9/11 in a way which they wouldn't for virtually any other tragedy, which makes me very curious about what sociological/political purpose it serves.

I don't think it serves any purpose, there just isn't any tragedy even remotely analogous to it in US history. The US certainly has its share of shootings, bombings, etc., but there has never been an attack on US soil that resulted in the murder of three thousand people in a single day. Even the attack on Pearl Harbor (which most of us are not old enough to remember) caused fewer deaths and those where mostly military personnel whereas 9/11 struck at the heart of the largest American city and there was also intent to attack our capital city.

[SayGen]

7th Grade 2nd period in English class. A teacher runs in and turns on the TV. Both teachers run out. 30 kids just sat looking at the screen trying to understand the context of what they were viewing.

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

I was too young at the time to understand what was happening. The only memory I have is seeing a man run from the collapsing buildings on the TV.
I don't make any effort to remember the attacks any more than any other tragedy, due to the fact that nobody I know was involved and like I said I was too young, but it's impossible for it to pass me by completely because it's all over social media on the anniversary.

[TrackerNeil]

As a non-American I find the way in which 9/11 is memorialised through this kind of intense personalisation really interesting. People seem to put themselves at the centre of the remembrance of 9/11 in a way which they wouldn't for virtually any other tragedy, which makes me very curious about what sociological/political purpose it serves.

 

As an American I didn't understand the personalisation! Honestly, when I heard what had happened, I was stunned and disbelieving, but never personally frightened. I remember thinking at the time that Pearl Harbor was a much more devastating blow and the nation had gotten through that, so we'd get through this as well. I was less worried about what terrorists might do and more worried about what my government would do--and it seems my worries were justified.

[Lany Freelove Cassandra]

I was at work when word first came that a plane hit the WTC.  We were all pretty confused, mostly thinking it had to be some kind of bizarre accident.  Then word came of a second plane and we knew.  We followed the story all day at work, finishing up stuff already started but not getting any new work as we couldn't price the loans we bought (and that was the case for more than a week, until the markets were up and running again)

 

I was horrified and am ashamed to say I bought everything they sold, hook, line and sinker.  I still considered myself a republican and was pretty pro-military still.

 

Now, I look back, and while I am saddened by the lost of life that day, I am beyond angry at what we let it do to us as a nation, about the lives we took in revenge, and the lives we lost seeking that revenge. 

 

 

Ugh...I won't post my thoughts here and clog up the thread, so those who are interested can check out my blog. Suffice to say, the whole thing is hard to discuss.

 

This is beautiful and very much how I feel as well. :grouphug:

[drawkcabi]

I hope I am not over dramatizing how I feel/felt. I know I never felt really scared. I lived just outside D.C. in 2001 but still I didn't feel personally threatened even on the day of.

 

I just felt immense shock and sadness. Then deep sympathy for all that involved. I have family on Staten Island and I got in touch with them and made sure they were all ok.

 

Then I just felt camaraderie with the whole country and the rest of the world that came out in support of us.

 

Then I increasingly felt most of the things TrackerNeil so succinctly put in his blog that I could never really verbalize beyond severe disappointment and depression as I saw the government squander all the good will by its decisions post that day. I felt that the terrorists really did get what they wanted by how so many acted afterwards.

 

I know there are worse tragedies that have happened to humankind even since 9/11 but beyond feeling sadness and sympathy for those directly effected that day has become like a scab I can't stop picking at.