A Time to Reflect

[Losing_Sanity]

With 9/11 approaching, I think it's a good time to reflect on past events that have shaped our country. With all that is going on today throughout our country, we need to remember that there are others that are watching and hoping that we destroy each other. We need to keep our country strong, profitable, and safe for all our citizens and never forget how vulnerable we can be.

That morning on 9/11 I was taking my mom to have eye surgery. I was getting gas and everyone in the store was glued to the TV watching the tragedy. That's how I learned of what has happened. I know what I was doing and I will never forget that day and how I felt.

I think Alan Jackson says it pretty well...

 

[geetar]

I was homeschooled so I was sitting in the house working on school work when my dad called my mom and said the World Trade Centers have been attacked.

 

[geetar]

Another good related song @Losing_Sanity

 

[ignorethefringes]

My dad and I were driving back over the mountains to western Washington from a hunt. We got over the pass and said let's the on the radio now that we have service again. The first thing we heard was, "a plane has just flown into the second world trade center tower..." We just started praying immediately. I'll never forget that. The last couple hours of the drive seemed to take a long time.

 

[Treeshark]

Was a freshman in college, one of our roommates in the dorms was a German engineering student- awesome dude, just... different.

He came flying in yelling “America is being attacked” and we just started laughing at him. You’d have to know him, but it didn’t really seem that strange coming from him. He convinced us to turn on the TV shortly before the second one hit. Insane time in our history.

 

[mevertsen]

In high school. Just woke up and my dad had the news on which was rare.

We didn't do anything in school that day.

 

[Wildabeest]

I was sitting at work. Can’t remember what I was working on, but 3 months later I was running a product division focused on making sure those scumbag terrorists no longer had easy access to the money to finance their carnage. That day changed my life to where every day since, I wake up and pursue my purpose, not just my job. Prayers to all the families who lost loved ones that day, and the countless service men and women who have put it all on the line since. Thanks @Losing_Sanity for posting this!

 

[SaskHunter]

9/11 shaped my life in a lot of ways. I had just started high school when it happened, we were on a field trip and didn't hear about it until we got back to school that afternoon. When we got back to our classroom, our teacher told us what had happened and to be quite frank, most of us Canadian kids had no idea what it really meant or what the World Trade Center was. When I got home that night, I saw the images and it put a big imprint on me, it was the first time I would witness death, pain, chaos, etc. That night, I stayed up late watching the news with my dad and like most North Americans re-watched the events unfold time, after time, after time, etc.

Fast forward 5 years later, I joined the Army at a time when Canada took on a new combat role in Afghanistan, we were taking control of Kandahar. Three years later I deployed to Kandahar, in 2009. Had 9/11 not happened, I probably would not have joined the military. One of the moments that made me want to be a soldier was early 2000s, Canadian troops were conducting an urban exercise in my hometown before going to Afghanistan. I watched these soldiers for a few days and thought they were super f&cking cool. Had it not been for 9/11 and our involvement in Afghanistan, I most likely would not be a soldier and the man I am today.

 

[Nick87]

2nd hour U.S. history freshman in high school I'll never forget that. Thank you for posting this as a great reminder that most have probably lost sight of with this years events.

 

[bobbydean]

Watching the Today Show live. Katy Couric very confused. Tragic and will never forget it. My nephew was in the building the same week. Cannot imagine that it did happen. Till the second plane hit, no one thought it was an attack.

 

[Deleted member 38069]

I remember watching the 2nd plane hit live, thinking it was a replay

 

[Europe]

Losing - Sanity, Alan Jackson says it very well and so did you---- thanks for the thread

We had a granddaughter visiting in New York so our family was immediately trying to find out where she was and if she was o.k. We decided to fly to our son's house but soon after we were airborne , we were instructed to land at the closest airport and we did. I was to young to grasp the impact of the Pearl Harbor invasion, but I remembered how my parents acted when they heard the news and suddenly I had a better understanding of their feelings. I remember crying and saying a pray for the people who died ( in the towers and in the airplanes---as well as all the people who died in the other two airplane crashes that day ) and their families. I know Toby Keith took some flak for his song "Courtesy of the red white and blue", but we liked it.

 

[dirtclod Az.]

I was getting ready for work and turned on the t.v., I saw the first plane stuck in a tower and though
I had the wrong station and was watching a movie.
Then I watched as the second plane flew right into the other tower and knew some serious shite was going down!

 

[Big Bore]

I had been fly fishing in Idaho the few days leading up to it. On the morning of 9/11 I was on my way to the Salt Lake City airport, scheduled to fly back home. Ended up renting a car in some tiny town and spent two days driving back home.

 

[hank4elk]

I was putting on my uniform watching the news. I was only one at work to see it an hour later and they thought I was full of it.
I spent the next 2 weeks watching the dam on boat patrol from the lake side with sheriffs on the top. Had to cancel a vaca & hunt trip to NM for a year.
I later learned of losing my last crew mate,a Senior Master Chief Petty Officer in the Pentagon and 2 friends in the towers.

 

[devon deer]

I think everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing on 9/11, I was driving to do a survey for the telecoms firm (in my home country of England) I worked for, the news came over the radio in my car, a jet had crashed into the WTC, I thought damn thats tragic, but a few minutes later came the news about the second, it was then in an instant like a lot of others, that is a terrorist act.

This is a timely post, the UK today a public enquiry is starting into the Manchester bombing see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Arena_bombing
The bombers brother was jailed recently, the longest jail term ever handed down in England, 55 years, although the death penalty would have been better.
I don't do prayers, but I will in his case, I pray this happens to him, courtesy of a line in the Shawshank Redemption

Warden Samuel Norton:
You will do the hardest time there is. No more protection from the guards, I'll pull you out of that one-bunk Hilton and cast you down with the Sodomites. You'll think you've been f*****d by a train!

 

[noharleyyet]

I remember watching the 2nd plane hit live, thinking it was a replay

This is what I remember...it also took the talking heads a confused moment to realize what had just happened. I also remember how fast the event descended into the partisan maw.

 

[FreezerHunter]

I was student teaching and at the point where I was mostly teaching my classes by myself. My cooperating teacher came in after my first class and said I needed to come watch the news in the teacher workroom. As orchestra teachers, we travelled between 8 different elementary schools. It will always stick in my mind the wide variety of responses each school implemented. Some schools had every TV in the building on and showing the news, while another was not sharing any news with the students and going about the day as normally as possible. One school had an assembly to inform students before they left for the day. Each building was trying to figure out how to inform students without terrifying them. I saw and shed a few tears that day.

 

[3855WIN]

Plugged in working approach control.
Stop departures to LGA, EWR, JFK, etc
Makes sense
Next - Stop all departures in the National Airspace System
Never seen that before
Get a call from Center on the shout line -
“We’re gonna start handing off arrivals that don’t normally come there. We’re putting all aircraft on the ground”
Hmm. We might be under attack
Get a call asking if we can see nuclear power plant on our radar. The answer was yes. Instructions were to report any targets in the vicinity of the power plant. They would scramble fighters.
wow
All aircraft is now on the ground. Nothing but the chatter on guard frequency. Hearing tactical call signs we don’t normal work. Watching very fast formation flights going across the scope.
When I got a break, I called my wife and told her to pick up our son from preschool. I didn’t know how the day would end, but wanted them to be together.

 

[matt0550]

I had just arrived home from work after working a barricaded gunman scene the entire night where we ended up making entry just before dawn out of fear that the shooter had a hostage (based on horrible intel) - I located the shooter who was DOS, he'd partially decapitated himself with his shotgun after terrorizing the neighborhood for hours on end - there had been no hostage.

I got home from work just in time to catch my wife feeding my 16 day old son. Exhausted I sat down on the couch and gave both of them a kiss thanking God that I was back home safe. The thought crossed my mind that I hoped the two of them would never know the horrible, evil things I have seen or had to do. The TV was on but the wife had muted the audio so we could talk while she fed my son and not 30 seconds Into our conversation, the images started appearing on the tube. I remember feeling defeated, looking at my brand new child wondering how he was going to survive in this world we've been busy destroying. That sadness lasted around one day, maybe a little more. By the 2nd day I was feeling anger and not the self righteous kind - sheer, unadulterated violent anger. Some of my team headed to NYC while the rest of us braced for follow-on assaults (intelligence was pointing toward a layered attack at the time) that never came. The sadness is deeper for me now than it was then because I know full well that a segment of this nation's scumbag population will literally be celebrating the attacks as acts of good instead of evil this September 11th.