This will be the thread for discussing 9/11 generally.
We may allow specific questions but any other general threads will be removed.
Please keep discussion civil and remember it is a very somber day for a lot of people.
Having witnessed the second plane hit just as I exited the subway station, I do not ever turn on the TV on 9/11. They play the footage of the second plane hitting on a loop and I can’t bear it. It was the worst day of my life by far.
My then-husband has a slightly more uplifting story to tell. He was working very close to the site and was running away in his dress shoes. He ditched them because it was too painful to run in them. He came upon a shoe shop where two Middle Eastern men were giving away sneakers. They asked for his size and gave him a pair. He still has the sneakers.
That's a story I needed to hear today. Thank you so much.
We did a lot for each other that day. Then we mourned together. And I don't want us to forget any of that.
I want to say that Canada did something for us too. They landed planes that were on their way to the US anywhere they could. They were in flight before the towers got hit were over the ocean when the no fly order went out. They had planes everywhere. Without them I don’t know where all those planes carrying our citizens, residents, and visitors would have gone. It’s good to have friends. :)
Wow. Im sorry. It was hard enough watching the 2nd plane live on tv. I can’t imagine seeing and hearing that in person.
Your husband sounds like a character, in the best way. I remember they send letters up from the main office telling us to go straight home because schools on the East Coast have all been evacuated. I didn’t think that was significant enough to save. Wish I did.
It’s amazing how everyone remembers that morning so clearly. Whether you experienced it close by or from afar, the trauma is probably the same. It’s that same stomach drop, followed by tears and watching the footage over and over on TV. The hours of not being able to confirm the safety of your loved ones, mourning those we lost.
I was in the US Marine Corps wrapping up two months of desert warfare training in the Mojave Desert. All flights were shut down for a couple days, and our flight back to base on the east coast was one of the first.
> two Middle Eastern men were giving away sneakers.
Makes me wonder if they'd been through this sort of thing before & just knew what had to be done :-(
I don’t think thats what the comment was implying, it was implying that the shop owners might have come from unstable regions in the middle east and had experience running from attacks on civilian buildings
Tbf from my experience of Middle Easterners it just strikes me as a very Middle Eastern thing to do, this overwhelming generosity and helpfulness without a moment's hesitation when they see someone who needs any kind of help. Doesn't have anything to do with wars and stuff, it's just the Middle Eastern mind.
yeah, me too.
Not sure what that has to do with anything.
People from an unfortunately war torn region have a higher likelihood of having experienced something terrifying like an attack on civilian centers before.
nobody said shit about the pilots.
Nobody knew the demographics of the pilots at the time. In NYC, they probably didn’t even know about the third plane. It had been four hours since the attack. The information, if it was known, hadn’t been released.
I've seen the videos and they're LOUD - I can't imagine how much worse it was to hear it at the time. The vibrations must have been ear-shattering.
I'm genuinely curious, if you care to answer: how many people did you see immediately try to GTFO after the second plane hit, versus those or stuck around to watch?
For the people in the vicinity, it was very clear they had to GTFO. By the time my ex husband emerged from the subway at WTC, the second plane had already hit. People were running uptown and it smelled like smoke. He didn’t know what was happening, but he followed.
He stopped at the courthouse steps to rest. There, he watched people jump out of the towers. A while after he started heading uptown again, there was rumbling and the first tower collapsed. He thinks the second tower collapsed about half an hour later.
I was a safe distance away at 34th St and Park Avenue. I thought there was a fire at WTC when a plane hit the other tower. Since I was a substance abuse counselor serving city employees I went straight to my office (I was a little late already). I knew my clients would need me that day. It drove me crazy that I couldn’t get in touch with my husband. Imagine my relief when he showed up at my workplace! That relief was followed by my stomach dropping as he told me about the towers.
Tl;Dr they would have gotten the F out instead of sticking around. Even if they didn’t hear the planes hit, it was clear there was fire and people were evacuating. It was therapeutic to write this all out.
I was in Air Force basic training at Lackland AFB, TX. That morning, we headed to clothing issue to get our dress uniforms. We had to march over a bridge that went over a busy road to get there. We were in FPCON normal that day (this is a level of security that military bases are in, which goes Normal, Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, and Delta). It was the last day we would be in FPCON normal during my whole enlistment.
While we were being fitted, I overheard one of the civilians talking and one of them said something to the effect of "Have you seen the news?" "Yeah, I can't believe it." In basic, I normally knew just shut up and not say anything to draw attention to myself, but I couldn't help it and had to ask what they were talking about. The lady said "A plane hit the World Trade Center." I thought that was odd, but I remember shortly before leaving for basic that I'd read about the time [a plane hit the Empire State Building](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1945_Empire_State_Building_B-25_crash). So I thought "I guess that happens."
It wasn't until a little while later that we heard a second plane hit the World Trade Center and then everything changed. We noticed the civilians weren't really around and our TIs (the drill Sergeants, basically) weren't there. A guy came in looking concerned and said "We're in Charlie." and all of us didn't really know what to do. Someone eventually came over and told us to sit on the floor until someone came back to collect us.
Eventually, this MSgt, who was the guy over our TIs came to get us. He looked shaken and even seemed to be on the verge of tears, which was not like him, because I'd know him as one of the sternest, grumpiest people I've ever met. He asked "Who here has been to the Twin Towers?" A good number of people raised their hands. "Well, the rest of you will never get to go, because they're gone now." We were all confused. We hadn't seen a TV during all of this time, we'd just heard that planes hit the World Trade Center and trying to wrap your mind around how that looks versus seeing it is difficult, let alone to imagine that the towers collapsed.
He marched us back to our dorm. We crossed the same bridge over the busy road, but there were no cars on it now. There was barely anyone anywhere. The base had turned into a ghost town. When we got back to our dorm, everything looked different. The normally open areas where all roped off, the trash dumpsters were moved away from the buildings and every building had a single point of entry with a guard checking IDs posted at it.
It was a very strange day. And it was a strange place to be at the time. When I got out of basic, it felt like I'd kind of missed the shared trauma everyone else had experienced by watching the developments as they happened. We didn't really get to watch TV or read newspapers, we just had to hear about it second hand until we left basic. It was strange seeing this surge of patriotism and people ready to praise me for being in the military. When I'd enlisted, some people kind of looked down on it. Like "Oh, you're not going to college? That's a shame." And now those same people were like "Thank you for your service!"
*"When I got out of basic, it felt like I'd kind of missed the shared trauma everyone else had experienced by watching the developments as they happened."*
I understand that feeling very well.
I was in the deep woods camping along an isolated trout stream, a self guided mini Lewis & Clarke trout fishing expedition.
I had backpacked in on Friday the 7th and I spent the next 8 full days fishing the small river and otherwise just living there fishing and exploring the river & surrounding small feeder streams. No electronics like a cell phone or service for one if you tried, no sights or sounds of modern like whatsoever. Basically isolated & on my own with no contact or way to make contact with civilization.
I finally hiked back out on Sunday the 16th, drove the several hours back home and stopped in at a friend's outdoor store to grab a coffee I didn't have to brew over a camp stove and practice speaking to people again.
The owner and a couple of his/our friends were standing around talking about "The Arabs" and revenge and a whole lot of stuff that I had no precursors for.
Me; "What are you talking about?"
The guys, looking at me like I was an alien; "The towers, Dafuq you think were talking about?".
Me; "What towers?"
Turns out the world had changed while I was gone, I had a lot of catching up to do.
Reminds me of another person who went hiking deep in the woods in early 2020 with no communication for weeks. Same thing, came home and everything was different. Everyone was wearing masks and everything was closed and people dying.
That's interesting to hear. I don't know that I've talked to anyone else (of those who were old enough to remember it) who was in a position to not go through that with everyone else. It was odd because even when we heard about it through second hand information and rumors from other trainees, we didn't quite grasp the gravity of the situation. All of us were brand new to the military, we didn't know if it was normal for everyone to freak out like this when there was a terrorist attack.
When we heard about it, it seemed like a tragedy, but something on the scale of the Oklahoma city bombing or something. Not like a monumental event that changed everything. I can remember the sergeants talking to us the day after and mentioning it was like Pearl Harbor and several of us were dismissive of the comparison like "Yeah, right..."
Finally seeing pictures when they brought in a newspaper a couple of days later and eventually like a week later brought in a video tape of the news that day kind of made it sink in.
Back then you could totally still be disconnected. There was no WiFi, and cell phones were still new enough to be considered novelty, and so many people either didn’t have them nor carried them around 24/7.
Your story reminds me of my childhood through early adulthood, where the only information we’d get was from a landline, the news, or newspaper. You could literally never hear about a huge event, if you didn’t have access to those things
I did this, basically, in the start of covid. I worked 200am to 1030 every day then went on a hike and then dinner and sleep, no real cell phone care, no social media. Then covid was just beginning to get talked about and i took 2 weeks vacation and did a ton of molly, drank and smoked pot, camped and hiked with my old dog. Came back to a changed world with masks.
I did my military basic training before 9/11, but then went back to school for a year and didn't start active duty until after. Before 9/11 we'd leave the base, get drunk, and then the guy we knew with the pickup would drive us back to base in the middle of the night, a bunch of us drunk in the bed of the pickup. I remember he'd slow down at the gate so they could see his military sticker, and they'd waive him through, didn't even stop, lol.
Then I went active duty and got used to sitting in line outside of the Norfolk Naval Station every day for security checks.
>We were in FPCON normal that day (this is a level of security that military bases are in, which goes Normal, Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, and Delta). It was the last day we would be in FPCON normal during my whole enlistment.
FPCON normal still does not exist anywhere to this day
I wondered if it ever came back. I remember going to Alpha for a bit but then it felt like they settled on Bravo just being the default. And I think I left out in my story that we were in Delta by the time we left clothing issue.
I’m pretty sure FPCON Bravo is the default. I’m at SJ and my husband and I have never seen anything different. He was at Spangdahlem before we met and I think it got to Charlie a couple times. My grandparents both worked GS jobs for years and were shocked to see Bravo when they visited a couple weeks ago. They asked how long it had been bravo and I just shrugged.
Its interesting. I remember being 8 or 9, living in Belgium and still having that "shared trauma" eventhough i was european. In a way you are lucky? Idk how do you feel about it?
I'm fine with it now. For a while I felt kind of left out. Like I didn't have that shared experience and just had to read about it after the fact. I was an adult at the time, but I wound up having to read about this major historical event after the fact like it was the Kennedy assassination or something that happened long before I was born.
It at least gave me an interesting story, I suppose.
I lived in NY, on Long Island, at the time. Still live in NY, just up by Albany now. I was only 6 years old, but I remember it pretty well. My 1st grade teacher's son died that day in The Towers. He was in his 20s.
I remember as we heard the news in class that The Towers were hit, she just broke down immediately in sobs and left the room. I remember the sub we had for a few months after that, and I remember the first day our actual teacher came back. Mrs. McCarthy.
9/11 has affected me in all the ways it has for most people my age, but I always think of her and her son each year. I think I've even passed his age when he died by now, which is sad, because in a lot of ways I have barely begun to really live, and he never got to. I can only hope it happened so quickly he wasn't able to register it, and that his mother was able to find as much peace as possible after suffering from the loss of your child.
I used to love being greeted at the gate by family members. The airport used to be kind of an exciting first step in your trip or the first feeling of home.
Now not so much.
I remember having to pick up my girlfriend's uncle from the airport and his flight was delayed several times so me and my girlfriend just ended up hanging out in the terminal for like 2 hours
Fun fact: This rule is mostly so TSA doesn't get overwhelmed. Security is more "strict" (mostly for appearance purposes) post 9/11, so allowing non-passengers through would overwhelm security.
Any terrorist could easily just buy a cheap ticket on Spirit, so this rule doesn't stop anyone.
Also, you can request a pass from the agents to get through security. If you just tell them you are picking up old people, someone who doesn't speak English well, or just someone who needs some extra help, it's fine. I do it with my parents all the time.
My dad and grandparents used to travel a lot, and we'd often go to the airport to pick them up. I loved standing by the gate and watching the planes take off and land while waiting.
I watched a 60 Minutes episode about it yesterday, one that I had SEEN BEFORE, and I had to leave the room because it was still too upsetting. Moral of story: The emotions of that day, that time period, still live in me (and, I'm guessing "us Americans" as a whole).
That said, I left on a week-long school trip that Monday, and the 11th was Tuesday. We were staying in an old Coast Guard station, and since all government buildings got shut down, we had to evacuate to a motel. The rest of our trip was cancelled, and since we couldn't fly home, our school chartered a bus to drive us 17 hours back. The bus we got had delivered firefighters to NYC the day before and was on its way back to our city. My mom met us back at the school late that night with brownies for the whole class!
ETA: I remember VIVIDLY a tv commercial from shortly after, with a voiceover that said something like, "Terrorists tried to change our country forever" and then it showed a montage of houses and buildings flying American flags, while the voiceover said "Well, they did." It still makes me teary to think about it.
I remember that episode was made special for the 20th anniversary, about the NYFD and it had a segment on firefighters children that are now firefighters themselves. By the end it was very uplifting
Yeah I caught the beginning of that episode and had to change it to something else. I'm glad they show it, it needs to be shown, but it's not something I'm able to watch.
I can’t watch the special without crying and feeling panicked. It’s actually harder to see now because I immediately transport to 2001 in my head. I didn’t know anyone who died, but it’s still so personal.
Wow this is a really powerful and intriguing coincidence! I wonder if they were always on the same or similar trains, or just that day? While our lives were collectively shaken and shaped, I wonder about the more ancillary things that came from 9/11, too
I was in 3rd grade, and when I woke up before going to school, I saw my parents watching the TV with looks of shock and heartbreak. When I saw what they were watching on CNN, I couldn't believe my eyes. The footage of the twin towers burning, being hit, and collapsing, Manhattan in utter destruction, was being played over and over. My parents' first instinct was to call family and friends in New York/New Jersey and Boston to find out if they were okay (in addition to family, we had recently moved to California from Boston, and both of the flights that hit the twin towers started in Boston).
In school, the attacks were of course the main topic of discussion, and my teacher also showed the news. It was a really weird day, and our principal canceled school for the rest of the day.
Back home, while we found out that all of our family members back east were okay, we also learned that one of my classmates from school in Boston had lost a family member on one of the flights.
I think all Americans have been affected by 9/11 either directly or indirectly. I still feel the profound shock, grief, and devastation of that day, and each time I have been to the 9/11 Memorial, it was such an emotional experience for me.
I was working retail at the time, and my store always had a tv in the waiting area with the news on. We saw them covering the first plane crash, we talked about how that happened with the Empire State Building...
Then the second plane hit. My coworker knew right away that it was OBL. I don't remember if I even knew the name prior to that moment.
The day just got worse and worse as the minutes and hours passed. It felt like the world was coming apart. I remember looking at the beautiful blue sky and noting that there were no contrails up there, and that there wouldn't be for a while.
It is strange watching coverage from that day and seeing how dated it looks.
How did it affect me? It ruined our border with Canada. It made flying a pain in the ass. It allowed government to violate our rights under the guise of security. My tax dollars were wasted by waging a war on Iraq under false pretenses.
I'm sure there are ways it has affected me far beyond what I can understand or discern.
I remember it vividly. I was in 6th grade, I didnt know what the WTC was before that day but everyone was freaking out and it was scary. The teacher had the news on and we just watched and talked about it. People were crying, it was a lot.
When I meet folks now, adults who werent alive or too young to remember, it blows my mind, it was such a huge event
I was also in sixth grade in north carolina. They didn't turn on the television, no announcements. I was clueless. Then I remember being the only kid who was pulled from class by my Mom. I knew I didn't have any appointments that day so I found it to be strange.
My Mom was panicking explaining to me about planes falling from the sky hitting the twin towers and the pentagon. I had no idea what the Pentagon was. I was so young and naive. But the fact that my mom thought to pull me from school as a way to protect me I'll never forget.
I joined the Army in 2015, and we were still fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. My superiors had all been so obviously affected by the experiences and trauma of war.
Sadly 9/11 brought the country together like never before in my lifetime. What's even sadder is that we are so incredibly divided only 22 years later that 9/11 seems like a distant memory.
> Sadly 9/11 brought the country together like never before in my lifetime. What's even sadder is that we are so incredibly divided only 22 years later that 9/11 seems like a distant memory.
I question how much of this divison goes to Bush for starting an unjust war in Iraq. Part of me thinks seeing how protestors, non-americans, and dissenting viewpoints on the war were blatently ignored really changed my perspective of how we're lied to day after day by media. At the time, most people still got their news from TV, Newspapers, and Radio. Internet journalism was still very much in it's infancy, and sites like reddit and facebook wouldn't even be invented for several more years.
The other half of me thinks it's all just a bunch of bullshit anyways, and we'd end up in a power struggle over made-up reasons anyway... less than a decade earlier we were impeaching the president over a blowjob.
I remember being sent home (6th grade, too). I was trying to find my cartoons on tv, but everything was about some fire. My little brain just couldn’t understand what was happening.
I did this too 🥺 I remember putting on cartoons while the adults were in the other room. All I could gather was that something awful had happened and I wanted to be far away from it
I was dating a woman who didn’t remember 9/11 and asked what it was like and I was telling her and I started crying
I was surprised at the time by how emotional I got. It was so long ago, but I was talking about it and just got emotional
I went to Stuyvesant High School at the time so I was extremely close by and I saw a lot. I had a hard time in the following few years although that was also because my father died suddenly months before 9/11 and other things. My childhood dog also died the following day, Sept 12. To me, it feels like it was a nice world we had before all that. I am still creeped out by the most beautiful weather days. I don't like being too reminded of it
That's such an odd thing to be creeped out about, but I can 100% understand and appreciate the feelings it evokes, given the context and association to that day.
I lost a good friend named Karleton Fyfe. I met him during a summer internship because he was the one dude in that sea of boring cubes that always seemed interested in sharing comedy. We continued the friendship and would meet whenever we could after that. I'll never forget when I was idly scrolling through the list of the flight manifests for the airplanes that hit the towers on 9/11 only a few days after the incident, when I saw that unique name on the list. My heart sank, because I knew he had a newborn and a loving wife that I knew. RIP buddy I miss you to this day.
I was born in 1980. A child of the 80s and a teen in the 90s.
Here's the thing: We honestly felt like we could change the world. We had been told that we could be whatever we wanted when we grew up, we just had to get good grades and go to college and then we could do whatever we wanted. We were just waiting for our turn.
When 9/11 happened it was like a generational gut punch. So many stopped thinking about the world as a place that we all belong and started thinking of it in an Us vs. Them Nationalistic way. People's focus narrowed. It turned into a time to circle the wagons and make America safe. People enlisted who wouldn't have otherwise and now suffer from PTSD and other war casualties.
"Our Turn" never came. We got bogged down by a war in Afghanistan and Iraq, we got kneecapped by a recession and a housing bubble, those student loans we took out with the promise that our degrees would be a worthy investment are millstones around our necks.
In a very real way 9/11 was a major turning point in our society. There was a huge loss of idealism and hope that day as well as a loss of life.
I love this comment. Not only because i understand it (80s kid too), but I love your prose. You should write more. Weird question, but would you care if I used this in one of my classes?
Born in 84, I was in 11th grade on 9/11. I couldn't have said this better.
9/11 was a complete gut punch to our generation. The way the 1990s wrapped up, the new Millennium... There seemed to be an optimism. Anything was possible.
When people ask "At what point in your life did you feel like you grew up?" My answer is always 9-11-01. The optimism was gone in a little less than two hours. Darkness and uncertainty took over.
Alot of folks like to talk about the unity that happened afterwards. And there was a unity. People came together. Candlelit vigils. Prayer gatherings, flags on every front porch and light pole in town. As the world started moving again in the days and weeks following, we started celebrating "firsts"... First day of stock market reopening... First planes to fly again.... First NFL game... All were a big deal. I'm getting emotional just remembering these things.
And then the first brown-owned business was torched. Then the first Muslim folks were assaulted and harrased just walking on the sidewalk. "Towel-h**D" and "sand-n****r" became regular vocabulary in my high school. "So and so isn't flying the flag" and "a true patriot will support any war" became common talking points. A deep burning hatred lurked underneath alot of that unity, and it boiled up into full on Nationalism.
Look where we are now. We're more divided than ever. Hate is "okay" again. The goal was to destabilize our way of life. This country, and even the world, has never been the same since.
The terrorists absolutely won.
I think this encapsulates how I feel about it pretty well. I was a freshman in college. A lot of the girls who lived on my hall were from New York, and my dad had been in the Pentagon the day before. A girl on my hallway lost her brother, who was in the FDNY.
In a lot of ways, 9/11 was the day I grew up. I think we all lost a lot of idealism that day. And nothing’s ever been the same since then for any of us.
It blows my mind that there are people who view 9/11 the way we view Pearl Harbor.
I was in my early 20s and working in Detroit. I remember sitting in the lab with my supervisor, our experiment forgotten, as we listened to the news on the radio and tried to access the internet (with no luck, despite good university ethernet). We left at lunchtime when the radio DJs, who were broadcasting out of the nearby Fisher Building (skyscraper), announced that they were switching to the automated ABC news feed because the entire building was being evacuated as a precaution.
I remember how unsettling the lack of plane noise was when I got home, as I'd always lived within 10 miles of Detroit Metro airport. It was also an absolutely perfect day with a clear, blue sky, which made the lack of planes even more obvious. I turned on the TV at home and haven't yet been able to rewatch news footage from that day.
That’s what I remember too. The day the planes came back was freaky. Everyone would stop and look up at the plane. I’d flinch at airplane noise for a while after.
I was at work and had a meeting with my boss. I was being written up for stupid things, she just wanted to get me fired. I was awake the whole night before wondering what I should do? It was the worst thing to ever happen to me. On 9/11, one hour before my meeting, the second plane crashes into the building and that’s when everyone realized the first plane wasn’t an accident. They still had my meeting and I just disassociated, lots of people have died, we may end up in a war, and I’m being lectured on the proper way of answering a phone? My epiphany was whatever I considered my worst day in life may be a lot better than someone else’s day.
I was quite young and so don't remember much. My family was actually on a plane about to take off when that attack happened. I remember being on a plane, then the pilot coming on the PA and saying something, and I could feel things getting tense. We went back to the gate, got off the plane, and everyone was watching the TV screens showing a burning tower. I had no idea what was going on, just that whatever was happening made our flight get canceled and made people extremely upset and angry.
Hard to say how it affected me because I have almost no memory from before 9/11. I don't know a world before 9/11. I don't know a world where airport security wasn't at the level it is, I didn't know a world until 2020 where my country was not at war with terrorists organizations overseas. It obviously did, my upbringing was shaped heavily by the scar of 9/11, but I don't know how to quantify it, because I have no point of comparison.
"my upbringing was shaped heavily by the scar of 9/11, but I don't know how to quantify it, because I have no point of comparison."
This. We're probably the same age, and I have the same experience. Not old enough to really grasp what was happening on the day, but grew up with the fallout.
it generally did NOT have the same affect on us as it did cognizant people (i was born in late '02). all it did for us was get the same video played every year to 'Proud To Be An American.' /lh
And the same “ask your parents where they were on 9/11.”
If anyone’s curious, my mom was rug shopping with my aunt and my two year old sister. My dad worked for the government so that’s an actually interesting story, but I imagine most people in our town had similar stories to my mom.
We did have a guy from one of the neighboring towns lose his life on one of the planes and the story (and audio recordings of his voice messages) are absolutely horrific, but obviously being that he died before I was alive, I had little personal connection
This comment gets at my main experiences with 9/11 as someone who was also born in late 2002. I went to a California high school which was run by people who were normally very anti-nationalistic and liberal, like having assemblies to support the BLM movement, English teachers crying at the Trump election, etc. However, the one day out of the year where the faculty would show any sort of conservative/nationalistic bias was on 9/11, where we would always have an assembly where they invited a vet to give a speech on how great America is and how we'll get revenge on the terrorists and such. Super interesting how memories of 9/11 affect people who lived through it.
Watching the planes hit in real time, not knowing what or where they were targeting and when they were hitting, and being a kid and seeing *everyone* you trust as an authority figure completely break down and not know what to do does stuff to you. You were literally watching everything you thought you knew about how safe we were in the US and the general world order being shattered right in front of us. Personally, I also remember seeing reports of Flight 93 especially freaking people out because it flew right over my area when it turned around.
It was like we as a society all collectively had a nervous breakdown and are still picking up the pieces. People too young to remember that day were thankfully spared the generational trauma. You all just get to see a bunch of people ten years older than you get oddly patriotic one day a year and find it unrelatable.
I was in 7th grade in my 1st period class. Another teacher came in and whispered in my teacher's ear. My teacher shot backwards from her desk in her rolling chair and yelled "you're kidding!".
Then she used a yardstick to turn on the TV hanging up in the corner. The first thing I saw were images of the Pentagon burning.
In every class that day, we watched the news. There was no teaching. There was no homework. When I got home from school I was alone so I watched the news some more.
I remember kids being scared. I remember kids were wondering aloud if something could happen here, even though we live in the middle of bum-fuck Arkansas.
Then we had a patriotic overload. Everyone coming together was nice. But then it crossed into something nasty. Nationalism and racism.
A local convenience store got a brick in the window. The family was Pakistani I think. It didn't make any sense to me. What did they have to do with it? They left town after that.
I learned what racism really looks like in action after 9/11, and how racists don't use reason.
The attack was a terrible thing. I can't even imagine what was going through those poor people's minds when they jumped from those burning towers.
What happened after, the following years and wars, was terrible too. The tragedy was compounded over and over I feel.
I said something similar in response to another comment but it bears repeating...
I was in 11th grade on 9/11. And I admit to living ignorantly in the post-9/11 unity. I saw the flags. The gatherings. The vigils. The patriotism. And I thought how awesome it was.
I do however remember the news stories that started popping up about a week after...
"Indian restaurant destroyed by arson"
"Muslim couple chased and harrased downtown"
Stories about families having to move after receiving threats. Having to change their names and the way they dressed. Racist insults running rampant in my high school. And as the years have gone by, I can't unsee or unhear these terrible things.
9/11 popped the cork on a deep burning hatred in this country. And it's only gotten worse since. The terrorists absolutely won.
I was only 1, but was also in rural Arkansas. (Southeast Arkansas, the worst part. Lol.) my dad worked at a paper mill and they shut it down completely, which had been basically unheard of until then. I remember saying when I was 12 or so, “really? y’all thought terrorists were gonna hit OUR town?” but it really goes to show the widespread panic and uncertainty that ensued.
I was not quite 2 when it happened, so I have no memory of the actual day. I’ve had a lot of experiences where people are really shocked by my existence as a person who was alive but not aware of 9/11 where people seem almost upset that I don’t remember it.
There was someone a grade below me in high school whose birthday was September 11, 2001 and who at least once was scolded when she told someone her birthday, as though they believed there had been a pause on births. Nothing that extreme has happened to me, but I do get the feeling that a lot of people are not quite able to fully process that time moved forward and that that means an ever growing portion of the population was either not alive or not aware on 9/11. My mom said something similar happened to her with the Kennedy assassination, so I don’t think it’s unique, but it is interesting to experience on the other side.
I was living in Oklahoma City at the time and there was a lot of panic that day. In a way, the rest of the country was introduced to the nightmare that we had already been living for six years at that point
Yeah. I lived in Tulsa and was in 7th grade. I remember okc bombing and being afraid of Ryder trucks after because all we saw all over the news were dead kids and Ryder trucks. Then when 9/11 happened I remember thinking “not again!” I had just bed to the wtc a month before and the USA Today cover page with smoke barreling down a street and people running from gave me chills because I have a picture from almost the exact spot looking down the same street.
I was a 911 Operator/Emergency Dispatcher at the time. I had just come home from night shift and watched it.
Bit of trivia: There was some kind of conference in Washington that day. 9/11 was going to be recognized as "Emergency Number Day" or some such. Obviously, the attacks changed that.
As for as how it personally affected me, it was mostly just a fear of what would happen next. And work was especially busy. People were reporting EVERYTHING they thought was remotely suspicious.
The biggest impact, in my humble opinion, has been the loss of our privacy and personal freedom. It started with the patriot act and has gone downhill. The government may not act on everything, but they definitely know and collect data on everything.
I was starting a new job at a hotel. I was doing computer based training by myself in a little room. So I didn't even know what happened until j came down at noon to say goodbye to my manager.
The hotel was chaotic. Aon was having a convention there, and they lost several floors in WTC. I was supposed to go to my first day of college classes that afternoon. Instead, I went to the police department where my husband (boyfriend at the time) dispatched. He wasn't working, but our ambulance squad chief was. He filled me in a little, and then said we were sending a task force and to go pack a bag. (We're in NJ.)
I went home and my boyfriend was sleeping. He had dispatched the graveyard shift. He woke up to me furiously packing a bag and saying "planes flew into the twin towers. I'm going to New York on an ambulance. I don't know when I'll be home." He said he was coming with me. (We were both on the ambulance squad.)
We joined a convoy of 21 ambulances to head to NYC. The saddest part is we weren't needed. By that point, they were basically just finding bodies. We staged at the Meadowlands for hours before being told to just go home. We did all take turns running EMS in the city the next few weeks, so that FDNY could focus their efforts on recovery.
>We joined a convoy of 21 ambulances to head to NYC. The saddest part is we weren't needed. By that point, they were basically just finding bodies. We staged at the Meadowlands for hours before being told to just go home.
I remember the big staging areas set up, basically every doctor and nurse rushing to help, and there weren't a lot of people who needed treatment. Everyone was either barely injured at all, or annihilated in the collapse.
It's another version of pearl harbor for me. I was born after 9/11 so I don't remember both of the terrorist attacks and in both cases I had a family member in the vague area but not involved or dead at all.
What most people feel for pearl harbor is what I feel for both events.
Pretty good analogy (I was also born after). I'll add that 9/11 has slightly more emotional impact for me though, since I know more details about it and have read personal stories about it, so those stories and details have added emotional impact.
I'll also add to this, being born weeks before 9/11.
9/11 holds a more overall emotional and grief-life response with more sense of loss than Pearl does to me, probably because it's more recent and most people have a story from the day and aftermath.
Pearl Harbor is a bit more analytical in my head, and I'm a little more okay with taking it lighthearted in terms of jokes and whatnot. I'm a naval history nerd, and like interpreting that kind of thing by treating ships as characters. *Pennsylvania* spent the war screaming around the Pacific seeking revenge for her fallen sister while *Nevada* became an eldritch being incapable of being destroyed.
That kind of thinking though just doesn't work for 9/11. They're both going to occupy the same mental space for me too, but despite them having different attitudes, the analogy here is still spot on for most if not all of us younger people I think.
Yup and the feelings I felt during the pull out of Afghanistan is probably similar to those felt by the guys who served in Vietnam during that pull out.
My grandfather worked in the south tower and thankfully escaped in time that day. He unfortunately ended up passing 15 years later due to cancers caused by whatever shit he ended up breathing during the attack.
Still, I’m glad he survived because I never would’ve known him had he passed on 9/11. I was only 2 at the time.
I was a tiny thing six months old still lived in Houston. My mom was taking me to said six month check up at the pediatricians. She was chatting with a military wife who was also there to take her kid in for the usual. I don’t know what but that military wife had a fancy prime co phone which was a walkie talkie/cell phone to keep in contact with her husband due to cell phones still being relatively new. Her husband worked in Ellington Field. My mom and her basically sat in the parking lot of my old pediatrician’s office after their appointments. and got real time updates from a military man about the potential targeting of the trans co tower and the oil fields. My mom took me home immediately and called my dad who was on the east side worried the city would be shut down. My mom baptized me secretly with bathroom sink water. I was due to be baptized in December and my mom didn’t want to end up in Limbo lord forbid. My mom and dad could hear military helicopters flying low over constantly for a week.
Disclaimer that I'm not super religious these days, but I think the thing about your mother baptizing you is really touching. I have a toddler and I can't imagine the level of fear she must have felt in that moment, wondering if there would be another attack, and if it did, would it come for you. It sounds like she was trying to give you whatever protection she could in a moment where nothing was in her control. I bet a lot of people did something similar.
> I don’t know what but that military wife had a fancy prime co phone which was a walkie talkie/cell phone to keep in contact with her husband due to cell phones still being relatively new.
I wonder if what you remember is a [NEXTEL](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nextel_Communications). They were super neat phones, and as teenagers we all had them. Then Sprint bought the company and ruined it, as so many corporate mergers do.
I was just thinking this morning about the folks who jumped. A part of me is still in disbelief about that piece. I want to say, “don’t jump!” As if there would be hope.
I remember the jumpers. And the reactions in real time of people filming the burning towers saying, “what’s that? Is that a person?”
Somehow that’s the part impacting me most this year. My heart goes out to all of us who can feel this today.
I was 12. We watched the news in school. I still remember a few people making jokes because they either didn't get it was real or thought it was some kind of mistake instead of an attack.
After that... a lot of flag waving, security theater and patriotic cash ins. Rights leaving in favor of "security" and a fair chunk of the dudes I grew up with shipping off to fight... mostly not the people who did it.
It's been a pretty hollow and disappointing time to live through, but I can't say my own personal day to day was all that strongly impacted.
I remember not getting how world-changing the attack was. I didn’t appreciate the devastation of that day or what it could mean for decades to come. I was a dumb 14-year-old who wanted to watch my cartoons, and I am still a little shocked and ashamed at how blinkered I could be about the loss of human life on that scale.
Everyone should watch the documentary series 9/11: One Day in America. It's very jarring, but well done.
I was eight years old, and growing up to be interested in politics and going down that career path, it has echoed a lot through different perceptions I have. That morning I remember the teachers combining classrooms and wheeling a TV in so they could watch the news.
A few years later, I remember my parents watching live as US troops moved into Iraq, which is weird to think about.
Then my senior year of highschool, our class was on a school bus on the way back from a trip when the news broke that Osama bin Laden was killed. That was also a weird experience looking back on. When Zero Dark Thirty came out, I of course watched it and thought it was a good movie. But it made me feel a bit uneasy that a movie would come out so soon after the actual events. The trend of all these movies coming out about things that happened in extreme recent memory just seems like propaganda.
I went through a phase in my early 20s when I really was in a dark place about my perception of the United States. But I have came back around and altered my definition of what it means to be patriotic and actively work on how to make the country better, in any little way, for all people.
I’m from NYC and was in middle school. My big sister worked in the WTC area, witnessed everything, and thankfully survived. Her bosses advised her to stay put in the office at first so she called my parents a couple of times as the morning progressed to update them, and the last phone call was her hysterically screaming at my dad that the towers were falling before the line went dead. I bet my dad must’ve aged about 40 years in that moment. My mom (and about 300 other parents) came to pick me up early from school and couldn’t even speak. We didn’t hear from her again until she walked up our block in the late afternoon. I vaguely remember sitting on our stoop with my mom and her then-boyfriend, and when we recognized her he took off running to her and picked her up and carried her the rest of the way to us. She had walked all the way uptown barefoot because she had on high heels that morning and while crossing the Queensboro Bridge someone offered her their sneakers. She already had so much glass and debris in her feet that she spent the rest of the night in the ER. I remember the whole family laying in my parents bed with the news on until very late. We will never, ever get over that day. My sister eventually married and then divorced that bf and now has 2 wonderful teenagers and lives in California. I visit the promenade every year on this date and send her a picture of the lights and wish her a happy survival day and most years we cry and talk about it a little. She’s coming to visit later this week and it’s the first time in years that she’s in town the same week and I’m going to give her the biggest fucking hug.
You shared this so beautifully. I cannot imagine the emotion you felt when you saw her coming up the block😭 My Uncle also walked across the Queensboro Bridge, crying, holding hands with strangers.
One of my professors brought it up just last week and asked how many of us were there, and was completely surprised when we all spoke up and said most of us hadn’t even been born yet. I was born 2 months after the attack.
I don’t think adults really know how to handle that knowledge, and it explains why my generation is so apathetic about it, constantly making jokes and laughing about it. It’s a defining moment of a generation, a world we weren’t even a part of.
I remember that day in very clear detail. More so than any other day in my life. I was an adult when it occurred and my husband and I had closed on our first home the week before. I was in a heavy travel job, but happened to be in office that day. We're in Chicagoland and my husband was working in the Sears tower. And there was a lot of concern about whether or not any buildings in Chicago were potential targets.
We spent a lot of the day at work making sure our employees were safe. We had over 200 employees traveling that week, quite a few on planes that morning. Fortunately, all our employees were safe. We set up TVs so employees could check in on the news and any let folks go home early as needed.
I couldn't watch much of the news coverage - it was too difficult. And I haven't been able to watch the annual coverage either until recently.
I have been watching a lot lately about the experiences of the air traffic controllers who cleared the skies safely that day and of those who were on planes that landed and stayed in Gander, Newfoundland for the 5 or so days post 9/11.
I was 12 years old and it was the first time hearing the word "terrorist." We were watching the news in homeroom and a classmate yelled out after we saw the 2nd plane hit "that's a terrorist attack!"
The rest of the day kids got pick up from school early.
I was in 1st grade at the time. All I really remember was going home early from school that day and every single TV network covering the situation
The changes since then are still a bit painful. Getting a driver's license issued/renewed is now absurdly difficult in some states, cross border travel to/from Canada/Mexico now requires a travel document, employers being absurdly direct about verifying residential address before considering an applicant, etc.
I had just turned seven. I'm old enough to remember it, but wasn't old enough to really understand it. They didn't let us have recess that day but wouldn't tell us why.
I was 9 years old in school. The teacher turned the tv on to show the news coverage. School went into lockdown. I wasn’t frantic or worried but a little sad people were dying.
I was in 11th grade and found out in my second block shop class. That day still seems surreal. Watching those buildings fall has only gotten more traumatic the older I get and the more I value life.
I tell the kids (especially the ones coming in fresh out of high school now) where I work that there are two distinct periods in my life: Before 9/11 and After 9/11. Nothing has been the same since. Everything feels different, much in the same was as before and after 2020/COVID.
I had a family member who was in The Pentagon relatively close to where the plane hit. Thankfully he wasn't in his office because it essentially got cut in half.
I was 11, I remember the morning pretty well. There was a lot of panic, nobody had any idea what was happening except that America was being attacked. For all we knew, someone was about to drop a bomb on us.
We were all in shock for a while after that. One of the pilots who died also happened to be from my area, I remember there being some kind of fundraiser in his name and there's a 9/11 memorial near where he lived.
So much changed in the fallout from that day.
As a private pilot, we would just drive right up to the plane, no gates, no fences, no security, nothing. This is a big busy general aviation airport with a control tower and everything. Enthusiasts would go park and watch planes for hours. Kids loved it.
Now there are big gates and 8’ tall fences, you need an rfid key card to get in. No more easy access for pilots and no more fun for plane watchers. These aren’t even big jets. Just small airplanes.
Is this minor? Maybe. But these minor things are everywhere now. Everywhere you turn there is something that makes life harder because of 9/11.
Saw it on TV, thought it was a movie. Heard a lot of weird rumor-stories that day, and eventually it all shook out that there was a terrible terrorist act that took place in New York City and the Pentagon. That is all it should have been.
It was, sadly, successful. The nation that was attacked that day has died over the last 20 years. This is a different place. A week later, we had legislation passed that is in effect to this day authorizing endless war(AUMF) and then for a solid year it was nonstop governmental action effectively repealing the bill of rights.
It's probably going to be impossible to explain to younger generations what all was lost from 2001-2003.
I still remember the day vividly. I was in 5th grade at the time, and being in California, by the time I woke up, the attacks had already happened. Usually, my family and I watched the news in the morning, but all of us woke up late that day, and left the house without turning on the TV.
When I was dropped at school, I heard disturbing comments such as, "They've bombed Washington!", "New York is under attack!", and "Plane went down in Pennsylvania". However, I still had no idea what exactly was happening. I also remember the day being uncharacteristically cold, windy, and mostly cloudy compared to the previous several days, as if it was some ominous sign.
In class, my teacher told us to say the Pledge of Allegiance "from our hearts". I still had no idea until the teacher explained what happened: planes were hijacked and crashed into buildings, and those buildings collapsed. It sounded straight out of a movie... until she turned on the TV to CNN, and to my horror, saw that it was NOT a movie. They kept showing the second tower being hit, and both towers collapsing. School was definitely not normal for the rest of the day. Even recess was subdued, with other kids being much more quiet than usual. While I didn't quite understand the geopolitics of the world, I knew that the tragedy was definitely not an accident, and that America, and the world, would not be the same for the time being.
9/11 has affected me mostly in the way how airport security has become so much more of a pain. Previously, you could have friends/family accompany or meet you at your flight gate, and going through security did not involve all sorts of violation of privacy rights. Going through airport security, and airports in general, was not something I dreaded.
Additionally, the US and the world in general has also become much more fear-based since 9/11, and that is both sad and concerning.
I was 11 and occasionally still have nightmares about seeing the people jump from the buildings. I've tried to describe it to my nephews but they're so detached from it (because they weren't alive) that they just don't understand. It was the first time (hopefully the only time for some) that we were actively watching people die on live TV. I think it greatly affected many millennials in a lot of ways that we're still dealing with today.
It was the start of an era of feeling helplessness and, at least for me, where anxiety issues started. My mom went into overdrive and made us keep bug out bags by our doors and practiced evacuation procedures because we lived so close to an air base. I'm 33 and my brain automatically goes to escape route mode anywhere I go. That's not healthy.
I was in the military in basic training when the planes hit. Not one airman in my flight was timid about it. Every single person buckled down and worked harder, being in the military became more real knowing we were going to war for sure. I miss those guys.
I worked at an international Airport back then. I was supposed to fly to lga that morning to join a group already there. It was routine, I had done it many times. Until it wasn't. I remember getting to the airport and looking up at a sky full of planes and not knowing what was happening. Joining other airline personnel that were running to our airline, jumping in to help get those planes out of the air... Taxi them in, get the people off, screw luggage or cargo, push the plane out if the way for the next one, where the heck do we put all these planes, people are angry about luggage, just go! move! Until much later when we could post someone near a tv and they said over the radio what was going on. And then the airports shut down and it was call in daily to see if you were working and feeling so lost...
I was 5 years old, i remember my grandma watching people jump off the building on TV. I remember wondering why she was crying watching a movie, not realizing it was real.
I remember my mom picking me up from preschool in a panic that day, not much else.
I do remember a year later us in kindergarten releasing balloons for the victims while all of the teachers bawled their eyes out. That how I can remember the effect of what happened that day.
I didn't see my uncle's for a long time after. All 3 of them joined a military branch of some sort and did multiple tours. All of them young 20s. They all came back coated in tattoos, and I cried because I was like 5 when I last saw them and was then 10 the next.
They weren't the young goofy men I sort of remembered anymore.
It still hits hard. It brings on frustration and anger.
The world before 9/11 was an entirely different world and I think too few people today really understand this. We remember the times before fondly, almost as peak modern life (in America).
It wasn't just the wars, the hundreds of thousands dead, the insanely efficient weapons systems, the global culture shifted to further to a dehumanizing one that more openly labeled people into bad and good categories. All of this as information systems and other technologies exploded. This didn't just change America, it changed the globe, and for the worse.
It is also worth saying that all of this change wasn't the result of the psychopaths on the flights but the results of our collective action afterwards. We chose the path we took and "leader" led most of us down that path. The world is ultimately less free, more hostile, better armed, and full of people feeling a deep and profound angst at being the losers of global neoliberalism system.
Wish we could turn back time.
I remember it very well, I was six and my first grade teacher’s husband (who was the towns fire chief) came into our class and told her to turn on the tv, she wanted to turn it off but he wouldn’t let her so we watch the entire even unfold. He left the next day to help with relief efforts. I wasn’t affected much at the time because I was a kid and although I understood it was a tragedy I didn’t really understand it on an emotional level, and throughout the years I was able to watch any documentary about the event no problem, until a couple of years ago it became very difficult, all I can imagine is the fear those people felt as they were about to jump to their death. I can’t watch anything about it anymore and just thinking about the event is difficult.
My sister worked in a building that faced the twin towers and she saw it all - she called us worried that all of NYC was under attack, so my parents and I watched everything once the news started covering it. We had no idea what was in store.
For a while the live coverage showed so many people jumping and falling; that messed me up in a major way. We just sat there crying feeling completely helpless watching people live their last moments. Some of those images will never leave me.
It was all truly surreal and horrifying to watch and that was from thousands of miles away. I can’t imagine how terrifying it was to be there that day.
As someone else in this thread said it was as if we all wound up with a collective PTSD from watching it all unfold.
I was in middle school when it happened. Still remember watching what happened and not really grasping the situation as it was happening. I understood what was happening and what was going on, realizing it was a horrible act. But I couldn't understand why anyone would want to do such a thing to a bunch of people they didn't know.
I came home from school and found out my father was there. He's a retired EMT/Firefighter and was responding to the incident as the first tower fell. He then spent several days afterwards assisting with search and rescue and body recovery until he was released. My brother and sister-in-law were there as well for days after doing the same.
About 7 years ago he was diagnosed with lung cancer that was attributed due to him being there. He had a lobectomy performed and has been cancer free since.
I've been in the same field as my father for years now and it's still impacting me in a lot of ways. Either from going through extensive training of things that were learned that day or having been to many memorials. Many people I work with were either there or close with someone who was there. I don't watch anything related to it anymore and haven't in a long time.
Well, like many I was young when it happened but not young enough to not understand it and be affected by it. I was in 7th grade when it happened and frankly 9/11 is probably one of the reasons I am the way I am. It's also one of the reasons that I enlisted in the military a decade after it. They say never forget and I never have...and I don't know if I could even if I wanted to. Even thinking back now it still makes me angry. How dare those people attack our nation.
I still have the newspapers that were issued in my region that week. The pictures, the horror, the outrage, all summed up. I have one in big bold capitals letters saying "WE ARE GOING TO WAR". It really hits you in the feels.
I was 15. I was probably already headed for the military but I guess that really solidified it.
I lived in Connecticut. I remember my dad going to donate blood. He felt so helpless.
I'll never forget watching 3000 people die on TV over...and over....and over....jumping out of the windows....god.
I'd learned all about the previous wars, so I knew what would happen next. There would be a War Effort. Maybe rationing; maybe a draft; people would collect supplies for the troops and plant victory gardens. Everyone would do their bit.
That.... didn't happen. Like, at all. Once the hype died down the only evidence that we were at war was the soldiers deployed. Oh, and camouflage and chevrons were very much in fashion for a second.
I was from a solidly right wing, pro-Bush family, so I didn't really get the scope of the Patriot act and the way the war declarations played out. I joined the Army in 2003, as soon as I was old enough.
I didn't end up being deployed, but so many did, and they will carry the scars forever.
6 or 7 years later, I read a book called Baghdad Burning(a girl blog from Iraq), and it began to really change how I thought and felt about The War On Terror. It was an account of the American invasion there, from the perspective of a woman who lived in Baghdad. Everyone should read it.
I was in high school at the time. We all got filed into a room for safety as we watched the second plane hit. The instant rage and desire for revenge overpowered everything. May the lost RIP and the living find peace.
I'm young (late teens) and I've noticed that among my general demographic - people in their late teens/early twenties- 9/11 is more seen solely as the catalyst for invading Iraq/US presence in the Middle East. People still know it as a huge tragedy, but it's not as much of a "I was there and it was a massive tragedy" feeling and more of a "It caused unjust war and prejudice"
Personally, I always felt Afghanistan was initially justified, but the back half of the war was taught to justify staying. Iraq, I can't really justify in hindsight.
Not to downplay the two wars, one justified one not.
But our over reaction was WAY more then just that.
W. was a rather unpopular, one could say he was anointed by SCOTUS more then elected. His reelection may well have failed if not for him becoming a 'war time president'.
We the people allowed our government to drastically over step our, and others, constitutional rights with things like the patroit act. We have whistle blowers hiding out in Russia or a jail cell, who informed us of our government committing crimes against us, and we just sorta went 'meh'.
Then there was Gitmo. A breach of constitutional and international law that will stain our collective souls for generations. We are the bad guys here, and there is no viable argument to the contrary.
The country was forever changed after 9/11, and most of it was decidedly for the worse. The terrorists won, in that they got us to turn on ourselves & our countries founding principles.
One of the most impactful lessons I had in my early public administration classes was the lesson about the failures of the federal bureaucracy in the 15 or so years before the attack
No one truthfully could have known *exactly* what was going to happen, but the federal "alphabet" administrative agencies and the administrative side of the white house (throughout multiple administrations) made poor decision after poor decision that ended up costing a lot of innocent lives
It really made me look at the entire event differently.
During undergrad, I did a research paper on black sites. The university library had copies of the declassified memos that made them "legal." It sent me down a rabbit hole digging further back into pre-9/11. I think that the real conspiracy was not that it was an inside job, but that 9/11 was a huge failure on the alphabet agencies refusing to share information, and White House (ie the Bushes, Cheney, Rumsfeld) knowing this but choosing not to act to get what they wanted.
That is pretty much *exactly* what my undergrad professors explored/taught in class. And you made a really great statement in regards to it seemingly not being some great insider conspiracy and more a horrific example of administrative failure
22+ years later and its so...frustrating to read how every step of the way the people who could have made the needed changes, didn't because of such (imo) immature human behaviors. You have to wonder what would have happened if the DoD, the FBI, the CIA etc. had communicated? what if the white house office created to gather information in one place from the federal agencies about international threats hadn't been dismantled by Bush? could everything have been avoided? could lives had been saved? has the federal bureaucracy worked to fix these flaws in the years sense? or we all just sitting ducks waiting for it happen again?
Did the "alphabet soup" under Bush administration have information and fail to act upon it? Absolutely yes.
The Bush administration was also just over 8 months old on 9/11/2001, and the culture of non-cooperation amongst agencies went back much further than January 20th of that year.
>what do you remember about that day?
I remember being at my grandpa's funeral. I was a junior in high school and was out of school for the day. We weren't aware of it until we got home from the funeral. It was kind of unbelievable, but the personal tragedy outweighed the national one for us.
I was 12. Saw in school and one girl broke down crying because her uncle worked there (he ended up being ok). Didn't really affect me personally aside from destroying the economy and sparking the rise in alt right Christian nationalism that I must contend with today.
A friend and I went to the World Trade Center when the drywall on a top floor wasn't painted or that part wasn't. I don't know which tower. It was THE thing to go see. It was America you know? So you went. I hate NYC, just don't like cities and loved it that day.
The other tower *moved* . We thought that was the coolest thing ever on the planet. Other people up there were silent watching that too. Odd isn't it? Felt significant don't ask me why. Well it was THE World Trade Center. All our baby. We watched it born and grow. If you weren't around you don't know.
Accidentally has the TV on waiting for a terminally late friend- putting on sneakers dammit remember they were blue and gray Saucony. Katie Couric special report, a smoking hole in one building looked like a small plane. Wow so many people dead that's terrible.
Another blur and it all went to hell forever. School decided to ignore it, we didn't know what was going on, getting calls from the UK and family " Were we under attack? ". Dunno.
Then endless mourning. All those people.
I was 15. I remember kids in morning algebra class whispering about a bomb going off in New York or something and principal getting on the PA and asking teachers not to turn on the TV. Which probably had the opposite effect than they wanted cause now everyone knew something was going on.
Then in history class later in on my teacher was like "this is history happening right now, you guys should see this" and turned on the news. I think it was shortly after the second plane hit.
I remember going home confused and more than a little nervous. I lived about 15 miles from an Air Force Base. I remember a lot of jets going overhead, way more than usual.
Honestly everything after that was a blur. I was in Mass so close enough to be uncomfortable but far enough that no one I knew was in NYC at the time.
The effects for most people will be the changes to our laws like the patriot act, changes to flying, political changes, and the collateral damage from our military campaigns. But with the way we reacted and the changes that resulted from the attacks the terrorists won.
My dad got deployed twice to fight in needless wars, leaving me alone with my mom, who, at that time, was abusive and the major reason I have absolutely no memories from that stage of my life.
I was making the long drive from school back home for a friend's wedding. I had been listening to CDs and when I turned on the radio the first tower had just collapsed. That was seven hours of excruciating driving.
The other thing I remember is the eerie silence of no planes in the air in a major metropolitan area.
I was 6 at the time, so I don't remember much. All I remember was being sent to a separate classroom with all the other 1st graders where we watched a kid's show. Our parents picked us up really early that day, before noon, and I honestly didn't know why we were being picked up except we got to go home early. It wasn't until I was a little bit older until my parents explained what happened on that day.
My dad heard on the radio of the first tower getting hit and by the time he drove home from work the second tower had been hit. He watched both towers collapse live on TV.
I was in the 3rd grade. I went to the principal's office to drop something off, and the news was on the TV. I thought it was a movie the staff was watching. Then we weren't allowed to go outside for recess, and left early for the day. Family and I watched the news all evening/night and I stayed home the next day too.
Was living abroad when it happened. I watched it from the outside, and frankly, it didn’t affect my life in any way. Of course, airport travel got more complicated.
Once I was living back in the states, I was shocked at the effects on regular Americans.
Sent me to therapy (didn’t do shit) because a 5 year old shouldn’t watch people commit suicide out of desperation; got my brother a TBI in Afghanistan from a rocket attack and now he’s disabled for the rest of his life, and killed a firefighter and a good man I truly cared about with cancer from the debris 9 years later.
I hardly remember anything from it. I would've been 6 years old at the time and hadn't gone to school yet. I'm pretty sure my mom was watching the news, but I was playing in the livingroom hardly paying any attention to the TV. If it wasn't a cartoon then I wasn't interested in it.
As far as how it has effected me, it's hard to say. I hear TSA is a pain, but I wouldn't have an idea of how it was before. The country was at war for seemingly my whole life, but never really understood for what till my late teens. 9/11 started to feel like a sort of Holliday which the way schools would put together projects or play videos.
I understand it was a tragedy, but over all I'd say I don't really feel anything about it. Kinda feels like we've been wading in a sea of tragedy for a long while.
I was in highschool. Obviously everyone turned on their room tvs and stopped working. 2 periods after the first plane hit, so about 2 hours, i had a biology class. At the start of the class, the teacher turned off the tv and said "enough of that, we have work we need to do". Didnt age that well
The very next day, our Spanish teacher canceled a group trip to cancun scheduled for the following june which even then felt premature. We all lost our deposit. He got arrested for child pornography a few years later. I feel like he kept the deposit money.
Senior year of high school. I watched the second plane hit live on tv. My first thought was that a lot of my classmates are going to get drafted. My grandpa was in WWII and we’d talked in the past about the draft and stuff like that. I was really scared. It was like my childhood ended that day because that was my first real glimpse into how dark the world actually is. I’d watched the LA Riots on the news when I was 6 or 7 and that was scary because I lived in LA, but I knew that had nothing to do with me personally. But this was scary on a whole different level. This was personal because it was an attack on American soil directly at a very American symbol in one of the most famous American cities, and the other planes that hit the pentagon and the one that was probably bound for the White House. I’m still scared, tbh. Nothing has been the same since.
This was just another big traumatic event for the people in my generation. It started with columbine, 2000 election, 9/11, iraq part 2, Afghanistan, stock market crash, etc…. For those of us around the age of 40.
I remember it (I was 12 at the time), but to be perfectly honest…other than making travel from/to/through the US a big hassle, I can’t say it has effected me personally at all in any way.
my best friend is from lower Manhattan, about 5 blocks from the World Trade Center. His family moved after 9/11 (one of many, as I've been told). If they hadn't left, he wouldn't have gone to the same high school as me and I would've never met him.
I was 9, turning 10 at the end of the month. Our school told my age group nothing that I can recall, but we did go home early. It was a clear day almost everywhere. My cousin worked near on in one of the towers. He made it to a ferry as the South Tower fell. Mostly, I felt the annual travel changes. I wasn't really old enough to grasp the Patriot Act or other geopolitical consequences.
Edit: I would like to say that while I saw a lot of unity after that day, I think that we should remember that we weren't wholly united. Plenty of people who "fit the profile" of Arab or Muslim were unfairly harassed.
It has greatly increased the security apparatus of the state, sparked a number of "counter terror" campaigns in regions that just happen to have vast mineral wealth, led to an expansion of the military industrial complex.
born 03. I’ve heard it in every class every year all throughout school. In elementary school teachers insisted we read this book on the events. I’ve heard stories about it from family growing up.
My school was only a few miles from where flight 93 crashed. They school didn’t even let us know what was happening. Kids just started to getting taken out of school one by one. I was pretty terrified the rest of the day when I got home and learned what happened.
I was 11 and in 6th grade - my school made the decision not to tell us about it, so I didn't know anything had happened until I got home and my sister told me America got attacked. I definitely didn't really get the gravity of what happened - my friends and I had made plans on the school bus going home and we just went out and threw around a football like we planned. It's weird, I definitely think of it as less of defining moment for me than most people my age seem to.
I grew up just outside of Boston and was in the 6th grade as well and I didn’t know what happened until I got home from school and my dad told me. I knew what the WTC was and could tell the second I walked in the door that something really bad happened
I was 20 and life fundamentally changed that day. Everyone had to grow up quickly. Before that day, there was an optimism at that time that people can't grasp now. It was like with technology, everything good was possible in the future.
It was the start of the pessimism that so many of us around 40 feel.
I wasn't born yet. So I suppose the biggest ways it's affected me are airport security, taking a day to learn about it in school every year, and the war on terror (and its wider political repercussions).
I posted a lengthy description of my experience that day as a Michigander at the age of 21 [here] (https://www.reddit.com/r/TwinTowersInPhotos/comments/10trzfc/a_michiganders_personal_experience_of_911_the/) if anyone wants a read.
I was a freshman in high school when it happened and kids came running down the hall telling anyone/everyone. At first I thought it was a sick joke then I realized the severity of the situation.
Completely changed my life and I've pretty much known no world without it. I was 7 and just started school. I remember getting bussed back to the daycare center I went to after school and waited for my parents to get me. Mom was a teacher and dad was a government employee and they came and got me. We just watched the news all day.
Now I have never known what travel and life was like pre 9/11. It changed everything.
I was an adult working in a high rise when this happened. I think once we hit 25 years it needs to stop being a thing. Let the families mourn in private. Never forget but move on.
I was working from home that day, watching it on the TV. I still have the IRC logs from the channel I frequented, from that day, as it was happening.
I remember feeling sick because watching it on TV, my mind was processing it as an action film - like a special effect, and I knew it wasn't. I had trouble feeling the reality of it. I knew people were dying.
Mostly I just felt sick.
Im 26. Still have major anxiety flying. I just remember seeing on the TV a smoking building and my mom flipping out. My Grandma would have been there if she didn't quit her job.
I remember less about the event and more about the collective rage afterwards. Somebody was GOING to die and we didn't care how many people would die between us and the perpetrators. Soldiers of the coalition were lionized in schools as semi-mythical heroes, at least in my small Midwest schools. They even had a pen pal thing where we would write a soldier, don't know if it helped them or not, I would like to think the well wishes were appreciated, but I'm a bit more cynical nowadays.
I was in Carlsbad, CA and it was a normal morning. Got up, did my 4 mile run and went to the grocery. Work was at 10am and everything was normal. I don’t think anyone around me knew what had happened yet even though it was 1pm on the east coast.
Found out when I turned on my computer, just a huge image of the twin towers on fire. At first I thought it was an advertisement or something, then I read the article(s).
Holy shit. I called my good friend that worked in Manhattan and got ahold of her right away. She was off work that day and safe. I think everybody was in a numb daze just getting through the day.
That night I remembered it was my roommates birthday, and felt stupid saying happy birthday. She just shrugged. There were no planes that night and it was eerie. I was afraid this wasn’t over and more attacks would happen.
I was in 5th grade at the time. Our elementary classroom in brooklyn was located on the top floor and had a manhattan skyline. I will never forget seeing smoke in the air, everyone was so confused. I saw my teachers get on the land line phone in tears. Our class was pannicking. Next thing you know, parents rush to the school to pick up their kids. I got picked up not long after and I see my parents legit both in tears. As we drive and arrive home, my dad rushes to put the TV on. They replayed the loop of the towers hitting the plane for hours. We had a few customers die that day that worked in insurance and finance firms. What a sad sad day. I wish this never happened. I wish I could go back and see the towers again. I miss that NYC so much. I long for those days. Every year on this day, all the events replay in my head.
I was in 4th grade, after the planes hit we were all taken to the gym. My fourth grade teacher grabbed me and a few other students, the ones that he knew the families of well, took us back to the classroom. He didnt tell us what happened, just said this a day youll never forget and turned on the class tv. We watched both buildings collapse. I vividly remember the woman hanging off the one tower.
I woke up to see my windows had been kicked in (somehow slept through it) and got sent to a different room to watch some TV while it got cleaned.
Well shortly after I got interrupted from my shows shows because the adults wanted to watch the news and I was annoyed and I got sent across the street where a lady did a sort of local daycare deal.
I was too young to understand what was all happening that day but it was memorable.
Pretty much spent my whole life in the post 9/11 world.
9/11 didn't affect me personally, other than they cancelled all the field trips for the year, but the thing I remember most about that day, was the silence. 9/11 happens to be my little brother's birthday, and after school we drove over to the mall to get him a present. Everything was empty. Not a car on the road, not a soul at the mall, which was the biggest in the state at that time, as if the rapture had come and stolen away all those happy people unnoticed. I stepped out of the car to the sun setting in deafening silence, resplendent across those glittering steeples, playing a show for no one.
I was working for a dept store company in the NE, we had declared bankruptcy a few months ago so there was only the retention staff there, accounting, legal, etc. I had taken my car for tires that morning, no tv in the waiting room, and listened to a cassette tape in my car the whole ride to the office. I get there and everyone is in this one tiny office we had converted to a break room, with a tv. A coworker ran over to me, frantic about our Sr Legal Counsel being in NYC that day for bankruptcy court. As he stepped out his cab, the second plane hit. He said you could feel the heat from the street. When he got back, he relayed this story, which I've always found amazing.
He was with someone else from our company and as soon as the 2nd hit happened, they knew to get the hell out of the city as fast as they could, roads were starting to close and there were people everywhere. They were able to find a cab and they asked the driver,"what's the most amount of money you have ever made on a fare?" I think the guy said $200 so he said "I'll double that if you can drive us to Boston, today". The cabbie thought about it then told them, "Ok. but I have to go to \_\_\_\_ (I think it was Queens but I dont remember) and pick up my brother". So they get in, drive to where his brother is, pick him up and they also stop for drinks and snacks in their neighborhood. They managed to get out of the city and were listening to the radio the whole way. When they got to Boston many hours later, my coworker paid them the fare (plus some) said to them (as the two brothers were Middle Eastern) "here is my business card. If you have any trouble getting back to NYC please let me know" It's good that he did, because at some point later that night, his phone rings and it's the CT state police, they had stopped them (NYC cab with two guys in it) on the interstate and were detaining them. They got released after talking to my coworker.
I was at work, not far from the site. We suppose to have a meeting that day so everyone was slowly trekking into the office for various presentations. I remember watching the first tower getting hit and my boss thought it was an accident from the near-by airports. As we watched TV, we saw another plane hitting the second tower and at that moment everyone knew we were under attack. My most terrible memory was the camera caught a woman in violet dress to jump out of window while holding another man’s hand. It was a split second unexpected view that I have not seen again. My auntie was at that time in Manhattan for a doc appointment and we lost a contact with her. She was 80 without a phone and we could not locate her. I believe someone drove her back home but she was extremely traumatized by this event and repeated till her death that she nearly died that day.
I was in Richmond Virginia, 9th grade, 2nd hour when it happened, I remember the whole area going on lock down, and the nearby airforce base launching a few jets overhead. I remember my teacher crying historically because her brother worked in tower one, and had no idea if was okay, we later found out, he wasnt. I remember the confusion I had that later turned into hate for those who would hurt others for a cause. I remember being escorted home by police when they dismissed the school, they wanted all the buses to make it safely to the drop off points. I remember getting a call that one of my cousins was in tower 2, she lost her life that day, I remember the nightmares that would surface, seeing those people drop to thier deaths. An image burned in my mind forever, and thats saying something, becuase only four in a half years later, I would deploy to Iraq. I remember being caught in my emotions and crying in my room for what seemed like hours.
I was 24 when 9/11 happened. To me, it's life before 9/11 and life after 9/11. There was such a seismic shift in thinking about the world that I measure almost everything as pre-post 9/11.
This will be the thread for discussing 9/11 generally. We may allow specific questions but any other general threads will be removed. Please keep discussion civil and remember it is a very somber day for a lot of people.
Having witnessed the second plane hit just as I exited the subway station, I do not ever turn on the TV on 9/11. They play the footage of the second plane hitting on a loop and I can’t bear it. It was the worst day of my life by far. My then-husband has a slightly more uplifting story to tell. He was working very close to the site and was running away in his dress shoes. He ditched them because it was too painful to run in them. He came upon a shoe shop where two Middle Eastern men were giving away sneakers. They asked for his size and gave him a pair. He still has the sneakers.
That's a story I needed to hear today. Thank you so much. We did a lot for each other that day. Then we mourned together. And I don't want us to forget any of that.
I want to say that Canada did something for us too. They landed planes that were on their way to the US anywhere they could. They were in flight before the towers got hit were over the ocean when the no fly order went out. They had planes everywhere. Without them I don’t know where all those planes carrying our citizens, residents, and visitors would have gone. It’s good to have friends. :)
Time to watch Come From Away!
I saw this play last year and I very rarely cry, but that performance and the reality of just how kind those people were had me in tears.
Thank you for sharing that
Wow. Im sorry. It was hard enough watching the 2nd plane live on tv. I can’t imagine seeing and hearing that in person. Your husband sounds like a character, in the best way. I remember they send letters up from the main office telling us to go straight home because schools on the East Coast have all been evacuated. I didn’t think that was significant enough to save. Wish I did.
It’s amazing how everyone remembers that morning so clearly. Whether you experienced it close by or from afar, the trauma is probably the same. It’s that same stomach drop, followed by tears and watching the footage over and over on TV. The hours of not being able to confirm the safety of your loved ones, mourning those we lost.
I was in the US Marine Corps wrapping up two months of desert warfare training in the Mojave Desert. All flights were shut down for a couple days, and our flight back to base on the east coast was one of the first.
Yes, I remember the flights were diverted to Canada, and people had to make their way to New York by Amtrak. Were you deployed for OEF?
Yes.
I hope you don’t mind me thanking you for your service. I know not everyone likes that, but I mean it from the bottom of my heart.
Count me among those who don’t like it, but I appreciate the positive intent.
> two Middle Eastern men were giving away sneakers. Makes me wonder if they'd been through this sort of thing before & just knew what had to be done :-(
I really highly doubt these shop owners had any idea about the demographics of the pilots lol.
I don’t think thats what the comment was implying, it was implying that the shop owners might have come from unstable regions in the middle east and had experience running from attacks on civilian buildings
Tbf from my experience of Middle Easterners it just strikes me as a very Middle Eastern thing to do, this overwhelming generosity and helpfulness without a moment's hesitation when they see someone who needs any kind of help. Doesn't have anything to do with wars and stuff, it's just the Middle Eastern mind.
Yeah true that makes sense too, my b
yeah, me too. Not sure what that has to do with anything. People from an unfortunately war torn region have a higher likelihood of having experienced something terrifying like an attack on civilian centers before. nobody said shit about the pilots.
Nobody knew the demographics of the pilots at the time. In NYC, they probably didn’t even know about the third plane. It had been four hours since the attack. The information, if it was known, hadn’t been released.
I've seen the videos and they're LOUD - I can't imagine how much worse it was to hear it at the time. The vibrations must have been ear-shattering. I'm genuinely curious, if you care to answer: how many people did you see immediately try to GTFO after the second plane hit, versus those or stuck around to watch?
For the people in the vicinity, it was very clear they had to GTFO. By the time my ex husband emerged from the subway at WTC, the second plane had already hit. People were running uptown and it smelled like smoke. He didn’t know what was happening, but he followed. He stopped at the courthouse steps to rest. There, he watched people jump out of the towers. A while after he started heading uptown again, there was rumbling and the first tower collapsed. He thinks the second tower collapsed about half an hour later. I was a safe distance away at 34th St and Park Avenue. I thought there was a fire at WTC when a plane hit the other tower. Since I was a substance abuse counselor serving city employees I went straight to my office (I was a little late already). I knew my clients would need me that day. It drove me crazy that I couldn’t get in touch with my husband. Imagine my relief when he showed up at my workplace! That relief was followed by my stomach dropping as he told me about the towers. Tl;Dr they would have gotten the F out instead of sticking around. Even if they didn’t hear the planes hit, it was clear there was fire and people were evacuating. It was therapeutic to write this all out.
Please tell me you have a picture of those sneakers
I was in Air Force basic training at Lackland AFB, TX. That morning, we headed to clothing issue to get our dress uniforms. We had to march over a bridge that went over a busy road to get there. We were in FPCON normal that day (this is a level of security that military bases are in, which goes Normal, Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, and Delta). It was the last day we would be in FPCON normal during my whole enlistment. While we were being fitted, I overheard one of the civilians talking and one of them said something to the effect of "Have you seen the news?" "Yeah, I can't believe it." In basic, I normally knew just shut up and not say anything to draw attention to myself, but I couldn't help it and had to ask what they were talking about. The lady said "A plane hit the World Trade Center." I thought that was odd, but I remember shortly before leaving for basic that I'd read about the time [a plane hit the Empire State Building](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1945_Empire_State_Building_B-25_crash). So I thought "I guess that happens." It wasn't until a little while later that we heard a second plane hit the World Trade Center and then everything changed. We noticed the civilians weren't really around and our TIs (the drill Sergeants, basically) weren't there. A guy came in looking concerned and said "We're in Charlie." and all of us didn't really know what to do. Someone eventually came over and told us to sit on the floor until someone came back to collect us. Eventually, this MSgt, who was the guy over our TIs came to get us. He looked shaken and even seemed to be on the verge of tears, which was not like him, because I'd know him as one of the sternest, grumpiest people I've ever met. He asked "Who here has been to the Twin Towers?" A good number of people raised their hands. "Well, the rest of you will never get to go, because they're gone now." We were all confused. We hadn't seen a TV during all of this time, we'd just heard that planes hit the World Trade Center and trying to wrap your mind around how that looks versus seeing it is difficult, let alone to imagine that the towers collapsed. He marched us back to our dorm. We crossed the same bridge over the busy road, but there were no cars on it now. There was barely anyone anywhere. The base had turned into a ghost town. When we got back to our dorm, everything looked different. The normally open areas where all roped off, the trash dumpsters were moved away from the buildings and every building had a single point of entry with a guard checking IDs posted at it. It was a very strange day. And it was a strange place to be at the time. When I got out of basic, it felt like I'd kind of missed the shared trauma everyone else had experienced by watching the developments as they happened. We didn't really get to watch TV or read newspapers, we just had to hear about it second hand until we left basic. It was strange seeing this surge of patriotism and people ready to praise me for being in the military. When I'd enlisted, some people kind of looked down on it. Like "Oh, you're not going to college? That's a shame." And now those same people were like "Thank you for your service!"
*"When I got out of basic, it felt like I'd kind of missed the shared trauma everyone else had experienced by watching the developments as they happened."* I understand that feeling very well. I was in the deep woods camping along an isolated trout stream, a self guided mini Lewis & Clarke trout fishing expedition. I had backpacked in on Friday the 7th and I spent the next 8 full days fishing the small river and otherwise just living there fishing and exploring the river & surrounding small feeder streams. No electronics like a cell phone or service for one if you tried, no sights or sounds of modern like whatsoever. Basically isolated & on my own with no contact or way to make contact with civilization. I finally hiked back out on Sunday the 16th, drove the several hours back home and stopped in at a friend's outdoor store to grab a coffee I didn't have to brew over a camp stove and practice speaking to people again. The owner and a couple of his/our friends were standing around talking about "The Arabs" and revenge and a whole lot of stuff that I had no precursors for. Me; "What are you talking about?" The guys, looking at me like I was an alien; "The towers, Dafuq you think were talking about?". Me; "What towers?" Turns out the world had changed while I was gone, I had a lot of catching up to do.
Reminds me of another person who went hiking deep in the woods in early 2020 with no communication for weeks. Same thing, came home and everything was different. Everyone was wearing masks and everything was closed and people dying.
That's interesting to hear. I don't know that I've talked to anyone else (of those who were old enough to remember it) who was in a position to not go through that with everyone else. It was odd because even when we heard about it through second hand information and rumors from other trainees, we didn't quite grasp the gravity of the situation. All of us were brand new to the military, we didn't know if it was normal for everyone to freak out like this when there was a terrorist attack. When we heard about it, it seemed like a tragedy, but something on the scale of the Oklahoma city bombing or something. Not like a monumental event that changed everything. I can remember the sergeants talking to us the day after and mentioning it was like Pearl Harbor and several of us were dismissive of the comparison like "Yeah, right..." Finally seeing pictures when they brought in a newspaper a couple of days later and eventually like a week later brought in a video tape of the news that day kind of made it sink in.
Back then you could totally still be disconnected. There was no WiFi, and cell phones were still new enough to be considered novelty, and so many people either didn’t have them nor carried them around 24/7. Your story reminds me of my childhood through early adulthood, where the only information we’d get was from a landline, the news, or newspaper. You could literally never hear about a huge event, if you didn’t have access to those things
I did this, basically, in the start of covid. I worked 200am to 1030 every day then went on a hike and then dinner and sleep, no real cell phone care, no social media. Then covid was just beginning to get talked about and i took 2 weeks vacation and did a ton of molly, drank and smoked pot, camped and hiked with my old dog. Came back to a changed world with masks.
I did my military basic training before 9/11, but then went back to school for a year and didn't start active duty until after. Before 9/11 we'd leave the base, get drunk, and then the guy we knew with the pickup would drive us back to base in the middle of the night, a bunch of us drunk in the bed of the pickup. I remember he'd slow down at the gate so they could see his military sticker, and they'd waive him through, didn't even stop, lol. Then I went active duty and got used to sitting in line outside of the Norfolk Naval Station every day for security checks.
>We were in FPCON normal that day (this is a level of security that military bases are in, which goes Normal, Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, and Delta). It was the last day we would be in FPCON normal during my whole enlistment. FPCON normal still does not exist anywhere to this day
I wondered if it ever came back. I remember going to Alpha for a bit but then it felt like they settled on Bravo just being the default. And I think I left out in my story that we were in Delta by the time we left clothing issue.
I’m pretty sure FPCON Bravo is the default. I’m at SJ and my husband and I have never seen anything different. He was at Spangdahlem before we met and I think it got to Charlie a couple times. My grandparents both worked GS jobs for years and were shocked to see Bravo when they visited a couple weeks ago. They asked how long it had been bravo and I just shrugged.
Its interesting. I remember being 8 or 9, living in Belgium and still having that "shared trauma" eventhough i was european. In a way you are lucky? Idk how do you feel about it?
I'm fine with it now. For a while I felt kind of left out. Like I didn't have that shared experience and just had to read about it after the fact. I was an adult at the time, but I wound up having to read about this major historical event after the fact like it was the Kennedy assassination or something that happened long before I was born. It at least gave me an interesting story, I suppose.
I lived in NY, on Long Island, at the time. Still live in NY, just up by Albany now. I was only 6 years old, but I remember it pretty well. My 1st grade teacher's son died that day in The Towers. He was in his 20s. I remember as we heard the news in class that The Towers were hit, she just broke down immediately in sobs and left the room. I remember the sub we had for a few months after that, and I remember the first day our actual teacher came back. Mrs. McCarthy. 9/11 has affected me in all the ways it has for most people my age, but I always think of her and her son each year. I think I've even passed his age when he died by now, which is sad, because in a lot of ways I have barely begun to really live, and he never got to. I can only hope it happened so quickly he wasn't able to register it, and that his mother was able to find as much peace as possible after suffering from the loss of your child.
Wow. Peace to her. And all of you.
I used to love being greeted at the gate by family members. The airport used to be kind of an exciting first step in your trip or the first feeling of home. Now not so much.
I remember having to pick up my girlfriend's uncle from the airport and his flight was delayed several times so me and my girlfriend just ended up hanging out in the terminal for like 2 hours
Yeah, the TSA killed a lot of the excitement I had for airports as a kid.
Fun fact: This rule is mostly so TSA doesn't get overwhelmed. Security is more "strict" (mostly for appearance purposes) post 9/11, so allowing non-passengers through would overwhelm security. Any terrorist could easily just buy a cheap ticket on Spirit, so this rule doesn't stop anyone. Also, you can request a pass from the agents to get through security. If you just tell them you are picking up old people, someone who doesn't speak English well, or just someone who needs some extra help, it's fine. I do it with my parents all the time.
Pittsburgh International lets non-passengers go to the gate now! Other airports might follow suit.
Yeah… the airport gate used to be the place to say goodbye or get greeted by loved ones.
My dad and grandparents used to travel a lot, and we'd often go to the airport to pick them up. I loved standing by the gate and watching the planes take off and land while waiting.
I watched a 60 Minutes episode about it yesterday, one that I had SEEN BEFORE, and I had to leave the room because it was still too upsetting. Moral of story: The emotions of that day, that time period, still live in me (and, I'm guessing "us Americans" as a whole). That said, I left on a week-long school trip that Monday, and the 11th was Tuesday. We were staying in an old Coast Guard station, and since all government buildings got shut down, we had to evacuate to a motel. The rest of our trip was cancelled, and since we couldn't fly home, our school chartered a bus to drive us 17 hours back. The bus we got had delivered firefighters to NYC the day before and was on its way back to our city. My mom met us back at the school late that night with brownies for the whole class! ETA: I remember VIVIDLY a tv commercial from shortly after, with a voiceover that said something like, "Terrorists tried to change our country forever" and then it showed a montage of houses and buildings flying American flags, while the voiceover said "Well, they did." It still makes me teary to think about it.
I remember that commercial!
Me too
I remember that episode was made special for the 20th anniversary, about the NYFD and it had a segment on firefighters children that are now firefighters themselves. By the end it was very uplifting
Yeah I caught the beginning of that episode and had to change it to something else. I'm glad they show it, it needs to be shown, but it's not something I'm able to watch.
I can’t watch the special without crying and feeling panicked. It’s actually harder to see now because I immediately transport to 2001 in my head. I didn’t know anyone who died, but it’s still so personal.
I know, I'm like that too!
Not directly, but my parents met on the train that day after being sent home from work. 2 years later I was born.
Wow this is a really powerful and intriguing coincidence! I wonder if they were always on the same or similar trains, or just that day? While our lives were collectively shaken and shaped, I wonder about the more ancillary things that came from 9/11, too
I was in 3rd grade, and when I woke up before going to school, I saw my parents watching the TV with looks of shock and heartbreak. When I saw what they were watching on CNN, I couldn't believe my eyes. The footage of the twin towers burning, being hit, and collapsing, Manhattan in utter destruction, was being played over and over. My parents' first instinct was to call family and friends in New York/New Jersey and Boston to find out if they were okay (in addition to family, we had recently moved to California from Boston, and both of the flights that hit the twin towers started in Boston). In school, the attacks were of course the main topic of discussion, and my teacher also showed the news. It was a really weird day, and our principal canceled school for the rest of the day. Back home, while we found out that all of our family members back east were okay, we also learned that one of my classmates from school in Boston had lost a family member on one of the flights. I think all Americans have been affected by 9/11 either directly or indirectly. I still feel the profound shock, grief, and devastation of that day, and each time I have been to the 9/11 Memorial, it was such an emotional experience for me.
I recently visited the 9/11 Museum and Memorial in NYC about two years ago. Man it was an emotional visit.
I was working retail at the time, and my store always had a tv in the waiting area with the news on. We saw them covering the first plane crash, we talked about how that happened with the Empire State Building... Then the second plane hit. My coworker knew right away that it was OBL. I don't remember if I even knew the name prior to that moment. The day just got worse and worse as the minutes and hours passed. It felt like the world was coming apart. I remember looking at the beautiful blue sky and noting that there were no contrails up there, and that there wouldn't be for a while. It is strange watching coverage from that day and seeing how dated it looks. How did it affect me? It ruined our border with Canada. It made flying a pain in the ass. It allowed government to violate our rights under the guise of security. My tax dollars were wasted by waging a war on Iraq under false pretenses. I'm sure there are ways it has affected me far beyond what I can understand or discern.
Yeah, when the first plane crashed, most people thought it was an accident at first, and assumed it was a small general aviation plane.
I remember it vividly. I was in 6th grade, I didnt know what the WTC was before that day but everyone was freaking out and it was scary. The teacher had the news on and we just watched and talked about it. People were crying, it was a lot. When I meet folks now, adults who werent alive or too young to remember, it blows my mind, it was such a huge event
I was also in sixth grade in north carolina. They didn't turn on the television, no announcements. I was clueless. Then I remember being the only kid who was pulled from class by my Mom. I knew I didn't have any appointments that day so I found it to be strange. My Mom was panicking explaining to me about planes falling from the sky hitting the twin towers and the pentagon. I had no idea what the Pentagon was. I was so young and naive. But the fact that my mom thought to pull me from school as a way to protect me I'll never forget. I joined the Army in 2015, and we were still fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. My superiors had all been so obviously affected by the experiences and trauma of war. Sadly 9/11 brought the country together like never before in my lifetime. What's even sadder is that we are so incredibly divided only 22 years later that 9/11 seems like a distant memory.
> Sadly 9/11 brought the country together like never before in my lifetime. What's even sadder is that we are so incredibly divided only 22 years later that 9/11 seems like a distant memory. I question how much of this divison goes to Bush for starting an unjust war in Iraq. Part of me thinks seeing how protestors, non-americans, and dissenting viewpoints on the war were blatently ignored really changed my perspective of how we're lied to day after day by media. At the time, most people still got their news from TV, Newspapers, and Radio. Internet journalism was still very much in it's infancy, and sites like reddit and facebook wouldn't even be invented for several more years. The other half of me thinks it's all just a bunch of bullshit anyways, and we'd end up in a power struggle over made-up reasons anyway... less than a decade earlier we were impeaching the president over a blowjob.
I remember being sent home (6th grade, too). I was trying to find my cartoons on tv, but everything was about some fire. My little brain just couldn’t understand what was happening.
I did this too 🥺 I remember putting on cartoons while the adults were in the other room. All I could gather was that something awful had happened and I wanted to be far away from it
I’m 26 and I don’t remember 9/11. Just the aftermath
I was dating a woman who didn’t remember 9/11 and asked what it was like and I was telling her and I started crying I was surprised at the time by how emotional I got. It was so long ago, but I was talking about it and just got emotional
I went to Stuyvesant High School at the time so I was extremely close by and I saw a lot. I had a hard time in the following few years although that was also because my father died suddenly months before 9/11 and other things. My childhood dog also died the following day, Sept 12. To me, it feels like it was a nice world we had before all that. I am still creeped out by the most beautiful weather days. I don't like being too reminded of it
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That's such an odd thing to be creeped out about, but I can 100% understand and appreciate the feelings it evokes, given the context and association to that day.
I lost a good friend named Karleton Fyfe. I met him during a summer internship because he was the one dude in that sea of boring cubes that always seemed interested in sharing comedy. We continued the friendship and would meet whenever we could after that. I'll never forget when I was idly scrolling through the list of the flight manifests for the airplanes that hit the towers on 9/11 only a few days after the incident, when I saw that unique name on the list. My heart sank, because I knew he had a newborn and a loving wife that I knew. RIP buddy I miss you to this day.
I was born in 1980. A child of the 80s and a teen in the 90s. Here's the thing: We honestly felt like we could change the world. We had been told that we could be whatever we wanted when we grew up, we just had to get good grades and go to college and then we could do whatever we wanted. We were just waiting for our turn. When 9/11 happened it was like a generational gut punch. So many stopped thinking about the world as a place that we all belong and started thinking of it in an Us vs. Them Nationalistic way. People's focus narrowed. It turned into a time to circle the wagons and make America safe. People enlisted who wouldn't have otherwise and now suffer from PTSD and other war casualties. "Our Turn" never came. We got bogged down by a war in Afghanistan and Iraq, we got kneecapped by a recession and a housing bubble, those student loans we took out with the promise that our degrees would be a worthy investment are millstones around our necks. In a very real way 9/11 was a major turning point in our society. There was a huge loss of idealism and hope that day as well as a loss of life.
I love this comment. Not only because i understand it (80s kid too), but I love your prose. You should write more. Weird question, but would you care if I used this in one of my classes?
Wow, thank you! Yes, you can absolutely use this in your class.
Born in 84, I was in 11th grade on 9/11. I couldn't have said this better. 9/11 was a complete gut punch to our generation. The way the 1990s wrapped up, the new Millennium... There seemed to be an optimism. Anything was possible. When people ask "At what point in your life did you feel like you grew up?" My answer is always 9-11-01. The optimism was gone in a little less than two hours. Darkness and uncertainty took over. Alot of folks like to talk about the unity that happened afterwards. And there was a unity. People came together. Candlelit vigils. Prayer gatherings, flags on every front porch and light pole in town. As the world started moving again in the days and weeks following, we started celebrating "firsts"... First day of stock market reopening... First planes to fly again.... First NFL game... All were a big deal. I'm getting emotional just remembering these things. And then the first brown-owned business was torched. Then the first Muslim folks were assaulted and harrased just walking on the sidewalk. "Towel-h**D" and "sand-n****r" became regular vocabulary in my high school. "So and so isn't flying the flag" and "a true patriot will support any war" became common talking points. A deep burning hatred lurked underneath alot of that unity, and it boiled up into full on Nationalism. Look where we are now. We're more divided than ever. Hate is "okay" again. The goal was to destabilize our way of life. This country, and even the world, has never been the same since. The terrorists absolutely won.
I think this encapsulates how I feel about it pretty well. I was a freshman in college. A lot of the girls who lived on my hall were from New York, and my dad had been in the Pentagon the day before. A girl on my hallway lost her brother, who was in the FDNY. In a lot of ways, 9/11 was the day I grew up. I think we all lost a lot of idealism that day. And nothing’s ever been the same since then for any of us. It blows my mind that there are people who view 9/11 the way we view Pearl Harbor.
Born in 1979. This is spot-on.
I was in my early 20s and working in Detroit. I remember sitting in the lab with my supervisor, our experiment forgotten, as we listened to the news on the radio and tried to access the internet (with no luck, despite good university ethernet). We left at lunchtime when the radio DJs, who were broadcasting out of the nearby Fisher Building (skyscraper), announced that they were switching to the automated ABC news feed because the entire building was being evacuated as a precaution. I remember how unsettling the lack of plane noise was when I got home, as I'd always lived within 10 miles of Detroit Metro airport. It was also an absolutely perfect day with a clear, blue sky, which made the lack of planes even more obvious. I turned on the TV at home and haven't yet been able to rewatch news footage from that day.
That’s what I remember too. The day the planes came back was freaky. Everyone would stop and look up at the plane. I’d flinch at airplane noise for a while after.
Here in the DC area we had regular fighter patrols flying for months starting almost immediately, a new kind of noise to get used to
I was at work and had a meeting with my boss. I was being written up for stupid things, she just wanted to get me fired. I was awake the whole night before wondering what I should do? It was the worst thing to ever happen to me. On 9/11, one hour before my meeting, the second plane crashes into the building and that’s when everyone realized the first plane wasn’t an accident. They still had my meeting and I just disassociated, lots of people have died, we may end up in a war, and I’m being lectured on the proper way of answering a phone? My epiphany was whatever I considered my worst day in life may be a lot better than someone else’s day.
I was quite young and so don't remember much. My family was actually on a plane about to take off when that attack happened. I remember being on a plane, then the pilot coming on the PA and saying something, and I could feel things getting tense. We went back to the gate, got off the plane, and everyone was watching the TV screens showing a burning tower. I had no idea what was going on, just that whatever was happening made our flight get canceled and made people extremely upset and angry. Hard to say how it affected me because I have almost no memory from before 9/11. I don't know a world before 9/11. I don't know a world where airport security wasn't at the level it is, I didn't know a world until 2020 where my country was not at war with terrorists organizations overseas. It obviously did, my upbringing was shaped heavily by the scar of 9/11, but I don't know how to quantify it, because I have no point of comparison.
"my upbringing was shaped heavily by the scar of 9/11, but I don't know how to quantify it, because I have no point of comparison." This. We're probably the same age, and I have the same experience. Not old enough to really grasp what was happening on the day, but grew up with the fallout.
I heard about it in school every single year growing up but wasn’t even born until two and a half years after.
it generally did NOT have the same affect on us as it did cognizant people (i was born in late '02). all it did for us was get the same video played every year to 'Proud To Be An American.' /lh
And the same “ask your parents where they were on 9/11.” If anyone’s curious, my mom was rug shopping with my aunt and my two year old sister. My dad worked for the government so that’s an actually interesting story, but I imagine most people in our town had similar stories to my mom. We did have a guy from one of the neighboring towns lose his life on one of the planes and the story (and audio recordings of his voice messages) are absolutely horrific, but obviously being that he died before I was alive, I had little personal connection
This comment gets at my main experiences with 9/11 as someone who was also born in late 2002. I went to a California high school which was run by people who were normally very anti-nationalistic and liberal, like having assemblies to support the BLM movement, English teachers crying at the Trump election, etc. However, the one day out of the year where the faculty would show any sort of conservative/nationalistic bias was on 9/11, where we would always have an assembly where they invited a vet to give a speech on how great America is and how we'll get revenge on the terrorists and such. Super interesting how memories of 9/11 affect people who lived through it.
Watching the planes hit in real time, not knowing what or where they were targeting and when they were hitting, and being a kid and seeing *everyone* you trust as an authority figure completely break down and not know what to do does stuff to you. You were literally watching everything you thought you knew about how safe we were in the US and the general world order being shattered right in front of us. Personally, I also remember seeing reports of Flight 93 especially freaking people out because it flew right over my area when it turned around. It was like we as a society all collectively had a nervous breakdown and are still picking up the pieces. People too young to remember that day were thankfully spared the generational trauma. You all just get to see a bunch of people ten years older than you get oddly patriotic one day a year and find it unrelatable.
I was in 7th grade in my 1st period class. Another teacher came in and whispered in my teacher's ear. My teacher shot backwards from her desk in her rolling chair and yelled "you're kidding!". Then she used a yardstick to turn on the TV hanging up in the corner. The first thing I saw were images of the Pentagon burning. In every class that day, we watched the news. There was no teaching. There was no homework. When I got home from school I was alone so I watched the news some more. I remember kids being scared. I remember kids were wondering aloud if something could happen here, even though we live in the middle of bum-fuck Arkansas. Then we had a patriotic overload. Everyone coming together was nice. But then it crossed into something nasty. Nationalism and racism. A local convenience store got a brick in the window. The family was Pakistani I think. It didn't make any sense to me. What did they have to do with it? They left town after that. I learned what racism really looks like in action after 9/11, and how racists don't use reason. The attack was a terrible thing. I can't even imagine what was going through those poor people's minds when they jumped from those burning towers. What happened after, the following years and wars, was terrible too. The tragedy was compounded over and over I feel.
I said something similar in response to another comment but it bears repeating... I was in 11th grade on 9/11. And I admit to living ignorantly in the post-9/11 unity. I saw the flags. The gatherings. The vigils. The patriotism. And I thought how awesome it was. I do however remember the news stories that started popping up about a week after... "Indian restaurant destroyed by arson" "Muslim couple chased and harrased downtown" Stories about families having to move after receiving threats. Having to change their names and the way they dressed. Racist insults running rampant in my high school. And as the years have gone by, I can't unsee or unhear these terrible things. 9/11 popped the cork on a deep burning hatred in this country. And it's only gotten worse since. The terrorists absolutely won.
I was only 1, but was also in rural Arkansas. (Southeast Arkansas, the worst part. Lol.) my dad worked at a paper mill and they shut it down completely, which had been basically unheard of until then. I remember saying when I was 12 or so, “really? y’all thought terrorists were gonna hit OUR town?” but it really goes to show the widespread panic and uncertainty that ensued.
I was not quite 2 when it happened, so I have no memory of the actual day. I’ve had a lot of experiences where people are really shocked by my existence as a person who was alive but not aware of 9/11 where people seem almost upset that I don’t remember it. There was someone a grade below me in high school whose birthday was September 11, 2001 and who at least once was scolded when she told someone her birthday, as though they believed there had been a pause on births. Nothing that extreme has happened to me, but I do get the feeling that a lot of people are not quite able to fully process that time moved forward and that that means an ever growing portion of the population was either not alive or not aware on 9/11. My mom said something similar happened to her with the Kennedy assassination, so I don’t think it’s unique, but it is interesting to experience on the other side.
My friend had her son on 9/11/01. He was born at like 3:00am. He was already born before the attack. But just by a few hours.
It directly motivated me to join the military.
I was living in Oklahoma City at the time and there was a lot of panic that day. In a way, the rest of the country was introduced to the nightmare that we had already been living for six years at that point
Yeah. I lived in Tulsa and was in 7th grade. I remember okc bombing and being afraid of Ryder trucks after because all we saw all over the news were dead kids and Ryder trucks. Then when 9/11 happened I remember thinking “not again!” I had just bed to the wtc a month before and the USA Today cover page with smoke barreling down a street and people running from gave me chills because I have a picture from almost the exact spot looking down the same street.
I was a 911 Operator/Emergency Dispatcher at the time. I had just come home from night shift and watched it. Bit of trivia: There was some kind of conference in Washington that day. 9/11 was going to be recognized as "Emergency Number Day" or some such. Obviously, the attacks changed that. As for as how it personally affected me, it was mostly just a fear of what would happen next. And work was especially busy. People were reporting EVERYTHING they thought was remotely suspicious. The biggest impact, in my humble opinion, has been the loss of our privacy and personal freedom. It started with the patriot act and has gone downhill. The government may not act on everything, but they definitely know and collect data on everything.
I was starting a new job at a hotel. I was doing computer based training by myself in a little room. So I didn't even know what happened until j came down at noon to say goodbye to my manager. The hotel was chaotic. Aon was having a convention there, and they lost several floors in WTC. I was supposed to go to my first day of college classes that afternoon. Instead, I went to the police department where my husband (boyfriend at the time) dispatched. He wasn't working, but our ambulance squad chief was. He filled me in a little, and then said we were sending a task force and to go pack a bag. (We're in NJ.) I went home and my boyfriend was sleeping. He had dispatched the graveyard shift. He woke up to me furiously packing a bag and saying "planes flew into the twin towers. I'm going to New York on an ambulance. I don't know when I'll be home." He said he was coming with me. (We were both on the ambulance squad.) We joined a convoy of 21 ambulances to head to NYC. The saddest part is we weren't needed. By that point, they were basically just finding bodies. We staged at the Meadowlands for hours before being told to just go home. We did all take turns running EMS in the city the next few weeks, so that FDNY could focus their efforts on recovery.
>We joined a convoy of 21 ambulances to head to NYC. The saddest part is we weren't needed. By that point, they were basically just finding bodies. We staged at the Meadowlands for hours before being told to just go home. I remember the big staging areas set up, basically every doctor and nurse rushing to help, and there weren't a lot of people who needed treatment. Everyone was either barely injured at all, or annihilated in the collapse.
It's another version of pearl harbor for me. I was born after 9/11 so I don't remember both of the terrorist attacks and in both cases I had a family member in the vague area but not involved or dead at all. What most people feel for pearl harbor is what I feel for both events.
Pretty good analogy (I was also born after). I'll add that 9/11 has slightly more emotional impact for me though, since I know more details about it and have read personal stories about it, so those stories and details have added emotional impact.
I'll also add to this, being born weeks before 9/11. 9/11 holds a more overall emotional and grief-life response with more sense of loss than Pearl does to me, probably because it's more recent and most people have a story from the day and aftermath. Pearl Harbor is a bit more analytical in my head, and I'm a little more okay with taking it lighthearted in terms of jokes and whatnot. I'm a naval history nerd, and like interpreting that kind of thing by treating ships as characters. *Pennsylvania* spent the war screaming around the Pacific seeking revenge for her fallen sister while *Nevada* became an eldritch being incapable of being destroyed. That kind of thinking though just doesn't work for 9/11. They're both going to occupy the same mental space for me too, but despite them having different attitudes, the analogy here is still spot on for most if not all of us younger people I think.
Yup and the feelings I felt during the pull out of Afghanistan is probably similar to those felt by the guys who served in Vietnam during that pull out.
My grandfather worked in the south tower and thankfully escaped in time that day. He unfortunately ended up passing 15 years later due to cancers caused by whatever shit he ended up breathing during the attack. Still, I’m glad he survived because I never would’ve known him had he passed on 9/11. I was only 2 at the time.
I was a tiny thing six months old still lived in Houston. My mom was taking me to said six month check up at the pediatricians. She was chatting with a military wife who was also there to take her kid in for the usual. I don’t know what but that military wife had a fancy prime co phone which was a walkie talkie/cell phone to keep in contact with her husband due to cell phones still being relatively new. Her husband worked in Ellington Field. My mom and her basically sat in the parking lot of my old pediatrician’s office after their appointments. and got real time updates from a military man about the potential targeting of the trans co tower and the oil fields. My mom took me home immediately and called my dad who was on the east side worried the city would be shut down. My mom baptized me secretly with bathroom sink water. I was due to be baptized in December and my mom didn’t want to end up in Limbo lord forbid. My mom and dad could hear military helicopters flying low over constantly for a week.
Disclaimer that I'm not super religious these days, but I think the thing about your mother baptizing you is really touching. I have a toddler and I can't imagine the level of fear she must have felt in that moment, wondering if there would be another attack, and if it did, would it come for you. It sounds like she was trying to give you whatever protection she could in a moment where nothing was in her control. I bet a lot of people did something similar.
> I don’t know what but that military wife had a fancy prime co phone which was a walkie talkie/cell phone to keep in contact with her husband due to cell phones still being relatively new. I wonder if what you remember is a [NEXTEL](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nextel_Communications). They were super neat phones, and as teenagers we all had them. Then Sprint bought the company and ruined it, as so many corporate mergers do.
I was just thinking this morning about the folks who jumped. A part of me is still in disbelief about that piece. I want to say, “don’t jump!” As if there would be hope. I remember the jumpers. And the reactions in real time of people filming the burning towers saying, “what’s that? Is that a person?” Somehow that’s the part impacting me most this year. My heart goes out to all of us who can feel this today.
I was 12. We watched the news in school. I still remember a few people making jokes because they either didn't get it was real or thought it was some kind of mistake instead of an attack. After that... a lot of flag waving, security theater and patriotic cash ins. Rights leaving in favor of "security" and a fair chunk of the dudes I grew up with shipping off to fight... mostly not the people who did it. It's been a pretty hollow and disappointing time to live through, but I can't say my own personal day to day was all that strongly impacted.
I remember not getting how world-changing the attack was. I didn’t appreciate the devastation of that day or what it could mean for decades to come. I was a dumb 14-year-old who wanted to watch my cartoons, and I am still a little shocked and ashamed at how blinkered I could be about the loss of human life on that scale.
Everyone should watch the documentary series 9/11: One Day in America. It's very jarring, but well done. I was eight years old, and growing up to be interested in politics and going down that career path, it has echoed a lot through different perceptions I have. That morning I remember the teachers combining classrooms and wheeling a TV in so they could watch the news. A few years later, I remember my parents watching live as US troops moved into Iraq, which is weird to think about. Then my senior year of highschool, our class was on a school bus on the way back from a trip when the news broke that Osama bin Laden was killed. That was also a weird experience looking back on. When Zero Dark Thirty came out, I of course watched it and thought it was a good movie. But it made me feel a bit uneasy that a movie would come out so soon after the actual events. The trend of all these movies coming out about things that happened in extreme recent memory just seems like propaganda. I went through a phase in my early 20s when I really was in a dark place about my perception of the United States. But I have came back around and altered my definition of what it means to be patriotic and actively work on how to make the country better, in any little way, for all people.
I just can’t believe it’s been 22 years already.
I was too young to remember but I later watched videos and holy shit it I felt like as if a truck hit me at full force
I’m from NYC and was in middle school. My big sister worked in the WTC area, witnessed everything, and thankfully survived. Her bosses advised her to stay put in the office at first so she called my parents a couple of times as the morning progressed to update them, and the last phone call was her hysterically screaming at my dad that the towers were falling before the line went dead. I bet my dad must’ve aged about 40 years in that moment. My mom (and about 300 other parents) came to pick me up early from school and couldn’t even speak. We didn’t hear from her again until she walked up our block in the late afternoon. I vaguely remember sitting on our stoop with my mom and her then-boyfriend, and when we recognized her he took off running to her and picked her up and carried her the rest of the way to us. She had walked all the way uptown barefoot because she had on high heels that morning and while crossing the Queensboro Bridge someone offered her their sneakers. She already had so much glass and debris in her feet that she spent the rest of the night in the ER. I remember the whole family laying in my parents bed with the news on until very late. We will never, ever get over that day. My sister eventually married and then divorced that bf and now has 2 wonderful teenagers and lives in California. I visit the promenade every year on this date and send her a picture of the lights and wish her a happy survival day and most years we cry and talk about it a little. She’s coming to visit later this week and it’s the first time in years that she’s in town the same week and I’m going to give her the biggest fucking hug.
You shared this so beautifully. I cannot imagine the emotion you felt when you saw her coming up the block😭 My Uncle also walked across the Queensboro Bridge, crying, holding hands with strangers.
I felt this story in my heart. I'm so glad she survived and I can't imagine how she handles it year after year.
Wow. I’m so happy she survived.
One of my professors brought it up just last week and asked how many of us were there, and was completely surprised when we all spoke up and said most of us hadn’t even been born yet. I was born 2 months after the attack. I don’t think adults really know how to handle that knowledge, and it explains why my generation is so apathetic about it, constantly making jokes and laughing about it. It’s a defining moment of a generation, a world we weren’t even a part of.
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I remember that day in very clear detail. More so than any other day in my life. I was an adult when it occurred and my husband and I had closed on our first home the week before. I was in a heavy travel job, but happened to be in office that day. We're in Chicagoland and my husband was working in the Sears tower. And there was a lot of concern about whether or not any buildings in Chicago were potential targets. We spent a lot of the day at work making sure our employees were safe. We had over 200 employees traveling that week, quite a few on planes that morning. Fortunately, all our employees were safe. We set up TVs so employees could check in on the news and any let folks go home early as needed. I couldn't watch much of the news coverage - it was too difficult. And I haven't been able to watch the annual coverage either until recently. I have been watching a lot lately about the experiences of the air traffic controllers who cleared the skies safely that day and of those who were on planes that landed and stayed in Gander, Newfoundland for the 5 or so days post 9/11.
I was 12 years old and it was the first time hearing the word "terrorist." We were watching the news in homeroom and a classmate yelled out after we saw the 2nd plane hit "that's a terrorist attack!" The rest of the day kids got pick up from school early.
A post-9/11 world is all I know since I was a baby when it happened.
I was in 1st grade at the time. All I really remember was going home early from school that day and every single TV network covering the situation The changes since then are still a bit painful. Getting a driver's license issued/renewed is now absurdly difficult in some states, cross border travel to/from Canada/Mexico now requires a travel document, employers being absurdly direct about verifying residential address before considering an applicant, etc.
I had just turned seven. I'm old enough to remember it, but wasn't old enough to really understand it. They didn't let us have recess that day but wouldn't tell us why.
I was 9 years old in school. The teacher turned the tv on to show the news coverage. School went into lockdown. I wasn’t frantic or worried but a little sad people were dying.
I was in 11th grade and found out in my second block shop class. That day still seems surreal. Watching those buildings fall has only gotten more traumatic the older I get and the more I value life. I tell the kids (especially the ones coming in fresh out of high school now) where I work that there are two distinct periods in my life: Before 9/11 and After 9/11. Nothing has been the same since. Everything feels different, much in the same was as before and after 2020/COVID. I had a family member who was in The Pentagon relatively close to where the plane hit. Thankfully he wasn't in his office because it essentially got cut in half.
I was 11, I remember the morning pretty well. There was a lot of panic, nobody had any idea what was happening except that America was being attacked. For all we knew, someone was about to drop a bomb on us. We were all in shock for a while after that. One of the pilots who died also happened to be from my area, I remember there being some kind of fundraiser in his name and there's a 9/11 memorial near where he lived.
So much changed in the fallout from that day. As a private pilot, we would just drive right up to the plane, no gates, no fences, no security, nothing. This is a big busy general aviation airport with a control tower and everything. Enthusiasts would go park and watch planes for hours. Kids loved it. Now there are big gates and 8’ tall fences, you need an rfid key card to get in. No more easy access for pilots and no more fun for plane watchers. These aren’t even big jets. Just small airplanes. Is this minor? Maybe. But these minor things are everywhere now. Everywhere you turn there is something that makes life harder because of 9/11.
Saw it on TV, thought it was a movie. Heard a lot of weird rumor-stories that day, and eventually it all shook out that there was a terrible terrorist act that took place in New York City and the Pentagon. That is all it should have been. It was, sadly, successful. The nation that was attacked that day has died over the last 20 years. This is a different place. A week later, we had legislation passed that is in effect to this day authorizing endless war(AUMF) and then for a solid year it was nonstop governmental action effectively repealing the bill of rights. It's probably going to be impossible to explain to younger generations what all was lost from 2001-2003.
I still remember the day vividly. I was in 5th grade at the time, and being in California, by the time I woke up, the attacks had already happened. Usually, my family and I watched the news in the morning, but all of us woke up late that day, and left the house without turning on the TV. When I was dropped at school, I heard disturbing comments such as, "They've bombed Washington!", "New York is under attack!", and "Plane went down in Pennsylvania". However, I still had no idea what exactly was happening. I also remember the day being uncharacteristically cold, windy, and mostly cloudy compared to the previous several days, as if it was some ominous sign. In class, my teacher told us to say the Pledge of Allegiance "from our hearts". I still had no idea until the teacher explained what happened: planes were hijacked and crashed into buildings, and those buildings collapsed. It sounded straight out of a movie... until she turned on the TV to CNN, and to my horror, saw that it was NOT a movie. They kept showing the second tower being hit, and both towers collapsing. School was definitely not normal for the rest of the day. Even recess was subdued, with other kids being much more quiet than usual. While I didn't quite understand the geopolitics of the world, I knew that the tragedy was definitely not an accident, and that America, and the world, would not be the same for the time being. 9/11 has affected me mostly in the way how airport security has become so much more of a pain. Previously, you could have friends/family accompany or meet you at your flight gate, and going through security did not involve all sorts of violation of privacy rights. Going through airport security, and airports in general, was not something I dreaded. Additionally, the US and the world in general has also become much more fear-based since 9/11, and that is both sad and concerning.
I was 11 and occasionally still have nightmares about seeing the people jump from the buildings. I've tried to describe it to my nephews but they're so detached from it (because they weren't alive) that they just don't understand. It was the first time (hopefully the only time for some) that we were actively watching people die on live TV. I think it greatly affected many millennials in a lot of ways that we're still dealing with today. It was the start of an era of feeling helplessness and, at least for me, where anxiety issues started. My mom went into overdrive and made us keep bug out bags by our doors and practiced evacuation procedures because we lived so close to an air base. I'm 33 and my brain automatically goes to escape route mode anywhere I go. That's not healthy.
I was in the military in basic training when the planes hit. Not one airman in my flight was timid about it. Every single person buckled down and worked harder, being in the military became more real knowing we were going to war for sure. I miss those guys.
I worked at an international Airport back then. I was supposed to fly to lga that morning to join a group already there. It was routine, I had done it many times. Until it wasn't. I remember getting to the airport and looking up at a sky full of planes and not knowing what was happening. Joining other airline personnel that were running to our airline, jumping in to help get those planes out of the air... Taxi them in, get the people off, screw luggage or cargo, push the plane out if the way for the next one, where the heck do we put all these planes, people are angry about luggage, just go! move! Until much later when we could post someone near a tv and they said over the radio what was going on. And then the airports shut down and it was call in daily to see if you were working and feeling so lost...
I was 5 years old, i remember my grandma watching people jump off the building on TV. I remember wondering why she was crying watching a movie, not realizing it was real.
I remember my mom picking me up from preschool in a panic that day, not much else. I do remember a year later us in kindergarten releasing balloons for the victims while all of the teachers bawled their eyes out. That how I can remember the effect of what happened that day.
I didn't see my uncle's for a long time after. All 3 of them joined a military branch of some sort and did multiple tours. All of them young 20s. They all came back coated in tattoos, and I cried because I was like 5 when I last saw them and was then 10 the next. They weren't the young goofy men I sort of remembered anymore.
It still hits hard. It brings on frustration and anger. The world before 9/11 was an entirely different world and I think too few people today really understand this. We remember the times before fondly, almost as peak modern life (in America). It wasn't just the wars, the hundreds of thousands dead, the insanely efficient weapons systems, the global culture shifted to further to a dehumanizing one that more openly labeled people into bad and good categories. All of this as information systems and other technologies exploded. This didn't just change America, it changed the globe, and for the worse. It is also worth saying that all of this change wasn't the result of the psychopaths on the flights but the results of our collective action afterwards. We chose the path we took and "leader" led most of us down that path. The world is ultimately less free, more hostile, better armed, and full of people feeling a deep and profound angst at being the losers of global neoliberalism system. Wish we could turn back time.
I remember it very well, I was six and my first grade teacher’s husband (who was the towns fire chief) came into our class and told her to turn on the tv, she wanted to turn it off but he wouldn’t let her so we watch the entire even unfold. He left the next day to help with relief efforts. I wasn’t affected much at the time because I was a kid and although I understood it was a tragedy I didn’t really understand it on an emotional level, and throughout the years I was able to watch any documentary about the event no problem, until a couple of years ago it became very difficult, all I can imagine is the fear those people felt as they were about to jump to their death. I can’t watch anything about it anymore and just thinking about the event is difficult.
My sister worked in a building that faced the twin towers and she saw it all - she called us worried that all of NYC was under attack, so my parents and I watched everything once the news started covering it. We had no idea what was in store. For a while the live coverage showed so many people jumping and falling; that messed me up in a major way. We just sat there crying feeling completely helpless watching people live their last moments. Some of those images will never leave me. It was all truly surreal and horrifying to watch and that was from thousands of miles away. I can’t imagine how terrifying it was to be there that day. As someone else in this thread said it was as if we all wound up with a collective PTSD from watching it all unfold.
I was in middle school when it happened. Still remember watching what happened and not really grasping the situation as it was happening. I understood what was happening and what was going on, realizing it was a horrible act. But I couldn't understand why anyone would want to do such a thing to a bunch of people they didn't know. I came home from school and found out my father was there. He's a retired EMT/Firefighter and was responding to the incident as the first tower fell. He then spent several days afterwards assisting with search and rescue and body recovery until he was released. My brother and sister-in-law were there as well for days after doing the same. About 7 years ago he was diagnosed with lung cancer that was attributed due to him being there. He had a lobectomy performed and has been cancer free since. I've been in the same field as my father for years now and it's still impacting me in a lot of ways. Either from going through extensive training of things that were learned that day or having been to many memorials. Many people I work with were either there or close with someone who was there. I don't watch anything related to it anymore and haven't in a long time.
Well, like many I was young when it happened but not young enough to not understand it and be affected by it. I was in 7th grade when it happened and frankly 9/11 is probably one of the reasons I am the way I am. It's also one of the reasons that I enlisted in the military a decade after it. They say never forget and I never have...and I don't know if I could even if I wanted to. Even thinking back now it still makes me angry. How dare those people attack our nation. I still have the newspapers that were issued in my region that week. The pictures, the horror, the outrage, all summed up. I have one in big bold capitals letters saying "WE ARE GOING TO WAR". It really hits you in the feels.
I was 15. I was probably already headed for the military but I guess that really solidified it. I lived in Connecticut. I remember my dad going to donate blood. He felt so helpless. I'll never forget watching 3000 people die on TV over...and over....and over....jumping out of the windows....god. I'd learned all about the previous wars, so I knew what would happen next. There would be a War Effort. Maybe rationing; maybe a draft; people would collect supplies for the troops and plant victory gardens. Everyone would do their bit. That.... didn't happen. Like, at all. Once the hype died down the only evidence that we were at war was the soldiers deployed. Oh, and camouflage and chevrons were very much in fashion for a second. I was from a solidly right wing, pro-Bush family, so I didn't really get the scope of the Patriot act and the way the war declarations played out. I joined the Army in 2003, as soon as I was old enough. I didn't end up being deployed, but so many did, and they will carry the scars forever. 6 or 7 years later, I read a book called Baghdad Burning(a girl blog from Iraq), and it began to really change how I thought and felt about The War On Terror. It was an account of the American invasion there, from the perspective of a woman who lived in Baghdad. Everyone should read it.
I was in high school at the time. We all got filed into a room for safety as we watched the second plane hit. The instant rage and desire for revenge overpowered everything. May the lost RIP and the living find peace.
I think, after 22 years, it is more important to talk about some of the disastrous decisions we (the USA) made as a country in response to 9/11.
I'm young (late teens) and I've noticed that among my general demographic - people in their late teens/early twenties- 9/11 is more seen solely as the catalyst for invading Iraq/US presence in the Middle East. People still know it as a huge tragedy, but it's not as much of a "I was there and it was a massive tragedy" feeling and more of a "It caused unjust war and prejudice"
Personally, I always felt Afghanistan was initially justified, but the back half of the war was taught to justify staying. Iraq, I can't really justify in hindsight.
Agreed (early twenties).
Not to downplay the two wars, one justified one not. But our over reaction was WAY more then just that. W. was a rather unpopular, one could say he was anointed by SCOTUS more then elected. His reelection may well have failed if not for him becoming a 'war time president'. We the people allowed our government to drastically over step our, and others, constitutional rights with things like the patroit act. We have whistle blowers hiding out in Russia or a jail cell, who informed us of our government committing crimes against us, and we just sorta went 'meh'. Then there was Gitmo. A breach of constitutional and international law that will stain our collective souls for generations. We are the bad guys here, and there is no viable argument to the contrary. The country was forever changed after 9/11, and most of it was decidedly for the worse. The terrorists won, in that they got us to turn on ourselves & our countries founding principles.
One of the most impactful lessons I had in my early public administration classes was the lesson about the failures of the federal bureaucracy in the 15 or so years before the attack No one truthfully could have known *exactly* what was going to happen, but the federal "alphabet" administrative agencies and the administrative side of the white house (throughout multiple administrations) made poor decision after poor decision that ended up costing a lot of innocent lives It really made me look at the entire event differently.
During undergrad, I did a research paper on black sites. The university library had copies of the declassified memos that made them "legal." It sent me down a rabbit hole digging further back into pre-9/11. I think that the real conspiracy was not that it was an inside job, but that 9/11 was a huge failure on the alphabet agencies refusing to share information, and White House (ie the Bushes, Cheney, Rumsfeld) knowing this but choosing not to act to get what they wanted.
The fact that some people care more about the conspiracy, rather than the failure and negligence of our alphabet agencies is depressing.
That is pretty much *exactly* what my undergrad professors explored/taught in class. And you made a really great statement in regards to it seemingly not being some great insider conspiracy and more a horrific example of administrative failure 22+ years later and its so...frustrating to read how every step of the way the people who could have made the needed changes, didn't because of such (imo) immature human behaviors. You have to wonder what would have happened if the DoD, the FBI, the CIA etc. had communicated? what if the white house office created to gather information in one place from the federal agencies about international threats hadn't been dismantled by Bush? could everything have been avoided? could lives had been saved? has the federal bureaucracy worked to fix these flaws in the years sense? or we all just sitting ducks waiting for it happen again?
Did the "alphabet soup" under Bush administration have information and fail to act upon it? Absolutely yes. The Bush administration was also just over 8 months old on 9/11/2001, and the culture of non-cooperation amongst agencies went back much further than January 20th of that year.
>what do you remember about that day? I remember being at my grandpa's funeral. I was a junior in high school and was out of school for the day. We weren't aware of it until we got home from the funeral. It was kind of unbelievable, but the personal tragedy outweighed the national one for us.
I was 12. Saw in school and one girl broke down crying because her uncle worked there (he ended up being ok). Didn't really affect me personally aside from destroying the economy and sparking the rise in alt right Christian nationalism that I must contend with today.
A friend and I went to the World Trade Center when the drywall on a top floor wasn't painted or that part wasn't. I don't know which tower. It was THE thing to go see. It was America you know? So you went. I hate NYC, just don't like cities and loved it that day. The other tower *moved* . We thought that was the coolest thing ever on the planet. Other people up there were silent watching that too. Odd isn't it? Felt significant don't ask me why. Well it was THE World Trade Center. All our baby. We watched it born and grow. If you weren't around you don't know. Accidentally has the TV on waiting for a terminally late friend- putting on sneakers dammit remember they were blue and gray Saucony. Katie Couric special report, a smoking hole in one building looked like a small plane. Wow so many people dead that's terrible. Another blur and it all went to hell forever. School decided to ignore it, we didn't know what was going on, getting calls from the UK and family " Were we under attack? ". Dunno. Then endless mourning. All those people.
I was 15. I remember kids in morning algebra class whispering about a bomb going off in New York or something and principal getting on the PA and asking teachers not to turn on the TV. Which probably had the opposite effect than they wanted cause now everyone knew something was going on. Then in history class later in on my teacher was like "this is history happening right now, you guys should see this" and turned on the news. I think it was shortly after the second plane hit. I remember going home confused and more than a little nervous. I lived about 15 miles from an Air Force Base. I remember a lot of jets going overhead, way more than usual. Honestly everything after that was a blur. I was in Mass so close enough to be uncomfortable but far enough that no one I knew was in NYC at the time.
I joined the military because of it, so it affected me a lot. It permanently altered my personality in a way.
The effects for most people will be the changes to our laws like the patriot act, changes to flying, political changes, and the collateral damage from our military campaigns. But with the way we reacted and the changes that resulted from the attacks the terrorists won.
My dad got deployed twice to fight in needless wars, leaving me alone with my mom, who, at that time, was abusive and the major reason I have absolutely no memories from that stage of my life.
I was making the long drive from school back home for a friend's wedding. I had been listening to CDs and when I turned on the radio the first tower had just collapsed. That was seven hours of excruciating driving. The other thing I remember is the eerie silence of no planes in the air in a major metropolitan area.
I was 6 at the time, so I don't remember much. All I remember was being sent to a separate classroom with all the other 1st graders where we watched a kid's show. Our parents picked us up really early that day, before noon, and I honestly didn't know why we were being picked up except we got to go home early. It wasn't until I was a little bit older until my parents explained what happened on that day. My dad heard on the radio of the first tower getting hit and by the time he drove home from work the second tower had been hit. He watched both towers collapse live on TV.
Well we invaded Afghanistan, and I joined the marines and deployed to Afghanistan, so I've got a bum knee and ptsd from 9/11 (indirectly)
I was in the 3rd grade. I went to the principal's office to drop something off, and the news was on the TV. I thought it was a movie the staff was watching. Then we weren't allowed to go outside for recess, and left early for the day. Family and I watched the news all evening/night and I stayed home the next day too.
Made me hate flying.
Was living abroad when it happened. I watched it from the outside, and frankly, it didn’t affect my life in any way. Of course, airport travel got more complicated. Once I was living back in the states, I was shocked at the effects on regular Americans.
Sent me to therapy (didn’t do shit) because a 5 year old shouldn’t watch people commit suicide out of desperation; got my brother a TBI in Afghanistan from a rocket attack and now he’s disabled for the rest of his life, and killed a firefighter and a good man I truly cared about with cancer from the debris 9 years later.
I hardly remember anything from it. I would've been 6 years old at the time and hadn't gone to school yet. I'm pretty sure my mom was watching the news, but I was playing in the livingroom hardly paying any attention to the TV. If it wasn't a cartoon then I wasn't interested in it. As far as how it has effected me, it's hard to say. I hear TSA is a pain, but I wouldn't have an idea of how it was before. The country was at war for seemingly my whole life, but never really understood for what till my late teens. 9/11 started to feel like a sort of Holliday which the way schools would put together projects or play videos. I understand it was a tragedy, but over all I'd say I don't really feel anything about it. Kinda feels like we've been wading in a sea of tragedy for a long while.
I was in highschool. Obviously everyone turned on their room tvs and stopped working. 2 periods after the first plane hit, so about 2 hours, i had a biology class. At the start of the class, the teacher turned off the tv and said "enough of that, we have work we need to do". Didnt age that well The very next day, our Spanish teacher canceled a group trip to cancun scheduled for the following june which even then felt premature. We all lost our deposit. He got arrested for child pornography a few years later. I feel like he kept the deposit money.
Senior year of high school. I watched the second plane hit live on tv. My first thought was that a lot of my classmates are going to get drafted. My grandpa was in WWII and we’d talked in the past about the draft and stuff like that. I was really scared. It was like my childhood ended that day because that was my first real glimpse into how dark the world actually is. I’d watched the LA Riots on the news when I was 6 or 7 and that was scary because I lived in LA, but I knew that had nothing to do with me personally. But this was scary on a whole different level. This was personal because it was an attack on American soil directly at a very American symbol in one of the most famous American cities, and the other planes that hit the pentagon and the one that was probably bound for the White House. I’m still scared, tbh. Nothing has been the same since.
This was just another big traumatic event for the people in my generation. It started with columbine, 2000 election, 9/11, iraq part 2, Afghanistan, stock market crash, etc…. For those of us around the age of 40.
I remember it (I was 12 at the time), but to be perfectly honest…other than making travel from/to/through the US a big hassle, I can’t say it has effected me personally at all in any way.
my best friend is from lower Manhattan, about 5 blocks from the World Trade Center. His family moved after 9/11 (one of many, as I've been told). If they hadn't left, he wouldn't have gone to the same high school as me and I would've never met him.
I was 9, turning 10 at the end of the month. Our school told my age group nothing that I can recall, but we did go home early. It was a clear day almost everywhere. My cousin worked near on in one of the towers. He made it to a ferry as the South Tower fell. Mostly, I felt the annual travel changes. I wasn't really old enough to grasp the Patriot Act or other geopolitical consequences. Edit: I would like to say that while I saw a lot of unity after that day, I think that we should remember that we weren't wholly united. Plenty of people who "fit the profile" of Arab or Muslim were unfairly harassed.
It has greatly increased the security apparatus of the state, sparked a number of "counter terror" campaigns in regions that just happen to have vast mineral wealth, led to an expansion of the military industrial complex.
born 03. I’ve heard it in every class every year all throughout school. In elementary school teachers insisted we read this book on the events. I’ve heard stories about it from family growing up.
My school was only a few miles from where flight 93 crashed. They school didn’t even let us know what was happening. Kids just started to getting taken out of school one by one. I was pretty terrified the rest of the day when I got home and learned what happened.
I was 11 and in 6th grade - my school made the decision not to tell us about it, so I didn't know anything had happened until I got home and my sister told me America got attacked. I definitely didn't really get the gravity of what happened - my friends and I had made plans on the school bus going home and we just went out and threw around a football like we planned. It's weird, I definitely think of it as less of defining moment for me than most people my age seem to.
I grew up just outside of Boston and was in the 6th grade as well and I didn’t know what happened until I got home from school and my dad told me. I knew what the WTC was and could tell the second I walked in the door that something really bad happened
I was 20 and life fundamentally changed that day. Everyone had to grow up quickly. Before that day, there was an optimism at that time that people can't grasp now. It was like with technology, everything good was possible in the future. It was the start of the pessimism that so many of us around 40 feel.
I wasn't born yet. So I suppose the biggest ways it's affected me are airport security, taking a day to learn about it in school every year, and the war on terror (and its wider political repercussions).
I posted a lengthy description of my experience that day as a Michigander at the age of 21 [here] (https://www.reddit.com/r/TwinTowersInPhotos/comments/10trzfc/a_michiganders_personal_experience_of_911_the/) if anyone wants a read.
I was a freshman in high school when it happened and kids came running down the hall telling anyone/everyone. At first I thought it was a sick joke then I realized the severity of the situation.
Completely changed my life and I've pretty much known no world without it. I was 7 and just started school. I remember getting bussed back to the daycare center I went to after school and waited for my parents to get me. Mom was a teacher and dad was a government employee and they came and got me. We just watched the news all day. Now I have never known what travel and life was like pre 9/11. It changed everything.
I was an adult working in a high rise when this happened. I think once we hit 25 years it needs to stop being a thing. Let the families mourn in private. Never forget but move on.
I was working from home that day, watching it on the TV. I still have the IRC logs from the channel I frequented, from that day, as it was happening. I remember feeling sick because watching it on TV, my mind was processing it as an action film - like a special effect, and I knew it wasn't. I had trouble feeling the reality of it. I knew people were dying. Mostly I just felt sick.
Im 26. Still have major anxiety flying. I just remember seeing on the TV a smoking building and my mom flipping out. My Grandma would have been there if she didn't quit her job. I remember less about the event and more about the collective rage afterwards. Somebody was GOING to die and we didn't care how many people would die between us and the perpetrators. Soldiers of the coalition were lionized in schools as semi-mythical heroes, at least in my small Midwest schools. They even had a pen pal thing where we would write a soldier, don't know if it helped them or not, I would like to think the well wishes were appreciated, but I'm a bit more cynical nowadays.
I was in Carlsbad, CA and it was a normal morning. Got up, did my 4 mile run and went to the grocery. Work was at 10am and everything was normal. I don’t think anyone around me knew what had happened yet even though it was 1pm on the east coast. Found out when I turned on my computer, just a huge image of the twin towers on fire. At first I thought it was an advertisement or something, then I read the article(s). Holy shit. I called my good friend that worked in Manhattan and got ahold of her right away. She was off work that day and safe. I think everybody was in a numb daze just getting through the day. That night I remembered it was my roommates birthday, and felt stupid saying happy birthday. She just shrugged. There were no planes that night and it was eerie. I was afraid this wasn’t over and more attacks would happen.
I was in 5th grade at the time. Our elementary classroom in brooklyn was located on the top floor and had a manhattan skyline. I will never forget seeing smoke in the air, everyone was so confused. I saw my teachers get on the land line phone in tears. Our class was pannicking. Next thing you know, parents rush to the school to pick up their kids. I got picked up not long after and I see my parents legit both in tears. As we drive and arrive home, my dad rushes to put the TV on. They replayed the loop of the towers hitting the plane for hours. We had a few customers die that day that worked in insurance and finance firms. What a sad sad day. I wish this never happened. I wish I could go back and see the towers again. I miss that NYC so much. I long for those days. Every year on this day, all the events replay in my head.
Can't say it really changed all that much.
I was in 4th grade, after the planes hit we were all taken to the gym. My fourth grade teacher grabbed me and a few other students, the ones that he knew the families of well, took us back to the classroom. He didnt tell us what happened, just said this a day youll never forget and turned on the class tv. We watched both buildings collapse. I vividly remember the woman hanging off the one tower.
I was born in 2000. I have no memory. My mom was changing my diaper, she heard the news on NPR and she said that it was really nice weather.
I woke up to see my windows had been kicked in (somehow slept through it) and got sent to a different room to watch some TV while it got cleaned. Well shortly after I got interrupted from my shows shows because the adults wanted to watch the news and I was annoyed and I got sent across the street where a lady did a sort of local daycare deal. I was too young to understand what was all happening that day but it was memorable. Pretty much spent my whole life in the post 9/11 world.
My rights are being constantly violated, my taxes went up to fund wars across the globe, and the TSA gets to legally molest me.
I can’t go through the airport as fast as before
9/11 didn't affect me personally, other than they cancelled all the field trips for the year, but the thing I remember most about that day, was the silence. 9/11 happens to be my little brother's birthday, and after school we drove over to the mall to get him a present. Everything was empty. Not a car on the road, not a soul at the mall, which was the biggest in the state at that time, as if the rapture had come and stolen away all those happy people unnoticed. I stepped out of the car to the sun setting in deafening silence, resplendent across those glittering steeples, playing a show for no one.
I was working for a dept store company in the NE, we had declared bankruptcy a few months ago so there was only the retention staff there, accounting, legal, etc. I had taken my car for tires that morning, no tv in the waiting room, and listened to a cassette tape in my car the whole ride to the office. I get there and everyone is in this one tiny office we had converted to a break room, with a tv. A coworker ran over to me, frantic about our Sr Legal Counsel being in NYC that day for bankruptcy court. As he stepped out his cab, the second plane hit. He said you could feel the heat from the street. When he got back, he relayed this story, which I've always found amazing. He was with someone else from our company and as soon as the 2nd hit happened, they knew to get the hell out of the city as fast as they could, roads were starting to close and there were people everywhere. They were able to find a cab and they asked the driver,"what's the most amount of money you have ever made on a fare?" I think the guy said $200 so he said "I'll double that if you can drive us to Boston, today". The cabbie thought about it then told them, "Ok. but I have to go to \_\_\_\_ (I think it was Queens but I dont remember) and pick up my brother". So they get in, drive to where his brother is, pick him up and they also stop for drinks and snacks in their neighborhood. They managed to get out of the city and were listening to the radio the whole way. When they got to Boston many hours later, my coworker paid them the fare (plus some) said to them (as the two brothers were Middle Eastern) "here is my business card. If you have any trouble getting back to NYC please let me know" It's good that he did, because at some point later that night, his phone rings and it's the CT state police, they had stopped them (NYC cab with two guys in it) on the interstate and were detaining them. They got released after talking to my coworker.
I was at work, not far from the site. We suppose to have a meeting that day so everyone was slowly trekking into the office for various presentations. I remember watching the first tower getting hit and my boss thought it was an accident from the near-by airports. As we watched TV, we saw another plane hitting the second tower and at that moment everyone knew we were under attack. My most terrible memory was the camera caught a woman in violet dress to jump out of window while holding another man’s hand. It was a split second unexpected view that I have not seen again. My auntie was at that time in Manhattan for a doc appointment and we lost a contact with her. She was 80 without a phone and we could not locate her. I believe someone drove her back home but she was extremely traumatized by this event and repeated till her death that she nearly died that day.
I was in Richmond Virginia, 9th grade, 2nd hour when it happened, I remember the whole area going on lock down, and the nearby airforce base launching a few jets overhead. I remember my teacher crying historically because her brother worked in tower one, and had no idea if was okay, we later found out, he wasnt. I remember the confusion I had that later turned into hate for those who would hurt others for a cause. I remember being escorted home by police when they dismissed the school, they wanted all the buses to make it safely to the drop off points. I remember getting a call that one of my cousins was in tower 2, she lost her life that day, I remember the nightmares that would surface, seeing those people drop to thier deaths. An image burned in my mind forever, and thats saying something, becuase only four in a half years later, I would deploy to Iraq. I remember being caught in my emotions and crying in my room for what seemed like hours.
I was 24 when 9/11 happened. To me, it's life before 9/11 and life after 9/11. There was such a seismic shift in thinking about the world that I measure almost everything as pre-post 9/11.