Remember Remember the 11th of September

Millions remember the day, only few remember the fight. I would like to give my thanks to my long lost friends whom died in the name of real FREEDOM. Where were you? I was aboard the USS Peleliu LHA-5 with 2,500 fellow Sailors and Marines of the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit south of Afghanistan in Perth Australia. It was my first time away from home and family, I watched as fellow men destroy buildings and threaten our way of life. We all lost something that day and in the end all gave some and some gave all, remember that when your expressing your freedom to love, hate, hold, hit, smile and cry. As a Veteran, the 11th is the day I wrote a check payable for a total leading up to my very life to be cashed at anytime to protect my beloved United States. I hope we all share in remembering not only the lives lost, but remembering how thousands of strangers you never met went into the pits of hell to protect your rights and in return asked nothing from you. Remember that Freedom has never and will never be truly free and that you sleep soundly at night thanks to men and women willing to do whatever it takes to protect you. My greatest of respects to the families of friends I have lost and the to the men and women that now take the helm and lead the charge today to protect me and my family today.

"..Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds, and shall find, me unafraid..."

Abh3 Cabildo II "DuCe"
USN 2000-2004 USS Peleliu LHA-5, USS Nimitz CVN 68
Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom
/em Salute

/em Salute right back at you from a Canadian who still remembers where she was when it all went down, and who will never forget.

/em salute

I remember turning on every tv in the house, hoping against hope that it wasn't on every channel, that it was some sort of show. Then that it was some sort of hoax. Then that it was some sort of accident.

911, indeed.

My encouragement to all of the survivors. Which is all of us in this country and beyond.

I was in Algebra class (I was a youngin' at the time). School ended early for us that day. It didn't really hit me just how heavy everything was until a few friends on AIM who lived in New York told me they'd either lost friends, or worse, their parent.

When it happend, I remember I was in a photography class. I asked to leave almost immediately. Back then I worked as an after school teacher and I knew things would be chaotic at dismissal. I was right. I got to the school with plenty of time to help plan dismissal and adjust for the almost countless changes called in by parents.

No one stayed for our after school program that day. I remember getting something to eat with my coworkers and how eerie it was to be in a restaurant when no one, not even the wait staff, cared about the food. Our local paper ran an 'extra' edition. I still have it. Day of Terror was the headline. The now yellowed pages seemed to be saturated with the uncertainty of the moment.

At the time I lived about a mile away from an international airport. I was accustomed to flights taking off and landing all day. They never bothered me no matter what time it was. But the silence, the silence was very alarming. For sometime after the attack, all flights across the country were grounded.

I recall seeing a military plane flying overhead a few days later when we had our students on the playground. It scared some of the kids. Some of the adults, too.

Hard to say if I've recovered from this. I know that people have taken various stances: blaming the politicians, the sympathizers, the military, the media, associated deities, unassociated deities etc.

I recall seeing a cartoonist's attempt to depict how people felt:
It was an image of Uncle Sam on his knees calling out "Jesus, Buddha, Great Pumpkin, somebody please make them stop!" (or something to that effect.)

I don't really have a closing for this. But these are some of the things that come to mind when I remember the 11th.

While many many people may not agree with the reasons, EVERYONE should stand 100% behind the troops on the ground that have sworn to go where their commanders tell them without objection, on the whim or orders of someone hundreds or even thousands of miles away looking at a map or being told what is happening 'on the ground' when the very same report has likely been re-written, sanitised and checked for anything that could get some pencil pusher in an office somewhere in trouble.

I stand beside you, resolute and proud.


(it's also my birthday tomorrow, spare a thought for those who's special occassions and special days will forever be overshadowed by what happened.)

I live and work a stone's throw away for New York City, but at the time I was in Amherst, MA at college. New York has always been a part of my life, and even if I was lucky enough to not have lost anyone that day personally, I know people who lost, and I know people who know people who lost that day.

It's ten years after, and I stand by our soldiers who do a job that I'm not willing to do. I stand by those in Washington and Pennsylvania because they're too often an afterthought on the day of remembrance. I stand by my fellow New Yorkers, both those born and those to emmigrated here afterwards from all over the country and all over the world.

We should never forget them, and all those who made a sacrifice that day, and all those who were martyred that day (not the terrorists, just so we're clear, but their victims). It's ten years later, and while I can't speak for those who died, and I can't speak for those who lost, i can speak for myself when I say that their legacy should not be the deaths of thousands. When we remember tomorrow, we should remember not how they died, but try to make a concerted effort to remember how they lived, and try to make a concerted effort towards the betterment of our world and our country.

It happened during the drive home from work. I worked a night shift and lived quite a ways from the house. I got home to my phone ringing and ignored it the first time, because I was tired and wanted to go to bed. Answered it the second because I thought it might be an emergency about one of my kids, or another family member.

It was a friend of mine who wanted to make sure I was okay. I worked in Memphis TN at the time, which is a transportation hub. He worked in Chicago, IL, another transportation hub. He wanted to make sure I and my city were okay and to see if I knew what had transpired, which I hadn't at that point.

At first I thought he was messing with me, then after turning on the TV I found I wasn't surprised. Horrified, but not surprised. I watched everything transpire until I couldn't stay awake any longer.

I knew my Aunt worked at the Pentagon, and later found out she worked in the section of the Pentagon that got hit. Someone must have been looking out for her and her department, because they were doing renovations to that section and her department was temporarily assigned to another area.

In that respect I was fortunate, but a number of my friends (online and otherwise) were not so.

In my mind the later and more recent tragedy about it, is how many schools don't even include it in their curriculum, either because it's too 'disturbing' or 'controversial'. Which is a shame.

I don't know that a video game forum is the correct place for this.

...the Twin Towers' terror and fall?
We've been made too aware of the Twin Towers' terror
Now I'd rather forget it all...

There's nothing quite like media over-saturation for feeding apathy.

I still cry.

I was working part-time in a law office. I didn't have to be there until 11:00 Pacific (2:00 pm Eastern), and I often stayed up late and didn't get up until 10 or even 10:30. This meant I rarely checked the news before coming in.

This time, when I arrived, one of the other secretaries sat me down and told me something unbelievable: "The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center no longer exist."
... what?

I remember I was in my college prep class when it all happened.

It's a day for sadness, but for someone else, it's supposed to be a day of celebration...today also happens to be my friend's birthday.

I was still doing nursing at the time. It was one of my off days, and since I work nights, I was naturally crashed out.

My brother comes down and tries to wake me up and I shooed him off.

He came down again and tried telling me that "Someone had blown up the WTC".

I still didn't open my eyes. I figured he was drunk and watching the History Channel about the '93 bombing.

Then he's like "No man! Planes are falling outta the sky!"

So I got up and went and had a good look...

I have a couple friends who were going to school in that area at that time. Scared the living crap outta them. One of whom was never quite the same again afterward.

One of my uncles actually missed a flight out to NY for a job interview.
Needless to say he didn't get the job. Strangely enough he wasn't upset about it at all... The company lost one of their offices when the tower came down though...

And, quite honestly, I'm still surprised that the government of the time wasn't pressured into nuking a little jerkwater country we call Afghanistan into a bubbling pool of radioactive glass. From what I remember of the time, EVERYONE wanted the someone(s) responsible DEAD. And they wanted them that way ON SEPTEMBER 10TH!

To all the people who've had their lives altered (or ended) because of the horrific events of that day, you have my utmost sympathies.

To the heroes generated by that event, I honor you even in the midst of wishing there had been no need.

And to Osama Bin-Laden and all the other sick SOB's that perpetrated this. Hope they're turning the furnace up for you in Hell today.

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

I was home that day.

I listen in the mornings back then to CBS 880 out of New York. They talked about how 9/11 was some kind of 911 test day with mock emergency drills. That was around 8am.

After doing some stuff around the condo I fired up the browser and started to peruse the various tech sights like I would normally do at work. For some reason none of the usual news sites wouldn't come up. CNN, MSNBC, Foxnews simply timed out (I was and still am on dial-up where I live). Finally I got a partial page from CNN that said the WTC towers have fallen. My first thought was "wow, CNN got their web site hacked". So I went to slashdot and found out that it was true. They had links to the BBC and CBC news sites which weren't being crushed. It took me 15 minutes of reading those sites before it even occurred to me that I'm home, turn on the TV.

I called in to check on my friends in work to see how they were doing.

I called my folks to see how they were doing.

And I watched TV that day. It was interesting as a side note to see which cable channels were carrying which major network's newscast. You saw NBC on SciFi and Bravo, ABC on ESPN, Fox on FX.

I remember the next day that my usual selection of webcomics all had special comics that day or the next time they published.

I remember visiting my folks the next day and notice the lack of contrails in the sky as we walked around their neighborhood since all commercial traffic were grounded.

I remember feeling rage, anger and more rage. My fuse was shorten considerably for the next year, I'm was usually a lot more patient with people but it wasn't a good year to be a talker sitting near me at any movie I was at.

So like every year, I will once again flail my emotions raw watching all the History Channel programming after today's memorial events are televised.

I'm planning on comfort food for dinner, Mac and Cheese, and a sleep aid before bed.

At least we finally got Bin-Laden.

I just hope that nothing bad happens today.

At the time I lived about 40 miles from a nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania and after watching the towers get hit I was thinking that power plant was an awfully tempting target for that third missing plane.

God bless everyone that chooses to defend freedom.

10 years ago, last night, the world was a wonderful place. It was full of hopes, dreams, and a bright future. A few hours later, that world came crashing down around us. We learned to adapt and survive our feelings of hopelessness, loss and despair. We grieve those who we lost. We grieve our way of life that was shattered. We heal.

It's been 10 years. We are not afraid of you. You Failed To Break The American Spirit!! You just flat out Failed!!


I was listening to my usual radio morning show. They started talking about a plane heading into the tower. I turned on CNN, woke up my friends and neighbors, and then went numb.

This Australian won't ever forget your pain. It was 10:40pm in Australia and the first I heard was the initial stuff about a plane hitting the World Trade center. It was thought to be a horrible accident.

And then it kept getting worse.

I stayed up the entire night watching things unfold and wondering if this really was World War III in my lifetime. At the time I was playing a text-only online game and logged on to find panic, fear and anxiety amongst the American players. Some of them lived only just across the river in New Jersey, and they were watching the plumes of smoke rise from Manhatten.

I stayed up all night reassuring, calming, doing what I could with a dialup modem and the objectivity that only comes from being a continent away from a horrendous act. A tv documentary over there is going to dub this the decade of Terror, and I agree. People became distrusting, fearful of others, and terrorism had achieved its aim. They created terror.

And yet...there was a newfound desire to understand the East, Islam. To reassure that they were just like us, and that they were as appalled as us, because Islam embraced everyone, regardless of color or background. And being the lifelong superhero fan I am, this reassured me most of all:





But I still wish they'd been there.

I will never forget.


S.

I'd just gotten to work and was walking to my desk when passed one of the TVs we had up around the call center...Never forget, that's my contribution.

I remember hiding behind the couch in a mixture of fear and sadness, having no idea why my mother was crying.

I still have trouble understanding why.

The short version of my story is this. I was a high school senior in Philadelphia when the attacks happened. I was in my second-period political science class when the planes hit. And I was in third-period trigonometry when the second tower fell. By the time fourth period rolled around, they'd sent us home early, and were closed the next day.

For the long version, I wrote about that in an entry on my LiveJournal a few days after the announcement that Osama Bin Laden had been killed. Here's a link to it.

Although I didn't personally know anyone who died in the attacks, it affected me and the rest of the country just the same.