Has it already been TWENTY years since 9/11? I'll never forget where I was and Howard Stern of all people gave some interesting coverage...

[Estil | 1,264]

Wow, has it been already been twenty years since 9/11?  A day that is very much right up there with Pearl Harbor and the JFK (and MLK...and RFK...and almost Reagan...) assassinations.  I'll never forget where I was on that day; I was coming down stairs to the lobby of my dorm at UK (I was at Blanding 3 Room 208 all four years believe it or not...sadly those dorms are all gone now ) and at that time I saw only one of the planes hit and I asked what happened and she (the one at the front desk) said a plane hit the World Trade Center and this is the first thing I thought off...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1945_Empire_State_Building_B-25_crash

And then I saw the second plane and I was all like, eh, aren't we cutting it a bit close...?  And then it hit and I knew this was no accident.   Marc Summers (no not the Double Dare host) was one of my professors (and he's been on History Channel and C-SPAN believe it or not) seemed to take it by far the hardest.  I can't believe I actually still bothered coming to class that day.

But out of all the different places/news channels/etc covering the tragic event; here's a rather unexpected coverage of the event and I personally find quite interesting.  I'm wondering if there are others like it.... (start at 3:01:45):

I hope and pray we never again have anything like this happen in my lifetime.    And on a related note, here is what you would've saw on CBS when Kennedy was shot (start at 10:12 if you want to cut to the chase).  What's most interesting in terms of how different things were back then is that they actually had to wheel in the cameras and it took about 20-30 minutes or so to "warm up" and turn on...I mean it's not like they knew something like this was coming you know.  

 

 

Edited September 11, 2021 by Estil

[RH | 4,902]

It was an odd day for all of us, but mine was exceptionally weird. I had an 8:00AM class that morning, and my next class wasn't until 1:00PM. I had a late night of studying, so I decided to skip the 8:00 AM, I slept in late, and then went to lunch at my colleges cafeteria.

By 11:30, all of the news old. As I got my meal and sat down, I noticed the cafeteria was oddly quite. Eventually my friends trickled in and as the conversation s picked up, I knew they were talking about something, but I was clueless. I asked what had happened, and one of my friends just said "two planes hit the world trade center". In a bit of disbelief, I chuckled and said "no, seriously, what happened?" She then looked at me dead seriously and say that they really had and that the towers collapsed.

It was a surreal moment, trying to process and consider just what that meant without seeing it. I think most of us had heard of the small prop plane that hit the Empire State building in the 30s(?) No, neither was a laughing matter, but my brain couldn't process the idea of it and I didn't get believe it the moment I heard about it.

I abruptly finished my lunch, and went to the cafe (odd, I know, but we had two places to eat) where there was a TV always on CNN. It was there I saw the actual events and that's when it REALLY sunk in.

It was a tough time processing what was happening. I was at a Christian school, so we had an impromptu service for people to come and grieve and pray. I remember crying with many of my friends.mostly out of hurt for the people who lost their lives, their families and just being confused about why this happened in the first place.

[Tenjikuronin | 1,719]

The title reminded me of this:

[Estil | 1,264]

30 minutes ago, Tenjikuronin said:

The title reminded me of this:

Don't forget how Prince's most famous song 1999 was released 17 years before the year itself (in 1982).  And Prince passed away 17 years (give or take a few months) after the year 1999.

And you know that Fresh Prince of Bel-Air clip (from first episode in 1990) I often use where Will says "I can't think that far ahead" regarding Uncle Phil's age?  Well James Avery (who played Uncle Phil...and Shredder for that matter!) was 45 at the time...and "that far ahead" would come for Will Smith in 2013.  Yeah I guess 23 years IS thinking quite far ahead!

And let's not forget that there are people of adult age who were born AFTER 9/11.  I guess those would be your Gen-Zers?  The generation that comes after Millenials/Gen-Y (early 80s-mid 90s)?  I was born in 1980 so I'm an early millennial; after all I graduated HS in 1999, the last year of the 20th century!

Edited September 11, 2021 by Estil

[Rhapsody98 | 1,535]

I was in college, but had no classes that day.  I woke up that morning around 8, and I was going to see @darkchylde28that morning.  On the way over, I couldn't find any music on the radio, just the news on every station about a plane that had hit the WTC.  The trip to his house was fairly short, so I didn't get that much info, but what I got was indicative of a small plane, probably an accident.  I thought, oh, that's sad, and turned the radio off.  I got to his house, came in, and sat down to wait on him to get ready (for whatever we were going to do, which we never did.).  Before I was there for a full 2 minutes my mom called me on my cell (one of those Nokia bricks), and said "TURN ON THE NEWS!"  We turned it on just in time to see the second plan hit, which I think based on the time was probably a replay.    We watched for a while in shock.

I left a little later, I couldn't hang out at his house for long because his mother smoked like a chimney and I got sick if I spent too much time there.  So I went to my mom's house (my parents were in the middle of a very bad divorce) and watched the coverage, and cross stitched to calm myself down.  I still have the Christmas tree ornament I made that day.  It's an angel cat with a toy mouse in it's mouth.  I dated it, 9-11-01.  I figure it'll be a family heirloom someday.  

The next day, I went back to classes.  I was a Criminal Justice Major, I wanted to be a cop like my dad.  My first class that morning was Police Issues in America.  I remember the professor (and the class) was great, but his lecture was obviously not what he'd planned.  Instead we talked about PTSD.  He gave us a timeline.  He said "In five years, you'll see the survivors will be suffering from these symptoms, and in ten years they'll have these symptoms."  He walked us through the timeline for what the survivors (police and otherwise) were going to go through for the rest of their lives, which might be ruined by PTSD, survivors guilt, and serious mental health issues.  

It was almost as traumatizing as watching the towers fall, my eyes were opened and I recognized all the habits and PTSD symptoms of my dad (remember the divorce was happening) and all his friends in the lecture.  I thought "I can't do this.  I can't do this to my future husband and children."  I spent the rest of the semester lost, unable to find something else to do with my life, but knowing that I couldn't do that. 

So that's how 9/11 changed my life.  

[Gloves | 11,774]

It's my wife's birthday today, that's all it's ever really been to me personally. 

Regarding the terrorist attack in the States, I was in French class in grade 7 or 8 at the time I learned that it had happened. It really didn't directly impact me or anyone I knew at the time. 

[guitarzombie | 924]

I was woken up by a phone call from my mother.  It was my 1st week at college.  I started Tue the 4th and also got my first real expensive guitar delivered that same day (I ended up waiting all summer to have it built using my HS graduation money).  I picked up the guitar and started playing Megadeths Holy Wars.  Class was canceled by that time (my English 101 class was at like 230) so I went to the pool hall to play Tekken Tag, and thats when I watched 7 come down.

[phart010 | 1,707]

I was in 9th grade. We alternated 2 weeks of PE and one week of Health class in the classroom. Pretty early in the class some guy walks into the classroom and starts talking to my PE teacher, a few minutes later they are wheeling a giant crt tv into the room. Our PE teacher tells us the twin towers just got knocked down and we are basically watching CNN for the rest of class while my PE teacher is chatting with this guy.

[GPX | 1,369]

When it happened, I remember I was watching TV while studying for a viva exam for tertiary study. Then suddenly, there was breaking news of a plane crashing into the World Trade Center. Even though I’m from Australia and didn’t know anything about the WTC back then, I was stunned and shocked how in this era, a plane could have ended hitting a big building. Then a short while on, it became more apparent it was likely an act of terrorism. Disbelief, stunned, horrified and sadness were some of the emotions I can recall at the time.

It was surreal and had ripple effects around the world, because it marked the start of an era where paranoia isn’t  necessarily a mental disorder, but a symptom we all have to deal with when thinking of going anywhere to a foreign land. Terrorism had been noticed big time since 20 years ago.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,520]

10th grade.  First period pre-Calculus.

[Aguy | 771]

My mother and I listened to it on the radio on the way to school. My first class of the day was a 2 hour block of 10th grade US history. This was in California so it was already 11 EST by then and we just watched news coverage, I don't remember us talking about it.

[Alder | 243]

I was in 4th grade. I remember our class (and the others probably) turned on the TV and watched the news for a few hours before being sent home.

[TrekMD | 1,395]

I'll never forget.  I was on my first vacation day visiting my parents and I was awakened by my mother who was saying that we were in World War III.  I was disoriented and just walked to see the TV with a sight that was unbelievable.  As unbelievable as it was, I was even more shocked when I saw the second plane flying towards the other tower and hit it.  I thought I was in the Twilight Zone or that I was having a vivid nightmare.  Unfortunately, it was a very real nightmare. 

[Code Monkey | 2,006]

I had flown to university just 3 days before that, just slightly north of New York. Someone came to my dorm room to tell me what was happening and we all crammed into someone's room that had a television with an antenna and watched the second plane hit.

I had to leave and go to class shortly after that but when I got to class, the instructor walked out, looked around for 30 seconds, tried to talk and just started to cry instead. He walked back out of the room and that was it, class was over.

My dad has a friend in air traffic control and talked to him shortly after the event. He told my dad he was watching the board as all of the little lights blinked out one by one until the board was nearly black. There was one pilot they ordered to turn around and go back but he came over the line and said, "No, we're almost at Detroit, we're just going to keep going and land there." The air traffic guy (or whomever he was) said, "Do you see that fighter pilot off your left wing? If you don't turn around he will shoot you down." The pilot turned around.

After that my dad was tasked with running all of the emergency protocols for the province so he had to house all passenger overflow in multiple emergency shelters across the province and literally gave the shirt off his back to one guy that had nothing. People were opening up their homes for stranded travellers, giving up their vehicles, whatever they could do.

And this was all in Canada.

[Estil | 1,264]

3 hours ago, Aguy said:

My mother and I listened to it on the radio on the way to school. My first class of the day was a 2 hour block of 10th grade US history. This was in California so it was already 11 EST by then and we just watched news coverage, I don't remember us talking about it.

Wow, how ironic you were in a US history class and got to see US history being made.  Sadly it wasn't the good kind of history like say, the first moon landing  

[LeatherRebel5150 | 1,056]

Was in 5th grade. The school didn’t tell any of the students what was happening. The only thing that gave any indication that something was going on was that every so often the PA system would call out various students to tell them their parents were in the building to puck them up. The rest of us just thought “dam, so and so gets to go home early! and so and so too!, lucky bastards” without any indication why they were being picked up. Wasnt until I got home at the end of the day that I found out what happened. And this was in NJ. Northwest NJ to be fair but it seems like they probably should have sent us all home or something being that we were the next state over and no one knew what was going on

Edited September 12, 2021 by LeatherRebel5150