I was a freshman in high school, only a few weeks into this new life. I'd only made one student friend, and was pretty chummy with my homeroom teacher by now. Part-way through first period, we were all told to report to homeroom, then wait to be called down to the auditorium. No one was worried, nothing felt out of place. But my homeroom teacher looked a bit out of sorts - he's the kind of guy to always be grinning and laughing and poking fun at the students, but he wasn't like that this morning. I asked him what was going on, and he tells me as we're walking down the hall "I'm not supposed to tell you this, but a plane just crashed into one of the World Trade Centers in New York." I insisted he was joking. It's a pretty crazy thing to say, you know?


I didn't really pay attention at the assembly. I don't even remember what they told us. We were all to head to our next class, and mine was lunch. All of the tvs in the school - one in each classroom and a bunch in the lunch room - were turned on to the news. It was when I walked into the lunch room, and saw, live, the second plane crash into the other tower, that my heart stopped and I realized this was real. Everything stopped then. Everyone gathered around the tvs, watching, whispering to each other.



It was when the plane hit the Pentagon that we were called back to the auditorium for another assembly.



You see, I went to high school in Severn, Maryland, only about thirty miles or so from Washington, DC. About fifteen percent of the student body, including me, were children of military families. Some of these parents worked at the Pentagon. I had a cousin who worked at the Pentagon, and if my dad had still been in the military, he very well could have been there. Some of the other students lost a great deal of family at the Pentagon, and some even lost family at the WTCs.



During the course of the assembly, they decided to send us home. The counselors were on standby in the hallway, watching us as we left the auditorium. Those counsellors were really incredible. Mine saw me, in shock as I walked along, and she quickly tugged me out of the flow of students and said "Who do you know that works there?" I'll never forget the look on that woman's face. She guided me back to her office to call my mom, and she stayed with me until I was okay to go outside and wait for my mom.



I was numb as I walked down the street to where she was stuck in the long line of cars coming in to collect the other students. I sank down into the passenger seat, unsure what to say, what to do, how I was supposed to feel. Mom reached out and we hugged each other and cried. When we got home, the tv was left on the news and we watched things unfold throughout the day. We called my cousin's wife and found out that he was out on the aircraft carrier and not at the Pentagon. When we heard that it was terrorists, we knew what this meant. We were a military family, after all, and my dad flew in Desert Storm back in 1991. We knew war was coming for us once again. Even at 14, I understood that this would be the new Pearl Harbor.



Eight years later. It doesn't feel like eight years. Parts of that day are so fuzzy now, but I remember certain parts like they were yesterday.



How about you? Where were you that day?

My parents and I were drinving back from the Cape Breton Island inNova Scotia with some friends. We just finished capming with our motorhomes near the Fortress of Louisburg. While they went to Halifax listing to CBC Radio One, they told us to trun to that station which reported about the 9/11 attacks. We actually stayed at a campground at Amherst and returned home in southewstern New Brunswick.

I was attending college in a suburb of Philadelphia. It was the first week of my freshman year - I'd just moved 600 miles and didn't know anyone. I was sitting in advanced Spanish, watching one of my classmates' pitiful attempt to explain the news. Our class had a rule that everything must be in Spanish - no exceptions. She couldn't explain it (her vocabulary was atrocious), so our professor told her to stop talking and sit back down. We completed our lesson and it wasn't until my next class (directly after Spanish) that I learned what had happened.

While I felt a certain level of empathy for my school mates from New York and DC, who were very shaken up, I myself had not watched the news yet, so didn't really comprehend the extent of what had occurred. Back then, I also didn't know anyone who lived in New York or DC, so I was not anxious or worried about anyone I knew being physically injured or emotionally damaged.

I was a fresh-fish sitting in my Spanish II class. I don't remember much of that day. I know we were dismissed early and I know my family watched the news that night. I also know that by the end of the week, I was tired of seeing the same thing over and over again on the news.

Today, it was as though it were just another day. There was nothing at school; I've no idea if the upper elementary classes did anything with it, but kindergarten does not.

I graduated from high school that year in 2001 and was on my way to a college visitation day (to check out the college to decide whether to go or not) in England in September. After deciding not to go on with the college, I returned home on an AA flight on September 5 and on September 11, my mom woke me up and said that "today is a very sad day. something happened to the twin towers." I was just glad that I came home sooner than that day because when I chose my return flight home, it was either September 5 or September 11 that was open to go home.
I just cannot believe that it is 8 years already. very sad that this happened in this world and we are losing too many people.



stormyclouds23

Really....Really? When will I not hear about this? Just once? Seriously it has been like almost ten years...

*C9* wrote:Really....Really? When will I not hear about this? Just once? Seriously it has been like almost ten years...

...Excuse me? No, really, excuse me? When will you not hear about this? You want a 9/11 to go by when people don't stop to remember the more than 3000 people that died in one of the most horrific terrorist attacks in history? You'll stop hearing about it so mainstream when the generation of people who had family die in the attack are gone, when no one is left who remembers that day. That's how it works. That's when the date of a catastrophe passes on and leaves just the memory of the event, such as Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, the sinking of the Titanic, and every other major catastrophe in history.



How dare you say something like that. Ten years? Ten years is enough? When your mother dies, will ten years after her death be long enough before you stop thinking about that day? If your mother died because a radical from another country unleashed hell upon your country, would you be okay if everyone just forgot about it ten years later? How dare you. That is THE most inconsiderate thing I could have ever thought to hear in a place like this. I started this thread out of memorial to an event that has shaped the reality we live in, for better or worse. This was entirely uncalled for.

*C9* wrote:Really....Really? When will I not hear about this? Just once? Seriously it has been like almost ten years...

That was really uncalled for and crossing the line of being outspoken. "Almost ten years" is not near enough time to merely forget it or stop hearing about it, especially for those who were connected to it. If you want to forget it, that's fine, but don't insult others for remembering it.

*C9* wrote:Really....Really? When will I not hear about this? Just once? Seriously it has been like almost ten years...

While I do agree that mainstream media tends to blow everything way out of proportion and not let people heal in a healthy manner, it was your personal choice to click on this thread and to respond. Which shows that you ARE interested in it, or else you wouldn't have bothered.


Everyone else is correct: if you don't want to remember 9/11, then DON'T. Just do not make others feel bad for their choice TO remember it. This is a friendly forum and your response to this topic is very insulting and grossly inappropriate. Freedom of speech aside, it was completely uncalled for. I would totally support the mods if they chose to ban you for a month or two.

Wow.....I dunno what to say to that............