Just thinking about this. Probably the most defining news story since the 2nd world war, and most definatley of my life.
I was at work at a hotel, when one of the girls I work with got a phonecall to say what had happened. Initially I didn't realise the significance, but wondered down the Long gallery to the public TV. Stood watching for a couple of minutes then saw the second plane hit live. After that had to work till 10.30 pm, but got home and was pretty much glued to the TV until about 2 in the morning.

 I was at home had just got back from college. First i zapped it away thinkin it was a scene from some movie and i figured it wasnt worth watching if it was halfway like that already. Then a friend called me to tell what happened and i zapped back and realized it wasnt a movie at all! I saw the 2nd plane hit live as well :-/

In mumbai.. having an exhibit. didn't know a thing until a friend dropped in at the end of the day and shrieked.."the twin towers in NY got bombed!" created shivers down my back. took us two hours to get home, but we were all glued to the tv after that. None of us slept that night.

was at work. Everyone was leaving their desk, and going to the TV in the lobby. We just watched it happen (saw the 2nd one hit the tower), and they sent everyone home later. No one could work, anyway.

Was at work here in Denmark just before leaving from work when a co-worker told me that his wife had phoned that the TT was hit by an aeroplane - got home and switched on the TV - then the second plane hit i think - and i remeber i was thinking "This is not happening" - i got a TOTAL and i mean TOTAL sence of surrealism - and then i thought of how much evil and hate this was an expression of

I was in bed. Mrs Bryster woke me and said a light aircraft had hit one of the towers. I said well that was an accident just waiting to happen and went back to sleep. Shortly after Mrs Bryster came back and switched on the TV in our bedroom.
'"You really want to watch this."
And I did, as the 2nd plane hit the other tower, again and again and again.

thebryster.."again and again and again." ?? I so do hope not..
I wonder if all this hatred ever makes sense, all this fighting, all this power grabbing. For whom? and why? We die at the end of it all..alone, empty handed. not even our body do we take back. Just our deeds and thoughts And to have someone who claims after death, 'I killed a fellow human being for power and spite". Clap, clap to the person who says that. For he or she ahs never learnt anything in life...

Religion has a lot to answer for in my opinion. Whilst there is religion we will never have peace. Don't get me wrong every person has the right to his/her beliefs, but there are some nasty minded people who use it to manipulate it for their own needs.

I had just got back to work and someone said, did you hear the news? I said, what news.. The twin towers have been hit by aircraft. I said no? Then they asked how I felt, I said It's difficult to feel anything unles one has a connection to it. I mean, every day we hear about catastrophies from around the world, and don't really feel anything, like we're detached from it somehow.

I have no idea how they felt in New York, it was difficult to share the pain with them.

I feel sad when anyone suffers, infact I almost feel physically sick if I see anyone/thing getting hurt, but this detachment, when it's far away sometimes bothers me. Why the hell can't I feel something.

Maybe it's the media, TV or the movies that have created this detachment.. A kinda desensitization in effect.

Am I the only one? Or do others feel desensitized to things like this when they happen far from your own living space?

My two minutes of silence: [............................................................................................................................................................................
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Rosie, I meant thatthe tv kept playing the footage of the 2nd plane hitting the tower over and over. It was for me mesmerizing.(SS)

Was at home,......had just gotten up and was doing my usual routine, watching CNN.. Saw the whole thing unfold as it happened. I lived about 25 miles west of Washington DC at the time. I remember it was a beautiful fall day, not a cloud in the sky. My home was about 2 miles from Dulles airport and I was used to the sound of aircraft from 7am until 11pm. It was hauntingly quiet that morning, no sounds of jets coming and going,.........just the sounds of birds and the occasional dog barking. About 11:30 am we heard the sound of jet aircraft, much louder than usual. We rushed outside, looked up to see two F-16 fighters make a sharp turn and hit their afterburners. They were on combat air patrol over Washington and surrounding areas. One of my neighbors was also outside, alerted by the sound of the fighters. I remember her looking over at me and saying, "my sister lives in Georgia, I'm going to drive down their for awhile. I'm so scared, I just want to get the hell out of here." Then she began to cry. She crossed the street and stood in front of me. I simply put my arms around her and held her as I also began to cry. We both stood there sobbing. A little later that day many of my neighbors were outside milling around,.......eventually we all came together in a group; someone brought out a grill and began to cook food that everyone contributed. At that moment we were as one, no colors, no ethnicity, no economic differences,.......just Americans. Those are my memories.

I had just awoke and uncharistically turned the radio on immediately and heard the the first plane had just impacted. Turned on the T V and there went my day and then my sense of well being. But I sucked it up as I was doing palative care for my Mom at the time and didn't want to upset her as she had enough problems at the time.
I immediately had a vision of the start of a 'World Police State', and was proved rather accurate within mere months as everything re: travel out of one's home country changed for ever, just as a start.....sigh..A Brave New World indeed...a scarier one for sure.. ...

How could this country's defense system allow three planes to fly in circles for around two hours in two of the biggest and most populated city in the world  without one challenge..   Where were our defense protocols ?.

It was the same arrogance that told us the Japanese weren't capable of planning and executing an attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

A buddy of mine called me and woke me up telling me that terroists had attacked the WTC and to turn on the TV.

I saw the replay of the planes hitting the buildings, and then later saw the live images of the buildings falling.

We (my girlfriend and I) also nervously kept seeing the ticker text running across the news screen that an undisclosed amount of planes were also heading for Los Angeles (where I live)...this was later disproved, yet...the fear was there at the time. In spades.

We camped out in front of the TV in the livingroom for 3 days.

I had just walked ou of the bank, got in my car to head home. I always leave the radio on, and heard the DJ talking about it. When I got home I turned on the TV just in time to see the 2nd plane hit the buildings, and proceeded to be glued to the tube the rest of the day. It was chilling see the footage of the towers falling and all the clouds of dust and grit exploding into the streets. Say what you want about Pres. Bush, but by sending our troops into Iraq, he at least got the terrorists to battle with them (our troops) instead of blowing up building and killing our citizens here in the states.

Quote - have no idea how they felt in New York, it was difficult to share the pain with them.

I feel sad when anyone suffers, infact I almost feel physically sick if I see anyone/thing getting hurt, but this detachment, when it's far away sometimes bothers me. Why the hell can't I feel something.

Maybe it's the media, TV or the movies that have created this detachment.. A kinda desensitization in effect.

Am I the only one? Or do others feel desensitized to things like this when they happen far from your own living space?

My two minutes of silence: [............................................................................................................................................................................
...................................................................]

No, you aren't the only one..its fairly common and its also a kind of "defense" mechanism that your mind puts up to help you when you have empathic tendencies or you are empathic.

I live in Missouri and I remember more about the fed building that was bombed in Oklahoma City than I do about the TT.  And I watched both on tv...but I was much closer to Ok....plus I was having a hard time believing it was americans that did it and it just seemed to affect me more being in my own backyard.

My brother was in the other tower, where Verizon has its corporate clients services department. He was in the tower when the plane hit the first tower and alerted the others to get out. I am so glad that he made it out before the tower went down. He made it to safety.

Today 7 years later, we look back, grateful to have each other still alive.

I did this  while I was in school a year later as a special project. It was supposed to be a stamp honoring the Pentagon tragedy .

I wasn't going to add to this thread.  I was afraid it was going to turn into a finger pointing witch hunt.  I am glad it hasn't. 

I was putting my boat in the water for slalom practice when my ski partner showed up and said she had heard something about a plane hitting the WTC.   We practiced and listened to the radio in the boat. .  We cut the practice short when they began reporting it as a terrorist attack.

By the time I got back to the house the second plane had hit.  I sat there in disbelief until the first tower fell.  then I cried.  I had been a firefighter in my younger years and I knew heroes had died before my eyes.

I hope we never forget.

I was dreaming that I was watching this grinning idiot named George fly model airplanes into  model buildings  by remote control . . .  when I awoke that day it appears that reality was stranger than my dream . . . or perhaps my dream was telling me something - at this point I neither know nor care. 

I was at work when a coworker looking at CNN.com called me over to check out what was on his monitor, just before the second tower was hit.
Still doesn't seem real.

We were just getting ready to headout to get some i.d.'s changed for my wife since we got married a few days prior on the 7th.  I had a feeling something was not right so turned the TV on and turned to news and saw the horror.

We delayed our honeymoon because of the flight restrictions at the time.

**skiwillgee said, "***I was afraid it was going to turn into a finger pointing witch hunt.  I am glad it hasn't. "

• And I'm absolutely positive it's going to stay that way.*

I had just dropped my son off at college and was pulling back out onto the highway when the news came on the radio. By the time I got to work everything was chaos - the secretaries made sure there were several tvs for everyone to watch scattered around the building. Folks were gathered around computer monitors, watching the crashes repeatedly. When the towers collapsed I remember feeling numb and nauseated.

No one got any work done that day, nor was it expected of us.

On my way home from work that evening I burst into tears, and sobbed all the way home. I then called my Mom and we both cried over the phone at the whole senselessness of the acts.

It was one long senseless nightmare, especially for those directly involved.

Being in OZ the 11th was almost over. Only an hour or so to go. I was asleep in a chair in the lounge room. My wife came out and woke me up. She said they were talking on the net about a plane hitting the WTC. I thought it was some sort of net crap but I turned on the TV any way. I rang my mother to tell her but she already knew and was actually about to ring me. We talked into the night, finally hanging up about 3 in the morning.

9-11 was one of those things that came at me from an odd angle. In January I went to a friends wedding in another state. When we went through security at the airport they let me walk through wearing steel capped hiking boots. They never asked me to take them off, to check them. I said to people later I could have had a thin knife under my foot and they would never know. When it was announced later about the hijackers having box cutters my previos concerns came back to me. But that was the lesser of two odd incident. Two days before 9-11 I was cleaning out my humpy at work. Behind a set of lockers I found an old Nat Geo magazine from 1987. In the center it had  a fold out section with 2 pictures of lower Manhatten taken from the top of a bridge. The images had been taken exactly 100 years apart.  Over the next few days I studied the pictures for hours. And when the planes struck late Oz time on the evening of the 11th the magazine was still laying open in the middle of the dining room table. I always get the feeling something was telling me something was about to happen.

My wife called me at work, told me that a plane has hit the World Trade Center. Shortly thereafter she called me again, telling me that a second plane hit the second building and the first building collapsed. I did not work that long that day, since I was pretty shocked. 

The thing is, I had a discussion with a co-worker on the day before. He said, that one man alone cannot change the word, not even a bit, but I replied "Imagine he builds a bomb and destroy the World Trade Center with that". Not even 24 hours before the first plane hit. Although, of course, I had nothing to do with the real incident, I felt bad just for my words, when I heard what happened.

The world have changed a lot, that much is sure. 

I was coming in to work late after stopping by the hospital. I was channel surfing, looking for a station that didn't have commercials. I clicked on to Man Cow of all things just as he said "...ane has hit the building! Oh my god! is this true? somebody find out if this is for real." I stayed with the channel long enough to find out it wasn't one of his crappy skits or phone pranks, then stayed on.

I got to work thinking, "wow he's really gone too far this time!" When I came into the lobby of my building the TVs that normally have product slideshows had CNN on. I watched the replay of the first plane hitting and saw a dove flying across the screen at quarter speed. I was thinking, There's no way this is real! something's wrong with this image. It wasn't until I saw the buildings fall and realized those were people jumping from the windows to their deaths that I accepted it was real.

By lunch time everyone knew. There were questions like; Has anything else been hit? Are we a target? Shouldn't they close the schools? Are they going to send us home early? By that afternoon everything in the air was on the ground. I drove home that evening under one of the most beautiful skies I had seen in a while. Everything deep blue and just enough bright white clouds. A perfect indian summer day. You could clearly see The peak of LeConte and thunderhead. Everything was so still... What was it? No planes. There's always something coming and going but there was nothing up. There was less traffic on the ground too, no horns, no stereos blaring. No one out mowing. Quiet. Everyone went to bed waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Reading Electro's postmade me recall a story about someone talking to a city officlal the next day or whenever. He asked about the people who took their own lives by jumping out of windows. The CO told him sternly, "No one jumped out of windows - nobody took their own lives. They were all killed by terrorists."

Tom,

I think what the Bryster was saying was that those who did leap or were accidently pushed out while trying to get fresh air, were the result of the terrorist act and therefore killed by terrorists.
Which I totally agree with.

I don't think he was saying that no one fell from the building. I find that picture very upsetting. I've seen it before, I don't feel the need to see it again. My heart breaks for all those who suffered because of this. Just as it does for all the terrible things that happen in this world.

Angela

Yes Tom271. I know, but you don't get what I'm trying to say.

The City Official was saying that because Insurance companies won't payout if you commit suicide. So officially there were no suicides on that day and therefore the Insurance companies have to pay out. Kinda nice to know the City was on the side of the victims in all respects.

Crosspost with Ang. (Hi, Ang! You ok?)

Now lets get back to the purpose of this thread.

My point was how surreal reality has become. In horror movies it's always raining, cue the spooky music before the monster appears. In real life it was absolutely beautiful that day and several days surrounding. How can this event be part of the rest of life? It just didn't fit with anything else and probably never will. The puzzle in real life always has missing pieces and pieces from someone else's picture.

I turned on the telly and thought that it was some advert for a film or some cool CGI at first, as it was midway through a  BBC news item. Just thought no way that could be real!
Yeah, very surreal :/

The best way to deal with this is to ignore the event. The terrorsits  want you to remember, to hate, to take revenge and thus create support their psychotic, useless little minds couldn't otherwise gather.
That's how terrorism operates. They are completely useless little vermin.
Never give the enemy what they want.

Look at how manhy years it took them to pull this off, and wasn't their first try.
A similar military force could have done a hell of a lot worse.
Short of obtaining some really nasty bio-weaponry, terrorists are grossly ineffectual.
It's all hype.

9/11 is the worst they've ever done, 3,000+ dead. Yet, in a single, average year, . 50,000 Americans are slaughtered on the roads.
This is not some belittling of the tragedy or the deaths. It's to remind folk of the fact that terrorists are pissant, useless cowards, who have neither the guts, brains or love of their nation/religion to actually do CONSTRUCTIVE things for it.

The difference between a terrorist and a soldier is: the terrorist kills because they WANT to, a soldier kills because they HAVE to.

Northern Ireland...the plane hijackings of the 70s,..etc. Seen it before.
Guy I was at high school with got killed by the IRA, 9/11 scuzzballs nearly got one of my American relatives.
But as risks go, it's pathetically small. Cancer, cars, booze, you name it, all kill a LOT more. 

Ignore the scum, don't play their game, take care of them quietly, and mourn the deal, privately.

OK That's enough of that. Stay on the topic in question or I lock the thread.
And in case you don't understand, I don't want to hear any more politics.

Sorry I misunderstood...    my apologies to everyone....

Apology accepted mate and I agree with Bryster that this is a nice way to put that day in perspective by seeing which parts we actually remember...we all got blanks spot I'm sure...some of us bigger ones than others, heh heh heh....but let's keep politics out of this...not allowed at Renderosity in any case this discussing politics stuff.. ...

.*but let's keep politics out of this...not allowed at Renderosity in any case this discussing politics stuff.. ...

*Thanks Bobby...   this is the first I ever heard of politics not allowed....  but I was not engaged in politics...   I misunderstood TheBryster and placed the picture...  It was part of the reality..   I know people who worked in those towers my self...  On 911 everyone suffered..

Tom

I apologize Tom. I'm a bit oversensitive. Hope I didn't come across too strongly.

*I apologize Tom. I'm a bit oversensitive. Hope I didn't come across too strongly.

*Thank you Ang25,,

No need to apologize...  this is a sensitive subject matter....  I'm going to try and remove that pic..