I couldn’t tell you how other people reacted, I just know what I went through that morning. I was running on about 1% logic and 99% emotion. And at the time, not all of the facts were in. Somehow I thought that all of Afghanistan was in on it.
I saw an American flag flying at half staff on my way to work this morning. The sight of a lowered flag really affects me, for some reason. Seven years ago, I made every effort to keep my 5-yr-old from knowing what had happened, and the only thing he really noticed was the lowered flags all over the city.
In case you missed this the first time…
I’m finding it really hard to get moving this morning, and I finally figured out why. It’s another beautiful September day, with a brilliant blue sky and bright sun and the temperature is that lovely not-too-hot-and-not-too-cool. I found myself going out my front door and marveling what a beautiful day…
… just like in 2001.
And just like in 2001 I am going off to work on a mundane morning, but this time I realize how fragile that beauty and peace really is, and I wonder if I’m going to go through my day with that tight feeling in my shoulders you get when you feel something behind you, but you don’t quite know what it is.
I want this to be a beautiful, wonderful, joyful, peaceful day; an uneventful day at work, and ordinary day just like any other day. But even if it is, it won’t quite be, because all the flags are at half staff today and we are all at best just a little sad.
I think you’ll get a variety of reactions, some due to unfamiliarity with this kind of thing, and also the differences in people. I cried for a week and just wanted to hole up with my family. I didn’t feel anger. It was more of a deep sadness in realizing that people actually did this to other people. The idea that someone could actually do something so horrible is almost beyond comprehension. I know that there have been many of these “someones” throughout history, but I’ll never be able to wrap my brain around this kind of inhumanity. It just doesn’t register.
Seems like a hundred years ago.
Hard to remember “before 9/11”
I’m with you on this one. I don’t need a film to remind me of that day, and I really resented the RNC using it to promote their candidate at the convention. I did finally watch “Flight 93” a couple of months ago, but a dramatization is different than the horror of the reality in NYC.
Just recieved this email from my sister. At the time, she taught ballroom dance in Tribeca:
But what the hell is that Photoshopped image of the dork on top of the tower with the incoming plane behind him doing in there??
Do you know what? This just saddens me further in that it shows how hardened a country can quickly become to terrorism - honestly, I don’t think Brits react in the same way due simply to the fact that it has been all too familiar. It saddens me even further that it seems as if this almost stole that ‘innocence’ from a lot of Americans. I realise that could sound very patronising but I swear I mean it in a very positive way - you guys have obviousley only recently been exposed to this kind of thing and it’s heart breaking seeing the reactions of people of shock and confusion something I never really noticed in Britain even when my Father was directly involved.
I’m actually welling up a little bit here. I hope you understand that what I have said is not meant to be patronising and may have been explained badly but it makes sense to me and I hope it does to you.
I guess I deal with a lot of emotion by,…well not dealing with it at all. Its been working pretty good so far. But not today, I can’t get started, I just keep going back to that day and dwelling on it, and I don’t want to.
I and my wife were in the Pentagon that day, office 3D765, when we were knocked to the floor and all the windows were flung inward all at once. There was black smoke everywhere. We knew basically that our building was under attack, but didn’t know how bad it might get. We spent a few precious minutes at our PCs downloading irreplaceable files to our thumbdrives as fast as we could. The exit maps took us straight into the fires and we had to turn back and make our way out of the building some other way. Together we made it out and started to help. My wife was an EMT once and sprang into action like some kind of superwoman; helping the stricken, calming the panicked, she sucumbed to the smoke not once but 3 times before I could get her completely away from the building and she still wanted to go back and help. She spent sometime in the hospital due to her asthma attacks but was back at work one day later, because there was work that needed doing. Today, the same company she was working for then is laying her off. I think that’s what is bothering me the most. She did her company proud and is a hero, but her name is on the drop list.
Think I need a drink.
I think this is a lot of it right there. The American public is not used to this sort of thing. War and terror and bombings and things like that happen ‘someplace else.’ We all know about the IRA the guerrilla warfare that goes on in central America etc, but it’s distant. It’s them.
This was us. This was a world known landmark in the middle of one of our most wellknown cities. It was a shocking notification that we are not exempt from the problems of the world.
I always find this kind of amazing. I am looking out my office window at Ground Zero right now. There were more cops on the street this morning, but otherwise, it is just another day. Everyone is at work doing business. We all remember, because most of us were here when it happened and we all walked home. But it is what it is, and we still have meetings and deadlines. I suppose people are reflecting quietly and then just doing what they have to do.
Wait, so we can have 4,239 Palin threads, but only one about 9/11?
That’s not right, Lanzy. Your wife has my sympathy and my respect. Good on her.
I understand what you’re saying as well. I feel a little weird expressing my grief and outrage sometimes, because I know how insulated we’ve been from an obviously commonplace happening for much of the rest of the world. When I think of the firebombing of Dresden, or the relentless attacks on London during WWII, or even the simple villages of Vietnam…people who lived (and live TODAY in various conflicts throughout the world) with this kind of violence as a steady diet, I often feel like 9/11 was “nothing” compared to the constant pounding other people have to endure. I know our event wasn’t “nothing” but I still feel the need to tone it down sometimes, out of respect for people who seem to never get a break.
Thanks for posting that. I hadn’t seen it before, it’s a remarkable story.
To follow up from what WILLASS said, I think we in Britain were rather desensitised to terrorism, but 9/11 was still profoundly shocking due to the scale of it. In London, after several quiet years, IRA bombs had been making a reappearance at that time. Less than six weeks before 9/11, a bomb went off in Ealing, less than a mile from where I lived at the time and outside a pub where I regularly drank (I heard the blast from my house).
Nobody was killed and clearly it cannot compare with events of the following month, but I remember before 9/11 happened I was already feeling pretty depressed about terrorism increasing again.
Same here. Fucking assholes. She’s got my respect and sympathy too.
I’ve got to say, I’m not loving the videos with the music. Do I really need someone wailing to make me feel sadder? They just seem a bit too close to a Smallville ‘Clark and Lana Greatest Hits’ tribute video.
The South Park about 9/11 conspiracy theories was on the other night (technically today), and I wondered ‘Is this going to be like Xmas, where shows trot out a terrorist-themed episode every year?’
On the bright side, it’s seven years later and Osama Bin Laden is either dead or hiding like a rat in a cave somewhere.