2001 started out to be a good year and quickly went down hill. I left the US Army in Feb 2001 after 12 years of active service, started a new job in California, just north of San Francisco. Then in May my mother was diagnosed with cancer... I was at a new job so I couldn't take vacation to see her until I had been with them six months. I took vacation and flew to Michigan to see my family in early September 2001. My plane ticket back to California was for September 12... On September 11, my body was still on CA time, and I was in MI, so I was sleeping in. My youngest brother, who had turned 24 just 2 days earlier called my mother, and I just hear my mother say "Oh My God! Oh My God! The Pentagon? Oh My God". My other brother came running upstairs and turned on his TV. I walked into his room, and we stared at his TV for most of that day, in disbelief at first, then anger as we realized it was an attack. I did get back to CA a few days later, on the 2nd plane carrying passengers to leave Detroit Metro Airport. September 11, 2001 was the worst terrorist attack on US soil ever. It highlighted many intelligence failures. Since then there have been many intelligence successes though that have prevented other attacks. I applaud the US military, intelligence services, police and fire departments that keep us safe. I will also condemn any person, organization, or country that attempts to harm the people, or the government of the United States. I will always support our military in swiftly dispatching those enemies.
I was in 6th grade and my mom was driving me to school when we heard on the radio that a plane had hit the WTC. I didn't think much at the time and thought maybe a single-engine Cessna had crashed accidentally or maybe tried to commit suicide. That said, at school we learned that another plane had hit the other tower. That was no coincidence. I was dazed all day. We had TVs in our classrooms and we just spent all day watching the non-stop coverage. When I got home, I cried for a long time. I still can get teary-eyed when I hear Alan Jackson's "Where Were You... when the world stopped turning." Sidenore: During the anthrax scare, I remember for a second thinking of faxing my grandma's prescription of Cipro (for her UTIs ) to a Canadian pharmacy before sending it to our local pharmacy to stockpile the drug in case we needed it. Even as a young kid I was a conniving son of a gun. :lol:
I was 7, back in primary school year 4. Hm.. Oh Oh Oh! I remember we had a school trip to a local farm we learned wheere wool came from and how to make woollen flowers. I dropped off home by my teacher and then my grandad came home drunk from the pub... I think I remember he was mad about losing his bet on a horse and took it out on my and my younger sister. If anything.. it made me stronger.. and some sort of a way
I... have a lot I could say on this, but I'll leave that to somebody else, to open first. Let's see... I was 14, I believe, and living in Tennessee, with my step-father and my mother. I was in the 9th grade, so, I had just begun high school. I was in I.C.E. (Isolated Classroom Environment; basically, all-day detention), when the teacher's phone rang. Obviously, they were being informed of what happened. Immediately, they turned their television on, and we watched the events unfold. I remember being particularly fascinated, because you didn't often see things of that magnitude, despite reading about them in History, or hearing about them from others. I recall a few individuals were saying things like, " Oh, hell naw! " and " Somebody 'bout to get they ass KICKED, son! ". You know, typical little angry-but-hiding-behind-badass-boast kind of remarks. The teacher told us, we would be reporting back to our classes. I assume this was done, because the I.C.E. building, was separate from the main school building, and it was for safety purposes. Anyway, we were all dropped off at our respective classes, which for me was Social Studies. Since everyone was so focused on what was going on, I actually skipped school, and walked down to the McDonald's. Inside, nobody was doing anything, they were just listening to the radio, and each other. Realizing, I wasn't going to have anything to eat, I just listened for a while. Nobody seemed to care, that a 14 year old, wasn't in school. I walked across the parking lot, to Hastings, which is a multi-media store, and killed time just skimming the movies and books. All the while, listening to people, and watching the televisions, that they had set up, to show the news. Again. Nobody seemed to care, that a 14 year old, wasn't in school. When it was about time to go home, I walked back up to the school, got on my bus, and rode home. On the ride back home, people were still talking about it, and it seemed to be a mix between surprise, anger, and excitement. Those who were surprised, tended to not know what to think, while those who were angry, seemed to just talk a lot of noise. However, the excited ones, seemed eager for how America was going to respond, and were wanting to " bomb those fucking sand [CENSORED]s! ". When I got home, my step-father was already there. He was a construction worker, and he had been doing a job on a military base, so, when the planes hit the towers, he was sent home. I watched a little bit more of the news coverage, until he turned it to something else, because he was tired of hearing the same thing over and over. Later that night, there was a community center up the road, from where I lived, and every Tuesday they had it open, so, some of the neighborhood kids showed up. Of course, everybody was talking about what had happened, and there was a television hooked up inside to watch the news. Really, that was about it, well, for that day. I could talk about the next day, or even the aftermath of that day, but... I'll leave that be, for now. The rest, as they say, is history...
I was in Bible class senior year of high school and our teacher ironically was talking about how God can use bad situations for his good. Our chaplain walked in at the end of first hour about 9 am and said that the World Trade Center had been hit. I wasn't too worried at first. After all, there had been a previous attack in the early 90's. My Sunday school teacher at church had been in that one. We were in speech class when I heard about the south tower getting hit. We knew it was no accident at that point. I can't remember what we did for the rest of speech class. I do know that our English teacher still made us take our quiz with everything still unraveling. I could barely focus because she turned the TV on after a few people got done. A stupid quiz was the last thing on my mind. The rest of the day we either listened to the radio or watched the TV. I was sincerely afraid by lunch time rolled around that we would be attacked here in Detroit. United 93 crashed in Pennsylvania. We had no idea if it would be more than 4 planes or not. That night it was absolutely quiet. Our home was in the flight path of Detroit City Airport. To hear nothing that night was shockingly scary. If we did hear something, we knew it meant absolute terror. I was supposed to pick up P.O.D.'s new CD that dropped that day, but my mom said "No, we're going right home." I got the CD and free poster a few days later, and it had the date September 11, 2001 at the bottom. My mom made me remove the date from the poster because she was so upset(it had a perforation). We did nothing for the next few days in any classes. Sociology class was listening to the radio for a week in class and then discussing the events even a few days following that.
I'm British so it was near the end of a school day for us when little rumours started to fly around. I was 14. The teachers didn't know, and all I heard were constant whispers of "Twin Towers" and "Big plane" as I moved from class to class. After school we decided to go to a friend's house to pick up his puppy, and as we walked in we saw his mother and his sister on the floor with the television on. The news was just replaying and replaying the plane hits and the towers' collapse. My blood ran cold, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. But I knew I had to go home to Mum. Mum was in the same zombie state as I was, and she had seen the whole thing live as she was watching the TV when it turned to breaking news after the first plane hit. I'll never forget how cold and numb I felt, I just could not get the enormity of it into my mind.
I was 6, but I don't recall what I was doing or where I was - presumably at school. I'm trying to remember anything from that day but literally nothing comes to mind. I have no idea why though. In general though, I don't remember much from that time of my life - though I do remember the solar eclipse of 1999. Weird.
Summer of 2001, my first visit to USA, my first time of flying on an airoplane, my first time of sleeping in a beautiful room at an american hotel. Palm trees, Miami beach, feeling as if I jumped inside an american movie... First time I spoke english to a native speaker (back then I was the official "translator", again the first time I felt really important in my life...). I was a seventeen year old european kid, middle class and white , that knew nothing about politics. All I cared back then was swimming, eating fish, swimming a bit more and listening to Supertramp and Pink Floyd casettes on my walkman... I also cared about the people we met, the americans. They seemed so friendly, open and ready to chat... I made a few friends back then. I liked their happy go lucky style, and sometimes I also liked blue eyes and so on... That summer, beautiful summer... Back to Europe... I just woke up from a nap and saw the second plane crashing live... Someone next to me, on the sofa, staring at the tv... "What happened?" I asked. He told me the cold facts. After that, I was just speechless, I couldn't believe it... The country I just got to know a few weeks ago, the country that I just fell in love with, suffering such a brutal massacre... I think it was Gibson who called it "an experience out of the culture"... I'm not american, but I just got to know them and I felt hurt too... My friends were not from New York, and I was sure they wouldn't be there, but I still worried. Luckily everybody I knew was alive and far away from the big apple. Those cute blue eyes survived to watch another sunset at the beach... Unluckily the families, partners and friends of the ones who died have to struggle with this forever : Those lost blue, green, black eyes. Those voices that would never be heard again... I know how it feels to lose somebody. I don't wish this kind of pain to anyone on earth. There is nothing like losing somebody. NOTHING. I don't know about politics, all I know is that human life is precious. You can't replace somebody. Every human being is unique. I think I understand America's reaction, what I'll never understand is why those people crashed those planes. I believe there can't be a logical explanation for such behavior. All my love goes for the americans that lost somebody that day.
