September 11

[ZYX]

It is now officially 9-11-2011. The tenth anniversary of the worst terrorist attacks ever on American soil.

I was in my kindergarten classroom that morning. I remember almost all of that day. I was too young to understand what had happenned, but I knew something was horribly wrong.

Let's all honor those who died and those who saved lives in all three of those terrorist attacks that day. We will never forget.

[AquaMan]

What a long, strange trip its been....

I will never be able to watch total recreations or recorded versions of the event. Too painful. Lived through it, felt its impact, saw it once and that was enough. I watched Reign Over Me on cable, some interviews with survivors and family of deceased till it hurt too much, then Flight 93. Amazing heroism there. I took in as much as I could this morning, including the speeches. Biden was outstanding but each of them were poignant and well done. As time passes, I begin to lose memory of the exact moment, though it seems I was working on a full page ad for the Tulsa World in my office at home and overheard a news flash that a small plane had hit an office building in NY. Once video started to roll in I knew instantly two things; this was an act of war in the same nature as Pearl Harbor, and life in America would forever be different. I called my son, who was a sophomore at OU, and warned him to avoid crowds and stay away from large buildings if he could,

I remember most the weeks following, as it seemed the whole world was somewhat blackened. No humor. No anger. Just a deep, overwhelming sadness. Of all people, David Letterman, by continuing his Late Night show gave a sense of light at the end of the tunnel. He spoke frankly and being a New Yorker it resonated more than most.

It aged us all at least a decade.

[Teatownclown]

More like a long strange NIGHTMARE!

I am no fan of George Will but he hit a homer with this:


Sept. 11's self-inflicted wounds
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/sept-11s-self-inflicted-wounds/2011/09/08/gIQAfjm5FK_story.html

By George F. Will, Published: September 9

"On Dec. 8, 1951, the day after the 10th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, the New York Times' front page made a one-paragraph mention of commemorations the day before, when the paper's page had not mentioned the anniversary. The Dec. 8 Washington Post's front page noted no commemorations the previous day. On Dec. 7, the page had featured a familiar 10-year-old photograph of the burning battleships. It seems to have been published because a new process made possible printing it for the first time in color. At the bottom of the page, a six-paragraph story began: "Greater Washington today will mark the tenth anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack by testing its air raid defenses." The story explained that "the sirens are part of a 'paper bombing' of Washington" that would include "mock attacks by atom bombs and high explosives."

The most interesting question is not how America in 2011 is unlike America in 2001 but how it is unlike what it was in 1951. The intensity of today's focus on the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11 testifies to more than the multiplication of media ravenous for content, and to more than today's unhistorical and self-dramatizing tendency to think that eruptions of evil are violations of a natural entitlement to happiness. It also represents the search for refuge from a decade defined by unsatisfactory responses to Sept. 11.

In 1951, the war that Pearl Harbor had propelled America into had been over for more than two years longer than it had raged. And it had been won. Besides, the Dec. 8 Post's front page reported on negotiations to end a subsequent war, in Korea, then in its 18th month.

The 10th anniversary of Sept. 11 coincides with concerns about whether, after more than eight years of war, just 3,000 American troops can be left in Iraq without jeopardizing U.S. gains. Which, whatever they are, have nothing to do with the stated primary reason for the war — eliminating weapons of mass destruction. Ten years after Sept. 11 lit the fuse that led in 18 months to the invasion of Iraq, what may now count as success there may depend on Iraq finding its John Adams: When, after losing the bitterly contested 1800 election, he peacefully transferred power to Thomas Jefferson, America's democracy was well-launched.

As the war in Afghanistan — the most important immediate consequence of 9/11 — enters its second decade, success there, too, is fragile. And it is defined with reference to a nation-building objective not articulated at the outset.

Pearl Harbor clearly began something — U.S. participation in a world war that was already raging — whereas Sept. 11 was the fifth significant attack by radical Islamists on American targets. It followed those on the USS Cole in 2000, the East African embassies in 1998 and the Khobar Towers in 1996, and the 1993 attempt to topple the World Trade Center with a truck bomb. So what Sept. 11 actually began was the U.S. reaction, as muscular as it was belated, to the challenge of terrorism.

The depleted armed forces that have been fighting these wars for a nation not conscripted into any notable inconvenience will eventually recuperate. For mostly oblivious civilians, the only recurring and most visible reminder of the post-Sept. 11 world is shoeless participation in the security theater at airports. It thus seems wildly incongruous that some Americans rushed to proclaim that 9/11 "changed everything."

The dozen years between the fall of the Berlin Wall and that of the twin towers featured complacent, self-congratulatory speculation about "the end of history." The end, that is, of a grand politics of clashes about fundamental questions of social organization. By the time 9/11 awakened the nation from such reveries, some Americans seemed to be suffering "1930s envy," a longing for the vast drama of global conflict with a huge ideological enemy.

Ten years on from Sept. 11, national unity, usually a compensation for the rigors of war, has been a casualty of wars of dubious choices. Ten years after 1941, and in more recent decades, the nation, having lost 400,000 in the unavoidable war that Pearl Harbor announced, preferred to remember more inspiriting dates, such as D-Day.

Today, for reasons having little to do with 9/11 and policy responses to it, the nation is more demoralized than at any time since the late 1970s, when, as now, feelings of impotence, vulnerability and decline were pervasive. Of all the sadness surrounding this anniversary, the most aching is the palpable and futile hope that commemoration can somehow help heal self-inflicted wounds."

[patric]

One of the worst episodes of South Park seemed to capture something socially significant, in a way no one else was able...

Sharon is laying on the couch, surrounded by stacks of dishes and food wrappers, mumbling, glued to the TV.
Randy Marsh: "Sharon, don't you think maybe you should watch something else? You've been watching CNN for about [checks his watch] eight weeks now?"

[ZYX]

I am no fan of George Will but he hit a homer with this:

If used the words I want to about that article I would be banned from this board. Take the attacks as lightly as you want, but if you didn't lose anyone, then you can't say we're overreacting. I can't imagine looking a victim, first responder, or family member of those deceased in the eye and tell them that we are making too big of a deal over it. Like it or not, they were the worst attacks ever on Americans, and have changed the way we live our lives.

[Jammie]

Just too sad of a situation for me to want to watch all over again. The lives of the survivors and family members of those lost have been changed forever and it's a pain they'll never get rid of. Watching shows about it would've just made me sad and it wouldn't have brought any comfort to any of them so I avoided everything about it.

It's kind of strange because when I read, "In kindergarten that day", it reminded me of the JFK assasination since I was in a primary grade and still young, but I'll always remember that day.

On 9/11/01, I had the privilege of spending the morning with my husband, my grandson, and our pets. It was a shocking and sad day and it should've never happened.

[AquaMan]

If used the words I want to about that article I would be banned from this board. Take the attacks as lightly as you want, but if you didn't lose anyone, then you can't say we're overreacting. I can't imagine looking a victim, first responder, or family member of those deceased in the eye and tell them that we are making too big of a deal over it. Like it or not, they were the worst attacks ever on Americans, and have changed the way we live our lives.

But, George Will makes some pretty strong points that are backed up with experience. Its the second paragraph that he presents the main course.

"The most interesting question is not how America in 2011 is unlike America in 2001 but how it is unlike what it was in 1951. The intensity of today's focus on the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11 testifies to more than the multiplication of media ravenous for content, and to more than today's unhistorical and self-dramatizing tendency to think that eruptions of evil are violations of a natural entitlement to happiness. It also represents the search for refuge from a decade defined by unsatisfactory responses to Sept. 11."

As I grew up in the fifties and started listening with some focus during the 60's it was obvious that Pearl Harbor was just as big a shock as 911. The main difference of course was military casualties at Pearl vs civilian casualties in NY. Terrorists don't differentiate. It was a shock, and everyone knew someone who was directly affected. But that generation was more accustomed to tragedies having suffered through the Titanic, The depression, WW1 and II. By the 1950's it just wasn't spoken of or reported about much. I have some post war Life and Look magazines that were more concerned about reconstruction of the Phillipines, Korea, China and fashion than anything else. Veteran's Day and D-Day anniversaries were much bigger than Pearl.

My dad and many other men I knew of his age didn't want to talk much about anything except how happy they were when they were shipped home. My father-in-law had a tank shot out from under him at the Bulge. My uncles saw action too. Most of the older men on my paper route who went shirtless during the hot summers sported scars from wounds but wouldn't elaborate when I asked about them. My father ended up around one of the concentration camps. Most of these guys never wanted to carry a gun again, not because of politics, they simply had lugged them around too much. Had too much of indiscriminate violence. My dad packed away his duffel bag full of helmets, ammo belts, canteen, mess kit, rifle and bayonet in the closet. When I dressed up to play Army with them he hardly noticed and made no comment.

Our generations are more wired, more educated and more in to ourselves. I don't think it makes them better, they just reacted differently but Will thinks that is an important distinction between the "best generation" and the "me generations".

[Red Arrow]

As I grew up in the fifties

Me too.  My dad served in the Navy.  He wouldn't even let us point cap guns at each other.  We could soak each other with a hose but it it looked like a gun, we couldn't even point a water gun at each other.

[patric]

Today was definitely not the day to have health issues:

The North American Aerospace Defense Command scrambled two F-16 jets to shadow American Airlines Flight 34 until it landed safely at 4:10 p.m., the Transportation Security Administration said in a statement.
On the flight, the three passengers made repeated trips to the bathroom and some thought they were using hand signals to communicate, a law enforcement official said. The official was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Two of the men were Israeli and one was Russian, the official said, adding that they were cleared and sent on their way.
FBI spokesman J. Peter Donald said in a statement that the jets were sent to escort the flight "out of an abundance of caution." The FBI interviewed passengers and found "no nexus to terrorism," he said.

A similar scenario played out on Frontier Flight 623.
NORAD spokesman John Cornelio said NORAD sent two F-16 jets to shadow the plane until it landed safely. The craft, with 116 passengers on board, landed without incident at 3:30 p.m. EDT, Kowalchuck said.
The Airbus 318 taxied to a pad away from the terminal, he said. The three escorted off the plane in handcuffs included two men and a woman.

[dbacks fan]

On topic, the first thing that I heard was as I was backing out of my garage/driveway in Phoenix. It was about 6:30 AZ time, and I was expecting to hear the traffic report. I heard on the radio that a plane had crashed into one of the WTC. I called my then wife and asked her to turn on the tv and see what was going on. Her response was "I don't have time to check out something for you." As I continued my drive to work, it became apperant that something was going on beyond a crash. Over the next 45 minutes of my drive to work it became very clear that none of this was an accident. I heard about the first crash into the WTC, then the second crash, and at that point I knew we were being attacked. The third into the Pentagon, and then the fourth crashing in PA confirmed in my mind what was happening. When I got to work, everybody was trying to find out what was happening. They could not get through on the web because they were going to the network sites. I actually went to KOTV's site and could get through to get info. After the collapse of both buildings and the reports about the Pentagon attack and the confirmation of the crash in PA, all of us just sat in shock, it sank in, but you just didn't know how to react. The thing that really drove home the events, was driving home from work and seeing all the planes parked at Sky Harbor, and seeing F-16's and F-15's fully armed flying cover over Phoenix.

I'm 48, and I remember the Apollo 1 fire, the assasination of MLK and RFK as a child, Viet Nam, the Yom Kippur war, The Seven Day War, Idi Amin the Iran hostage situation, the attempt on Ford twice, and Regan, and so many other events, the first bombing of the WTC in 1993, the Murrah bombing, you think that it can't get worse, and it does. But the human spirit prevails, and there is triumph over tragedy.

[Conan71]

We avoided as much coverage of it this weekend as possible.  Not out of disrespect, but mainly due to the media's ability to over-sensationalize and pound images and stories into the ground ad nauseum.  I still remember all too well the images and details of that day and the days which followed.  My heart goes out to the families and survivors of those attacks.  Nothing I've experienced in my life could possibly compare to the shock, grief, and sorrow they've gone through.

Instead of camping in front of the TV, we did a lot of yard work, re-organized my work room and storage shed, and enjoyed quiet, cool evenings in front of the chiminea.

I have the deepest gratitude to those men and women who have served and who are serving overseas.

[Townsend]

We avoided as much coverage of it this weekend as possible.  Not out of disrespect, but mainly due to the media's ability to over-sensationalize and pound images and stories into the ground ad nauseum.  I still remember all too well the images and details of that day and the days which followed.  My heart goes out to the families and survivors of those attacks.  Nothing I've experienced in my life could possibly compare to the shock, grief, and sorrow they've gone through.

Instead of camping in front of the TV, we did a lot of yard work, re-organized my work room and storage shed, and enjoyed quiet, cool evenings in front of the chiminea.

I have the deepest gratitude to those men and women who have served and who are serving overseas.

That pretty much covers it for us too.

[nathanm]

I built a pinball cabinet for the anniversary. Letting these events take up too much of your mental energy is just giving the ghost of OBL precisely what he was looking for when he funded the attack on us. Why, again, should I do anything that bastard wants?

[Conan71]

I built a pinball cabinet for the anniversary. Letting these events take up too much of your mental energy is just giving the ghost of OBL precisely what he was looking for when he funded the attack on us. Why, again, should I do anything that bastard wants?

Pinball cabinet?  As in for a pinball machine?

[nathanm]

Pinball cabinet?  As in for a pinball machine?

For a virtual pinball machine.

Vaguely similar to this one: