Your personal memories from 9/11

Osama Bin Laden is dead. So let's remember those he cold blooded murdered. 

What is your personal memories from 11. September 2001 ? 

I was working for a multi national company just off Sandy Row in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The scene of some terrible atrocities against the mankind during the last 30 years. A place where we just had one bomb scare. I also had reasons, later confirmed, to believe that one of my work mates was a Provisional IRA member and another one was involved in UDA (not confirmed). Both of them designated terrorist organisations, btw. But those two worked fine along each other and there was no problems whatsoever. I have a deep admiration and love for the people in Northern Ireland based on my work with them.   

I was alerted by a friend who accidently put on CNN and spotted the first plane hit the towers. I knew about that B 17 hitting Empire State Building during World War 2 in heavy fog and I thought it was a sightseeing plane hitting the tower, and falling down to the ground without damaging anyone inside the tower. Sad for the deceased, but relative harmless in a town full of sightseeing planes. 

I was off course wrong and the next hours..........

I walked home that night not so sure if 12. September would come. Frankly; I thought it was the end of the world. I was scared. Very scared. I made my peace with God that night. It was the peace a doomed man waiting for his excecution at the gallows pole makes with his maker. 

I have a sincere wish noone of the coming generations will ever experience 9/11. That day was hideous beyond comprehension. This day were ten to hundred times worse for you guys in USA and in New York though. 

Never again. Never again !!

I was in Photography class in High School.  I remember calling my father from a pay phone down the hall because I knew he was supposed to have flown to DC that day.  Luckily it was an afternoon flight and had been cancelled.  Some kids went home early that day, because they could and their parents were freaked out (yeah, Greensburg, PA was going to be the next target that day), but most of us just went from class to class watching on tv. 

I was in 7th grade in 2001, and all I did was get on the bus and go to school after watching the towers collapse on TV.  So it was basically like any other regular day, except everyone at school was talking about it; one guy on my bus route thought we should nuke Afghanistan.  That was a horrible year in general.  A friend of mine was hit by a car that same year. 

I have very vivid memories of 9/11, since Jean and I married three days later. The marriage had been planned long ago, and Jean's relatives from the USA had already arrived a few days before the wedding (and had to stay quite a while because airplanes did not fly for quite a long time after 9/11). The people talked of nothing else on the day of our wedding, which is of course not what we had hoped for.
I have mixed feelings about the death of Bin Laden. Whatever a person has done, you can't just go and kill him or her. Why not try to capture him and put him before a trial?
The burning of his body and especially the distribution of the ashes over the sea raises some other questions too: Why was his body not identified by an international and neutral committee? Did they really kill Bin  Laden? There are many conspiracy theories out there about 9/11, and the whole event is very fishy indeed if you ask me. Some people will claim he never was killed, only some fall guy, and that Bin Laden is still alive somewhere because the whole 9/11 scenario was cooked up between the pentagon and Bin Laden. Just  go to one of the 9/11 conspiracy sites; I am certain you will find a lot of speculation like that there now.

I was at work. Someone got a phone call from their father asking if we had Sky News. We turned on before the second jet hit. Never forget that day...

BaldFriede wrote: The burning of his body and especially the distribution of the ashes over the sea raises some other questions too: Why was his body not identified by an international and neutral committee? Did they really kill Bin  Laden? There are many conspiracy theories out there about 9/11, and the whole event is very fishy indeed if you ask me. Some people will claim he never was killed, only some fall guy, and that Bin Laden is still alive somewhere because the whole 9/11 scenario was cooked up between the pentagon and Bin Laden. Just  go to one of the 9/11 conspiracy sites; I am certain you will find a lot of speculation like that there now.

According to statements by the Pentagon, he was not cremated.  And they matched his DNA profile with that of his relatives to be sure that it was actually Bin Laden that they were killing, and not a look-alike.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/02/osama-bin-laden-dead-dna-test_n_856319.html

I also agree that there were a lot of suspicious circumstances surrounding 9/11 and our reaction to it by invading Iraq, but without solid evidence in place of mere speculation, there is no reason to declare that it was solely a conspiracy perpetrated by the U.S. federal government.  However, I would like to see more evidence released to the public on this issue, especially photographic proof of Bin Laden's capture and assassination.   

I was in Grade 11, and found out about the tragedy in my second period class (Law).  I think the teacher may have been late to class, and nobody was sure why.  Before she showed up, we were just goofing off like typical 16 year olds.  

My mother came to my room to ask me to come in the livingroom to see what's happening on TV. I was listening music with my headphones and I gave her a despising look - how dare she think I would interrupt listening to music for something that's on TV? I didn't find out what's happening until half a day later. A true arrogant proggie 

8th grade English class.

Everything was business as usual when our principal got on the loudspeaker and said "An explosion has happened at the World Trade Centers, anyone with family who works there please report to the office". We were a little shocked and worried. This was already a while into the tragedy.

Then our teacher pulled out a radio and turned it on. I remember hearing chaos. Utter and total chaos. Every person there was sitting in silent horror listening to it all. Amongst all the madness a voice yelled out "The second tower has just collapsed! The second tower has just collapsed! Both towers are now down"

I still remember my feeling at that moment, and it was the worst I've ever felt.
On another level, I was born and raised 13 years (at the time) in the shadow of NYC. The skyline and WTC are visible from my town and didn't phase us. Just part of the scenery. My whole family has always felt a link with the city like a backyard...

So I remember having the most surreal feeling ever leaving school, to see smoke hovering over town and a giant black column of smoke where the towers were. Adding to the surrealism was the fact it was one of the most perfect feeling days ever...beautiful out. It was all beyond weird.

For a while, I had to look at the gap in the skyline and see the result of a man's hate, a giant hole where thousand of innocent people were murdered. Someone in my science class lost both his parents that day...
As a just barely 13 year old it all struck me hard.


And yes Slarti, the view from the top was great. I found a picture I took from on the roof when I was quite young and have made sure to never lose it.



Edited by JJLehto - May 02 2011 at 15:39

My father had died the previous evening & Vicky and I were with my mother; Vicky had taken my sister home to change & she called me as I was making the rounds of telephone calls to relatives; she just said 'switch on the TV, you won't believe it'... I switched on just before the 2nd jet hit & sat there agog with my mother.

Very strange day for us, & as I've mentioned in a previous thread, the news actually served to take our minds off things for a little while...

Nearly 10 years now.