Remembering 9/11 - 20 years on

[dave28]

Mostly all i remember is the sureal news footage of one of the towers on fire and then the total jaw dropping footage of a plane flying into the other tower.
Then even more shocking when the towers went down.

I am absolutely shocked that the US has managed to block further huge attacks like this, the hate for them is off the scale

 

[Quartz]

The attacks, stylised "9/11" (US date format) was such a tragedy, that it was a life-defining moment. Life-defining in that you remember where you were and what you were doing when the events from 11.9.2001 unfolded.

I was working in a defence establishment. Work did not stop. The next day the guards were armed. We had a torpedo in the corridor not long after. Everyone knew that America would go after those responsible and that the UK would join them.

 

[steve45]

I had got home from school not long after lunch (pretty sure I was bunking off the afternoon). I always watched the news back then. When I turned it on the first plane had hit if I recall correctly. However, I seem to remember there being little information available at the time. Then the 2nd plane hit and it all became a lot clearer what was happening. I was glued to the screen all day after that, I remember the footage of people jumping, the collapse of the towers, all of it! All very vividly... I couldnt even imagine what it must have felt like being trapped in the tower with no way to escape. So horribly sad and tragic. I dont remember feeling that at the time though, I think I watched on with more of a feeling of awe and interest, it wasnt until after that it sunk in what had actually happened.
Little did I know at the time I'd find myself indirectly affected by the actions of those terrorists 10 years after the fact (deploying on 2 tours of OP HERRICK).

9/11 became a defining moment not just for the USA but for the west as a whole, a generation even.
It triggered sweeping changes in foreign policy, travel and security, how the world viewed the middle east/Afghanistan. 20 years of conflict ensued that achieved very little in the end. All very very sad!

 

[Housey]

I was running a sales team back then and I’d called a team meeting in our Northern office. We had all congregated and coffee was being served and one of the team said “a small plane has hit a tower block in New York”. I headed to the web, not what it is today, and remember how slow it was and saw a small picture on the BBC site and remember saying “that’s no small aircraft” at which point a person came in and said “another one has gone in, something isn’t right”.

I canned the meeting and we started to consume content, which then stopped working. We could not get a TV up and running but we did have access to a PA News press feed so watched that for a bit before heading to our cars to listen to the radio.

First time I saw the film of what happened was in the gym in the evening and I recall just gawping at the screens as I sat on a bike not moving my legs.

 

[Housey]

By the way this short video exposes how America inadvertently created Al Qaeda by funding and arming the Mujihadene in Afghanistan during the 1980 to 1989 Afghan/Soviet war: https://youtu.be/s9j1H330Nmo

Tell us about yourself…

 

[HoneyBadger]

21 years old, 6 months into my job in central London. London went on lock down and we were sent home but it was chaos so a big group of us went to the pub for several hours and watched it unfold.

I found out because my mum and sis both called me to make sure I was ok as there were rumours London was targeted also. It was weird seeing no planes in the sky.

 

[[FnG]magnolia]

Tell us about yourself…

Ha, indeed.

I was working at the then Woolworths Head Office, just off Marylebone Rd (@Jean-F , you probably knew some good routes round that way) and one of the meeting rooms had the TV on which was odd, and there were quite a few people crammed into this quite small meeting room which was even odder, and then ... oh.

 

[BowdonUK]

I remember visiting my grandparents. It was in the afternoon and the tv was on in the background. There was the usual afternoon quality of programme going on when suddenly a news bulletin broke in to the programme. I think it was itv. As it was reporting the tower was hit by a plane and it was a massive story. So they went live to new york as the cameras were looking at one of the towers. Then after talking for a while they started to say another plane had gone off its flight path, which I think was the one which crashed in Pennsylvania(? ). I'm not sure of the exact order of planes whether the one crashed in the field first, or the 2nd plane to hit the towers happened. I was just shocked at the whole event.

I remember the commentator starting to talk about Bin Laden and how this was a suspected terrorist attack. He then announced something had hit the pentagon, and the camera view changed from the towers to the pentagon. But everything was ok. The building was fine, so it went back to the towers. Then a few minutes later he said again about the pentagon being hit and the camera switched back and now there was a massive hole in the building.

In 2001 I had been flying back and forth to the US quite a lot back then. I remember after 9/11 happened security in the airports become upgraded, employees now had to do criminal background checks and the whole process became more formal. Though I did noticed that when Britain decided to stand with the US immediately, and then I went back to the US in either late October/early November, when the staff saw I was British they were more chatty with me than any of the other foreign nationals. Though sadly that changed when that idiot 'shoe bomber' Richard Reid tried to bomb a plane travelled from Paris in to the US. Suddenly I was treated like any other national.

When reflecting on 9/11 it is the first time in my life time that the whole world was focused on one event. An event which involved many different countries. I think it was a glimpse of feeling of how our grandparents felt when the world wars were taking place.

 

[chrismscotland]

I will admit that George W has risen in my esteem recently for his actions around that day.

I know Bush is likely to always suffer (much like Blair) for the way they went into Iraq based on utter ******** about WMD's (and probably the response to Katrina) but I'd agree about Bush; his actions on 9/11 (and for me his actions in the latter stage of his presidency during the financial crisis) mark him out as a better president than he was thought of at the time.

 

[Andybtsn]

By the way this short video exposes how America inadvertently created Al Qaeda by funding and arming the Mujihadene in Afghanistan during the 1980 to 1989 Afghan/Soviet war: https://youtu.be/s9j1H330Nmo

There’s an interesting documentary on Netflix now around the build up to 9/11 and after which alludes to your link.
I got very fascinated with the whole 9/11 ordeal, I’m sure I’ve watched every video, documentary, audio book about it. I just find the whole thing equally horrifying as it is interesting.

 

[Jean-F]

Stronger security on domestic flight? In the UK? We still have one of the weakest in the world for such a major country.

Spain and Germany for instance are much more strict.

I can vouch for Germany, some 9 or 10 years back I was visiting my son and his family at their home in Bielefeld.
My daughter-in-law drove me to Dortmund airport to fly back to Stansted, I checked in, went through passport etc., and bought a bottle of weinbrand in the Duty Free then waited in the departure lounge, and waited, and waited.
Finally about 21.00 hrs. we were told that the flight had been cancelled and that we’d be taken to a hotel and brought back the next morning, naturally I took my Duty Free with me.
The next morning we had to clear security again, and there was consternation about my bottle of weinbrand.
Everyone spoke perfect English so I explained about the previous night’s cancellation, no dice, it had to put in a box which Air Berlin supplied, then put into the hold for me to take off the carousel at Stansted, which was a minor annoyance, as I had only hand luggage and had expected to gallop down to the Stansted Express train to Liverpool Street within 10-15 minutes of disembarking.

As for 9/11, my wife and I were in a rented vacation house in Florida, having flown in from Atlanta on the Sunday before Tuesday the 11th of September.
We were having coffee and bagels in the kitchen when my wife said, “Hey Jean, check out this movie.”
I looked at the screen, the TV was muted, and said, “Do you see that word, VIVO, at the bottom of the screen?”
When she agreed, I said, “That means live, it’s still on that Spanish station that you watched that film on last night.”
We switched to CNN, turned on the sound, and that’s how we found out about the WTC.
Fortunately we were there for three weeks, but flights resumed pretty soon after the incident, so our flights home to London via Atlanta were okay.

 

[Jean-F]

Ha, indeed.

I was working at the then Woolworths Head Office, just off Marylebone Rd (@Jean-F , you probably knew some good routes round that way) and one of the meeting rooms had the TV on which was odd, and there were quite a few people crammed into this quite small meeting room which was even odder, and then ... oh.

I remember the now defunct Woolworth House well, a large building on Marylebone Road,
at the corner of Great Central Street NW1, almost directly opposite Knox Street NW1.

 

[melmac]

I was at work and was routing some network cables at one of the racks located just off a main hall. I remember how it got suddenly very quiet. So I went to see what was going on and found everyone just staring at the TV. Couldn't believe my eyes and what was happening. It was horrifying.

There is another reason why I will always remember that day. My brother and his friend were on a flight from Boston at the time of the attacks. Their flight has just taken off from Boston about 30 minutes before the first plane hit the North Tower. We knew he was in Boston and was flying somewhere that day, but, we weren't sure where. And trying to get any info about flights was impossible with all the chaos. There was a lot of worry until he contacted us later that day to day he was on flight to San Francisco and they got diverted to Chicago.

 

[thenewoc]

I saw the BBC documentary recently, "9/11: Inside the President's War Room". I think he handled it as well as anyone could be expected to under the circumstances of the sheer shock of what had happened. It exposed how unprepared for such an incident they were, not expecting anything such as this to be pulled off from within. He made the right noises in the aftermath with his visit to the scene and what people needed to hear albeit there could have been a better prepared plan to get him to an alternative secure official location to address the public sooner. It also touches on flight 93 which if the story is true that it wasn't brought down by their own fighter planes is a remarkable act of selflessness and courage that those passengers and crew took to avoid greater losses.

 

[throwaway4372]

I had been on holiday to New York in 1999, which of course included going up the WTC. It was a pretty big deal for us to afford a holiday like that, so I had fresh memories of New York and loved everything about it.

On 9/11 (age 15) I was finishing my school day and realised something was going on because a bunch of kids were crowded around a TV. I just wanted to get home so didn't bother checking it out. About 20 mins walk later I found mum crying in front of the tv - then I saw the same news as everyone else.

I don't remember much talk about it in the days after, which presumably must have happened. I wasn't following politics at that age so all the war-related stuff passed me by. I was just getting into online gaming at that age, so maybe I was catching Pokemon or something.

I remember thinking this at the time, and still think it, that the reason for having a nuclear deterrent is if someone attacks you they're guaranteed to get nuked - so I'm still surprised the USA didn't nuke in retaliation.

 

[dodg3rman]

I was in the Fire Service at the time and we were out on a shout when the first plane hit unbeknown to us at the time. We rolled back in to the station and one of the fellas on another pump left at station came out and met us. He suggested we all come up to the rest room and have a look at the TV as something big was going down in America. Not long after the 2nd plane went in and we were all just gobsmacked standing there. It was a very worrying afternoon trying to pick through what we were watching and trying to work out how it was going to affect the world going forward.

Had to call my wife just to make sure she knew what was happening and everyone at her work had stopped to watch as well

Very harrowing pictures and we knew that the poor emergency services were going to be in serious trouble responding to it. Our thoughts soon came round to imagining that being us trying to help out those poor people.

Awful times , RIP

 

[Edinho]

I was working.

Always remember someone saying some idiot has crashed a plane into the WTC. We all thought it was some idiot in a light aircraft or worse a jet that had got lost. Then the second one came in and it was pretty clear what was happening.

I just got on with my job and it wasn't until I got home that it began to sink in.

I really did think that the US would nuke the middle east and it was pretty scary for a few days. I remembered how my mum used to talk about the Cuban missile crisis and how they really did think that it was the end.

An event like this should make everyone realise that everything can change in an instant and make the best and be thankful for what you have.

 

[robcat101]

I think for anyone under about 55, 9-11 has to be the most significant world event in our lifetimes (arguably until the current pandemic). Previous to that it was probably the fall of communism. (To some, Diana).

The older generations had Cuban Missile Crisis, WW2, Holocaust, Moon Landing, Hiroshima. (Maybe JFK, but the significance of that to non-Americans is overstated IMO). Still a pivotal moment in history though.

 

[Pawnless Endgame]

Some great responses guys, young and old. Very sobering reads.

I've just been catching up with the mid-afternoon news online, and quite understandably sites are running stories covering 9/11 and memories / tributes to the dead. RIP.

What has irked me somewhat though, is that none of today paper's front pages mentioned 9/11. They mostly covered the Duke of York, with the odd mentions of covid and the new NI tax

On the 7/7 bombings I was meant to be in London that day but a mix up on my travel tickets meant I stayed at the office for work instead of being up there. I dare say I would have probably been mixed up in all of that if I'd have gone. Some of my friends were but luckily none were seriously injured or killed.

That was a lucky escape! At best, you have avoided a rather messy day travel-wise, trying to get out of London / back home.

I distinctly remember that Saddam Hussein was prime suspect and very few had even heard of Bin Laden prior to this.

Yeah, Saddam Hussein was the person that sprang to my mind too when I saw it unfolding. I have never heard of Osama Bin Laden at that point. Both fugitives did finally get caught and executed, although it took around 10 years IIRC to catch Bin Laden.

Very similar experience myself. Was working in London on both occasions. Just remember saying to a workmate when the second plane hit “that’s more than just a coincidence”. Interesting you mention about the urban myth. I heard the same at the time. Just goes to show fake news was around two decades ago!

"Fake news" wasn't the buzzword back then. Maybe propaganda? But yeah, I think you hit it on the head there with "urban myths" as I knew of that term back then e.g. snopes.com

The care free spirit and innocence I felt I had from the proceeding decade evaporated in an instance that day.

Indeed, that day was the day a lot of people lost their innocence

We had all congregated and coffee was being served and one of the team said “a small plane has hit a tower block in New York”.

I asked this on my family's WhatsApp group, and a few of them thought that it was a small Cessna plane early on in the news reel.

When I say life went on as it should I don't mean those that were murdered weren't in my thoughts but quite the contrary, that it shouldn't change how we live our lives.

It's sad to think back about how this event has caused such mayhem, death and destruction over the prevailing years. Such an utter tragic waste of life and resources.

When reflecting on 9/11 it is the first time in my life time that the whole world was focused on one event. An event which involved many different countries. I think it was a glimpse of feeling of how our grandparents felt when the world wars were taking place.

^^ The world definitely changed that day. Security was ramped up everywhere, even in theme parks, and people became more suspicious of each other. There is also a Wikipedia article called Post-9/11 which tells you of a lot of changes that happened after the attacks, including economic changes, and various forms of entertainment that is now considered insensitive, including a list of songs now banned from radio airplay.

 

[Jean-F]

^^ The world definitely changed that day. Security was ramped up everywhere, even in theme parks, and people became more suspicious of each other. There is also a Wikipedia article called Post-9/11 which tells you of a lot of changes that happened after the attacks, including economic changes, and various forms of entertainment that is now considered insensitive, including a list of songs now banned from radio airplay.

You got that right, I still occasionally think of how different air travel was pre 9/11, not much different from taking a bus or train ride somewhere, you checked your bags in, showed your passport then waited a short while in a departure lounge before boarding the plane and taking off.
I can remember when I drove an oil tanker for Castrol in the mid to late eighties, making a flight reservation for a few days hence, then calling in sick of the morning of the flight, driving for 50 minutes to one hour to Gatwick, breezing through the airport and getting out of a cab at a hotel on Collins Ave., Miami FL some 11 or 12 hours after parking in the long term car park.