Where were you at 9/11?

[Star]

Where were you at 9/11? When the planes struck and the whole United States stopped moving for a second.

Where were you?
What went through you mind?
How old were you?
How did it make you feel?
Did you know anybody who got hurt?
Do you think America has come together since then?
Never forget

Let's discuss

First of all I was in the school gymnasium of my Freshman year of High School in SC. I didn't know anybody who got hurt, but I was shocked with such of thing happening and I thought it was gonna happen in more places than it did. I'm just glad it wasn't as bad as it could have been but I am sorry if anybody lost anybody. I must have been around 13 or 14 when it did happen. I think America did come together in those moments but I think we have forgotten about it over the years.

 

[dadevvtsvre]

I was seven years old when 9/11 happened, so needless to say I don't remember much! I didn't even know what 9/11 was until 2002, and didn't really grasp the depth of the events until I was ten or eleven. I was probably at school doing whatever you do in Grade 2 during 9/11, I guess.

 

[moog]

7? god damn kid i was 12

i was in algebra 2 and the little speaker came on tell us what happened but no one knew what was going on. i got taken out of class by my mom and my little brother was crying cause apparently "george bush was at gunpoint" i lold so fucking hard

 

[moxie]

my little brother was crying cause apparently "george bush was at gunpoint"

Aww, that's adorable and sad at the same time.

I was 9, I didn't really understand what was going on because our nutjob teacher didn't make it all that clear(too busy ranting about Bush... in her elementary school class), then later when my parents came and got me and explained everything I started crying. :x

 

[Daxis]

I was like 7 at the time, apparently, and I think school might have closed early not sure, I'm not even sure if i'm in the same house, but whatev.

I came home, turned on the TV, searching for either garfield or where in the world is camren sandiago or whatever her name was, hoping the bus wasn't late and i could still catch it, and all the TV just showed this thing on the news, and it was like fuck news boring shit and i just shut it off and went to play megaman or something, not sure.

i probably realized over the next three years and it was like oh, yeah, but shit happened that day. I'd realized it by 8th grade cause we watched a youtube of the crashing in class, but beyond that idk

 

[alexis]

i was asleep, because it was gotdamn six oclock in the morning
i think i was 10, idk
i was just mad because my mom made me go to school

 

[Nachos]

i was sleeping
with alexis
because it was gotdamn six oclock in the morning
i think i was 10, idk
i was just mad because her mom made her go to school

 

[mawk]

I was heading off to school when I saw it on the news. once I got over the initial "holy shit that just happened" it wasn't anything really special to me. beyond hoping they got everyone out of the wreckage, at least. honestly, though, I've never understood why after all these years it's still such a Thing for people who didn't lose family or anything like that. aside from that sort of thing not usually happening to us.

then again I'm sort of a dick so

 

[dadevvtsvre]

I was heading off to school when I saw it on the news. once I got over the initial "holy shit that just happened" it wasn't anything really special to me. beyond hoping they got everyone out of the wreckage, at least. honestly, though, I've never understood why after all these years it's still such a Thing for people who didn't lose family or anything like that. aside from that sort of thing not usually happening to us.

then again I'm sort of a dick so

well it spawned an entire decade of xenophobia and fear of all things unamerican so that's sort of important i guess

 

[bacon]

Yeah I woke up and the news was on and i saw the whole thing live. It was pretty bad. You could see the people jumping out of the buildings and everything and I knew what was going on and stuff and the newscaster was freaking out after the hit to the second tower. It was a pretty big shock. I remember that we arrived late to school and we had like 10 minutes of silence and all of that.

 

[alexis]

I was heading off to school when I saw it on the news. once I got over the initial "holy shit that just happened" it wasn't anything really special to me. beyond hoping they got everyone out of the wreckage, at least. honestly, though, I've never understood why after all these years it's still such a Thing for people who didn't lose family or anything like that. aside from that sort of thing not usually happening to us.

then again I'm sort of a dick so

it was a Thing for americans, a lot of people outside of the country probably didn't feel the impact the same way most americans did during that time/still do today. our country was at a huge loss. also take into account how proud most americans are of their 'pride' which they take out of their ass every five years to show they're patriotic or whatever.

i think, as a nation, the majority of us have eased off (for the most part) how we felt, as in it's not in the front of our minds anymore. but there are still those who bring it up every chance they can for conspiracy theories and what-have-you. those are the people i avoid, though. they suck.

 

[moxie]

Was I really the only one that cried? Jeez, guess I was just a sensiti dumb kid.

 

[Star]

People die everyday. It's harsh to think about it. Whether they die of natural causes or a death not so natural, they die. But when it happens in a large scale area and in a country you live in, it can cause panic and shock. To think about something just like that happening, and it being in the moment you think that they could strike your town too just for the simple fact that they seemed unplanned and uncoordinated. Four plane crashes all at once. Any of your loved ones across the country could have been involved at any moment. Then the thought of that could be happening anywhere near you at any time. It makes you wanna fight for back in a certain rage. I joined the military, and it might of had something to do with it. I wanted to protect ones precious to me. Of course this happens in other countries all the time. Wars started over other people getting killed, all miss conceptions and bad communications. They all produce more hate and more fire to wanna fight back. It's a never ending cycle. Yet 9/11 was still an important turn in American history and I suggest any of us that were watching it happening that we neva forget, tell your children and grandchildren!

Was I really the only one that cried? Jeez, guess I was just a sensiti dumb kid.

I thought it was cute. It's not dumb, it's very upsetting indeed. I was more angry than sad, but it maybe because of my gender.

 

[Daxis]

i find things like this more of a reminder that death nears every day, that does does exist, that you will die. people naturally think themselves as entities not dying, and when you are reminded of this, there's the it's not happenening to me mentality. That's why when there's death near you, it affects you greater, as it reminds you that you (and to an extension your loved ones) are not immortal and unchanging, that the unfamiliar are nearer than anyone thinks. I actually find it extremely selfish, as while one can realize that someone is being killed while this message is being written, eventually one will forget. #hypocrisy

additionally, the idea of state, nation, country, and "world" in general work the same way. We don't really see things like that, like our lives, as unchanging. Sure, there can be natural disasters, but you cant fight those- there's only a sense of despair, hopelessness, and later hope to help. But something like 9/11 reminds you of human atrocity, of instability of the minds of those around you. The state and nation and etc. are similar. Do we ever actually imagine a new state being joined to the us now? do we ever actually imagine a country falling, japan or the US off the grid and taken over by britain or china? Not really. The destabilization of what we know cuases these feelings of pain, uncertainty, rage, distress, fear, hate, and for those reasons people thus react, usually badly. #emokid speak

idk i just have a bad view of everybody in general, and my being good at shit is generally meaningless, despite the journey of life. #optimistic nihilism

 

[Venetia]

i was at high school right before the 1st bell rang. i was in california so it was 3 hours before new york time. someone ran up and said "holy shit someone blew up the world trade center!"

i felt like i was funny and quipped something like "well fuck the world trade center who do those jews think they are, the trade center of the world or something"

and then i think i started saying some shit against mormons for some reason and then some mormon girl bitched at me and i lol'd at her religion and told her why she was an asshole and her religion was stupid (note: i was a silly prick most of the time when i was 17)

then i had AP Biology and the teacher had a TV in there
we usually watched dumb daytime TV between experiments and that day it was on CNN
me and all 8 of the science nerds in the school sat and just watched
and i felt like an ass

i watched the first tower fall and then saw the second plane hit the second building and watched it as it fell
i saw people inundated in huge clouds of dust and reporters fleeing for their lives
i saw firemen crying b/c of the amount of shit in their eyes and their dust-burns and their ears bled from the sound and they were forced to run back into duty
i watched shots of people jumping off buildings, one in particular was of a single man who inched his way out on a flagpole extending from the second tower and you could see him as he contemplated what he was doing and then just let himself drop
and i heard the cell phone convo between the 9-1-1 (emergency) operator and the guy on the last plane that went down before reaching the pentagon.

a day later my mom got a call from a family friend who had been right there near the thing and he described all the people off'ing themselves, even in the aftermath, because they didn't want to choke to death on all the smoke and dust (and probably due to straight intense panic--people react in incredibly strange ways during extreme stress).

ok that was pretty disturbing, esp to watch in real-time, esp since they censored almost all of it after it went live--if you saw it after the fact, or in another country, it is very likely you never saw the worst of it.

i mean ok yeah disasters happen.
and really bad shit happens during them.
and 9/11 wasn't even really that big of a deal number-of-deaths-wise.
but seeing it and hearing about 1st hand accounts about it, at the time, will affect you.

to be honest, i don't think that it should have been blown up to the degree that it was because, in world-terms, it was not that major of a mortal loss.
but it was still disturbing.
and you have to appreciate the fact that it was a large-scale assault on a 1st-world country in a time of peace on a group of civilians who were only trying to work.

lol 9/11 jokes etc are admittedly funny but c'mon don't be serious about the dicking around. lol'ing legitly at a terrorist attack is like lol'ing legitly over any other murder and it makes you a douche.
(not speaking at anyone in particular, i am using a general 'you' here)

 

[vgvgf]

Where were you? - At home, far far away.
What went through you mind? - After mom told me: "Oh, really?". Then I went to TV and see a bit in the news: "Coool an explosion". Finaly, after some secs: "Bah, that's boring...", and went back to play with a friend.
How old were you? - 10.
How did it make you feel? - Indifferent, didn't care.
Did you know anybody who got hurt? - No.
Do you think America has come together since then? - America has ever been divided in different nations.

 

[Venetia]

Do you think America has come together since then?

not at all
if anything, in the long-term, i think it caused a deeper fissure than ever between the left and right wings. the independent party was gaining some real momentum before it happened. i don't think military or security ideals on either wing will ever really return to pre-bush levels, atleast not in my lifetime.
though i think it was more due to the pandering of the politicians and the hypersensitivity by sensationalists & the media than the act itself.

 

[Guest]

;D

 

[Untra]

I was maybe seven or eight, in 2nd grade. I remember coming home on the bus and my dad picking me up. When I asked why he was picking me up and not at work downtown, he said they were all told to go home that day. apparently, most of Denvers downtown district evacuated on 9/11 on the off chance a plane might crash in Colorado as well.

Im not sure if people actually remember that there was another plane that was flown into the pentagon. As a little kid I remembered hearing about the pentagon attack and thinking that was more serious than the world trade center attack. Not as many people were hurt in the pentagon attack, and there were no people offing themselves to escape the damage.

 

[Jason]

Where were you?
In my house on GBC (Why did I even say PS2 at first?!)

What went through you mind?
YAY LOOK MAM I JUST CAUGHT A POKÉMON CALLED MISSINGNO!

How old were you?
10

How did it make you feel?
I was happy that I caught a cool Pokémon that I NEVER knew about...

Did you know anybody who got hurt?
Yeah, my brother when I shown it to him, he was SO jealous because I wouldn't tell him how to get it.

Do you think America has come together since then?
I don't know, I mean, is Missingno really that important to Americans? I mean, I guess so since it was 9 years ago, but hey, I'm sure you yankees have had enough time to catch your own since then!