9/11 is here
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| Thu, 09-11-2008 - 12:41am |
I wanted to make sure to give lanie and galanie a spot to link to the site they like so much.
Where were you all?
I was in Lahore, Pakistan. My colleague who taught high school science and I had gone to the memorial service for our lab tech who died of Hep C the previous Sunday. We arrived home a bit after 6 pm -- 9 hours ahead of east coast time. He lived next door and his wife was watching their son and my two boys, 7. 7. and 5 years old. We opened a beer and were talking about our colleague who had passed when the kids came in shouting something about an airplane hitting the world's tallest building. We thought his wife was letting them watch some sort of disaster video. We wandered next door and came in time to see the second plane hit.
To this day I remember so clearly that he and I looked at each other and said "time to pack". His wife said "what?" and we repeated it. Neither of us, in fact no one we knew, had the slightest doubt that it was Al Qaeda. I'd been living in Pakistan in 1998 and was evacuated out two days before Clinton tried to get bin Laden -- the evacuation of Americans probably being a huge clue to why we didn't get him. My neighbor is the younger brother of the woman who was our US Ambassador to Kenya in 1998. And we lived in the nation that borders Afghanistan with 3 million Afghani refugees living there along with us.
We spend the next few days near in very great fear, not irrational as later attacks on a church in Islamabad which killed a girl I knew from the American school there, and her mother, and an attack on Murree Christian School which was thwarted after several guards and secretaries were killed but before the gunmen could break into the room where the Kindergartners were proved. But that sustained fear, exhibited by all the adults they know was probably a trigger factor in my own children's struggle with mental illness.
I left Pakistan on Sept 20, orignally for two weeks in Thailand while we waited for more information -- and the State Dept to work something out with our evacuation insurance company. We had a suitcase each. We never went back.
None of the teachers, and none of the kids at the school, knew anyone killed (many of our students had relatives with businesses in the twin towers, but none of them lost their lives), and we weren't in the states to witness the immediate aftermath. Our lives were completely altered just the same. Sometimes I think we forget how much this act affected so many people. Than man I loved, a Pakistani, had spend the past 10 years building a high-end travel and trekking company in Pakistan. The terrorists killed it too. Only now, 8 years later, are he and his partners gradually building the business back up again. I remember my American friends (and folks on the boards) asking me what my Pakistani friends though of bin Laden -- wondering if there was some sort of Muslim solidarity there -- my Pakistni friends would have happily shot him without a second thought, and still would if they knew where he was.
There will be plenty of focus on the heros of 9/11, as there should be. But maybe it is worth remembering that those who lose everything and still get up and work to find a way to provide for their families, thousands and thousands of people who will never have a memorial, had their lives indelibly altered that day too.
Rose

It is amazing the details that I remember. I was going to my class on spec. ed. and didn't bother to turn on the tv or radio, which was unusual for me. The sky was soooo blue and clear. I drove in silence with the windows down. A perfect day. Not too hot and not too cold. Breazy and beautiful. When I got to class, another classmate told me they hit the towers- they flew planes into the towers. I immediately thought of the apt. towers in our neighboring city. Then they said Trade Center.
People were upset. Campus was so deserted. I found a tv that was on in a classroom and all alone, I watched those planes hit the towers. They played it over and over again, but I could not bring myself to look away. Even now, my gut flips and my muscles tighten thinking about it. I didn't realize that I was watching people jumping to their deaths. I felt numb, sad, shock, anger. I just wanted to get somebody for doing this to us. Who could do this to us?
I was hoping that everyone below the fire balls had gotten out of the building. I was angry that the 2nd tower had not been evacuated right after the first one had been hit. I kept thinking...if only they had evacuated sooner....why did they stay and watch?
That second plane took my breath away. It was so deliberate and evil. I pictured those hijackers yelling out something, like in the movies. I just wanted to get them. What I was going to do when I got them. God only knows. lol.
Then my heart skipped a beat when the first tower fell. I remember gasping, holding my hands over my mouth, and holding my breath until what seemed like forever. I didn't expect it to fall. It wasn't supposed to fall. It wasn't supposed to fall. For sure my heart sank or moved in my chest when that second tower fell. I think that something inside of me changed. My heart literally felt broken.
I didn't expect the second tower to fall either. I was in denial about it. I thought that
when the dust cleared, some of the building would still be there. In my mind, they were not supposed to fall. All of that steel. They were not supposed to fall. All of the people. I kept thinking to myself where did everybody go? How are they going to save anybody trapped under all of that debris?
So senseless. WHY????? My heart breaks for all of the families that lost their loved ones or never heard from them again. My prayers are with you all to find solace and forgiveness.
And Bush43 and Condi knew that something was going to happen. They let us down. They flew Bin Laden's family out of the country. (sigh). WHY???
I remember that you were in Pakistan and that we all worried about you.
Down here it was afternoon when the first plane hit. My BIL and SIL had left that AM for New york with their kids, so we spent several hours wondering what happened to them. Their plane was turned back over Italy.
We spent the afternoon just staring at CNN, stunned.
Like the other posters said, the one thing I remember was how blue the sky was that morning.
I will remember this day till the day that I die. We were living in Virginia while Ted was taking his CLK
I remember the day clearly.
I remember walking out to my car on a cool, crisp, early autumn morning and wondering why I was going to work when I could go hiking in the mountains instead. I arrived at work, turned on my radio (tuned in to an NPR station), and started my usual day. A co-worker came in and asked if I'd heard anything about a plane crashing into a building in NYC. A friend of his was in the city and he just wanted to know where the plane hit. The news hadn't started broadcasting yet, but when it came up at first all that was mentioned was that a twin-engine jet had hit one of the towers.
As I was talking to my co-worker, news of the second tower getting hit broadcast. We knew then something awful was happening. We went to find the lone TV in the building since all news websites were impossible to get to. We gathered around the tiny set, glued to it, and watched as Bush made his announcement. Then the Pentagon was hit.
I called my husband, a lab tech at a federal agriculture lab, and begged him to go home. He told me I was being silly. We watched as the Towers collapsed. I called my husband again when I heard rumors of explosions downtown (turned out those
I remember it pretty well, also. I was living in Oakland, California, so while it was happening was just as our part of the country was getting out of bed. I'd become a stay-at-home-dad in June, after then end of my wife's maternity leave, as we'd planned. She got up before me, brought me the baby, who was 7 months old at the time. I remember sitting groggily in bed with her for a few minutes, and I could hear my wife puttering around downstairs. The phone rang, which it doesn't usually do at 6:45 in the morning, and that was my first clue that something was amiss.
Usually, when you get those odd-hours calls, you assume someone you know has died or been in an accident or something, but - especially then - you don't expect to hear that New York has just been attacked. I can remember hearing my wife's voice - too low for me to make out - for quite a while, and then her footsteps on the stairs. She came into the room and said "get up, a plane just hit the World Trade Center." I rushed downstairs where the TV was already on - it had been my wife's mother, calling from South Carolina to tell us the news. We sat glued to the TV all day, and my wife - who worked in the TransAmerica pyramid in San Francisco at the time, received instructions to not come to work under any circumstances, since at that time, it was not known how many more plans might be in the works, and they seemed to be targeted at visible, well-known financial buildings, as well as government ones.
I can remember seeing the re-plays of the second crash of the tower over and over again, and we saw the collapse of the towers in real time. It was surreal and horrible.
Ashes where the bodies burning
No more war pigs have the power
Hand of God has sturck the hour
Day of judgement, God is calling
On their knees, the war pigs crawling Begging