9-11, ugh, here we are again- question for some of you

[thorn]

well yeah, wow. what can you say really, it was horrible.

i thought i was just having a nice day out here in CA.
while i was still just waking up, my dad was evacuating students from the high school he teaches at, 10 blocks from ground zero.

by coincidence i had a flight to NYC on oct 19th 01, and the city was still in major shock. ground zero was still burning, the city was virtually empty, especially on weekends. never in my life was penn station uncrowded let alone empty
include LI, where i was from, we have altogether 10+ MIllION people- and every one of them- at the very least knew someone who knew someone who died in the mess.
it was very disturbing to say the least.

most people in Ca seem more concerned with whose fault it was and how it was a "set up" than anything else.
i'm just gonna remember how sad it made a whole freggin metropolis.
how there was a huge hole in my skyline the last time i rode the LiRR into the city

it doesnt make me angry at anyone in particular, no one agency or group is fully responsible, everyone on every level dropped the ball from the airlines to the cia to the passnegers to the terrorists themselves.

most of the time i think of the larger implications of the whole event, but i guess today, i am just sad for how many people were lost, and how many more have to deal with having loved ones ripped away from them.

i had a question about a dumb post i saw elsewher, but i think i am gonna leave it alone for now.
i'll just say some people only see the politics of 9-11, which can become very disrespectful to the dead

[mhdishere]

I work in brooklyn and was at work that morning.  Someone from out-of-town came to the office and said that the WTC was burning, a plane hit it, he saw the fire on the way in.  We thought it was an accident, we got the radios going, hit the news web sites, etc.  We heard about the second plane, the rumors from the Pentagon and PA.  Some of us walked over to the East River to take a look.  I remember the buildings with these HUGE holes filled with fire in them, all smoke, and TONS of paper in the updrafts.  We were too far away to see people falling, thank God.  I remember thinking in terms of getting the fires out, getting the peopel out, and wondering how they were ever going to repair the buildings.  Then the first tower came down and I don't think I had a coherent thought for the next 24 hours.

The next few days and weeks were surreal, every wall had pictures of missing people on it.  Once the shock wore off I got mad, I wanted to find the people who did this and personally strangle them with their own tongues.  I wanted to push the button that would bomb the responsible nations back to the stone age.  I don't blame our government for not preventing it, it was so unimaginable there was no way to prevent it.

[Standing Wolf]

I was in Oregon at the time.

I was on vacation from my job in Silicon Valley, the People's Republic of California. I was on my way to Portland to start looking for an apartment. I'd had all I could take of the P.R.C.

A whole bunch of people were crowded around the television in the motel lobby as I was checking out. I paused a moment, caught the gist of things, and felt suddenly queasy. I watched awhile, checked out, and headed out on the road. I turned on the radio. By the time I got to Portland, the towers in New York had fallen; the aircraft had crashed in Pennsylvania, and the Pentagon had been hit. It was obvious the national economy was going to take a huge hit. I was afraid there'd be more attacks, and very much afraid Bush wouldn't be able to deal with them.

I gritted my teeth and went back to the P.R.C. to tough it out awhile longer. I looked at Oregon again in the summer of 2002, and decided it was an awful lot like the P.R.C. with more rainfall. I've ended up in Colorado, where I'm much happier, thanks.

We, the people, don't seem to have learned from from the attacks of September 11, 2001. We're still not willing to face the obvious fact: we're in a world war. We kicked terrorist tail in Afghanistan; instead of following through, we embarked upon a massive land war in Asia. We had sense enough not to elect that Kerry creature and to kick some representatives of the Democratic (sic) party out of Congress, but we haven't held the Republicans accountable for anything, and as a result, they've talked a great deal, but done nothing. We've gone from big government to huge government. We're ignoring Iran, Syria, Pakistan, and North Korea. We've thrown away large chunks of our civil rights while ignoring the millions upon millions of illegal aliens that infect our nation like a cancer. At the moment, federal officials are happily helping New Orleans officials steal firearms from law-abiding American citizens in the name of "public emergency."

Watch for Mrs. Snopes Clinton to capitalize upon America's unwillingness to learn the obvious lessons of the attacks of four years ago.

[Unisaw]

I was attending a meeting in midtown Manhattan at 44th and 5th Avenue.  Just before going into the meeting, I saw a TV news report that a plane had crashed into the WTC.  However, I only glanced at the screen and it was difficult to get any perspective regarding the size of plane.  While I informed everyone, we went ahead with the meeting.  A short time later, someone arrived at the meeting late and said that he had just seen the second plane fly into the 2nd tower.  At that time, we realized that the US was under attack.  Finally, someone received a call on his cell phone and announced that the first tower had collapsed and that the Pentagon had also been hit.  We suspended the meeting and tried to contact our families to let them know we were okay.  By then, it was difficult to get a call out.  We all went back to our rooms and watched TV -- it was truly horrible to realize that so many people were dead and dying just 3-4 miles away.  I went outside once to see which way the wind was blowing -- I was concerned that there might be a chemical element to the attack.  (In hindsight, that wasn't very smart.)  I ended up catching a train from Penn Station the next afternoon to return to my home in Virginia.  I was quite worried about a follow-on attack at Penn Station, but there didn't seem to be any other way to get out.  On the train out of NYC, there was still a lot of smoke rising from ground zero.  It was a sobering sight that I will never forget.

I think many who do not have connections to NYC, the Pentagon, or the military have become complacent.  There certainly is no national unity to deal effectively with Islamic extremism.  At the same time, I worry that the Chinese will be ome much more powerful from an economic and military standpoint while we are focused on the War on Terror.

[280plus]

A year or so later I was on the observation deck of the Empire State Building and all the Japanese tourists were taking pictures of the WTC area from that vantage point. They were dismayed that there was nothing to see. After I pointed out the specific spot where the buildings had stood I explained to them that, in this case, it's not what you see there, it's what you DON'T see there that counts.

[TarpleyG]

I just remember crying to myself on the way home from work everyday for about three weeks.  I don't cry often.  Wish we had some closure AFTER FOUR FREAKIN' YEARS though.  OBL should be worm food by now.

Greg