What do you remember about Sept 11, 2001?

[teapartysamurai]

Every one is going to think I am making this up, because it's so crazy, but I SWEAR it's true! Actually, it's one of those instances that are so crazy, you know it's true, because it's too crazy to be made up!

My Brother in law was hurt that day, actually pretty badly.

He was in the hospital at the time, and had to go down the hall to go the bathroom, his room didn't have it's own bathroom.

As he was shuffling back down the hall, with his IV, back to his room, someone hit the panic button at the hospital and ordered a lockdown of the hospital.

Apparently, they assumed that terrorists were attacking all over the country and that massive casualties would be coming into the hospital. Also, they feared terrorist attacks on hospitals so a someone issued a lockdown order.

Well, I'm not exactly sure how that works, but apparently, it means there were these big doors between halls that slammed shut, and while my brother in law was walking down the hall he got hit by one of them as it slammed shut, and it sent him flying. The nurses station was locked off, the rooms were locked and he was laying on the floor unconcious.

When he came to, he had to call my sister at work, and tell her he was laying on the floor of the hospital and no one was there to help him.

Can you believe this crap? It's true!

And my sister had to call the hospital and tell them my brother in law was laying on the floor of their hospital unable to get up!

So, they came up and rescued him. It's a good thing he had a cell phone with him!

They laugh about it now. Not that there is anything funny about 9/11. But that they had to call the hospital to get help for my brother in law!

He could have been killed, if he hadn't had the phone with him, and in the hospital to boot!

I mean hindsight is 20/20, and no one knew what was going to happen next that day, but it seems an EXTREME OVERREATION to put the hospital on lockdown with no warning.

They could have AT LEAST warned the patients, so none of them would get hit by these lock down doors as they slammed shut.

That's how crazy everything was that day.

 

[Dr.Traveler]

I recall that I was in grad school. Every morning I had the same routine. Wake up, feed the cat, turn on CNN, grab the paper, eat breakfast, meet my (later) wife to go to school together.

That particular morning I skipped turning on the TV. I'd gotten sick of the Chandra Levy coverage and just didn't want to hear it anymore.

Halfway through a bowl of cereal my brother calls in a near panic and tells me they've grounded all the planes and are starting to shoot them down. I calm him down and more out of puzzlement than fear I turned on the TV. Just in time to see the first Tower fall. I just couldn't believe it.

My wife showed up right after the second Tower fell. I recall hearing about the Pentagon sometime after that. I also recall the false reports. First 5 planes lost, then 6 unaccounted for, a car bomb at State, evacuation of the White House, etc. Things were just nuts.

I had to go to a class on Algebraic Geometry that day. Thank god my own teaching assignments weren't on that day. The Algebraic Geometry teacher tried for 15 minutes, but he just couldn't teach and we weren't in the mood to learn. He dismissed class.

We went to my wife's house and she got worried about gas shortages. So I took her car out to fill the tank with the news on the radio there and back. I recall the offensives starting in Afghanistan and the confusion. Were we already on the ground? It turned out it was the Taliban and Northern Alliance already sparring. The Taliban clearly knew we were coming for them and wanted to wipe out any potential allies. I recall Palestinians burning the flag in celebration and thinking if Isreal decided to bulldoze the entire Gaza Strip and West Bank flat I'd be fine with that. I recall the price gouging at the pump ($1.75 a gallon).

Worst I recall the weeks after that. The change in airport security. Prior to 9/11 I'd seen a really sweet proposal happen at the arrivals gate. Couldn't happen that way again. I recall watching the news convinced it'd happen again.

It was a strange time.

 

[Dr.Traveler]

I spent much of the morning trying to figure out what flight my wife was on since she'd flown to NYC that morning. Typical of me I had no idea what flight she was on, and some of your probably remember that what flights went down wasn't entirely clear for quite a while.

After hearing from her in the late afternoon, all I could think was this"

"How could this nation's air defences be so lame that our precious bloated military not only failed to have defended our greatest city, but the Pentagon itself?"

If there was one thing I thought we could depend on, it was our military defending our airspace over places like NYC and Washington.

After having studied the various systems that failed us, of course, I'm somewhat more sympathetic to how they let this SNAFU occur.

But one would have thought after DECADES of air hijackings in air security would have been tighter and certainly one would think that our military at least could defend our major cities.

What this event really shows us, I think, were two things

1. The amazing lack of creativity of our military to imagine how dedicated fanatics can conduct a non conventional war, and

2. How terribly difficult it is to prepare for non-conventional attacks even if you DO have that kind of imagination.

There's just too many targets and too many ways to attack them to prepare for them all.

I recall learning after the fact that it was a mystery who called for grounding the planes that day.

Turns out it was midlevel beaurcrat, fresh into his job, that just grounded everything with basically no authority. That was probably one of the best decisions made that day. There are still rumors, to this day, of planes that had passengers quickly dissapear once it was clear that their plane wouldn't be taking off. Chances are the guy stopped at least one more attack.

 

[Dr.Traveler]

If you care to, please share your thoughts and feelings about that day.

What were you doing? Who were you with? What did you feel? What did you think?

I think one of the amazing things about the 9/11 attacks is that it hasn't happened again...

That's something that I have thought about.

There have been attempts, but we've stopped them, either through luck or skill.

The big question is...are we protecting ourselves or do we have a false sense of security?

I feel the same thing about my antivirus software on my computer. Is it protecting me, or have I just not been attacked?

I think its turned out that the 9/11 attack took a surprising amount of resources to pull off. Agree with how Bush fought the early part of the War on Terror or not, he did an enormous amount of damage to their command and control. So far it appears they just haven't had the resources to do it again.

I do recall watching TV constantly for weeks and always having it in the background as I thought they'd hit again.

Strange thing was that Dateline, or one of NBC's shows, was going to air a special on terrorism with a theoretical attack on the Towers. They'd filmed it months before and were supposed to air it the following week. They held it for months afterwards and I recall that when I watched it getting angry at claims this couldn't be predicted.

I also recall that History Channel had to go back into their WTC documentaries and add in when they used footage of folks that died in the attack to reflect that.

 

[Big Fitz]

I woke up to my alarm giving the news that a plane just hit the WTC. I thought they meant like in 1939... small aircraft, tragic accident.

So I hit snooze.

9 Minutes later, I heard "A SECOND plane has just struck the Twin Towers." TV was on and I watched it all on the phone with my fiancee at the time till just after they fell, then I went to work.

That night, the area was given a quick panic as a money grubbing fuckheaded rat bastard piece of shit told all his gas stations to raise prices to 2.99 a gallon from 1.60 earlier that day. By the time I got to a gas station, the cops were shutting down stations who had changed their prices and forcing them to roll back the price. Many were full of angry people who were shouting at attendants for causing a panic.

 

[teapartysamurai]

I spent much of the morning trying to figure out what flight my wife was on since she'd flown to NYC that morning. Typical of me I had no idea what flight she was on, and some of your probably remember that what flights went down wasn't entirely clear for quite a while.

After hearing from her in the late afternoon, all I could think was this"

"How could this nation's air defences be so lame that our precious bloated military not only failed to have defended our greatest city, but the Pentagon itself?"

If there was one thing I thought we could depend on, it was our military defending our airspace over places like NYC and Washington.

After having studied the various systems that failed us, of course, I'm somewhat more sympathetic to how they let this SNAFU occur.

But one would have thought after DECADES of air hijackings in air security would have been tighter and certainly one would think that our military at least could defend our major cities.

What this event really shows us, I think, were two things

1. The amazing lack of creativity of our military to imagine how dedicated fanatics can conduct a non conventional war, and

2. How terribly difficult it is to prepare for non-conventional attacks even if you DO have that kind of imagination.

There's just too many targets and too many ways to attack them to prepare for them all.

I recall learning after the fact that it was a mystery who called for grounding the planes that day.

Turns out it was midlevel beaurcrat, fresh into his job, that just grounded everything with basically no authority. That was probably one of the best decisions made that day. There are still rumors, to this day, of planes that had passengers quickly dissapear once it was clear that their plane wouldn't be taking off. Chances are the guy stopped at least one more attack.

Wow! I did not know that!

I remember that Rush Limbaugh was in the air at the time it happened on his own private jet. They (his pilot and he) had not heard what had happened and he related (on the phone) that he heard his pilot get into an argument with air traffic control.

They were ordered to land and his pilot (not knowing the situation) started to give ground control flack.

And Rush remembered hearing, "Land or you will be shot down!"

And his pilot stopped arguing and landed the plane.

Of course, when they landed, they learned WHY it was so urgent they land.

So, yeah, they were damn serious about that no fly order and they were ready and willing to shoot down planes that did not comply.

Whomever gave the order, did the right thing!

 

[ABikerSailor]

I remember that day very well............

In the morning (when I was still active duty), it was my habit to tune in CNN and watch it before I went into work. I'd just stepped out of the shower and was putting on my uniform when I looked at the television and though "someone REALLY fucked up, wonder what happened", and while I was looking at the smoking crater in the first building, I saw a grey streak go and hit the other one.

I immediately got my ass into work, because I knew shit was going down after the second plane hit. One? Maybe I could have passed it off as a really tragic mistake, but when I saw the second one, I knew it was an intentional act.

Made it to the MEPS, and started calling San Antonio to find out what to do with all the applicants had been dropped off that morning by the recruiters. All the televisions in MEPS were tuned into every news channel we could get, because we wanted to see who was going to get hit next.

All of a sudden, one of the Army guys came into the office and told us all they'd just flown another plane into the Pentagon. I stayed glued to the television for the next little while because I had friends up there whom I'd been stationed with. About 45 min later, they started reading the names of the dead, and I saw that one of them was an SK3 by the name of Jamie Fallon.

I'd done her transfer to the Pentagon when I was stationed with her on my last ship. She was a really beautiful woman, and I was a bit pissed that I'd lost a friend.

During this time, in between checking the news, I had to call a whole bunch of recruiters back (thank God it wasn't the end of the month, otherwise we'd have had a lot more applicants there). The grounding of all the planes kinda screwed up our travel arrangements for the people going to boot camp, so we also had to get those people home.

After the last one had been picked up, I called back to my Master Chief in San Antonio and asked what he wanted us to do. He then told us to go home, and be ready for damn near anything.

I spent the rest of the day staring at the news.

 

[Rinata]

I remember something that I still have trouble thinking about. When people started jumping from the twin towers. It upset me so much. I was so furious that our citizens had been forced to do this. I thought of their families seeing it and how very painful it must have been.

That was the most horrifying thing I've ever seen.

 

[Kat]

I remember something that I still have trouble thinking about. When people started jumping from the twin towers. It upset me so much. I was so furious that our citizens had been forced to do this. I thought of their families seeing it and how very painful it must have been.

That was the most horrifying thing I've ever seen.

Ugh. Same here. I HATE running across pictures of that too.

 

[Dr.Traveler]

I spent much of the morning trying to figure out what flight my wife was on since she'd flown to NYC that morning. Typical of me I had no idea what flight she was on, and some of your probably remember that what flights went down wasn't entirely clear for quite a while.

After hearing from her in the late afternoon, all I could think was this"

"How could this nation's air defences be so lame that our precious bloated military not only failed to have defended our greatest city, but the Pentagon itself?"

If there was one thing I thought we could depend on, it was our military defending our airspace over places like NYC and Washington.

After having studied the various systems that failed us, of course, I'm somewhat more sympathetic to how they let this SNAFU occur.

But one would have thought after DECADES of air hijackings in air security would have been tighter and certainly one would think that our military at least could defend our major cities.

What this event really shows us, I think, were two things

1. The amazing lack of creativity of our military to imagine how dedicated fanatics can conduct a non conventional war, and

2. How terribly difficult it is to prepare for non-conventional attacks even if you DO have that kind of imagination.

There's just too many targets and too many ways to attack them to prepare for them all.

I recall learning after the fact that it was a mystery who called for grounding the planes that day.

Turns out it was midlevel beaurcrat, fresh into his job, that just grounded everything with basically no authority. That was probably one of the best decisions made that day. There are still rumors, to this day, of planes that had passengers quickly dissapear once it was clear that their plane wouldn't be taking off. Chances are the guy stopped at least one more attack.

Wow! I did not know that!

I remember that Rush Limbaugh was in the air at the time it happened on his own private jet. They (his pilot and he) had not heard what had happened and he related (on the phone) that he heard his pilot get into an argument with air traffic control.

They were ordered to land and his pilot (not knowing the situation) started to give ground control flack.

And Rush remembered hearing, "Land or you will be shot down!"

And his pilot stopped arguing and landed the plane.

Of course, when they landed, they learned WHY it was so urgent they land.

So, yeah, they were damn serious about that no fly order and they were ready and willing to shoot down planes that did not comply.

Whomever gave the order, did the right thing!

The guy who made the call, and went around the beaurcracy to do it, gave an interview in Dallas this year. You can read some of it here:

Official who grounded air traffic on 9/11 speaks to Richardson audience | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News | Breaking News for Dallas-Fort Worth | Dallas Morning News

He made a pretty gutsy call.

EDIT: BTW, September 11th was his first day on the job. Next time you think you have a bad first day....

Ben Sliney - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[teapartysamurai]

I recall learning after the fact that it was a mystery who called for grounding the planes that day.

Turns out it was midlevel beaurcrat, fresh into his job, that just grounded everything with basically no authority. That was probably one of the best decisions made that day. There are still rumors, to this day, of planes that had passengers quickly dissapear once it was clear that their plane wouldn't be taking off. Chances are the guy stopped at least one more attack.

Wow! I did not know that!

I remember that Rush Limbaugh was in the air at the time it happened on his own private jet. They (his pilot and he) had not heard what had happened and he related (on the phone) that he heard his pilot get into an argument with air traffic control.

They were ordered to land and his pilot (not knowing the situation) started to give ground control flack.

And Rush remembered hearing, "Land or you will be shot down!"

And his pilot stopped arguing and landed the plane.

Of course, when they landed, they learned WHY it was so urgent they land.

So, yeah, they were damn serious about that no fly order and they were ready and willing to shoot down planes that did not comply.

Whomever gave the order, did the right thing!

The guy who made the call, and went around the beaurcracy to do it, gave an interview in Dallas this year. You can read some of it here:

Official who grounded air traffic on 9/11 speaks to Richardson audience | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News | Breaking News for Dallas-Fort Worth | Dallas Morning News

He made a pretty gutsy call.

EDIT: BTW, September 11th was his first day on the job. Next time you think you have a bad first day....

Ben Sliney - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wow! That is just Wow!

 

[Lasher]

Wicked Jester is a friend of mine and a member of this board giving you a courteous reminder of what the mods have already said - loud and clear. This is not the thread to play games in, or with.

You should remember that a person is known by his friends, and if you think it is courteous to call someone "dumbass" right off the bat, you are cut from the same cloth as he is. He didn't explain at all just what I posted that he didn't like, just started in showing his authority like a school kid. Some people aren't cut out to deal with the public, and the two of you seem to belong in that genre. And why do you say I am playing games? If "wicked" had spoken with a grain of decency to me, none of this would have occured, but his response leads me to think I posted something that was personal to him, and that is no way to serve as a Mod.

Look man, i've seen you on another thread spewing all kinds of racist BS. Then you come on this thread and start spewing loony conspiracy BS, when it was clearly laid out by modbert that, that kind of BS won't be tolerated on THIS thread. There is an entire section on this board dedicated solely to that conspiracy BS. Park your ass over there if ya' want to chime in with that crap. 9/11 affected many people up here very deeply. A couple actually lost loved ones or friends in the attack. Out of respect to them, lay off.

You sound like a real tough piece of meat, old sport, can you back any of it up?

 

[Cal]

I was riding home from school with my mom, when someone called and said to turn the radio on. I remember one of the first words out of the personalities' mouth was "we've been attacked." I knew right then that something bad had happened. Although I was young, and didn't fully understand the extent of what had happened, I knew it was bad. I remember how sad, but how together every one was that day. Seemed every one was being nice for that one day. As I got older, I realized how bad the attack on our soil was. I will always remember that day, and where I was.. Til the day I die.

 

[Lasher]

I was going to go down to Munich for the Olympics that year, I was only 2 hours north of there. But I had duty.......

That must be a very old picture of you.

 

[Meister]

I was riding home from school with my mom, when someone called and said to turn the radio on. I remember one of the first words out of the personalities' mouth was "we've been attacked." I knew right then that something bad had happened. Although I was young, and didn't fully understand the extent of what had happened, I knew it was bad. I remember how sad, but how together every one was that day. Seemed every one was being nice for that one day. As I got older, I realized how bad the attack on our soil was. I will always remember that day, and where I was.. Til the day I die.

Riding home from school? You do realize that this was going on around 8:00am EDT right?

 

[SFC Ollie]

I was going to go down to Munich for the Olympics that year, I was only 2 hours north of there. But I had duty.......

That must be a very old picture of you.

It goes back a few years.....

 

[Cal]

I was riding home from school with my mom, when someone called and said to turn the radio on. I remember one of the first words out of the personalities' mouth was "we've been attacked." I knew right then that something bad had happened. Although I was young, and didn't fully understand the extent of what had happened, I knew it was bad. I remember how sad, but how together every one was that day. Seemed every one was being nice for that one day. As I got older, I realized how bad the attack on our soil was. I will always remember that day, and where I was.. Til the day I die.

Riding home from school? You do realize that this was going on around 8:00am EDT right?

I went to a private school. The first I knew about it was riding home.

 

[chesswarsnow]

Sorry bout that,


1. Oh I remember when it happened, and here's how I remember it.
2. I was asleep, when it happened, my Mother called me, she was screaming "Turn on the tv, a plane just crashed into the Twin Towers in New York City, the first thought in my head when I was reaching for the remote was, "Those god damn Muslims fucking bastards", so I turned on the tv, and sure enough smoke was billowing out of the first tower, I watched it for a few minutes, and was clicking on my laptop, having left the tv, when my Mother yells in my ear, "They did it again!", I didn't actually see it happen, but I knew who was doing it, I again said to myself, "Fucking Arab Bastards!", at the time no one knew who was doing it, but *I knew*, I know what Islam is and have known for years, from what they have been doing over the years, I knew.
3. That was a day we should burn into our collective minds, and keep pissing down Islams back saying its raining.
4. I think we should own Iraq now, and not leave it, and do the same with every Islamic nation.


Regards,
SirJamesofTexas

 

[Bombs 4 Obama]

I remember terrorists hijacking planes and crashing them into buildings.

 

[Londoner]

The Islamification of Obama by the Clintons in the 2008 primary