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SyntherAugustus

REMEMBER THE FALLEN!!! (tribute thread)

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One year ago a tragedy happened. I was there. I currently live about 10 blocks away from "Ground Zero"(WTC ruins).

September 11th, 2001

It was my second day of school. Noting it was 9-11 I had a thought that something bad was going to happen. After an hour in school, an "emergency essembly" was called up and we were forced out of school. I was about 80 blocks away from WTC towers and all I saw was a big cloud of smoke. I went to my grandma's house and saw the whole thing on CNN. I was mad as hell as I saw the planes crash into the towers. Meanwhile, my dad saw the whole thing with his own two eyes after hearing the first explosion.

I wish to talk more about the subject, but I cannot.

Thank you linguica for the tribute.

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Principally, I don't mourn people I didn't know. But even though I was thousands of miles away from New York, Washington or Pittsburg, I will not forget.

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Those who were there won't ever forget, I'm afraid. Even those weren't there won't ever forget. The WTC Incident has been burned into everyone's mind. There is no doubt that this was one of the most horrible crimes in the history of the world.

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This somehow reminds me of a song by Roger Waters, "Yellow Rose."

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I remember being in peer leadership when I first heard it. I was talking to my friend completely ignoring that chick that was talking then I heard the words 'planes, hijacked, world trade center' I kinda put them together and told my friend to shut up.

Then we started laughing at how retarded we are. The whole world could end and we wouldn't even know because we were to ocupied talking about the best way to roll a blunt.

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That documentary, '9/11' was today shown for the first time outside the US and I just saw it. The sound of bodies hitting the concrete ground is horrific. I still have goosebumps. I know I'll never forget it. I still know everything about the day it happened. Unfortunately I can't really mourn about the people who died. I try to, but I didn't know them personally, so that's a whole different thing.

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It was weird for me. That day I decided I didn't want to be at school. I left with a couple of friends and arrived home about 4 minutes before the first plane crash.

I felt kinda uneasy, and so did my mother as far as I can tell. She decided to put CNN by some random ocurrence, and no, she wasn't doing any zapping. That's when we saw what happened. You gotta realize than in Argentina, CNN had the exclusive for about half an hour.

After that, the MTV signal shifted into CBS, so I spent the whole day looking at it and talking to deadnail.

I remember he pointed out this was the first major terrorism act that could be discussed across the globe thanks to the Internet. It was kinda freaking, we were both watching the same goddamn channel.

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Pray for the dead.

Pray for the three thousand or so people who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Pray for the fourteen men who decided that their beliefs were important enough for them to die for.

Pray for the thousands killed, and the thousands who will be killed in the future, in the name of blind vengeance.

Pray for all the people everywhere whose lives, it was decided, were less valuable than wealth, ideals, or emotion.

And if you don't know what I'm talking about...

Pray for yourself. You need it the most, brother.

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i remeber the moment it happened. i was in 2nd period history and i was writing a note to my girlfriend. when an announcement came onto the air about the first plane. suddenly we saw live the second one hit and in my note i wrote this "holy shit melissa! a second plane just hit the world trade center and they showed a guy jumping out!!"

i think that was a bit far, showing that poor bastard who jumped to his death

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The documentary "9/11" is the show I am watching, well, listening to at this very moment as I write this post. This documentary is terrifying to say the least. The sight of seeing that plane hit the World Trade Center was scary, and I was scared all over again. It was shocking, and the documentary shows firefighters inside the first tower, they hear it collapsing and to see it from the prospective of a camera...my God, it touches you, it holds you. You are gripped in that sight. I'm probably not making sense, but I'm just preoccupied with other thoughts. I googled and found the list of victims that were read off, which you can view here. This list is huge, but these people, though not everyone knows their names, they will never be forgotten. Be they American, Japanese, Middle Eastern, Black, Spanish, it doesn't matter, they were a part of this and they died because of a cowardly act on our country. They did not deserve such a fate, to be wiped out of existance like that. We WILL bring the culprits of this event to justice, if it takes us a decade. We will NOT allow the terrorists to get away with it, and though it has been a year and we have not found Bin Laden, we will try our hardest to find him and bring him to justice. In my mind, he deserves to die for what he did, but others may not share that view. Pray...just pray.

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BBG, you're making perfect sense. That documentary was shown a few hours ago in the UK. Powerful stuff, to say the very least.

I found that reading the partial lists of victims that were published last year brought home to me the enormity of the events in a comprehensible way - the fact that this was an unimaginable number of personal tragedies. Until then, it just seemed somehow unbelievable.

I first heard about the attacks when I logged on to check my e-mail. I took a quick look at Yahoo and glanced at the main news stories, and there it was in a matter-of-fact nutshell. As if to say quite nonchalantly "By the way, the world has changed while you were taking an afternoon nap".

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To be honest, I didn't really feel anything at all when I watched the footage of the attacks in the morning (the attacks happened about 11pm here).

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I first heard it when I was in school that day. I was in the library when my friend (who had gone home) came back to school and told me that a plane had flown into the WTC. At first I didn't believe him but we found a TV and I saw that it was real. I can't really describe how I felt, I just didn't believe what was happening. For the rest of the day I felt cold. It was weird.

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I was in bed with the radio on. The song was suddenly interrupted, with a "special report" I was half asleep at the time and all I heard were the words New York and disaster. God only knows why, but I thought they were talking about floods in New York. Then my dad knocked on the door and told me “you might what to look at this” At first I groaned about I being midnight, until he told me what had happened. He turned on the TV and I saw “LIVE FROM NEW YORK” With a aerial shot of NYC covered in dust. My first words were “Holy crap!”.

Jesus. One day I could be repeating that story to my children…

orion said
Then we started laughing at how retarded we are. The whole world could end and we wouldn't even know because we were to ocupied talking about the best way to roll a blunt.


That’s our crazy orion!

:/

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I was waking up and there was frantic knocking on my bedroom door. my little sister and mother were pale and distraught. "a plane crashed in to the trade center, then another plane hit" my sister said. I didn't want to believe it. I was in the area two days before, and had hung out around there for many years. I watched in horror as the towers spewed smoke and flame. my mother repeatedly says that the towers will fall, but I don't want to believe they will.

my terror compounded when I remebered that my cousin attends BMCC, not that far away, and his father works for verizon right across the street. my brother attends john jay college, which has strong ties to wtc, and he goes there often. the waiting was painful. I didn't know what to do. then we got the call that my uncle had called out sick, but my cousin was still in the city. I then found out from another phone call that my neighbors boyfriend was across the street in his office and witnessed the planes hit and her father had taken his best friend for a birthday breakfast in the area. more fear. then the first tower falls, and all my hope with it. my mother is crushed. my sister is in tears.

the horror continues as the second tower falls. my brother is fine. he was at school, and begins to help console those who had thies to the towers. my cousin, who is now a basket case because he didn't know his father called out sick, finally arrives. him and his father hop on their bikes to pick up my other cousin from school in midtown. my neighbors boyfriend comes home, but not her father or his friend. my fear and growing anger is preventing me from doing anything effective. I call my girlfriend in brooklyn heights. she is much closer to the site than I am. we talk for hours. my uncles and cousin arrive safely. my neighbors father and his friend still have not returned.

I decide to go be with my girlfriend, she is all alone. my uncle goes to what is now called ground zero to see if he could help restore phone service. I hear that my other uncle, who is a national guardsman, is on his way from upstate. he was called down to help hold the perimiter. I make my way to my girls house. we sit and watch the tv. reporters who had no time for hair makeup and wardrobe are reporting live from as close as they can get. the smell of the pit reaches us. we go to the promenade, a few blocks away, and stand with a massive crowd watching the plume of smoke rise high in the sky. the smell sickens many people, including us. we go home and watch more news. the night wears on. we both fall asleep on the couch.

the next day brings the search for understanding. the footage is constantly replayed. new footage is discovered. facts and rumors fly. much angry rhetoric is spewed. my neighbors father and friend made it home safe. they where seperated in the dust cloud and got home an hour apart. my uncle could do nothing in the area. there was to much devestation to repair any phone line in the vicinty. my other uncle is holding a perimeter. I remain feeling ineffectual and full of anger. this is not the way to change things, I think. now all we can do is wait.

the year has passed. 9/11/03 was a day of rememberance. special events were held in memory of those who died. the media bombarded us with images, stories, and advertisements centered on the tragedy. above everything else, the towers were raised as great martyrs against the evils of tyrants and despots. I feel that although much ceremony was good and tasteful, the media really cheapened the loss to this city, this country, and this world. have we learned anything?

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I remember that night, it was about...11PM I think, I was in my room, on my computer, my brother was on the other computer in the kitchen. Bored, I decided to go and get some food from the kitchen, anyway, I get to the lounge room, and see my brother eating a biscuit, watching the TV, I asked him "hey, what's that ya watching" he replied: "A plane just flew into that building in the states". I just stared at the TV....and started to laugh.....I was thinking....how did they fly a PLANE into a skyscraper...how did they do that, such a odd thing to do? Anyway, I asked Jus(brother), what type plane was it? a small one or what? When he said he thought it was a 747 or something, I just said....how on earth? A 747? and laughed again (keep in mind, I was relatively surprised, laughing at absurd things is just a habit of mine)anyway, I sat down on the coffee table and watched the TV. Jus was leaning against a wall. (yes there was an empty couch about a metre away from us, and no-one was sitting on it) ANyway, we were discussing it, how strange it was....anyway after about ten minutes Gus went back to his computer, when the second plane flew into the other tower....I just thought...holy shit...And yelled to Jus..."Woah.....A second plane just flew into the tower!" "What? are you kidding?" "Nope...not at all" I was still a little amused, but by then I was beginning to realise that this wasn't an accident. It began to sink in. I then returned to my room, turned my Music off, and switched on the television, and discussed the events with a few people over MSN and #doom, when the first building collapsed live on TV....I was absolutely stunned. I couldn't beleive it. This was HORRIBLE....Utterly horrible, yet I couldn't take my eyes off the TV. I watched the coverage until about 3AM....then went to bed...I'm surprised I managed to fall asleep. I wish never to see anything like that ever again.

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I was coming across #doom. I saw people yelling 'A second plane hit the towers! A second plane hit the tower!'. I asked 'what the fuck is going on?' and Arioch or Fraggle (don't remember) replied there was a terrorist attack on the wtc. I opened the tuner window and here I was discussing live events on irc while people were dying.
That's really strange. I still dunno what to feel about all this.
For sure, I'm terribly sorry for all the victims. Too bad their government was just able to make more victims in the following year.
I can see how we'll be submerged by images of mother crying for her lost son, wife crying for her lost husband and the other way round. This is, in my opinion, a terrible and irresponsible use of people's pain and of watcher's compassion.
Let the victims rest in peace and let us hope medias will stop raising them from the dead just for the sake of justification.

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Hmm...I remember that day. I woke up and was on my way downstairs, the usual routine at the time. And my sister was saying something about how a plane crashed into the WTC. And I was like "Meh...someone probably flew their Cesna to close and killed a fwe people...same old same old". So I got breakfast and turned on TV to watch the Today show as usual to see what had happened (I figured it would have been major enough to report live). And all I see is this picture of the the towers with holes in them and smoke billowing out, and the view was all shaky and tinged with an odd brownish-yellow color. And I was thinking...holy hell they managed to get both towers...damn. So I was sitting there eating breakfast and crap and I guess I looked away for a second to long because the next thing I knew they were saying a large chunk of one of the towers was collapsing. So they show replay footage, and it looked the the whole damn thing was coming down.

That was about the time my friend came over to pick me up for school. He came to the door and I was like "Did you hear?" "Hear what?" "Some plane hit the World Trade Center" "Really?" "Yeah, one of the towers just collapsed". So we sat there for about a minute watching the footage then we head off. We were listening to the radio on the way there, and the station was playing the usual music, but coming in with news reports between each song. About the time we got to school, they announced the second tower had collapsed.

So I went off and hung out with a couple other friends in a classroom that had a TV running. It was there that I saw replay footage of the collapses and the second crash (I don't think they had footage of the first crash until later that night), and learned that there had been two planes. The rest of the school day was weird. We all went about doing business as usual, but everyone was silent. Also, the the fact that there were no planes in the sky was eerie, especialy considering we are under a major flight path. And they closed all the military bases (my dad, being only a civilian, couldn't get to his work).

I slept little that night, calculating all the possibilities in my head of what the possible oucomes of such an event could be. I don't think any of this was as frightening as a couple months later, when they interrupted the news with a report that America was bombing some foreign country. All they showed that day were grainy pictures of bombings in Afghanistan and some videos of Osama that they had 'just recieved' to justify their attack.

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First let me the say the thing that still hurts. I was on top of Tower 2 on September 11th 2000. We had had 2 weeks in Florida and as a bonus we had 4 days in NYC before returning home to England. We figured we might as well go as we had the chance (our flight was going to be connected in NYC anyway) so we stayed on 57th street in the Salisbury.

Since I was a kid I'd dreamed about going to NY. It was the only city I had feelings for, sounds kinda strange but ever since Ghostbusters I'd had a crush on NY. The Empire State was/is my favourite building ever, and in second were the towers.

We did both in a day, first the Empire State, and I got that tingly feeling as I went in. Later we went up the Tower. I was amazed. Those of you who also had been may well recall the windows are at foot level in the viewing arena, by the shop they called the 'Top of the World'. I was amazed how short and painless the elevator ride was. The lobby looked so damn solid, marble, steel concrete everywhere and it ran down to the shops beneath. I felt SAFE.

Outside I looked up the side of the building. It was so tall it seemed to curve over me. To many people it was just two huge cuboids. I actually argued with someone on the Apple Tours bus that picked us up from beneath the enclosed footbridge. As far as I was concerned it was a thing of beauty.

Exactly a year later, minus about 6 hours, I was sat where I am now, playing of all things, Doom. It was most likely that week's newstuff. It was just gone 2pm when my mum shouted at me to get down to the TV quick.

I now know that 20 minutes previously the first plane hit. The BBC had interrupted all normal programs but weren't making much sense. I thought it was an accident. I was also convinced the tower would not collapse. There I was, quoting the things the guide had told us about how the towers could withstand large impacts. I assumed if it was going to collapse, it would already have done so. I didn't realise of course how much jet fuel was burning up there. Then the second plane hit and it just clicked that something really bad was happening.

I was still saying how I felt the fire department would just let the fires burn themselves out when the tower collapsed. It may sound strange, but that was much more of a shock than the impact of the plane. For a start, the death toll hit me. I was convinced tens of thousands were lost. And then I had to, of all things, go to the frigging dentist. I had an appointment I had to keep or be charged.

As I went in I told her. I never had a shorter dentist's appointment. She didn't believe me but I was earnest. She rushed out and I ran home. When I got back the second tower had gone. I just really could not believe it. Standing there a year ago, I would have bet my LIFE those things could never collapse.

On reflection, I find it amazing they didn't collapse instantly, given the almighty force that hit them. Before the smoke took hold, right after the impact, you can make out the gapeing hole the plane sliced through the building. And yet it stood, as, uniquely, the WTC's structural support was all on the OUTSIDE of the building. God knows, and thank God, for however many hundreds, indeed thousands of lives those building's saved.

And oddly enough, it's the loss of the towers that still affects me most sometimes, I think because of the connection I made with them when I was there. You can become attached to a building, especially when you are in awe of it, perhaps because it inspires some kind of human pride in what we can make out of metal and stone. Even if I block out the human factors of that day (which is not easy) I am still left angry that they took a thing of beauty and destoyed it. Strange.

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I just remembered watching this documentary on the History Channel once about the WTC. They were just finishing putting it together when the incident occured. They were interviewing the guy who designed it and he was talking about how he had built it to withstand gale force winds or even a hit from a 747 if an accident ever occured. At the bottom of the screen, just under his name they had printed in small letter: Missing since 9/11/01

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Yeh it was the fuel and speed they hadn't calculated on, it blasted the fireproofing off the steel girders :(

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Heh, my brother came home from school that day and hadn't heard a thing about it. Nobody had bothered to tell him.

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