Remembering 9/11 - 20 years on

Pawnless Endgame

Pawnless Endgame

Pawnless Endgame

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This thread has been done a few times, but it's now 20 years on.

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.

If you were a child in 2001, what do you remember about it?

The same goes for middle-aged people now who were still adults in 2001?

Then, if you are early 20s now / have no living memory of it, what stories / re-tellings have you heard from your friends and family?

For me, I was on an industrial placement in a library doing techie stuff, setting up PCs, troubleshooting, web site design etc. It was in between uni years and I was just about to finish to return to uni for year 3 (had about 1.5 weeks left). 9/11 was on a Tuesday afternoon, which was rush hour morning in local time. The library boss told us to watch the big plasma flatscreen TV (expensive stuff in 2001) as a bomb has gone off in New York. Obviously it wasn't a bomb, but that's how false information spreads. So we realised it was planes and a deliberate act as we saw the 2nd tower got hit live. Most people remembering 9/11 will have therefore seen the 2nd tower impact live but I don't know anyone who saw the 1st impact. Both towers had collapsed after around 90 minutes of live footage and then we got sent home for the day. The rest of the week wasn't the same and there was an imminent fear that something was going to happen in London as well. Everywhere was quieter and the nightclub that I frequented was quieter than normal in the following weekend.

Not imminent in the end, but few years later, something did happen in London, stylised "7/7" (7.7.2005). That was where 4 London buses got blown up, again during a rush hour. I don't remember 7/7 as well because that was a more conventional terrorist attack. It was something that the IRA could have easily done back in the 1990s. I was just at work when that unfolded and we carried on working.
 
RIP all those that lost their lives.

I remember it well. In work, we all were glued to the tv...
 
At work part time supermarket job and the place was quite due to these horrific events. I started to watch that documentary on Netflix the other day and it’s a very hard watch.

R.I.P
 
I was in higher physics at school.

We were kids so naturally made jokes that the teacher took offensively. She went missing for the majority of the class as it happened right before my physics class and during a break where she must have been watching it on TV or listened to it on the radio.

Not until we got home and seen it on TV for ourselves did reality hit.

Then it was war on Iraq first was it not then Afghanistan? Iraq as far as I know had little of anything to do with it. It was more Saudi Arabia which is a US ally and a huge cover up by the government to protect their interests. Again Afghanistan has shown that majority of them are backwards illiterate goat herders which will never see democratic rule as the way forward.

In reality though the number of people that lost their lives wasn't actually that big when put into context but it was the manner in which those lives were lost was embarrassing to the US which then had to make a show of strength.

It's crazy that people are doing acts like this in the name of God and religion. But that is what their religion teaches them to do. It's why ISIS , Al Qaeda and all these other factions exist. Boko haram, the Taliban, etc.

What has actually changed and what has been learned from all the results of this attack and further losses of life? Nothing apart from tighter airport and airline security. The threat still exists today and will continue to do so until someone actively condemns it from their own community. Saudi Arabia has a lot of blood on their hands and until we get rid of oil nothing will change.
 
Was at school and the first plane hit at breaktime, the teachers rolled a tv into the hall and we all saw the second plane hit. Shortly after parent's started showing up picking other students up and then we were all sent home.

I think it was the getting sent home that shook a lot of us at the time, even though it was in the usa, being sent home made it feel like it could happen here also.

We have family in NY so were desperately trying to contact them, fortunately got through to confirm they were safe.
 
Agreed @Psycho Sonny .. The 1st wave of corona virus was killing 3000-odd per day in New York at its peak last Spring, but like you said, it was the way the casualties died in 2001, either onboard the planes or inside the towers. Not to forget those in the Pentagon as well, plus those who died in the 4th hijacked plane which never made its target as it crash-landed.

P.S. About 7/7, I was wrong about it being 4 bus bombings. I just looked it up, and it was actually 1 bus bombing and 3 tube bombings.
 
I was on holiday in Algeria. There were people cheering and dancing in the streets, not just a few either. Our hotel was heavily secured after that, guards armed with fully automatic rifles.
 
Sadly both the london attacks and 9/11 happened while I was in primary school so they've both kind of merged in my memory. On both occasions we were pulled out of class, although one of them I was in a gifted and talented IT class so we found out later than the rest of the students. I remember for the London attacks my mum was stranded in central london so I had to walk myself home and spent the afternoon hoping to watch cartoons only to have wall to wall news coverage ruin it (think this happened both times).

I think there was some bizarre rumour (not sure how widespread) after 9/11 about london getting attacked and the water supply being targeted or something silly. I had to carry a big evian bottle to school every day as well as a packed lunch, I was a skinny weak kid and hated having to lug that bottle to school every day.

Still find it bizarre that 9/11 is still remembered and talked about so much.
 
I was in High School and remember being on my way home; I got a text from my dad saying "turn on the TV when you get in"; I asked why? and he just replied "chaos in America"; a the time I think I replied with "Whats new?".
Anyway; I had just got a WAP enabled mobile (those were the days!) so I could get basic teletext style news and was just staggered; I think that was just as the second plane has hit the WTC and I just though; what kind of ATC failure is that?

I got in and my mum already had Sky News on and I think that was just as the second tower collapsed; and there seemed to be a lot of confusion about how many planes had been hijacked; car bombings in Washington D.C, etc - it was chaos.

I remember as well that buildings in London had started being evacuated at that point and there was genuine fear we were going to see something similar here (Although I now know that was unlikely given our stronger security on domestic flights)

I couldn't believe what I was seeing and was convinced World War 3 had just started but I remember the wall to wall coverage going on for days after that; its certainly going to be one of those "where were you" moments in my lifetime. I certainly will never forget the sight of people jumping from the two towers.

I iniitally bought into some of the conspiracy theories (I was only about 14-15) but not now; its pretty clear that as a collective the US intelligence community had enough information to potentially disrupt the attack but was run as competing agencies (CIA, FBI, NSA, etc) rather than a more collegiate effective group of agencies; it was ultimately the biggest failure of US intelligence since Pearl Harbor and perhaps up until their assessment of the Taliban and Afghan Army's capabilities back in July...

I understand why 9/11 still talked about and remembered so much; it was unprecedented and thankfully never repeated on the same scale but its also nuts to think that we only just came out of Afghanistan a couple of weeks ago. Its had such a massive lingering impact on the world; the War on Terror, Arab Spring, etc; in some respect its had a bigger impact than the 2008 financial crash did.

A few folk mentioning 7/7 as well; that's also fair seared into my brain; I was at uni but was studying at home; turned on the TV just as the first "incident" had happened and London Underground, etc were reporting it as a power surge; I just knew immediately it was a terror attack and I think it was about an hour later that the Met, etc officially confirmed that.
7/7 probably caused more panic/fear in the UK; it was the first suicide attack on UK soil.
I was going in and out of Edinburgh for Uni every day at that point and I certainly became a bit more vigilant and cautious even though I thought it pretty unlikely here; that said even now when I'm in London for work I do tend to keep my eyes peeled, etc.

As a nation we're certainly more on edge that we were before 9/11 and 7/7.

Back to 9/11 - there's a documentary (6 parter) on National Geographic this week (and last I think) called 9/11: One Day in America - some rehashing of the usual but I hadn't seen some of the footage from the WTC before; the noise of people jumping and hitting the roof of one of the buildings below as the Firefighters are inside is just awful.
 
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I remember watching the second plane hit during the broadcast. I was just about to start my second year at uni and was sorting out my new shared house.
 
I was playing Quake 3 online with a bunch of Americans (Burial Grounds community server) when it happened - the first indication anything was wrong was a series of exclamations in chat followed by the server emptying as everyone disconnected without explanation. Shortly after I found out about it on the news. Spent most of the day on voice comms with a US clan mate who could see the towers from his apartment in Manhattan. As with most people I suspect I was watching it from the second plane hitting onwards.

My dad had two people from his work due in a meeting in the World Trade Center, fortunately it had been rescheduled but I remember him sitting on the floor in the hall having gathered every phone he could to try and get in contact with them.

chrismscotland said:
I couldn't believe what I was seeing and was convinced World War 3 had just started
Click to expand...

I didn't think WW3 was starting but it was a weird feeling - you didn't know what to expect, was it just the start, are we next?, was anyone even safe? the whole day was tense even being 1000s of miles from it.
 
I was in Day 14 of basic training in the RAF.

In the days before smartphones, not allowed to have our mobiles on during the day and not allowed TVs, we had no idea it had happened until the evening when one of our instructors told us something big had happened. One lad did have a small portable TV and we found out exactly what had happened through that.

I cannot begin to try and understand how those innocent people felt that day, the fear, their thoughts, the people who jumped to their deaths rather than experience the pain of being burnt alive....

RIP :mad:
 
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I went to Uni a little later in life, so 25 when studying for my final year. I was at a temporary job and before starting, my boss asked if I could run him to a petrol station to pick up some cigarettes. I was due to work the 2-10pm shift.

I was sitting in my car in Peterborough, listening to Radio 1 when the first plane struck the North Tower around 1:45pm. It did not really sink in, we thought it was a light plane, like a Cessna. The temp job was working in a secure warehouse which had no TV, only a radio, there was only four of us temps in the entire building and we were all students. It was big old warehouse with 4 people working, it added to the strangeness. Listening to Radio 1, Mark and Lard in the afternoon describing the scenes, and then eventually, playing music, there was no presenters, just low key music.

It was hard to describe as we never saw anything on TV, by 3pm the realisation that both towers had collapsed, without actually seeing it, was surreal. When I got home and watching the news through the night, I'll never forget the footage. Terribly sad and the stories of bravery that day, by god, it makes you think.

Why is it remembered now, the violence and unfolded live on TV. It's one of those few moments in history, the death of JFK, Moon Landing, Diana etc, that you will never forget where you were when it happened.
 
What I didn’t understand is that why was anyone filming WTC at the moment the first plane hit? Did they know something?

Got immensely irritated with the news just showing about 10 different angles of planes hitting the towers and with them collapsing, people running and screaming.

Also remember initial death figures were 60k? Was about 1/19th

I was staying outside the New Forest in a B&B. Thank heavens for Ch5 broadcasting their planned schedule.


I was in a gift shop in the New Forest. The shop owner said a plane has landed on the WTC. I had image of a small plane landing on
a heli pad on top of one of the towers.
 
I was 23, working in a local computer repair shop which had Internet cafe attached. Literally remember the moment seeing it on the screens of all the students who were using the Web.

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.
 
chrismscotland said:
I was in High School and remember being on my way home; I got a text from my dad saying "turn on the TV when you get in"; I asked why? and he just replied "chaos in America"; a the time I think I replied with "Whats new?".
Anyway; I had just got a WAP enabled mobile (those were the days!) so I could get basic teletext style news and was just staggered; I think that was just as the second plane has hit the WTC and I just though; what kind of ATC failure is that?

I got in and my mum already had Sky News on and I think that was just as the second tower collapsed; and there seemed to be a lot of confusion about how many planes had been hijacked; car bombings in Washington D.C, etc - it was chaos.

I remember as well that buildings in London had started being evacuated at that point and there was genuine fear we were going to see something similar here (Although I now know that was unlikely given our stronger security on domestic flights)

I couldn't believe what I was seeing and was convinced World War 3 had just started but I remember the wall to wall coverage going on for days after that; its certainly going to be one of those "where were you" moments in my lifetime. I certainly will never forget the sight of people jumping from the two towers.

I iniitally bought into some of the conspiracy theories (I was only about 14-15) but not now; its pretty clear that as a collective the US intelligence community had enough information to potentially disrupt the attack but was run as competing agencies (CIA, FBI, NSA, etc) rather than a more collegiate effective group of agencies; it was ultimately the biggest failure of US intelligence since Pearl Harbor and perhaps up until their assessment of the Taliban and Afghan Army's capabilities back in July...

I understand why 9/11 still talked about and remembered so much; it was unprecedented and thankfully never repeated on the same scale but its also nuts to think that we only just came out of Afghanistan a couple of weeks ago. Its had such a massive lingering impact on the world; the War on Terror, Arab Spring, etc; in some respect its had a bigger impact than the 2008 financial crash did.

A few folk mentioning 7/7 as well; that's also fair seared into my brain; I was at uni but was studying at home; turned on the TV just as the first "incident" had happened and London Underground, etc were reporting it as a power surge; I just knew immediately it was a terror attack and I think it was about an hour later that the Met, etc officially confirmed that.
7/7 probably caused more panic/fear in the UK; it was the first suicide attack on UK soil.
I was going in and out of Edinburgh for Uni every day at that point and I certainly became a bit more vigilant and cautious even though I thought it pretty unlikely here; that said even now when I'm in London for work I do tend to keep my eyes peeled, etc.

As a nation we're certainly more on edge that we were before 9/11 and 7/7.

Back to 9/11 - there's a documentary (6 parter) on National Geographic this week (and last I think) called 9/11: One Day in America - some rehashing of the usual but I hadn't seen some of the footage from the WTC before; the noise of people jumping and hitting the roof of one of the buildings below as the Firefighters are inside is just awful.
Click to expand...

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.
 
Site office in Kent at one end of HS1, the Thames Tunnels project. One of the guys was watching the news on his Internet enabled PC and work effectively stopped for the day. We thought it may mean world war three.

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