Tuesday, 9.11 - lest we forget

[cpneb]

A little something I posted last year.... Even more poignant for me since my semi-son was hit by an EFP overseas earlier this year, and he's still recovering from it.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3145161/1/5_years_and_they_never_had_a_Naco

Never forget, always remember.

[Fireand'chutes77]

Standing on the front porch that September afternoon, going over it with neighbors... I wondered then how thi would look six, seven years down the road - the next time September the 11th rolled around to a sunny, cloudless Tuesday morning.

It's pretty much how I envisioned it actually. It still twinges and throbs like a old scar... But fading. We're just going through the motions by now.

If we're on the subject of 9/11 KP fanfics, here's one by Recon228 that I thought was very good.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2518694/1/In_Their_Darkest_Hour

[jeriddian]

Standing on the front porch that September afternoon, going over it with neighbors... I wondered then how thi would look six, seven years down the road - the next time September the 11th rolled around to a sunny, cloudless Tuesday morning.

It's pretty much how I envisioned it actually. It still twinges and throbs like a old scar... But fading. We're just going through the motions by now.

If we're on the subject of 9/11 KP fanfics, here's one by Recon228 that I thought was very good.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2518694/1/In_Their_Darkest_Hour

Recon's story is in the Main Page database along with all of the other stories form the old KPTome. It can be accessed there as well.

For my part, the last chapter of my "Queen's Gambit Accepted" story is dedicated to the fallen as well, although it was for Memorial Day. I find it should apply as well to the fallen of 9/11, as in a way they also fell in the fight for freedom.

http://www.fanfiction.net/secure/live_preview.php?storyid=3398386&chapter=16/

[Mike_Industries]

A little something I posted last year.

Nebster, that story you wrote I read last year, and it brought tears to my eyes. It was a very emotional tribute.

I still remember where I was when I first learned about the attack. I was sitting in my 8th grade geography class and my teacher bursted in to the room yelling "QUIET! SOMETHING SERIOUS JUST HAPPENED IN NEW YORK!" He flipped on the T.V and he went to CNN. We just caught the second tower collapsing... I remember the image of that tower playing over and over in my head falling like it did...

9/11... Never Forgotten

[kyojikasshu]

I remember so much about the day that it happened... so clearly, and yet it felt like I was in such a fog.

When I first heard that a plane had crashed into the WTC, there were no details at that point. It wasn't even a news station I was listening to, it was a sports station, doing a bit about Dennis Miller's Monday Night Football stint, and my initial impression was that it was probably some small plane that somehow got off-course. It was after getting into work, and hearing the reaction to the second plane's impact, that it really hit me.

My nephew Sam turned 1 on that day. He's 7 today, and we'll actually be celebrating his birthday this coming weekend... but, still, it's hard to believe that, on that afternoon, I held my baby nephew and wondered about his future... it seems so long ago.

[recon228]

I think anyone who was old enough to comprehend what was going on will always remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news... much like the Kennedy assassination of a few generations before. :dubiety:

As for me, I had just gotten out of the shower and was dressing for work when my wife (Who was, at the time, still only my girlfriend) came in and told me she'd just heard on the radio that a plane had hit the World Trade center. Figuring a Cessna had gotten lost in the fog and strayed off course, I brushed it off and left for work.

Since I drove my patrol car to-and-from work, I didn't have an AM/FM radio in the car, and didn't hear anything more about it 'til I got to the station and passed by the break room and noticed David, one of the officers from the graveyard shift, was still hanging around on the couch watching the news. As soon as I saw the image of the gouge in the side of the first tower, I knew it was something bigger than a Cessna. I stuck around for a minute or two, just long enough to hear the term "commuter plane" thrown around by the newscaster and make a few light-hearted comments about handing out a Darwin Award to the pilot who managed to smack his plane into the side of a giant building in clear weather, then turned to leave.

Just before I left the room, David made a comment about them capturing the first crash on tape. I turned and saw what I thought was a replay of the first tower being hit... it took both of us several seconds to realize the footage we were watching was still live, and that what we'd just seen was the second hijacked airliner hitting the other tower. :ohwell:

[Fireand'chutes77]

...make a few light-hearted comments about handing out a Darwin Award to the pilot who managed to smack his plane into the side of a giant building in clear weather, then turned to leave.
It's funny how things like that can go from lighthearted to sour-tasting in the space of just a few seconds. :(

...it took both of us several seconds to realize the footage we were watching was still live, and that what we'd just seen was the second hijacked airliner hitting the other tower. :ohwell:
Ow, that really looked like it hur - Wait... wait... the... the other tower's still smoking... Then that - Holy -!

:(

[recon228]

Ow, that really looked like it hur - Wait... wait... the... the other tower's still smoking... Then that - Holy -!

:(

That's actually a pretty accurate description of what I was thinking as I watched it... :dubiety:

[lunchmeat]

I was getting ready to go to class and had turned on the TV to catch the weather for the day and was confronted with the film of the planes hitting the buildings, over and over.
Arriving on campus was a bit surreal, some peole were completely freaked out, others just stunned and many had an air of great determination. I might add that this wasn't confined to th students but extended to the faculty and staff. There were also some odd things, some of which were humorous in retrospect, like tha campus maintenance guys parking a back hoe ate the entrance to the central air conditioning plant but leaving the back service entry open. One of the Bush sisters was attending classes at UT then and security was probably more heightened than at most universities, although expressed in some strange ways. Haphazard searches of backpacks in some buildings but nothing at all in others, odd rushes of traffic control, restriction of some areas for no apparent reason, it took them a couple of days to figure out what to do. Some of the faculty, particularly the emeritii, were combat veterans and for about the next week kept asking when I thought I'd get called up, which really upset the old lady. Since Osama didn't have a Navy or Air Force there wasn't a real need for my services. I suspect though that my willingness to go was a major factor in our parting company. That's the breaks (I still miss my dog, though).
The strangest thing about the following days was the complete absence of airplanes (the fighter patrols were far too high to see or hear). I'm a child of the jet age and the sky just doesn't seem right without the sound of planes, the glint of sun on wings or the sweep of contrails.

[campy]

My day consisted of sitting in front of the TV and reading commentary on the internet. My family was much closer. When I heard from my sister a day or so later, I learned she had been at the WTC around the time the first plane hit. She was on her way to work, changing from the subway to a PATH train to New Jersey and saw police with walkie talkies beginning to react. When she reached her office in Jersey City, she had a panoramic view of Lower Manhattan all day.

My nephew was at school at Stuyvesant High, which is just a couple of blocks away. He eventually walked home to Queens leading some younger kids.

My brother-in-law was on a business trip, and rented a car to drive home since he couldn't fly.

The only security measure I ever saw in town here was a state police cruiser parked under the bridge that carries the Mass Turnpike across the Chicopee River not far from my house. They kept that up for several weeks.

[Fireand'chutes77]

There were also some odd things, some of which were humorous in retrospect, like tha campus maintenance guys parking a back hoe ate the entrance to the central air conditioning plant but leaving the back service entry open.

"...Oh, yeah, like he's just gonna leave the back door open!"

*Click*

:P :unsure: :laugh:

When she reached her office in Jersey City, she had a panoramic view of Lower Manhattan all day.
What time did she get to her office?

My nephew was at school at Stuyvesant High, which is just a couple of blocks away. He eventually walked home to Queens leading some younger kids.
I wouldn't suppose he's a Scout, is he? It's amazing sometimes that when the moment calls, people -sometimes the most unlikely people- just step up and, in the words of Larry the Cable Guy, "Git 'er done."

[campy]

When she reached her office in Jersey City, she had a panoramic view of Lower Manhattan all day.
What time did she get to her office?Oh, I guess about 10 minutes after she got on the PATH train. All she had to do was cross under the Hudson River and walk a block or so. She was probably at work by 9 am.

My nephew was at school at Stuyvesant High, which is just a couple of blocks away. He eventually walked home to Queens leading some younger kids.
I wouldn't suppose he's a Scout, is he? It's amazing sometimes that when the moment calls, people -sometimes the most unlikely people- just step up and, in the words of Larry the Cable Guy, "Git 'er done."No Scout, just a very well-brought-up young man.

[MrDrP]

I had just sat down at my desk at my office in Cambridge, Mass. when my assistant, who was clearly agitated, came into my office, asking if I'd heard about a plane flying into the WTC. I told her to catch my breath and sit down while I booted up my computer. I knew something was wrong when, due to heavy internet traffic, I couldn't upload the NY Times web page.

We left the law school alumni center and went next door to the law school student center, where a large crowd had already gathered. We walked in just in time to see footage of the first plane fly into a tower. We were transfixed, as was everyone else. I've lived in or near Boston most of my adult life so I, like many I knew, wondered if any friends were on either of the planes that flew out of Logan.

I got my answer a day or two later, I can't remember to be honest, when my wife was reading the Globe's profiles of the dead and discovered that one of her college crew mates had been on the American flight out of Boston.

[recon228]

I've had a chance to talk with several other people who, like me, were watching live as the second plane hit the tower. All of them note that it was literally so violent and unpredictable, it took them several seconds... even minutes for their mind to fully process what they had just witnessed. One of the guys I work with now even admitted that the footage was so extreme, he actually forgot that what he was watching was real and found himself thinking "Whoa, cool!" as he watched the towers fall. He felt guilty and actually had to remind himself that what he was watching wasn’t a scene from the movie Independence Day! :dubiety:

[cpneb]

I had just sat down at my desk at my office in Cambridge, Mass. when my assistant, who was clearly agitated, came into my office, asking if I'd heard about a plane flying into the WTC. I told her to catch my breath and sit down while I booted up my computer. I knew something was wrong when, due to heavy internet traffic, I couldn't upload the NY Times web page.

We left the law school alumni center and went next door to the law school student center, where a large crowd had already gathered. We walked in just in time to see footage of the first plane fly into a tower. We were transfixed, as was everyone else. I've lived in or near Boston most of my adult life so I, like many I knew, wondered if any friends were on either of the planes that flew out of Logan.

I got my answer a day or two later, I can't remember to be honest, when my wife was reading the Globe's profiles of the dead and discovered that one of her college crew mates had been on the American flight out of Boston.


Thanks, All, for contributing to this thread. I'd like to hear more reactions through the rest of the week, if possible. Those we lost deserve, at least, a week.

Those like the Fire chaplain who, knowing he was in danger, removed his helmet to administer last rites to a fallen comrade. He took him home that day, and another Hero rose.

[Not The CrimpMaster]

I also posted a review of the story itself on FF.net, but I'd just like to pay my respects here.

I was really young, elementary school, when this happened, so I don't remember too much of it. All that I remember is getting up in the morning to go to school just like any other Tuesday morning, seeing the footage on TV, and my mother acting pretty nervous. I really wish I could remember more. :(

[MrDrP]

About two and a half weeks after 9/11 I had to go to New York for business. I usually flew the shuttle out of Logan but that wasn't an option so I took the Acela, in and of itself a jarring change in routine. I still remember how strange the skyline looked without the towers. It was one thing to see still photographs, even TV footage, another to see that hole in the sky in real life. As the train headed south through the Bronx towards its subterranean crossing point to Manhattan I was afforded an ever changing perspective of the new panorama. It was eerie.

Later in the day, I had an appointment in the Met Life (formerly Pan Am building) adjacent to Grand Central. I was on the 30th floor; my prospect took me to a south-facing conference room, affording me an opportunity to see a refashioned Wall Street.

all of this served to prepare me for the next day's business in the Financial District. Another prospect showed me the hole from his upper story conference room. It was surreal, to say the least. Then, later, I took a walk around part of the perimeter of the site. The fencing was up, obscuring views. But at one point to the south of the site, I was able to come close on a side street. I could see twisted wreckage jutting out over the fencline. Beside me was a parking garage, filled with ash-covered cars (the area was still a no-drive zone). It was all heart wrenching.

All of this was heart-wrenching -- but as much as what I saw in Grand Central and Penn Station. In those early days, every surface was still covered with lost person notices and pictures. The sense of loss was palpable, far more so than at the WTC site or on TV or the papers. It was almost primal, it was raw, and I can still recall vividly some people looking at the flyers, others hurrying by.

[AinoMinako]

I also posted a review of the story itself on FF.net, but I'd just like to pay my respects here.

I was really young, elementary school, when this happened, so I don't remember too much of it. All that I remember is getting up in the morning to go to school just like any other Tuesday morning, seeing the footage on TV, and my mother acting pretty nervous. I really wish I could remember more. :(

I'm about the same. I remember being sick the night before, being in the kitchen, Dad commenting that the second tower was hit lower, and my teacher mentioning it later that day. I had no idea what the WTC was, actually.