Captain America
It’s weird thinking about 9/11 after . . . 25 years. Geez.
I still remember where I was when it happened. I was in college, woke up, and jumped online. Didn’t put on the TV, so I had no idea what was going on. Someone sent me a message on AOL Instant Messenger saying ‘someone flew a plane into the Twin Towers’. I thought he was pitching a tabletop role-playing game and said it could be fun. He then wrote in all caps for me to turn on the news and that’s when I saw the second tower fall. Still get myself ready to go to class, which was anthropology and the subject was how certain mindsets have lead to acts of violence. The teacher just turned on the news, said his lesson couldn’t compare to what was going on, and walked out to process things himself. A friend and I just kind of wandered for a bit until we ended up at the student union and I stayed with all of the other students who came from the NYC/Long Island area.
That’s a vivid memory that many people don’t have. Every student in my school district was born long after 9/11 occurred. They learn about it in history, which is strange to hear about. Heck, I’ve had coworkers who were born a year or two after 9/11. It’s a ‘distant’ historical event to so many. Something politicians repeatedly pull out to suit their needs and stir up those of us who remember. It’s become a political tool in so many arenas, which is why I have a hard time turning on the news around this time. It used to be I couldn’t really watch the videos of people jumping from the towers and falling like ragdolls, but I think I can handle that more than the politicizing.
I know many people make these posts and close comments. I’m not going to do that. I might take a while to respond, but I want to hear from people. Do you remember where you were when 9/11 happened? If you weren’t born, what do you think when you talk to someone who was? What’s your opinion on how events we live through can become history within our own lifetimes?
I was at work, watching the events on the big screen that had been set up in the employee cafeteria. We watched the plane hit the World Trade Center. Most of us cried in shock. It’s hard to imagine a generation growing up without the image of the World Trade Center on the skyline. But here we are.
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I was talking to a coworker about how none of our students were alive prior to 9/11. We realized several teachers were born after it too. It really is tough thinking about how so many don’t know the old NYC skyline.
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I was in the middle of an appointment with the chair of Surgery about getting surgeons to teach anatomy. He had on the TV and we watched, then I left, never finishing our conversation. I watched much of the rest of the day in the lecture hall with my medical students.
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I could only watch the TV for so long. Eventually, I just walked around campus and then hung around Lake Ontario.
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Sounds like a way to calm your mind!
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I’m Canadian. I herad the awful news on the radio. I went to the beach at Boundary Bay, looked across to the US and cried for my American neighbours. 😢
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I’ve wondered the last few years how those outside of the country saw 9/11. The whole thing can be surreal even in the USA too. I remember being in Florida from 2005-2010 and hearing people say 9/11 was a ‘New York Event’. So strange.
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It affected the entire world. People in London for instance were afraid to go to work in office towers because they thought they might be hit next.
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Surprised I never heard of that.
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I remember and it was a shocking act. It took awhile for the information to sink in but when it did it was overwhelming.
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I feel like some of it still hasn’t sunk in.
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I know what you mean
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I recall a time when I stayed away from the news.
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Definitely feels like a wise decision these days.
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I usually don’t comment because I was on the opposite side of the country and no one I know was affected. Making statements is like making it be about ME ME ME and I’m not into that.
It was a tragic day and the greater loss for me is how the courage of ordinary New Yorkers was twisted into a drumbeat of war that leads directly to our current, hyper-militarized and hyper-surveilled reality.
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I get it. The patriotism and unity that 9/11 created was turned against us by opportunistic monsters. It’s reached a point where many can’t be brought back from that side. It’s too much a part of their personality at this point.
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It’s hard to imagine it was 25 years ago when our memories are still fresh.
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True. Rather surreal especially when you work in a school. None of the students were alive at the time. Some teachers weren’t either.
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Very surreal for us in a school.
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I was on an auditing trip to Idaho Falls. My boss at the time was a brutal asshole so not working wasn’t an option. I went about my tasks like any other day, but all the brokerages had a television going and there was no ignoring it. Turns out the governor closed all the state offices, but nobody thought to tell me. When I drove home it was through a sea of American flags. I even tried to buy one but they were sold out.
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Geez. Can’t believe he didn’t let you stop working even for a moment. Then again, I guess some people didn’t realize how massive an event it was? I still run into people who saw it unfold on TV, but felt distanced from it because it wasn’t their state or region.
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He went home. Nobody gave me a second thought. It’s kind of how my whole career worked out.
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Ouch. Sorry.
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Your recollection of seeing the second tower fall on TV after a frantic AOL Instant Messenger alert really captures how surreal that morning felt. I can picture the student union crowd, the anthropology class abruptly halted, and the way the campus seemed to hold its breath. It’s striking how the event still reverberates for those who were there, even as new generations only learn it from textbooks. The detail about your professor walking out to process it himself shows how even educators were caught off guard, forced to confront something beyond any lesson plan.
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Thanks. Working in a school, it is strange to hear 9/11 talked about as history. I compare every student not even being born and knowing the event to how I perceive Pearl Harbor.
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