Remembering 9/11 - 20 years on

[Pawnless Endgame]

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.

 

[Pawnless Endgame]

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.

 

[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.

 

[Pawnless Endgame]

For those with Disney+, you will also have access to National Geographic.

I have just watched:

9/11 - The Plane That Hit The Pentagon
9/11 - Firehouse

Both documentaries are pretty harrowing to watch, and the 9/11 Firehouse is the first time I've seen footage of the 1st (North) tower impact.

Edit: sorry to hear about that @adam cool dude

 

[Pawnless Endgame]

In reality you wouldn't feel anything as it would just happen so quickly. I think even seeing the plane coming towards you would be just a haze. As cold as it sounds it is a far better way to go than cancer.

You do realise that thousands of people were later diagnosed with cancer due to being in proximity of Ground Zero when the twin towers collapsed?

 

[Pawnless Endgame]

thanks for sharing the hilton hotel video. interesting not just for the video and angle that they had, but a look back how terrible people were at recording things 20 years ago. like zooms fully in, then pans around too fast, then zooms out, then in, then out, then too high.

i get a lot was going on, but i remember this being a common thing even with non-important event slike family birthdays. people i think, are better at controlling cams now.

Good point there about how people filmed stuff back in the camcorder days! That way of filming also reminded me of clips from You've Been Framed! back in the 1990s, even though I know full well that the comical nature of YBF! should never be compared to the awful events of 9/11.

Regarding conspiracy theories, the only conspiracy I believed in related to the 2017 Ariana Grande bombing. In the run-up to the 2017 snap election, the Tories were having the worst day at the polls at that point, and then that evening, a bomb went off in the Manchester MEN Arena. To me, I saw it as a false flag operation staged by "foreign-looking people" to make young voters start hating on immigrants and thus vote Tory in the 2017 GE. That's only my opinion though, and I know that I'm very most likely to be wrong. Plus, nearly all conspiracy theories have been proven to be falsehood.