It really is hard to believe it has been seven years, as I remember it just like it was yesterday.
Such a terrible waste. So many lives ruined.
Seven Years Later
Reader Interactions
21Comments
Comments are closed.
Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.
The new republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.
The willow is too close to the house.
Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.
We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.
Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.
Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.
It’s a doggy dog world.
American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated
He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.
Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.
Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.
I was confident that someone would point it out and thought why not me.
Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.
Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?
“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”
The worst democrat is better than the best republican.
Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!
Everybody saw this coming.
Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.
This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.
There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.
Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.
We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.
Michael D.
Then, and since.
Kali's Little Sister
I remember being grateful for television on that day. A fleeting sentiment.
Ugh
Good thing the Bush administration has caught the mastermind of 9/11 and he’s not, you know, sitting in a cave in Pakistan making videos and mocking us.
Lie baby, lie!
Whenever this sad day rolls around, all I can remember is:
August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing entitled “Bin Laden determined to strike in US.”
Bedlam UK
I still remember seeing that on TV that horrible day.
Doesnt seem like 7 years gone already.
Our wishes and thoughts are with you guys today.
From me and my lot over here.
cleek
my father’s generation could ask each other “Where were you when you heard JFK had been shot?”. we get to ask each other “Where were you when you heard the second plane had hit the WTC?”
Brian J
I remember going to fourth period math at the time, seeing teachers talking about something bad in the hallway in the process. Then they sent around the note from the main office. And we all just shifted around in a daze for the rest of the day, almost unable to process what was going on. I remember taking the bus home for the first few days after and seeing every single house with an American flag out in front, something I had never seen before, even on holidays. Even now, it makes me a little misty-eyed.
It’s kind of crazy to think that I saw one of the worst evens in American history and then just a few years later saw one of the best. No, I don’t think that Obama securing the nomination is exactly the equivalent of 9/11, but it’s an important moment in American history. Despite what you think of his politics, it’s a sign of progress that it’s not a foreign notion to have a black or mix-raced man as president. I used to think that this momentous occasion would net us a bigger bounce out of the convention, but in some ways, I’m glad it didn’t. This might be the wrong way to look at it, but the fact that it’s no so special for some people looks like a sign of progress to me.
That’s two big ones for the history books, and I’m only 23.
LiberalTarian
I couldn’t absorb the 9/11 stuff. The day the Twin Towers went down was the last day I saw my dad alive.
Worst day of my life.
smiley
Those emotionally charged memories are called flashbulb memories in psychology. Interesting, eh? Who uses flashbulbs anymore?
bootlegger
I woke up around 7 am on mountain time to feed my 4 month-old son while my wife went to class. I sat at the computer with him in my arms sucking on a bottle of breast juice. The Yahoo front page said “Plane Hits Towers” and I thought it must be a glitch, that the plane hitting the building in New York was a month or so before (remember the ex-ballplayer who accidently flew into a building?). I refreshed the page and it was still there so I clicked on it. There was no mention of terrorism or the second plane or third or fourth. I turned on the TV just in time to hear about the second plane and the pentagon.
I don’t think I left the TV for the next two days. That first day I just couldn’t bring myself to turn it off, I had to keep seeing it, to sear it into my brain.
I also knew that war was coming and I had a sense of foreboding because of are president. Guess my gut instinct was correct.
Svensker
And our response to the slaughter of 3000+ innocents here was to slaughter hundreds of thousands of innocents in Iraq. Truly shameful.
We are a narcissistic, ignorant people. And apparently we have learned nothing in the last 7 years.
SGEW
I watched the whole thing from my bedroom window and then my roof.
My first thought was: This is Reagan’s fault! For busting the air-traffic controllers’ union. I thought it was human error. Until I saw the second plane flying straight towards the WTC.
My neighbor was on the phone with her father in the north tower when the second plane hit. The connection cut off. She never got to speak to him again.
Every rooftop I could see was filled with people. Maybe we should have all been running away, but we couldn’t stop looking. Even when people started to jump.
I used to hate the twin towers, from an architectural stand-point. You know, standard NYer fare: how ugly they were, how they couldn’t compare to the Empire State building or the Chyrsler, etc. But when I came to grips with the emptiness of the sky whenever I looked south, I realized how important they were to me: as a landmark, as a source of pride, as the standard for what “bigger than life” meant.
Sometimes I still reflexively look for them when I get out of a downtown subway stop, to see which way is south.
I still miss my two friends who died. We weren’t the closest of friends, more acquaintances I suppose, but it really hurts to know that they were murdered like that. In darkness and in flame. I still get nervous whenever it’s a beautiful early fall day: full of light and empty blue skies. I keep expecting danger.
It’s been seven years. It feel like yesterday. It feels like a thousand years ago. I can get into an airplane again, and I took myself to the top of the Empire State a couple of years ago, so the worst of it is over for me (my lungs seem ok too). But I still can’t really believe it.
Thanks for the thread. Needed to get it off my chest, I guess.
Everyone stay safe today.
Marshall
To me, it seems like several lifetimes ago.
SGEW
David Rees, a fellow NYer, has put up his annual tribute:
Link.
Damned at Random
That evening, I walked the dog down to the gas station to pick up the LA Times. It was a beautiful day and my dog was practicly dancing- she lived for her walks. Ordinarily, that would have lifted my spirits (I guess I lived for our walks too), but nobody was out in their yards, there was barely any traffic and I had a sense that I would never be happy again.
A few days later, a wingnut ocworker if I was happy now that Bush won, because “Our side would never have united behind Gore”.
Krista
I remember it too. I was at work, and got an email from a friend in Toronto. Other people must have received emails as well, because soon the entire office was buzzing. Finally, we just gave up on working, and someone went home to grab a TV. We sat in the kitchen, watching, and I just remember sitting there, with tears streaming down my face as I watched people waving for help from the windows, and saw some others giving up and jumping out of the windows to the ground below.
I think that morning, the entire world stopped. And we all watched in horror and sadness, and our hearts went out to your country.
Cris
I remember being impressed by Secretary Rumsfeld on that day. Another fleeting sentiment.
Warren Terra
My memories of 9/11 are thoroughly surreal. I worked in lab all night, biked home around 6AM EST, had a nice supper listening to Morning Edition, and went to bed at maybe 7:30 the morning of 9/11. I woke up some time in the early afternoon, the house was dark and quiet, and my housemates were in the living room watching the TV news, I wasn’t even really awake and I was trying to understand how much had happened while I was asleep. Something of that feeling of half-awake unreality pervades the day for me still.
Don
Rummy was impressive for quite a while, I think. I used to really enjoy seeing him on tv talking about Afghanistan.
I try not to think about any of the political implications of 9/11 on this day, real or as a tool for anyone with a goal. A lot of people just going about their day got their ticket punched unexpectedly, something that could happen to any of us. I think I owe them 24 hours of not thinking past “sorry you were killed.”
croatoan
Bush to briefer: “All right. You’ve covered your ass, now.”
Shade Tail
I can’t think of 9/11 without feeling bitter, because America’s reaction to it was just so moronic. And I’m not talking about Iraq, though that was pretty bad. I’m talking about all the sniveling children who got up on the TV over the next few weeks and whined, “We lost our innocence!”
You *dolts*. Lost your naiveté, perhaps. An attack like that was inevitable. Right or wrong, fair or unfair, there are a lot of people around the world who hate America. They had attacked us before (Beirut, World Trade Center 1993, Oklahoma City, USS Cole, etc.), and they were going to keep doing so. A major hit like this *was* going to happen sooner or later, and anyone who didn’t realize that was a moron.
It was a horrifying shock when it happened, but it wasn’t a surprise. Seriously, Americans need to grow up and get over ourselves. We really do.