9/11 The Anniversary.. What Did You Do Today?

[Sheyne]

I sincerely hope nobody finds a topic like this offensive.  I'm just curious how those on this board spent this 5 year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Are there memorial services in the States today?

I was at school with my kids and spoke to them about the anniversary.  Most of them were less than 2 years old when it happened and didn't really know a lot about it.  I insisted on quiet time after they came back in after lunch out of respect for what happened. Actually I didn't really have to insist, most of them fell quiet all by themselves.   

Others?

[Phillip Dampier]

I very much remember what was happening to me on 9/11.  I was at Strong Memorial Hospital with my mom for a follow-up appointment after her liver transplant in 2001.  We were in the waiting room and saw early coverage of the event in NYC but the assumption at that point was that it was a commuter plane so we did not think much about it.  When we did go upstairs to the doctor's office, I started fiddling with the television to get it off the silly radio station it was playing and managed to get our local ABC station.  People in the office, as well as doctors and staff, started sticking their heads into the waiting room and watching the coverage.  We were all stunned when Peter Jennings asked "the whole building collapsed?"  The reaction of many of the people in the waiting room seemed more numb than anything.  One woman kept right on knitting, which I thought was surreal at the time.

After the first tower collapsed, most people started getting on the hospital phones and that led to an announcement on the PA system telling people to get off the phones because nobody could make or receive calls.  On the way out of the hospital, most people had televisions, radios, or cell phones trying to figure out what was happening.  We heard Dan Rather on the radio tell us in a resigned tone the second tower had collapsed while we in the parking garage on the way out.

Most of the rest of the day was spent watching television.  Most cable networks signed off and started relaying their parent company's network broadcasts.  The shopping channels shut down.  For the remainder of the week, most networks seemed to be staying with the story 24/7.

I remember later that day when I was out on my daily walk that everything had effectively changed that day.  It would be, in a sense, the first war I would be living through (I was too young to really comprehend Vietnam).

Of course, the thing that would later upset me is the unity we had in the country squandered by an administration that would seek to use the event for political purposes, and that a neocon thought experiment would get us into a quagmire in Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and a limited, at best, involvement in the greater war on terror.

Today will be a largely normal day for most Americans.  Although events are taking place around the country, I think most Americans will be dwelling on 9/11 primarily through the saturation media coverage, documentaries and dramas that the television networks are dropping on us.

[ednbarby]

Of course, the thing that would later upset me is the unity we had in the country squandered by an administration that would seek to use the event for political purposes, and that a neocon thought experiment would get us into a quagmire in Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and a limited, at best, involvement in the greater war on terror.

I am feeling embittered by this today when I should be feeling nothing but sadness (and perhaps resolve).  We should feel united today of all days, but instead we're more divided than we've been since Vietnam (maybe moreso) and the Civil War before that.  And I blame the Bush Administration for that.  There is no one else to blame.  They did it singlehandedly by, as Phillip said, using the event to further their own war-mongering, oil-hungry agenda.

I really believe that Al Gore, if he had used it for anything, would have used it to rally the American people around the notion of becoming much less dependent on foreign oil, and therefore less intricately involved in the affairs in the Middle East - the affairs of a region that wants no part of us except our money.

I do feel sad for the families and loved ones of the victims, and they are on my mind today.  They must mourn innocent victims of religious extremism and bad policy, just as the families and loved ones of the fallen in Iraq (on both sides) must mourn them.

[nakymaton]

Our governor ordered flags to be flown at half-mast today, in remembrance. But then he spoiled the gesture by expanding it from a remembrance of those who died on 9/11/01 to a statement of support for the war in Iraq.

It's hard to mourn honestly, at this point, because for the past five years, the tragedy has been used over and over as a political tool. "If you aren't with us, you are against us." At this point, the politics really seems disrespectful to the memory of the people who died.

One thing that's cool -- my local public radio station's fall fund drive is going on, and today businesses are matching all donations to the station with their own donations to local volunteer emergency services -- one rural ambulance service and another rural fire and rescue service -- in memory of all the emergency service workers who died.

[Front-Ranger]

Yesterday I waded through the many articles in the Sunday papers about 9-11. The only one that really captured my attention was the follow-up article about 6 children who were born on 9-11-01. That article really got it: the way to stamp out terrorism and extremism is to start at birth. The article really could have been improved if some middle eastern, European, Asian, and African children could have been included.

The way that I personally have responded to the tragedy of 9-11 is by supporting an organization that builds schools for girls in the Himalayan countries. The more girls in these cultures that can be educated, the fewer unwanted children will be born, and those children who are born will be wanted, loved, and nurtured. That's the only real way to wage war on terrorism, IMHO.

[saucycobblers]

It was about 3 in the afternoon when we heard about 9/11 here in the UK. I remember a bloke called Dave from one of the adjoining offices (we had no internet access on our PCs) racing in with his eyes out on stalks clutching a page he'd printed from the NBC website showing the towers ablaze. At the time I was working for an organization attempting to get compensation for victims of the Holocaust and their families who had lost property and all other assets during the occupation. I'd spent all day reading terrible stories of families being torn apart, and I remember being oversome with sadness and bursting into tears at the thought of the children of the people killed in the towers, having read first-hand accounts by the children of the Holocaust victims of what it had meant to them to lose sometimes entire families under such circumstances.

All the terristrial channels in the UK are running 9/11 documentaries tonight and I'm crying all over again...

[Sheyne]

It was very late at night on the 11th that we here in Australia heard about it, around 11pm, from memory.  I was just walking past my parents bedroom when the show that was on television stopped and a "Special News Bulletin" cut in. It reported that a passenger aircraft had struck the North Tower of the World Trade Centre in New York. I remember feeling hollow - but not comprehending at that point that this was an act of terrorism. I went to bed, shocked and saddened by this terrible "accident". As I awoke the next morning, something felt very wrong. I remember the plane "accident" and then it dawned on me, quite horribly, that New York is restricted airspace and an "accident" couldn't happen because planes don't fly over there.  I leapt out of bed and oh my god, it was everywhere.  Some 6 or so minutes after I'd gone to bed that previous night, the other tower had been hit. By that time, they'd both collapsed, the Pentagon had been hit and United 93 had gone down in Pennsylvania.

I cannot describe the fear I felt looking at the television screen. There was a surreal automaticity with which the items were being chronicled. I remember thinking to myself "This world is never going to be the same after this". I was morbidly transfixed to those images of the planes hitting the buildings, as though just one more viewing would make it sink-in; make it real to me. But here we are, five years later and I still can't quite grasp it.

America will never forget. But trust me, neither will the rest of the world.   

[Front-Ranger]

mwah, Sheyne! That's what boggles my mind: the U.S. had the cooperation and well wishes of the entire world, and we squandered it!!

[moremojo]

The way that I personally have responded to the tragedy of 9-11 is by supporting an organization that builds schools for girls in the Himalayan countries. The more girls in these cultures that can be educated, the fewer unwanted children will be born, and those children who are born will be wanted, loved, and nurtured. That's the only real way to wage war on terrorism, IMHO.

I like your way of thinking, Lee. The battle to heal and eradicate hatred always begins and ends within our own hearts.

[delalluvia]

There were observances all over the country, Sheyne.  Different areas had moments of silence, memorials, etc.  My company, of course, did nothing in remembrance, not even a memo.  Personally. I wore all black today in memorial.  I've been doing this every year since 9/11 on this day.

On 9/11, I was in the same office, but we had a much more laid-back atmosphere back then and a woman kept a TV under her desk to watch her soaps.  I saw the net story online, but couldn't log onto it because it was getting so many hits.  Then word spread around the floor that this woman had it up on her TV.  We didn't know it was a large plane until the 2nd one hit.  We were all standing around this woman's cubical in shock.  We wandered back to our desks, then word came back round about the rumors of the plane that hit the Pentagon.  First they weren't sure it hit, then they said it was just a bomb going off in the parking lot, then it came back again and then again that it was another plane hitting the Pentagon.  We continued to work, but oh, you wondered at what might come at you out of the clear blue sky.

The TV was on all day, and we wandered over whenever we had the chance or listened to our radios to keep abreast of any more attacks.

When I left work that day, I drove numbly over to DFW airport, realizing never in my lifetime have I *not* seen or heard an airplane in the sky.  There was a silence I'd never heard before.  The skies were clear.  Totally.

I do know I started every time I heard a siren after that for weeks.