Sept 11, 2001. 7 years later...

[macgig]

7 years? Hard to believe it's been that long since thousands of people were murdered.

God Bless America and our troops!

 

[PapaNoHair]

Yes it is hard to believe it has been 7 years!

 

[jah]

i hope some sort of healing process starts in the next few years.

i dont know the physicology process but every so often something ever so bad happens, maybe caused by an easy to point to person or institution...

as an individual or group or nation there is a danger of not understanding the issue(s) and not putting it into the context of history. maybe just recent there have been cataclysmic events that have destroyed thousands of lives, somehow the survivors have the strength to go on.

 

[InvalidUserID]

I remember I was at my first college, driving to campus for my first class of the day. I turned on the radio and thought the station was playing a joke since they did a lot of pranks and stunts. So I put it on the local AM news station and heard more and knew it was real.

I drove for a little bit more, listening to more info as it came in, and then I had to pull over off the freeway and just started crying. I must have sat there for a good 5 minutes, overwhelmed with emotions: sadness, fear, rage, etc.

Thankfully all my classes made the day optional and let students deal with things on their own.

 

[Dimitri]

I slept through most of that day and woke up to seeing it on TV. Seemed so surreal I wasn't even sure I was awake yet.

 

[TrishOB]

I was at work, and noticed that there was an unusually large group of people gathered in the conference room next to my office, watching the TV. I looked in and looked at the TV just in time to see the second plane hit. The rest of the day was pretty much thinly veiled chaos.

My biggest worry most of the day was waiting to find out what had happened to my brother-in-law, who worked at Merrill Lynch at the WTC. He was on the phone telling my sister that he was all right when the second plane hit and took out the cell tower. She had to wait until he made it home that night to know he was all right.

Jah, you refer to "cataclysmic" events in your post. My online dictionary defines the word "cataclysmic" as relating to or denoting a violent natural event. There was nothing natural about the violent events that occurred that day. The survivors of those events did and do have the strength to go on, but that doesn't mean we will forget what happened, or why it happened.

 

[CrimsonRequiem]

At school and our school was near D.C where one of the planes crashed into the Pentagon. Needless to say we got out of school early. We watched the whole thing in our U.S. History class. Everyone in the class was pretty much traumatized everyone was trying to call their family members and of course no one could get through.

 

[Kash]

It's been seven years and we have yet to start any meaningful reconstruction. What better way to stick it to the terrorists than to rebuild quickly to show that an act of barbarism is not going to take this country down? :sigh:

 

[Derek McNelly]

I was in 7th grade at the time. For me, I honestly wasn't really all that moved either way by it. My mind was elsewhere, and I, being the young, uninformed little poser anarchist was like "Yeah, *bleep* the government rabble rabble".

The only thing I give 12 year old me credit for is calling b/s on all the bandwagon patriots that sprung up immediately after. It bothered me that on my street there were three American flags prior to 9/11, and right after, there were maybe three houses that weren't flying it. I mean, yeah, it's a great nation, but you didn't show your support prior to the attacks.

The "patriotism" really did have good intentions, but it just bugged me a lot that it took THAT to get people to express some pride in their country, and it still does.

 

[fearlessfreap24]

that was my last day attached to the USS John F Kennedy (CV-67). a friend of mine was standing the gate watch as you entered the pier and had the news on his pager. there was a crowd around him because he was telling us this. all of us were in disbelief. the television was not working on the ship because it was getting ready to get underway anyway. after the group of us that were staying behind removed the mooring lines from the bollards, the commanding officer called away a "quick draw," which is a fast response routine to get small caliber weapons mounted and manned. the ship left the basin armed and ready and i returned to my house which was on base. i lived just within view of the main gate on naval station mayport. the gate was shut down and traffic was piled up for miles. to this day, i can not remember watching the hours of replays. but i do remember watching the aftermath for weeks. i can not listen to the annual reading of names and i can not look at pictures of the carnage without shedding a tear.

 

[Chris1111]

I was on the USS Tarawa LHA 1 at 32nd St. Naval Base in San Diego. I had 24 hour watch the day before and was taking a nap before quarters that morning just waiting to be dismissed for the day.

I heard a huge commotion for a while but was half asleep and was trying to ignore it but finally peeked my head our from where I was sleeping and saw the crew waiting to come on watch freaking out at the tv. It hit me like a ton of bricks when one of my shipmates saw me and said "we're under attack".

There were all kinds of unsubstantiated rumors flying around that day, and even though I was on the West Coast people were saying there might be more hijacked planes out of LAX and our base was considered a target so we were pretty jumpy that whole day, especially because of the fact that all ships were ordered out to sea and moving, but we were broken down and couldn't get out so we felt pretty vulnerable.

I can't stand each anniversary, I try to hibernate from 9/10 to 9/12. I avoid the news and papers and constant barrage of 9/11 imagery every year.

 

[eric]

it was hard to deal with then.

just as hard to deal with the misdirection the current administration used (and continues to use) to focus the emotion and power this country mustered after the attack on a country that had nothing to do with that tragedy.

 

[morty192]

Was a shocking travesty what happened on that day and to all the families my heart felt sympathy goes out to them and I hope they find some way to cope though similar condolences must also go to the people affected by the Omagh bombing!!! 10 years on from that and still no justice!!! it must hurt the families so much to no these IRA terrorists are walking away scot free!! It's disgusting and enraging!!!

 

[dauber]

I can only iterate what I posted here:

http://scattered-frog.blogspot.com/2006/09/five-years-later.html

Nothing's changed.

 

[delie147]

yes, time flies

 

[milessthomas]

I was in 5th grade, glad that I was sick at home that day. It was very emotional.