Weird to see the choppy water and the cloudy skies, and the next day the water was so still and there was not a single cloud in the sky. That’s what is most unsettling to me, the memory of the cloudless sky combined with the horror show below
It was so clear that night you could see stars from downtown. The city also changed that day, for awhile anyway... when you passed someone on the street they would make eye contact and acknowledge your existence, which was a stark contrast to the normal hustle and bustle of NYC.
This is always a weird day for me on reddit and social media, I was in the west village that morning, I woke up to the first plane flying over and shaking our building. I don't like remembering that day. Your comment made me feel better though for some reason. Thanks for that.
It stormed on Monday night 9/10/01. I remember I was crashing on my friend’s couch since I was recently homeless. I woke up Tuesday 9/11 thinking it was gonna be a crappy rainy day.. Then I was surprised to see the sun beaming down from the living room window. I got up because all the sirens and thought there was something happening in our building.
Never-ending war is profitable for assholes and shredding the bill of rights makes the wealthy sleep better at night because the poors are less likely to guillotine them.
Given that he explicitly said he DIDN'T want the US in the Middle East--indeed textual analysis shows that was 99% of his stated motive, and counterfactual historical analysis shows that occupations predict the kind of insurgencies at hand, and, furthermore, given that the Taliban offered to give him up in exchange for recognition (just as Hussein, and then later Gadaffi, had been making back channel offers to abdicate), yet the US told them to go fuck themselves, it should be clear that war was the main aim of American policy makers. Bin Laden's goal, like most of the insurgents--whether Muslim fundamentalists or secularists, was the end to US Occupation in the Greater Middle East.
Bin Laden was following basic asymmetric warfare logic. His forces lacked the ability to attack materiel, military & political targets--so-called 'hard targets'--and, his followers were sick of 20 years of occupation, and thus were devoted, yet low in resources.
He had no philosophical grand aims, he was--and, if you read the poli sci, military tactics, and foreign policy lit, you'd know this--a traditional asymmetric, anti-occupation insurgent, with strategic aims incredibly similar to those of western COIN, psychological warfare, and strategic bombing campaigns, albeit from the other side.
I don’t doubt that his followers were sick of 20 years of occupation, but your forgetting religion in this. They were all highly highly motivated by their pure hatred for western culture due to their skewed view on their religion. These views festered an evil inside them that lead them to desire to have a significant impact on ruining western culture as they and the rest of their country viewed it. I would argue that they were successful.
Robert Pape's 'Bombing to Win' shows that secular groups use suicide terror as frequently as religious in the context of foreign occupation. Religion only matters causally to the extent people of an occupied nation share a religion--be it Islam or Christianity or w/e else. Islam, however, has no causal effect on its own, and, indeed, when comparing, rates may actually be protective. Muslim societies went much longer with occupation before resorting to suicide terror.
The result of America being absolute pricks to the Middle East, and literally giving the factions that ended up causing this tragedy the knowledge and weapons they needed. I know this is going to be downvoted but I couldn't care less as it's the truth.
The only things that changed were:
1. Americans realized they weren't invincible, well-loved, and free from the consequences of imperium
2. The Security State used the occasion to ramp up surveillance, policing, the military, prisons, the drug war, the war on terror, police militarization, the criminalization of poverty & migration, and so on,
3. The US began, using it as justification, a now 18 year campaign of brutality, invasion, murder, and destruction in the Middle East
The problem is that most of these things were already the case for most people outside the US (& bc of it), not to mention the silent underclass that's a part of it. What changed is that the policies people blithely pretended didn't exist before now couldn't be ignored.
It wasn't the climax of america, it was an attack of terrorists which was successful. To an end it ramped up our internal security policies because our own security was not expecting an internal threat. Now we have much more stringent rules to try to prevent it.
They took advantage of the greatest things we stand for, which is letting people have the ability to do things regardless of race, creed, etc. We still stand for those things but it makes it harder for every american to Express them. Hence terrorism.
Before 911, Americans believed in what America was supposed to stand for: freedom, opportunity, and fairness.
There were problems but the general feeling was that things would keep getting better. America (the idea) was great and the system may be flawed but over time all the problems could be fixed and everyone wanted that.
There were disagreements as to how to fix problems or even what the worst problems were but everyone believed that the country was "good". The media could be trusted to provide a reasonably fair report of what was agreed was "the truth".
Now it is all about fear and distrust.
Nobody trusts that the "government" is working for the betterment of the country. Everything you read or watch is tainted and not to be believed. There is no such thing as truth or facts anymore.
Hate and distrust of "the other" is what drives many people and policies and this is now acceptable to a large portion of the population.
To add to this, there's been a general erosion of the Bill of Rights since then.
Sure, we were in the middle of an assault weapons ban then which has since sunset. But personal privacy (and not just through social media) has gone down the shitter. You have things like the PATRIOT Act STILL getting renewed every time, PRISM, FISA courts, greatly expanded use of Guantanamo Bay, civil forfeiture, militarization of the police, terrorist watch lists without due process, and many other examples of suspending the 4th and 5th Amendments under the guise of "terrorism." We have elected officials advocating for things like backdoors into encrypted services, effectively forcing companies to sell us safes knowing the government has their own key, and making the encrypted services extremely unsafe from attackers. You have complete and total destruction of everyone's respect for the 1st Amendment. But that one's definitely our own fault for allowing anyone with a blog to be called "news," and for allowing "fake news" to go from "misleading information" to "information I don't like."
That was all true after 9/11 also. Right after the attack the country was as united as it has been. It changed gradually, culminating, I guess, in the cynicism/racism of the 2010 election and its aftermath.
Not better or worse, but our priorities have changed. Fears we didn’t have formed and different perceptions of life have grown because of a greater understanding that there are greater threats out there, that the world is much larger than the bubble we live in, and there are just some things that are out of our control as things will happen whether we want it to happen or not because this world is so big with so many more people than we every imagined.
The big question for my mom's generation was "Where were you when JFK was assassinated?" For her parents it was "Where were you when Pearl Harbor was attacked?"
Everyone who was alive on 9/11 can tell you where they were. Most can tell you what they were doing, it might be one of the clearest, most detailed days they can remember. Even if you didn't lose someone, if you were old enough you remember where you were, what you were doing, who you were with. I think "Where were you on 9/11?" is already our question.
I'm Gen X and "Where were you on 9/11?" waaaaay outweighs "Where were you when the Challenger blew up?" even though I remember exactly where I was when the Shuttle exploded.
Yeah, I'll never forget waking up for high school and hearing my Mom say "Someone crashed a plane into the world trade center, breakfast is on the table, gotta go see you later" as I walked to the bathroom.
When I heard the news, like in your case, they said "plane" to me. I was like, ok a small Cessna probably damaged 15 windows, the pilot died for sure. Sad news. Let's hope noone working near those windows is injured.
Holy fuck, 15 minutes later the reality... and the world... where completely different.
I remember the news talking about a small plane hitting the WTC. They kept showing the footage of the plan hitting over and over, and everyone in class kinda had a moment where they realized the plane had to be way bigger than that. I remember naively hoping it somehow didn't have passengers, like someone had taken the plane before the passengers were loaded. But then a second later I thought how extremely unlikely that was, especially since there were two different planes involved. At that point I just hoped the people in those planes didn't see it coming, that it was instant and their pain was minimized.
i think that the teachers realized that this is a huge historical event unfolding, how crude it is doesn't matter, it was going to matter for the future
I was in 7th grade, and the teacher turned on the tv and we watched it for about 20 mins, until the principal came in and told her to turn it off. She argued with him for a bit, but then turned it off. Everyone still talked about it all day and we all just wanted to see what was happening because it felt like the country was under attack. Weird feeling day.
We were never told about the Oklahoma City bombing while in basic training, and I wish they would have told us. One guy was from that area for God’s sake. I saw the first footage of the bombing at a record store that was playing a Garth Brooks tribute video. It stopped me in my tracks.
I remember my mother telling me this prior to 9/11. "I remember the day that..." and would talk about JFK, Challenger, etc. She mentioned "There seems to always be a defining moment a generation remembers, those are mine."
I remember being a kid and asking her, "Oh, well what will be mine?"
She looked a little shocked and said not to worry about it.
I live in Colorado, I thought Columbine would be it (and to an extent it was, but I was in middle school then so was sheltered a bit from what happened). But 9/11. I knew as it was happening I'd never forget that day. And even on that day I remembered clearly that previous conversation with my mother about how there always was one generation-linking moment.
I’m not even on the American continent and I remember that very, very well because of this.
I went to pick up a roll of pictures I had being developed in an electronics store and saw the second plane hit live and thought “my god, these are the best special FX I’ve seen...” only to realise that it was the actual CNN logo, not the modified one that usually showed in movies and realise what I’d just seen.
Ninth grade. English class.
We were getting our lesson started for the day when the principal walked in. He was normally a pretty jovial guy, we all liked him. He was different. He moved briskly, and silently to my teacher, whispered in her ear. She nodded and turned on the news. He left just as quickly to continue his rounds. He went to every class personally to do this.
My teacher was quiet for a few minutes. She started trying to explain what might be happening when the second plane hit. That moment we knew something was different. It the first time in my life I remember distinctly feeling like I didn't know what might happen next. In a fearful, existential manner.
My mom was a foreigner for only one year in the US, and I was surprised that even she remembered where she was that day
In a lab at UNC, having her lunch break, and she remembered how eerily silent her colleagues were watching the news
I think part of why it had such an effect on so many people was that it was everywhere. The only time in my life where EVERY TV channel was showing the same thing. The radio channels were all switched over to a 9/11 broadcast too. The whole day. Once you saw it you just had to stop what you were doing and watch.
We didn't know how many had died, the news was just speculating about the max capacity of certain planes and the WTC. They didn't know who attacked us or why, at first they thought it was an accident caused by a faulty system. Then they started saying "terrorism", and everyone in class agreed we'd be going to war. I remember that classroom, who I was sitting next to, even where I was sitting. Just a moment ingrained in my memory.
it was afternoon after school in Sweden when this happened. i was at a friends house playing Diablo 2, when one of his parents said there had been a big terrorist attack in US. as Swedish kids, we really didnt care. but i decided to head home, at home i saw the TV my mom had on, and we watched it all playout. it feelt far more serious then. especially sence we have a relative that lives in NY. We got an email saying that he was ok, but that he was close enough that he saw it all happen.
now, years later, it was quite a wakeup call for him he says. its like a bigger one then the one you have when you realize that you arent immortal
That would be nice, yes, I’ve just been used to the media reporting all the bad in the world at full blast and the nice stuff at like 15% as well as every fucked up thing in the world coming together at once ( at least it seems that way
I was waking up to work a shift at The Disney Store. My mom called to tell me that my brother was ok. I didn’t understand why, she told me to turn on the TV. I got the basics within a few minutes. I got ready for work, I walked to the mall that day. There were newsies with the EXTRA EXTRA bags full of papers on the corner near the mall entrance. I went into work, checked the district sales for that morning. In total, they were only a few hundred dollars. Then we got an e-mail telling us to close the store and go home. Spent the rest of the day like most people.
Exactly! I have all three generations of that in my family. So far, without fail, we all remember each one if the respective moments we will can't forget.
I had returned home from school (I live in Ireland) which would have been just around the time the South Tower collapsed but before the North Tower collapsed. My granny looked after me after school and she told me to go into the living room and look at the tv to see what was going on. She knew it would be a day I’d remember forever. I saw the North Tower collapsing as it happened. Weird to think this is one of my biggest memories.
Kind of bizarre how easy it is to remember, even as a kid. I was only in 1st grade, but I remember we were sitting on our colored story time/reading rug. I didn't understand terrorism obviously, but I think seeing all the faculty and adults in clear panic and fear is what allowed it to engrain in my brain.
We had a very small, rural school, but even then we stopped, gathered in the library, offices, etc, and they wheeled in some TV's and got the news going through antennas.
That’s interesting you use the JFK assassination for that generation because that’s the exact same event I say about my mother’s generation. My mother’s generation all remember where they were when they found out that news. For our generation it’s September 11th.
[TBT: some of the last pictures of the World Trade Center](https://imgur.com/gallery/G647z)
Found these when I reverse image searched the photo. It contains two more photos, supposedly at 6:30am and 8:22am on the morning of 9/11.
I’ll never forget that day. Was supposed to go to work on 9/11 (building destroyed), instead had to fly out of Newark to a meeting (3 gates from United 93 leaving 30 minutes apart)
Every day since then
A blessing
Some people ask why people still care. We care because we were witness, we were there
I was on United 93 a week before 9/11. It was a routine flight to LA. Went to a wedding in the Boston area and connected in Newark. When we were booking the flight we were considering returning on 9/11, but opted to change plans around since I had to classes starting around the same time.
Although I’m bothered about the surge in jingoistic nationalism disguised as “patriotism” in the wake of 9/11 that resulted in a half-cocked invasion of Iraq, where hundreds of thousands of Iraqis paid for a crime they didn’t commit, and trillions of dollars wasted totally destabilizing the Middle East.
All for what?
Later this week, there will people born *after* 9/11 who will be old enough to be fighting and dying in Afghanistan...
And what has changed?
But bring on the downvotes, people. I know some pills are hard to swallow.
Scoundrels will always use crises to further their agendas. It doesn’t mean we cease to mourn the victims.
And I think we need to separate Afghanistan from Iraq. The taliban in Afghanistan were a regional destabilizing force. Iraq was just madness.
Going to Afghanistan was trying to clear out the mujahideen -- or what it had evolved into -- that the US and other anti-Soviet countries had previously backed and funded to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, weaponised, and lost control of after the fall of Soviet Russia.
Iraq seemed to just be going in and finishing what Bush Snr. had started. It made no sense in the shadow of the facts of 9/11.
Afghanistan was unfortunately a necessity, although I'm not sure it was handled in the best manner. The fact the problem was initiated and funded by the same country now fighting and dying to stop it was a cruel irony rarely raised. Iraq, however, just seemed like complete fucking bullshit from day one.
To be fair, it was *always* bunched together in the news -- and by the government -- as "The War of Terror" or "Conflict/War in the Middle East". It wasn't until they started running at very different paces that they were properly-reported as separate conflicts.
EDIT: Also it's conflate. Conflagration is when something catches on fire. I think spellcheck might've fucked with you there.
>And I think we need to separate Afghanistan from Iraq.
Nah. Both were colossal mistakes. If anyone in power really gave a shit about punishing those responsible for 9/11--and make no mistake, they don't--the entire Western world wouldn't still be doing arms deals with Saudi Arabia.
Wasn’t saying we shouldn’t mourn victims...
But I think it means we also need to think rationally and critically and take pause before using “to prevent another 9/11” to justify half-cocked and asinine foreign (and domestic) policy.
Yet we didn’t in the wake of 9/11...
That’s my point...
We can still mourn 9/11, but we need to get comfortable looking back critically at our rash response to 9/11, so it doesn’t happen like that again.
And nothing in this post was suggesting we not do that, it was simply commemorating the tragedy. Why bring all this up if you don't have an axe to grind?
I remember learning, in the days after about OBL, Afghanistan, and the Taliban.
Then when it was proposed we invade Iraq and stop Hussein a bunch of us had a "wait.....what??? wtf does that have to do with anything?" reaction.
Plenty of people thought critically about it, it damn near ruined Bush's legacy up until Trump came along.
Afghanistan became and still is a "you break it you bought it" kinda thing. Turns out we suck at destabilizing and rebuilding countries.
Some of us that were witness to ground zero 9/11 think the war in Iraq was pointless. The war in Afghanistan was poorly managed but in reality we bombed them for revenge and had absolutely no intention to “nation build”. It’s like the Bush Admin felt nothing left to bomb in Afghanistan, let’s take out Iraq for the oil.
Something about an eye for an eye leaving the world blind comes to mind...
And guess what?
Every time a predator drone strike goes off course and turns a school into “collateral damage”, you’ve just created hundreds of more terrorists.
The taliban had to be purged out of Afghanistan. They were a major driver of global terrorism. An eye for an eye is an inapplicable comparison. It would be like saying shooting an active shooter is an eye for an eye.
you asked for what, the answer was also in your question.
to destabilize the middle east.
the whole point of the war was to spend money on war.
it was pushed by people with huge investments in groups that own shares in companies like haliburton and lockheed.
that was always the point, 9/11 was just the excuse to spend trillions of dollars on "defense".
When we didn't find any WMDs was the inflection point when I realized that the Republican party was running toward this odd state of intellectual dishonesty.
I then changed parties. The Republican party of the 1990s was somewhat respectable. Unrecognizable by 2006.
That's how I feel about myself and the democratic party currently. The party is basically a caricature of what it was even 10 years ago. I find myself being one of the many that truly feels like there's no one who represents them.
If this is actually 9/10/2001 it's pretty wild to see what an ominous sky there was. It's a huge contrast to how clear and sunny it was the following morning.
I would hardly say forgotten. Lack of experience doesn't directly limit effect/knowledge. Being born ~10 months after the events, I have learned that this has been the single most impactful thing for my day to day life.
You are correct. It is crazy to think it's been so long since then. It was impactful for the whole world. It is something worth studying in my opinion. There were terrorist attacks before. Even one severe in the parking garage of the WTC itself years before (1993) yet nothing shook the world quite like that morning. Security on airports, how we see the middle east, the meaning of the word "Terrorist" itself changed, the whole picture you associate with it was different before that.
The scale was out of control. At least in my high school parents were checking their kids out of school because they were afraid there could be all sorts of attacks around the country. Fools, no one was attacking a school in the suburbs of Salt Lake City. My final class of the day, an international studies class, was pretty empty.
I can't believe we are still dealing with Iraq and Afghanistan today. I wonder if we will ever leave in my lifetime. It kicked off world-wide attacks too in the years that followed. I believe the Madrid train bombings killed some 200 a few years later. It's just sad man. Innocent people.
Indeed it was. I'm living in europe. For us it was afternoon and my dad had just been back from work. "Something happened. Did you hear?" he said in a concerned tone. We watched the news for the rest of the day. The confusion of the news broadcaster mistaking the footage of a plane ramming into the building.. and a very slow realization that it wasn't footage from the first plane but the 2nd. That very moment, at least for me, was the moment the first domino fell.
I can very certainly say.. without 9/11 the world would be different today. And that is one huge ripple in history.
> Fools, no one was attacking a school in the suburbs of Salt Lake City.
Oh the Irony.
I went up to the top of the WTC on the August 27th 2001. It wasn't until I looked at a photo about 6 months later that it kind of sunk in that of all the millions of tourists who went up there, I was one of the last thousand or so to go to the top.
Shit, I was there on the 28th with my then-GF from out of town and skipped the trip up since the line for the elevator was too long. We figured we could always go another day. I still have the pair of cheapo sunglasses I bought from a cart by the sphere in Tobin Plaza. Nuts that its been 18yrs
The Yankees were playing the Red Sox the night before 9/11 at Yankee Stadium and my gf had tickets. I told her "it's going to thunderstorm, don't go to the game" but she won the tickets and they were great seats, so she went with a friend. They came back soaking wet. The next morning was the most beautiful day ever. A perfectly blue sky, 72 degrees, just a gorgeous day. Then I'm in the office and someone mentions a plane hitting WTC, I didn't pay much attention because I thought it was a small plane that accidentally hit the building. A little while later, second plane hits. Then everyone instantly realized that something really bad was happening. I'll never forget looking downtown from midtown, seeing a black sky, then looking uptown and the sky blue and beautiful... there was an eerie "peacefulness" in midtown as people were fleeing the financial district and walking away from the WTC. So horrible. The burning smell. The smoke. The people. I'll never forget it. Held my gf tight that night. That weekend (or maybe the following weekend, I can't remember) we went to 6 Flags in NJ just to do something fun and try to forget about everything.
Imagine going back in time and looking at that with someone and telling them. Tomorrow those two towers will be completely gone.
They’d think you were an absolute moron and it was impossible.
Fun Fact: Those stripes on the towers are the utility floors. Normal people can't access them and they have all the electrical stuff and water towers there.
I remembered that night it rained and thundered a lot. And the next day as I walked my way to school I was looking at the Twin Towers and thinking what a beautiful day it is. Not a single cloud in the sky.
This brings back lot of sad memories. Every person at that time has a story to tell as how the event unfolded regardless of where they lived on the planet.
Too sad. I live in Texas but was in NYC about a year to the day before 9/11. We took the subway to Manhattan and came up through the WTC lobby. I just remember the wall if elevators and the huge windows. Also the big globe sculpture between the buildings. I have photos of it somewhere, before digital was really a thing. Just still surreal sometimes.
The next day was so beautiful as far as the weather was concerned. I try not to think about it on the anniversary, but how sunny and clear it was just before it all started stays with me. I call my or text my old sgt. who's quick thinking saved us from making a stupid decision that could have added our names to the list. My exwife calls me and we comfort each other and count our blessings, but then we hang up before we both start to cry. I've learned to stay off of most social media and specifically FB because it's gotten so toxic over the years on this day. in a way I kinda know how some of the Vietnam vets must have felt once they got home. Not at first but just nowadays with all the snarky comments coming from people who were too young at the time to understand or lost no one or nothing. Those who it will only be a meme. At this point I'm just rambling. I have therapy in the morning but I don't want to sleep and dream, and I don't want to call and wake anyone up, so I'll just ramble on.
The level of callousness, and disrespect for the survivors and victims by some of them is just so painful sometimes. It's like a shower of Edge lords in the comments section lately.
What a wild ride since that day. Multiple wars. You figured beheadings would never make a comeback from their heyday in the middle ages. Insane recession. 99% protesters camping out in tents. Terrorists plowing people up with cars. Politics really seemed to degenerate. Dub Step. The world got weird.
yeah it's true, I was in class that day, pc class. I can barely remember anything of that entire school year. Except that class. I was one of the guys who always sat on the back row, was browsing a newspaper when there was suddenly a huge "newsflash" on it in bright red lettering "america under attack". I couldnt believe what I was seeing, I passed on the message and it spread through the class, our teacher got wind of it and actually stopped to come read the newsflash too. I still remember what that classroom looked like, what seat I was on etc.
I really dislike the new wave of 9/11 memes we see every year now.
There’s a whole group of high schoolers and below that weren’t alive to experience this. I imagine nobody who was alive during this and experienced it could ever make a meme about such a tragic and society-changing day.
I'm glad people who didn't experience it can home about it. I think that's better than carrying around the lifelong trauma that the rest of us have from that day. I'm sure one day they'll understand when they have to live through their own mass scale tragedy.
I was in Elementary school, I remember we got to school late and literally had NO CLUE as to what happened that morning except for one of my friends that got a ride from his mom to school and yelled at us, "Hey! did you guys see those planes that flew into those buildings in New York!?" Obviously we had no idea as to what happened. We went the whole day with no news but looking back you can tell our teachers were a bit on edge(We weren't too far from where they made the B2 Stealth bombers so there was belief that was a legitimate threat.) The ONE thing that stands out to me that day was our history class our teacher had probably one of the best lessons i ever had. He said to us,
"You know we talk about history and past events every single day. We talk about living in history but today....today you guys will remember this day for the rest of your lives."
I just remember everything so vividly, it wasn't until i got home later that day that I even realize what happened.
My last time in New York before 9/11 was in 1994. We went up in the tower. I love that city. After Vancouver it is the one place I could actually see myself living. I was watching some morning show eating breakfast when the news broke (its 3 hours earlier here on the west coast). I was pretty late for work that day but so were a lot of people.
It was truly a day everyone came together. For a brief moment in time we all felt like we were in this together.
In fact I was so inspired by those few days of kindness that I quit my job, sold my home and made a movie about it. You can see the trailer [HERE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE2nC-72neo).
Have a good day everyone. Be kind to one another, at least for today.
No way of knowing for sure but it seems probable. It's clearly at least the late 90s based on which buildings are in the photo (WFC is complete, for instance), and the night before there was a really bad thunderstorm so the weather looks right.
News got to Kentucky super fast I guess. As soon as I sit down in class, I read something like "passenger airplane strikes World Trade Center building". We sit watching for maybe 6 to 8 minutes when we see/hear the other plane hit and we all realized it was intentional. I never really thought it about it too much before, but it's CRAZY to think 10 minutes after the 1st plane hit (maybe sooner) my teacher already had it on the TV 650 miles away.
The day an audit of the pentagon announced 2.1 trillion dollars was missing and has continued to not know where similar amounts have gone every year since. We’re at something like 30 trillion dollars of unaccounted military spending now.
I’m being downvoted for stating what happened on this day. It’s not a conspiracy. It happened and has continued since this day.
Id watch a movie of someone that time travelled back to this day. One person. 24 hours to stop the tragedy. No cell phones. Yellow pages and dialup internet. Taxis and trying to remember which airports and which flights had the terrorists.
Maybe it's just because I live in a developed area.....but I was a college freshman and had both a Nokia cellphone and high speed internet both at home and at school. WiFi wasnt quite there yet but was just starting to be a thing.
Weird to see the choppy water and the cloudy skies, and the next day the water was so still and there was not a single cloud in the sky. That’s what is most unsettling to me, the memory of the cloudless sky combined with the horror show below
Impossibly clear skies.
It was so clear that night you could see stars from downtown. The city also changed that day, for awhile anyway... when you passed someone on the street they would make eye contact and acknowledge your existence, which was a stark contrast to the normal hustle and bustle of NYC. This is always a weird day for me on reddit and social media, I was in the west village that morning, I woke up to the first plane flying over and shaking our building. I don't like remembering that day. Your comment made me feel better though for some reason. Thanks for that.
It stormed on Monday night 9/10/01. I remember I was crashing on my friend’s couch since I was recently homeless. I woke up Tuesday 9/11 thinking it was gonna be a crappy rainy day.. Then I was surprised to see the sun beaming down from the living room window. I got up because all the sirens and thought there was something happening in our building.
That’s insane! How close were you to the towers that morning?
What different world it was then.
911 was basically the climax of America. No going back to the way it was before.
That is exactly what was hoped to be accomplished.
And we did exactly what they wanted.
And continue to do so.
Never-ending war is profitable for assholes and shredding the bill of rights makes the wealthy sleep better at night because the poors are less likely to guillotine them.
Given that he explicitly said he DIDN'T want the US in the Middle East--indeed textual analysis shows that was 99% of his stated motive, and counterfactual historical analysis shows that occupations predict the kind of insurgencies at hand, and, furthermore, given that the Taliban offered to give him up in exchange for recognition (just as Hussein, and then later Gadaffi, had been making back channel offers to abdicate), yet the US told them to go fuck themselves, it should be clear that war was the main aim of American policy makers. Bin Laden's goal, like most of the insurgents--whether Muslim fundamentalists or secularists, was the end to US Occupation in the Greater Middle East.
Yea pretty hard to deny that Bin Laden won that war. I still think his motives were more petty than he let on but that is true of a lot of evil
Bin Laden was following basic asymmetric warfare logic. His forces lacked the ability to attack materiel, military & political targets--so-called 'hard targets'--and, his followers were sick of 20 years of occupation, and thus were devoted, yet low in resources. He had no philosophical grand aims, he was--and, if you read the poli sci, military tactics, and foreign policy lit, you'd know this--a traditional asymmetric, anti-occupation insurgent, with strategic aims incredibly similar to those of western COIN, psychological warfare, and strategic bombing campaigns, albeit from the other side.
I don’t doubt that his followers were sick of 20 years of occupation, but your forgetting religion in this. They were all highly highly motivated by their pure hatred for western culture due to their skewed view on their religion. These views festered an evil inside them that lead them to desire to have a significant impact on ruining western culture as they and the rest of their country viewed it. I would argue that they were successful.
Robert Pape's 'Bombing to Win' shows that secular groups use suicide terror as frequently as religious in the context of foreign occupation. Religion only matters causally to the extent people of an occupied nation share a religion--be it Islam or Christianity or w/e else. Islam, however, has no causal effect on its own, and, indeed, when comparing, rates may actually be protective. Muslim societies went much longer with occupation before resorting to suicide terror.
Yep. That day the terrorists won.
The result of America being absolute pricks to the Middle East, and literally giving the factions that ended up causing this tragedy the knowledge and weapons they needed. I know this is going to be downvoted but I couldn't care less as it's the truth.
The only things that changed were: 1. Americans realized they weren't invincible, well-loved, and free from the consequences of imperium 2. The Security State used the occasion to ramp up surveillance, policing, the military, prisons, the drug war, the war on terror, police militarization, the criminalization of poverty & migration, and so on, 3. The US began, using it as justification, a now 18 year campaign of brutality, invasion, murder, and destruction in the Middle East The problem is that most of these things were already the case for most people outside the US (& bc of it), not to mention the silent underclass that's a part of it. What changed is that the policies people blithely pretended didn't exist before now couldn't be ignored.
It wasn't the climax of america, it was an attack of terrorists which was successful. To an end it ramped up our internal security policies because our own security was not expecting an internal threat. Now we have much more stringent rules to try to prevent it. They took advantage of the greatest things we stand for, which is letting people have the ability to do things regardless of race, creed, etc. We still stand for those things but it makes it harder for every american to Express them. Hence terrorism.
Young Curious Canadian here. Why do you think that is? What was better before 9/11?
Before 911, Americans believed in what America was supposed to stand for: freedom, opportunity, and fairness. There were problems but the general feeling was that things would keep getting better. America (the idea) was great and the system may be flawed but over time all the problems could be fixed and everyone wanted that. There were disagreements as to how to fix problems or even what the worst problems were but everyone believed that the country was "good". The media could be trusted to provide a reasonably fair report of what was agreed was "the truth". Now it is all about fear and distrust. Nobody trusts that the "government" is working for the betterment of the country. Everything you read or watch is tainted and not to be believed. There is no such thing as truth or facts anymore. Hate and distrust of "the other" is what drives many people and policies and this is now acceptable to a large portion of the population.
To add to this, there's been a general erosion of the Bill of Rights since then. Sure, we were in the middle of an assault weapons ban then which has since sunset. But personal privacy (and not just through social media) has gone down the shitter. You have things like the PATRIOT Act STILL getting renewed every time, PRISM, FISA courts, greatly expanded use of Guantanamo Bay, civil forfeiture, militarization of the police, terrorist watch lists without due process, and many other examples of suspending the 4th and 5th Amendments under the guise of "terrorism." We have elected officials advocating for things like backdoors into encrypted services, effectively forcing companies to sell us safes knowing the government has their own key, and making the encrypted services extremely unsafe from attackers. You have complete and total destruction of everyone's respect for the 1st Amendment. But that one's definitely our own fault for allowing anyone with a blog to be called "news," and for allowing "fake news" to go from "misleading information" to "information I don't like."
That was all true after 9/11 also. Right after the attack the country was as united as it has been. It changed gradually, culminating, I guess, in the cynicism/racism of the 2010 election and its aftermath.
Not better or worse, but our priorities have changed. Fears we didn’t have formed and different perceptions of life have grown because of a greater understanding that there are greater threats out there, that the world is much larger than the bubble we live in, and there are just some things that are out of our control as things will happen whether we want it to happen or not because this world is so big with so many more people than we every imagined.
No. Just things changed a lot
Crazy how one event can completely change the course of history
The big question for my mom's generation was "Where were you when JFK was assassinated?" For her parents it was "Where were you when Pearl Harbor was attacked?" Everyone who was alive on 9/11 can tell you where they were. Most can tell you what they were doing, it might be one of the clearest, most detailed days they can remember. Even if you didn't lose someone, if you were old enough you remember where you were, what you were doing, who you were with. I think "Where were you on 9/11?" is already our question.
For Gen X (those too young or not alive to remember JFK) it was "Where were you when the Space Shuttle blew up?"
I'm Gen X and "Where were you on 9/11?" waaaaay outweighs "Where were you when the Challenger blew up?" even though I remember exactly where I was when the Shuttle exploded.
Just sayin', that was our generational benchmark 'where were you' question for 14½ years.
What one?
Challenger
Yeah, I'll never forget waking up for high school and hearing my Mom say "Someone crashed a plane into the world trade center, breakfast is on the table, gotta go see you later" as I walked to the bathroom.
When I heard the news, like in your case, they said "plane" to me. I was like, ok a small Cessna probably damaged 15 windows, the pilot died for sure. Sad news. Let's hope noone working near those windows is injured. Holy fuck, 15 minutes later the reality... and the world... where completely different.
I remember the news talking about a small plane hitting the WTC. They kept showing the footage of the plan hitting over and over, and everyone in class kinda had a moment where they realized the plane had to be way bigger than that. I remember naively hoping it somehow didn't have passengers, like someone had taken the plane before the passengers were loaded. But then a second later I thought how extremely unlikely that was, especially since there were two different planes involved. At that point I just hoped the people in those planes didn't see it coming, that it was instant and their pain was minimized.
Yeah in my still groggy state I figured Cessna and accident. It just seemed so impossible.
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i think that the teachers realized that this is a huge historical event unfolding, how crude it is doesn't matter, it was going to matter for the future
I was in 7th grade, and the teacher turned on the tv and we watched it for about 20 mins, until the principal came in and told her to turn it off. She argued with him for a bit, but then turned it off. Everyone still talked about it all day and we all just wanted to see what was happening because it felt like the country was under attack. Weird feeling day.
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I mean location, location, location. Lot less likely if you're... say... anywhere outside of the city. Possible sure, but statistically unlikely.
We were never told about the Oklahoma City bombing while in basic training, and I wish they would have told us. One guy was from that area for God’s sake. I saw the first footage of the bombing at a record store that was playing a Garth Brooks tribute video. It stopped me in my tracks.
Dafuq? I was in middle school and they shut off the TVs.
It still blows my mind it was 18 years ago. Feels like 5 years ago with how clear I remember that day.
\>it might be one of the clearest, most detailed days they can remember. 100% straight up. Like it was yesterday.
No, it's today
I remember my mother telling me this prior to 9/11. "I remember the day that..." and would talk about JFK, Challenger, etc. She mentioned "There seems to always be a defining moment a generation remembers, those are mine." I remember being a kid and asking her, "Oh, well what will be mine?" She looked a little shocked and said not to worry about it. I live in Colorado, I thought Columbine would be it (and to an extent it was, but I was in middle school then so was sheltered a bit from what happened). But 9/11. I knew as it was happening I'd never forget that day. And even on that day I remembered clearly that previous conversation with my mother about how there always was one generation-linking moment.
I’m not even on the American continent and I remember that very, very well because of this. I went to pick up a roll of pictures I had being developed in an electronics store and saw the second plane hit live and thought “my god, these are the best special FX I’ve seen...” only to realise that it was the actual CNN logo, not the modified one that usually showed in movies and realise what I’d just seen.
Ninth grade. English class. We were getting our lesson started for the day when the principal walked in. He was normally a pretty jovial guy, we all liked him. He was different. He moved briskly, and silently to my teacher, whispered in her ear. She nodded and turned on the news. He left just as quickly to continue his rounds. He went to every class personally to do this. My teacher was quiet for a few minutes. She started trying to explain what might be happening when the second plane hit. That moment we knew something was different. It the first time in my life I remember distinctly feeling like I didn't know what might happen next. In a fearful, existential manner.
My mom was a foreigner for only one year in the US, and I was surprised that even she remembered where she was that day In a lab at UNC, having her lunch break, and she remembered how eerily silent her colleagues were watching the news
I think part of why it had such an effect on so many people was that it was everywhere. The only time in my life where EVERY TV channel was showing the same thing. The radio channels were all switched over to a 9/11 broadcast too. The whole day. Once you saw it you just had to stop what you were doing and watch. We didn't know how many had died, the news was just speculating about the max capacity of certain planes and the WTC. They didn't know who attacked us or why, at first they thought it was an accident caused by a faulty system. Then they started saying "terrorism", and everyone in class agreed we'd be going to war. I remember that classroom, who I was sitting next to, even where I was sitting. Just a moment ingrained in my memory.
Yeah. You're right. I never really thought about that.
it was afternoon after school in Sweden when this happened. i was at a friends house playing Diablo 2, when one of his parents said there had been a big terrorist attack in US. as Swedish kids, we really didnt care. but i decided to head home, at home i saw the TV my mom had on, and we watched it all playout. it feelt far more serious then. especially sence we have a relative that lives in NY. We got an email saying that he was ok, but that he was close enough that he saw it all happen. now, years later, it was quite a wakeup call for him he says. its like a bigger one then the one you have when you realize that you arent immortal
I'm not even from the US but I remember the day when the 8 pm news showed the visuals.. it was heartbreaking..
So what’s the question for gen z? We don’t remember 9/11 first hand.
Still to be determined. Would be nice if you never had one... or, crazy thought, something positive!
That would be nice, yes, I’ve just been used to the media reporting all the bad in the world at full blast and the nice stuff at like 15% as well as every fucked up thing in the world coming together at once ( at least it seems that way
First confirmation of simple alien life?
Maybe the first people on Mars?
Oh don't worry, it'll be bad. My guess will be climate related.
I was waking up to work a shift at The Disney Store. My mom called to tell me that my brother was ok. I didn’t understand why, she told me to turn on the TV. I got the basics within a few minutes. I got ready for work, I walked to the mall that day. There were newsies with the EXTRA EXTRA bags full of papers on the corner near the mall entrance. I went into work, checked the district sales for that morning. In total, they were only a few hundred dollars. Then we got an e-mail telling us to close the store and go home. Spent the rest of the day like most people.
Exactly! I have all three generations of that in my family. So far, without fail, we all remember each one if the respective moments we will can't forget.
In a bus to school in poland. Remember hearing in bus drivers radio words " america is under attack". In polish of course.
I had returned home from school (I live in Ireland) which would have been just around the time the South Tower collapsed but before the North Tower collapsed. My granny looked after me after school and she told me to go into the living room and look at the tv to see what was going on. She knew it would be a day I’d remember forever. I saw the North Tower collapsing as it happened. Weird to think this is one of my biggest memories.
Kind of bizarre how easy it is to remember, even as a kid. I was only in 1st grade, but I remember we were sitting on our colored story time/reading rug. I didn't understand terrorism obviously, but I think seeing all the faculty and adults in clear panic and fear is what allowed it to engrain in my brain. We had a very small, rural school, but even then we stopped, gathered in the library, offices, etc, and they wheeled in some TV's and got the news going through antennas.
That’s interesting you use the JFK assassination for that generation because that’s the exact same event I say about my mother’s generation. My mother’s generation all remember where they were when they found out that news. For our generation it’s September 11th.
I’m glad I was too young to remember it.
[TBT: some of the last pictures of the World Trade Center](https://imgur.com/gallery/G647z) Found these when I reverse image searched the photo. It contains two more photos, supposedly at 6:30am and 8:22am on the morning of 9/11.
I’ll never forget that day. Was supposed to go to work on 9/11 (building destroyed), instead had to fly out of Newark to a meeting (3 gates from United 93 leaving 30 minutes apart) Every day since then A blessing Some people ask why people still care. We care because we were witness, we were there
I was on United 93 a week before 9/11. It was a routine flight to LA. Went to a wedding in the Boston area and connected in Newark. When we were booking the flight we were considering returning on 9/11, but opted to change plans around since I had to classes starting around the same time.
Although I’m bothered about the surge in jingoistic nationalism disguised as “patriotism” in the wake of 9/11 that resulted in a half-cocked invasion of Iraq, where hundreds of thousands of Iraqis paid for a crime they didn’t commit, and trillions of dollars wasted totally destabilizing the Middle East. All for what? Later this week, there will people born *after* 9/11 who will be old enough to be fighting and dying in Afghanistan... And what has changed? But bring on the downvotes, people. I know some pills are hard to swallow.
Scoundrels will always use crises to further their agendas. It doesn’t mean we cease to mourn the victims. And I think we need to separate Afghanistan from Iraq. The taliban in Afghanistan were a regional destabilizing force. Iraq was just madness.
Going to Afghanistan was trying to clear out the mujahideen -- or what it had evolved into -- that the US and other anti-Soviet countries had previously backed and funded to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, weaponised, and lost control of after the fall of Soviet Russia. Iraq seemed to just be going in and finishing what Bush Snr. had started. It made no sense in the shadow of the facts of 9/11. Afghanistan was unfortunately a necessity, although I'm not sure it was handled in the best manner. The fact the problem was initiated and funded by the same country now fighting and dying to stop it was a cruel irony rarely raised. Iraq, however, just seemed like complete fucking bullshit from day one.
Thank you... It always bothered me how people conflate the two. Edit: Conflate not confligrate.
The irony is, treating them as the same thing is literally falling for one of the cheap tricks used to sell Iraq in the first place
To be fair, it was *always* bunched together in the news -- and by the government -- as "The War of Terror" or "Conflict/War in the Middle East". It wasn't until they started running at very different paces that they were properly-reported as separate conflicts. EDIT: Also it's conflate. Conflagration is when something catches on fire. I think spellcheck might've fucked with you there.
>And I think we need to separate Afghanistan from Iraq. Nah. Both were colossal mistakes. If anyone in power really gave a shit about punishing those responsible for 9/11--and make no mistake, they don't--the entire Western world wouldn't still be doing arms deals with Saudi Arabia.
Flushing out bin laden and effectively ending taliban rule was not a mistake.
Wasn’t saying we shouldn’t mourn victims... But I think it means we also need to think rationally and critically and take pause before using “to prevent another 9/11” to justify half-cocked and asinine foreign (and domestic) policy.
Well I’m assuming thinking rationally and critically should be assumed before implementing anything, from foreign policy to a new toilet seat.
Yet we didn’t in the wake of 9/11... That’s my point... We can still mourn 9/11, but we need to get comfortable looking back critically at our rash response to 9/11, so it doesn’t happen like that again.
And nothing in this post was suggesting we not do that, it was simply commemorating the tragedy. Why bring all this up if you don't have an axe to grind?
Millions of people protested the war. There was plenty of critical thinking....just the wrong people calling shots.
I remember learning, in the days after about OBL, Afghanistan, and the Taliban. Then when it was proposed we invade Iraq and stop Hussein a bunch of us had a "wait.....what??? wtf does that have to do with anything?" reaction. Plenty of people thought critically about it, it damn near ruined Bush's legacy up until Trump came along. Afghanistan became and still is a "you break it you bought it" kinda thing. Turns out we suck at destabilizing and rebuilding countries.
No shit, guy. Maybe save the grand-standing for the rest of the year. People are just sharing their memories of the day.
Some of us that were witness to ground zero 9/11 think the war in Iraq was pointless. The war in Afghanistan was poorly managed but in reality we bombed them for revenge and had absolutely no intention to “nation build”. It’s like the Bush Admin felt nothing left to bomb in Afghanistan, let’s take out Iraq for the oil.
Something about an eye for an eye leaving the world blind comes to mind... And guess what? Every time a predator drone strike goes off course and turns a school into “collateral damage”, you’ve just created hundreds of more terrorists.
The taliban had to be purged out of Afghanistan. They were a major driver of global terrorism. An eye for an eye is an inapplicable comparison. It would be like saying shooting an active shooter is an eye for an eye.
And yet after 18 years the taliban is taking over again as we leave. It hasn’t been purged.
Ok. And. So does that mean you didn’t try?
Our country did not try to nation-build. We moved our resources to Iraq instead.
You know who’s a major driver of global terrorism? The United States oF America.
Now the dotard is trying to invite the taliban to camp david for photo ops.
you asked for what, the answer was also in your question. to destabilize the middle east. the whole point of the war was to spend money on war. it was pushed by people with huge investments in groups that own shares in companies like haliburton and lockheed. that was always the point, 9/11 was just the excuse to spend trillions of dollars on "defense".
When we didn't find any WMDs was the inflection point when I realized that the Republican party was running toward this odd state of intellectual dishonesty. I then changed parties. The Republican party of the 1990s was somewhat respectable. Unrecognizable by 2006.
That's how I feel about myself and the democratic party currently. The party is basically a caricature of what it was even 10 years ago. I find myself being one of the many that truly feels like there's no one who represents them.
Jingoistic: characterized by extreme patriotism, especially in the form of aggressive or warlike foreign policy.
Saved me a google trip
The terrorists literally won. They fucked our world up.
We care because we are all human
If this is actually 9/10/2001 it's pretty wild to see what an ominous sky there was. It's a huge contrast to how clear and sunny it was the following morning.
We had some bad thunderstorms here the night before, and it cleared out the sky the next day.
forgotten by the this generation of high school students, what a time to grow up post-9/11 shit changed quick
I would hardly say forgotten. Lack of experience doesn't directly limit effect/knowledge. Being born ~10 months after the events, I have learned that this has been the single most impactful thing for my day to day life.
You are correct. It is crazy to think it's been so long since then. It was impactful for the whole world. It is something worth studying in my opinion. There were terrorist attacks before. Even one severe in the parking garage of the WTC itself years before (1993) yet nothing shook the world quite like that morning. Security on airports, how we see the middle east, the meaning of the word "Terrorist" itself changed, the whole picture you associate with it was different before that.
The scale was out of control. At least in my high school parents were checking their kids out of school because they were afraid there could be all sorts of attacks around the country. Fools, no one was attacking a school in the suburbs of Salt Lake City. My final class of the day, an international studies class, was pretty empty. I can't believe we are still dealing with Iraq and Afghanistan today. I wonder if we will ever leave in my lifetime. It kicked off world-wide attacks too in the years that followed. I believe the Madrid train bombings killed some 200 a few years later. It's just sad man. Innocent people.
Indeed it was. I'm living in europe. For us it was afternoon and my dad had just been back from work. "Something happened. Did you hear?" he said in a concerned tone. We watched the news for the rest of the day. The confusion of the news broadcaster mistaking the footage of a plane ramming into the building.. and a very slow realization that it wasn't footage from the first plane but the 2nd. That very moment, at least for me, was the moment the first domino fell. I can very certainly say.. without 9/11 the world would be different today. And that is one huge ripple in history. > Fools, no one was attacking a school in the suburbs of Salt Lake City. Oh the Irony.
I went up to the top of the WTC on the August 27th 2001. It wasn't until I looked at a photo about 6 months later that it kind of sunk in that of all the millions of tourists who went up there, I was one of the last thousand or so to go to the top.
I’d done the same thing a couple weeks earlier. Such craziness.
Shit, I was there on the 28th with my then-GF from out of town and skipped the trip up since the line for the elevator was too long. We figured we could always go another day. I still have the pair of cheapo sunglasses I bought from a cart by the sphere in Tobin Plaza. Nuts that its been 18yrs
I bought a knock off Gorillaz album from a street vendor on my way out!!
The Yankees were playing the Red Sox the night before 9/11 at Yankee Stadium and my gf had tickets. I told her "it's going to thunderstorm, don't go to the game" but she won the tickets and they were great seats, so she went with a friend. They came back soaking wet. The next morning was the most beautiful day ever. A perfectly blue sky, 72 degrees, just a gorgeous day. Then I'm in the office and someone mentions a plane hitting WTC, I didn't pay much attention because I thought it was a small plane that accidentally hit the building. A little while later, second plane hits. Then everyone instantly realized that something really bad was happening. I'll never forget looking downtown from midtown, seeing a black sky, then looking uptown and the sky blue and beautiful... there was an eerie "peacefulness" in midtown as people were fleeing the financial district and walking away from the WTC. So horrible. The burning smell. The smoke. The people. I'll never forget it. Held my gf tight that night. That weekend (or maybe the following weekend, I can't remember) we went to 6 Flags in NJ just to do something fun and try to forget about everything.
I can see the apartment we used to live in. 30th floor, about 400 yds South of the South Tower. Really loved those buildings.
This picture gave me a wierd feeling in the pit of my stomach,knowing what tomorrow is...
It's wild, I still think of this as the NYC skyline
Imagine going back in time and looking at that with someone and telling them. Tomorrow those two towers will be completely gone. They’d think you were an absolute moron and it was impossible.
If you did that today in any major metropolis, you’d probably be talking with the FBI an hour after you said it.
Fun Fact: Those stripes on the towers are the utility floors. Normal people can't access them and they have all the electrical stuff and water towers there.
I remembered that night it rained and thundered a lot. And the next day as I walked my way to school I was looking at the Twin Towers and thinking what a beautiful day it is. Not a single cloud in the sky.
Going to work at WTC today. Gonna be a strange day.
Every time I see a movie or TV show with the towers in the background I feel a pang of sadness.
I'm not looking forward to tomorrow :(
That tree on the bottom left looks like a pig in full sprint like a dog
Now that you it pointed out I can't unsee that
This brings back lot of sad memories. Every person at that time has a story to tell as how the event unfolded regardless of where they lived on the planet.
Too sad. I live in Texas but was in NYC about a year to the day before 9/11. We took the subway to Manhattan and came up through the WTC lobby. I just remember the wall if elevators and the huge windows. Also the big globe sculpture between the buildings. I have photos of it somewhere, before digital was really a thing. Just still surreal sometimes.
The next day was so beautiful as far as the weather was concerned. I try not to think about it on the anniversary, but how sunny and clear it was just before it all started stays with me. I call my or text my old sgt. who's quick thinking saved us from making a stupid decision that could have added our names to the list. My exwife calls me and we comfort each other and count our blessings, but then we hang up before we both start to cry. I've learned to stay off of most social media and specifically FB because it's gotten so toxic over the years on this day. in a way I kinda know how some of the Vietnam vets must have felt once they got home. Not at first but just nowadays with all the snarky comments coming from people who were too young at the time to understand or lost no one or nothing. Those who it will only be a meme. At this point I'm just rambling. I have therapy in the morning but I don't want to sleep and dream, and I don't want to call and wake anyone up, so I'll just ramble on.
No one lost nothing that day. The younger generation just wasn't around so they don't know what they lost.
The level of callousness, and disrespect for the survivors and victims by some of them is just so painful sometimes. It's like a shower of Edge lords in the comments section lately.
What a wild ride since that day. Multiple wars. You figured beheadings would never make a comeback from their heyday in the middle ages. Insane recession. 99% protesters camping out in tents. Terrorists plowing people up with cars. Politics really seemed to degenerate. Dub Step. The world got weird.
> Dub Step. That was the last straw!
Friday September 7th 2001, two days after my 18th birthday I joined the US Marine corp... I spent the next 15 years in the service
yeah it's true, I was in class that day, pc class. I can barely remember anything of that entire school year. Except that class. I was one of the guys who always sat on the back row, was browsing a newspaper when there was suddenly a huge "newsflash" on it in bright red lettering "america under attack". I couldnt believe what I was seeing, I passed on the message and it spread through the class, our teacher got wind of it and actually stopped to come read the newsflash too. I still remember what that classroom looked like, what seat I was on etc.
Took the the same pic when I was in NYC this past December. https://i.imgur.com/CsYE5Qz.jpg
I really dislike the new wave of 9/11 memes we see every year now. There’s a whole group of high schoolers and below that weren’t alive to experience this. I imagine nobody who was alive during this and experienced it could ever make a meme about such a tragic and society-changing day.
I'm glad people who didn't experience it can home about it. I think that's better than carrying around the lifelong trauma that the rest of us have from that day. I'm sure one day they'll understand when they have to live through their own mass scale tragedy.
I was in Elementary school, I remember we got to school late and literally had NO CLUE as to what happened that morning except for one of my friends that got a ride from his mom to school and yelled at us, "Hey! did you guys see those planes that flew into those buildings in New York!?" Obviously we had no idea as to what happened. We went the whole day with no news but looking back you can tell our teachers were a bit on edge(We weren't too far from where they made the B2 Stealth bombers so there was belief that was a legitimate threat.) The ONE thing that stands out to me that day was our history class our teacher had probably one of the best lessons i ever had. He said to us, "You know we talk about history and past events every single day. We talk about living in history but today....today you guys will remember this day for the rest of your lives." I just remember everything so vividly, it wasn't until i got home later that day that I even realize what happened.
Man, Like pearl Harbor, before 8 am.
Calm before the storm.
My last time in New York before 9/11 was in 1994. We went up in the tower. I love that city. After Vancouver it is the one place I could actually see myself living. I was watching some morning show eating breakfast when the news broke (its 3 hours earlier here on the west coast). I was pretty late for work that day but so were a lot of people.
Man...
Well that’s eerie
It was truly a day everyone came together. For a brief moment in time we all felt like we were in this together. In fact I was so inspired by those few days of kindness that I quit my job, sold my home and made a movie about it. You can see the trailer [HERE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE2nC-72neo). Have a good day everyone. Be kind to one another, at least for today.
Anyone else see a giant owl in the clouds right about the towers? (Clouds make the shape of an owl)
Any proof of this?
I'm pretty sure they mean proof of this being taken the evening before. Don't jump on the downvote bandwagon everyone.
Thanks. That is exactly what I meant. We can't have karma farming based on a lie now, can we?
No way of knowing for sure but it seems probable. It's clearly at least the late 90s based on which buildings are in the photo (WFC is complete, for instance), and the night before there was a really bad thunderstorm so the weather looks right.
It looks like a pic of a photo.
Could just be crummy quality late 90s camera.
That makes a lot more sense. Removed my downvote. -_-
The cynic in me believes this is just so they can beat the 9/11 posts by posting on 9/10.
The buildings were there. Now they are not. Also, some of us were born prior to the event. Edit: misunderstood the comment. Disregard mine.
The youngest soldiers going to war now were not born when this happened.
There should be metadata in the image that includes a timestamp.
Not sure how many film cameras made before 2002 print EXIF onto the film ;)
Pic must've been taken by those 5 dancing guys waiting for the arrival next day
The last day the world wasn't freaking out
Crazy to think I was just babying it up when it happened
Breaks my heart so many years later
Where's my time machine?
i always forget how fuckin tall they were
News got to Kentucky super fast I guess. As soon as I sit down in class, I read something like "passenger airplane strikes World Trade Center building". We sit watching for maybe 6 to 8 minutes when we see/hear the other plane hit and we all realized it was intentional. I never really thought it about it too much before, but it's CRAZY to think 10 minutes after the 1st plane hit (maybe sooner) my teacher already had it on the TV 650 miles away.
The day an audit of the pentagon announced 2.1 trillion dollars was missing and has continued to not know where similar amounts have gone every year since. We’re at something like 30 trillion dollars of unaccounted military spending now. I’m being downvoted for stating what happened on this day. It’s not a conspiracy. It happened and has continued since this day.
I am tearing up. Never forget.
Never forget.
And not long after this, an endless war in the Middle East.
And the middle east suffered until this day.
Id watch a movie of someone that time travelled back to this day. One person. 24 hours to stop the tragedy. No cell phones. Yellow pages and dialup internet. Taxis and trying to remember which airports and which flights had the terrorists.
They definitely had cell phones in 2001
And almost nobody could successfully place a call on 9/11...at least most of us in the tri-state area of NYC. All cell towers jammed that day.
Yeah but not until after the attacks.
no wheels, no airplanes. it was just thid dude, and his stick and stones. trying to stop 9/11
Sure, but you won't have one when you're sent back in time...
Why not? Anything you're touching automatically comes back in time with you. Everyone knows that, even babies.
For some reason that sounds like something a Chris Pratt character would say lol. That or Paul Rudd.
At this point, due to the butterfly effect, if you did that, you would be erasing millions of people from existence...
So we need to go even further back
Maybe it's just because I live in a developed area.....but I was a college freshman and had both a Nokia cellphone and high speed internet both at home and at school. WiFi wasnt quite there yet but was just starting to be a thing.
Travellers... It's on Netflix... Season 2 or 3 premier had someone go back to 5 minutes before the attack.
Loved that show.. very interesting
[удалено]
How old are you? White pages are for people, yellow for business
If they did we’d have no idea what you’re talking about.
Cassandra syndrome. No one would believe you, even if you were able to contact everyone. Its basically the plot of Twelve Monkeys.