21 Years Ago Today

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I was sitting in my father's office using his computer before heading to work, when he came downstairs, flipped on the TV, and shouted that I had to come see this, someone had crashed a plane into one of the WTC buildings. My first response was "again?", picturing a small Cessna like plane similar to one that had previously hit the buildings, but he immediately corrected me "no, like a huge jet, and on purpose, come see!". Well, we watched the second plane hit, and then I had to go to work, which at the time meant Microsoft, as I was temping for them as QA tester on the then unreleased XBOX console (the first, huge chunky one), which was coming up on release and so required all hands. Work was surreal, nobody knew what was going on, all the planes had been grounded so we had teams stranded all over the world that had been out making preparations for the console launch, someone had taken the initiative to hire armed guards for all the buildings and set up checkpoints at the doors to check IDs, and in our lab we just listlessly played Dead or Alive 3, which we'd been anticipating due to it's highly polished graphics, but now ignored as we watched the TV news while going through the motions. The conversation was subdued, but it seems like everyone knew who had did it within the first hour or two, some idle speculation about China aside, and things very quickly turned to whether there was more coming, and how terrible our national retaliation was going to be on whichever country was harboring AQ and bin Laden (back then, I heard "that bin Laden guy" a lot, he wasn't yet so infamous that everyone knew his full name). We sleepwalked through the work day like zombies, then when it was time to head home, as I was driving into Seattle from Redmond traffic came to a complete stop on the 520 floating bridge across Lake Washington, and I could see a whole mess of flashing lights near the other end of the bridge on the Seattle side. "Holy sh1t!" I muttered to myself, thinking I was seeing a barricade and checkpoint to get into the city, and I and some of the other motorists got out of our cars to try and get a better look (the only time I've ever set foot on either of the floating bridges). A guy in an SUV nearby had one of those old school portable TVs in his vehicle, the kind that had folding rabbit ear antennas and looked like a long square boombox, and he was able to get one of the local channels and discover that someone had rolled their vehicle all the way over near the Seattle end of the bridge, and that was what was causing the delay and accounted for all the flashing lights. Anyway, I made it to my apartment off Broadway in Capitol Hill at about 9PM, and my girlfriend and I spent the rest of the night talking about what had happened and what was going to happen next, one of the strangest days of my life.

I woke up to news of it on 99.3fm that my alarm was set to, jumped out of bed and turned on the tv in time to see the second plane hit. Went to business school at BCIT and ~no one was going to class that day.. the a/v nerds set up some big screens in the main hall and everyone just milled about in stunned silence watching the news.

Plenty of speculation since then that it was a false flag inside job. Some very interesting conspiracy theories about controlled demolition, getting rid of paperwork about a missing Trillion dollars or whatever at the pentagon, recent purchase of terrorism insurance on the buildings, flights getting 'jacked and aimed as weapons w/o being intercepted by norad/air force for some reason etc. No idea how valid any of these things may be, but there's enough detail to make one wonder that's for sure.

September 11th is also my Aunt's birthday. I guess it's been a bit of a bonus for her because now we all remember it and remember to call or text or something at least. Today's a bit more sombre, though. After breakfast I'm going to hit up Costco for a dozen or so cases of bottled water and some garbage bags to go help setup in advance of Jumbo's Vancouver funeral at Strathcona Park - I think they're expecting a big turnout. Seems that way from Facebook. I hardly knew him, just as a bouncer at some gay warehouse parties I attended, but he was cool af and apparently had a LOT of friends. I'm told he died in his sleep - not a bad way to go if it's your time, I suppose!

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No for supporting trump. Because doing so is deplorable.

Katie Couric was interviewing Micheal Jordan on tv, it was dull so I went outside.It was a perfect September day, clear blue sky, so I pulled weeds, did other garden chores for hours.
I came inside later for a snack and turned the tv on, both towers had fallen.

I was in bed sleeping and my dad had an interesting way of trying to get me up for school. I just simply wasn't interested in hearing planes crashing again thinking it was another plane disaster. But they happened to crash into both towers and the state of Pennselvania and the Octagan. I was 16 and didn't really know what was going on till I got to school to understand it was an attack and a few passengers on board got control of the planes and crashed them. There were no survivors. I wouldn't know until years later that the passengers fought back against the terrorists and crashed it in a empty field in Pennsylvania. They were going to die anyway so they will mind as well die while doing a good deed.

I was engrossed in my deejay equipment in the basement. Mom yelled from upstairs "that a plane" had just crashed into the world trade center. Only weeks before some crazy teen kid had landed a small Cessna on the White House lawn, so I figured it must be another crazy person in a single engine cessna- crashing into the big building. So I shrugged it off- cant be that important. Finally I was persuaded to come up stairs and see the live coverage, and saw that it was a big passenger jet airliner, and that the tower was ablaze.

So mom and I watched it in shock. Concluded that it "cant be an accident...must be terrorism". Then the second plane hit, and there was no doubt.

I was up very late that day, so I didn't see any news coverage until well after the second plane hit. It was hard to process it all.

I was volunteering at an old folks' home that day. There were two women blaming each other for 9-11.

I was in a University library doing research for work.
Someone brought in a television on a cart.
We were all horrified.

I remember the silence, driving home with no planes in the sky.

I was heartbroken and terrified. I thought Armageddon was here.

I’ve tried to avoid watching the news since then…

I was at work at the end of my shift, when the supervisor's wife called asking if he was there yet in a strange tone. I checked the monitors and saw him pulling into the driveway. I asked her if she wanted to wait until he got in, or have him call her back. She said she'd wait, still in that strange tone of voice.

He finally shows up and I hand him the phone. And he shouts WHAT, WHAT!? And I'm thinking whatever's going on between them I don't want to eavesdrop, and start walking away. Then he yells, quick turn on the TV! So I turn on the flat screen mounted on the wall (which was all the rage) already tuned into CNN, and saw both towers on fire. Or maybe it was just the first tower and the second one got hit shortly after. It was so surreal I don't quite remember.

I drove home, feeling like WWIII was starting. Watched more news, and then forced my self to get some sleep. Which was restless needless to say. Like many I was basically in shock.

I thought I was dreaming….I couldn’t believe it.

As coverage began and got more intense, I thought to myself, "Okay, why's everybody making a big deal out of what's going on in New York, Washington DC, and a small town in Pennsylvania?"

I was only 11 years old at the time and had little understanding of how dangerous the world was at the time.

When I got to school, the principal was talking over then intercom about what had happened and mentioned, "There's no threat to Portland as I'm talking, but will keep everyone updated, so please go on about your day." Everyone obliged as if nothing had happened.

My dad picked me and my NT sister up from our schools (she had just begun her high school years, she turned 14 on May 27th, 2001) and got us home immediately. He turned on the TV and we watched in anguish, confusion, terror, and anything of the sort. When our mom got home from work, she explained what had happened on the other side of the US to me and my NT sister as best as she could, but it was hard for me and my NT sister to understand it all.

I watching Rove McManus at 11pm at night in my then apartment. The TV switched from Rove's comedy to silent moving images of one of the WTC on fire. I had absolutely no idea what was going on and no frame of reference.

I assumed there was an accident in the US OR there was an earthquake. Then while the cameras were live an aeroplane flew straight into the second WTC building. Only then did I hear voices (I assume this was a reporter in a helicopter) who said something about the US was under attack. I thought (at the time) we were experiencing WWIII

Yes it was truly odd seeing the crashes of planes into those buildings, but had instant recollection of many many years previously watching televised. Show on “how they do it” concerning large very tall building demolition. It was not approx like the building demolition . It was exactly the same .
And was very glad to hear that building three had been vacated prior to the planes hitting the other buildings .
Before it was demolished .
Was very sorry to see all the long term and the immediate results of the results of those actions that were undertaken that day . So so many humans died that day and the subsequent years after both here and in the destruction of other countries . ……… ……. .
( analysis over Paralysis) . Truly a very sad day !

Huh, I hadn't done the math for a while, I was 19 at the time, for some reason I thought I was a touch older when it happened.