Few moments in a lifetime will be indelible to people, both as individuals and as a collective group. Most of those moments in life will be mostly private, or shared with close friends and relatives. But there are those moments that take place in history - both good moments and bad ones - that sear themselves so indelibly in your memory as to prevent that moment from ever being lost from us. A few such days are the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the assassination of JFK, man's landing on the moon. Today we remember another one of those days, September 11th 2001.
Now, I know we all have different beliefs about what exactly happened that day and why exactly it happened, and that's totally cool (I'm a LIHOPer myself), but the fact remains that we as a country suffered a major tragedy that day that has changed us collectively, in both good and bad ways. Some of the good were seeing folks working together to get others to safety, the emergence of heroes, whether ones that were somewhat expected like the first responders and those who rose to the challenge, regardless whether those heroes were result of more mythologizing than actual known fact. Some of the bad was the new targeting of anyone who appeared to be Middle Eastern in the wake of the tragedy, the major uptick in our warring in Middle Eastern nations, and the wholesale setting aside of many of our civil liberties. But, as I said before, regardless of how you view the events of that day, it was one of those moments you'll never forget.
This post is meant for sharing where you were, what you were doing, how that day is framed in your memory. So where were you on September 11th 2001?
Comments
I was a severe night bird back then...
and I was up til about quarter to 5am Pacific time, and I always had the news on, but I went to bed and missed the planes hitting the WTC by about a half hour. My now ex hub got up early back then to get ready for work and he was watching ESPN when they broke in at 7am our time. He immediately came and woke me up. This was right about the time the first tower fell.
I remember the first thing I did was call my parents, who were up in Idaho at my sister's house. They had expected to hear from me that day, as September 11th is my pop's birthday, they just didn't expect that call at 7am, lol... My mom answered after it rang for what seemed like forever, and I simply just told her to turn on the TV.
After the call, I just sat there watching TV in a mixture of mortification and sadness, both horrified and amazed at the scope of it. The HBO miniseries Band of Brothers had debuted 2 nights prior to the attacks, so the bombing of Pearl Harbor was fresh in my mind. I think most of that day I was in more or less shock. No one expects to see anything even close to that in their lifetimes for the most part.
Now, though I am a LIHOPer, and though I am not sure just what went down on Flight 93 or in any of the other hero stories, I can't help but believe that we had those heroes that day. I know it may not be the most rational of thoughts, but I want to believe and in the absence of concrete evidence against the stories, I can believe it. No matter how dire a disaster, there will always be folks who step up into the hero mold, and they deserve to be celebrated however big or small their contributions were thought to be.
I have been forever changed a bit by what happened that day. Perhaps a bit of shock still lingers in my soul in a way that makes me a bit emotional on the anniversary every year. I've experienced a whole lot of life, but nothing that has affected me in the way that September day did. I never knew it possible for one event to both make me more hopeful and more jaded at the same time. It's contradictory, yet here I am.
So that's where I was on September 11th 2001.
We were still asleep when my Mom called
My wife answered the phone, and I heard her say, "What channel?!" Apparently the answer was "ANY channel." So she turns on the little TV in our bedroom, with me half asleep and saying, "What is your problem? I'm sleeping." But once it was on, they were just showing a replay of the 2nd plane hitting. I'm thinking, why are they showing a scene from some movie? Until I was fully awake, that's what I was thinking. But once I realized what was going on, for some reason I was no longer sleepy!
So we watched for a couple minutes, and then remembered my son had stayed home that day, and was sleeping in the couch in the living room. We debated on whether to wake him up and tell him. So we quietly walk out there and sure enough he's still asleep. We whisper, still debating on whether to tell him, and he hears us. I think he thought something bad had happened in the family, because he was, "What's wrong?!" So we turn on the TV and all of us just sit there with our mouths hanging open for the next several hours.
By the way, my other son just happened to be in jail at the time (nothing major... long story). He usually called every day, but we didn't hear from him. So we called the jail and were told they were on "lock-down". When he finally did get to call 3 days later, he said they had all been sitting watching the news as the planes hit, and like everyone else they were all in shock. After an hour or so the guards said sorrry, but we've been ordered to put you all on lock-down until we know what this is all about. Apparently that happened all over the country. Weird...
I don't remember whether my wife woke me up ...
... or I was working on the computer in the bedroom, but she said there was news from the United States on the television. They were showing a replay of the second plane hitting, interrupting regular programming.
The wierder feeling, since it lasted longer, kicked in a couple weeks later, when it seemed like the US went insane in response, and stayed insane for several years.
Unless there was someone else...
... who I haven't heard about, Noam Chomsky was the first person to realize what it all meant. The very next day, he wrote that this was gonna be used by certain people in the U.S. as an excuse to do whatever they wanted... what they had been wanting to do for a LONG time.
NOT being inside the US media sensorium ...
... at that time was perhaps the starkest demonstration of how damn hard the propaganda machines work the US media sensorium.
Yes, I remember it well.
And there is an odd intersection between my personal life and this event. As it was happening, I was having breakfast with a friend. But later that morning, I was in couples therapy with my wife. I was sobbing inconsolably, saying, "Now they're going to use this to start wars and do whatever they want." Sometimes I just know these things, and I was heartbroken. I think that day I knew how things were going to go, but I'm glad I didn't know what a slow, painful grind it would be. The reason I say this intersects with my personal life is that my wife and the therapist were "There There"ing me, treating me as though I was over-reacting, making up crazy stuff. That's pretty much what happened in that therapy no matter the topic. I have sometimes wondered whether that therapist ever thinks back to that morning and how tragically right I was. I doubt it.
If only we could remember what the national emotional landscape was like before our home-grown terrorists used that attack (after mounting it?) to create a nation of angry, blaming citizens ready to jettison their rights and support war crimes.
Another thing I remember is that, for three days, even politicians and people on tv were showing honest emotion. The emotion was neither anger nor fear; it was pain and connection. Then the emotions were stuffed, the flags came out, and the manipulators were off and running.
Wow... you've got Chomsky beat
I hadn't yet seen your comment when I wrote mine (just above yours)
I was in school at AIH
I was high as a kite, too. My friend had just driven me to school and they interrupted our class and told us what happened. I was in shock. Everyone spent all day watching the 2 planes hit the towers and the towers coming down. It took awhile to sink in and almost didn't seem real, but after awhile everyone realized it was. The whole faculty was in despair and there was anxiety everywhere. My parents were out of town so that was scary(though luckily my father's flight wasn't that morning) and since all planes were grounded they were not coming home anytime soon.
I fall on the gross incompetence side of things, because the GWB was not well prepared that day like he was selling the war in Iraq to Congressional Democrats using 9/11 which is the real conspiracy. I knew right away as soon as he said it that it was BS just from the whole "he tried to kill my daddy" BS. Too bad Democrats failed us that day, not all, but in the Senate which is a useless chamber and has really sealed our downfall.
I do think the actions of those on flight 93 were heroic and the firefighters who were lied to about air quality from Christie Todd Whitman but went in anyway. I always cringe when I see her. I also cringe when i see Giuliani who kept inferior communication equipment. I cringe to all, specifically what John Stewart pointed out via the hypocrisy of the 9/11 responders bill being fought against and still to this day by all those Republicans that wrapped themselves up in the flag.
I have to remember this day as the day used to kill much of what we stood for and how Democrats still codify that with every extension of the Patriot Act and FISA reinterpretation bill. That is why the bluster about killing OBL makes me sick)(besides the fact that we shouldn't be assassinating people as an example to the world and he should have been tried at the Hague). IF we were really going to celebrate we would deauthorize the 2003 and 2001 AUMF which is where much of the NDAA came from codified by President Obama.
But we don't care, so in a way, OBL an Al Qaida won that day despite all the neocon like speeches at the DNC. But RIP everyone who died that day and all the lives lost in these two pointless wars.
I was teaching a computer literacy class...
...about a dozen miles from the towers as the crow flies. As most people don't fly crows, it's about half an hour by bus.
at home, waking up
my first thought when reading about it was that a small plane, maybe a 2 or 4 seater (if there are such things) had been blown into the building. I think such a thing happened with the Empire State Building many years ago. I turned on the TV and thought it was a pretty weird camera angle because I couldn't see the other tower. I didn't know that it had already fallen.
I expected a fleet of helicopters to rescue those trapped on the roof. I was born in Manhattan and I wondered if I knew anybody in the building. I wondered, if I'd stayed a New Yorker, if I'd have been there myself.
I was thinking, "No way....
.... are they gonna be able to get helicopters up there with all that smoke. The people on those upper floors are gonna die." And then when the building started to collapse, the station I was watching had a wide-angle so you couldn't see it that well. For a few seconds I just thought the smoke had gotten WAY worse for whatever reason.
I was in school
I was in the seventh grade at the time (if my memory serves me correctly) when I heard about this deep tragedy and atrocity. We watched tv all day about the event. I really didn't understand who AQ were at the time so a lot of it didn't make sense to me. but my teachers did a wonderful job of explaining it.
My heart and blessings go out to all the victims and the families of the victims on this horrible day.