I was getting close to college graduation and starting a new job on 9/12. I remember everybody on the commute reacting to a guy on a highway overpass with a flag. Everybody felt this was our Pearl Harbor. It was a weird, somewhat angsty feeling about what I should be doing, but didn't have the backbone to do. For weeks I didn't hear anybody listening to loud music. There was no levity or silliness, the mood was somber and serious. Political correctness was obsolete for a while.
A few years later a friend of mine from Midwestern adolescence was killed by an IED. He was the most deeply principled and fearless person I've ever known. He was always more exuberant than I was, like he was determined to get the most out of life. He liked to get into mischief but never wanted to hurt anybody. He was lanky, not big, but if he saw a bully he'd stand up to them. You could never ask for a more loyal (and enthusiastic) friend.

Not a fun subject.. but I owe him some written respect.

Was stationed overseas at the time in the U.K., remember waking up and seeing the footage on the news. Didn't really notice a change at the base I was stationed at since it was a military environment. Was stationed back in the states in 2004 and deployed to Iraq. Mortar attacks pretty much every other day and the closest I came to kicking the bucket was when a tent a couple of tents down and one row back was hit, killing one and injuring two others. Enlistment was up that year so I didn't re-enlist but did join the Guard a couple of months later.

Visited New York about two years ago and went to the site. Not a fun tour but interesting seeing how much thought was put into how to get the message across about how devastating it was.

***WARNING*** UNPOPULAR OPINION ALERT ***WARNING***

This whole thing feels so overblown. I'm not saying it wasn't a big deal, but god damn I feel people have taken it way too far. Yes, these are awesome people who deserve praise for their actions, but I feel if someone mentions "veteran" or "first responder" and I don't immediately jump on their dick, I feel chastised.

I wish people would just take all this sensationalism and just, tone it down a notch or two.

I remember it well. That day I woke up, went downstairs, booted up my living-room system and started to surf the internet while munching some breakfast. Something felt... wrong. The connection was snappy enough, generic sites worked fine, but I couldn't load any news sites at all, neither big global ones or small local ones. Eventually I remember reading a reference to some or other "attack" on a forum. So I turned the television on, tuned to CNN - exactly at the moment they were filming the second plane fly into the second tower.

luckybob wrote:

***WARNING*** UNPOPULAR OPINION ALERT ***WARNING***

This whole thing feels so overblown. I'm not saying it wasn't a big deal, but god damn I feel people have taken it way too far. Yes, these are awesome people who deserve praise for their actions, but I feel if someone mentions "veteran" or "first responder" and I don't immediately jump on their dick, I feel chastised.

I wish people would just take all this sensationalism and just, tone it down a notch or two.

Refreshing to see this kind of comment coming out of the US too. Yes, it was a targeted attack on the country and the lives of the people in it. Yes, it killed an unprecedented number of people in one event. Yes, the sacrifice and heroism of people involved in the rescue attempt deserves to be honoured. But what gets me is the huge disconnect between how this is remembered and how the second worst terrorist attack a few years earlier in Oklahoma is remembered. That was also targeted at the country and its people, it killed an at the time unprecedented number of people, and the first responders there displayed just as much heroism (albeit with thankfully less sacrifice required). But appparently if it's a neonazi white christian doing the bombing it's just business as usual...

Maybe it's from having experienced the IRA's 1980s and 1990s bombing campaigns from fairly close by (and once having been inadvertently 'outed' by a friend as English to one of the perpetrators 'in exile' in a pub, whose reaction goes down as one of the scariest moments in my life), but despite it being clearly the biggest single event of its kind, 9/11 wasn't really that unprecedented, even for the US (note the Kenya embassy bombing by the same Al Qaeda) - and if you're at the receiving end of it, you really don't care whether 3, 30, 300 or 3000 people are suffering the same, or exactly what point the perpetrators are trying to make - it sucks regardless. So yes, let's remember the victims, remember the heroism and sacrifice, and condemn the sick mindset of the people who did this - but let's not forget that almost every day other people experience the same and deserve our sympathy just as much.

I also can remember vividly 9/11. Being from Germany and in Germany at that time, it was still a big deal. I was a student in university at that time, and was cycling on my road racer. Suddenly at a T junction where I had right of way some car driver did not stop, but rolled slowly on and almost caught me on the hood. I thought: What an idiot. Upon arrival in my dorm people were outside discussing and watching TV: One of the World Trade Center towers has collapsed! Ok, so that was probably what distracted the driver. It was surreal to watch the events unfold in real time.

That said, I am now working in an extremely international company. I have colleagues from the US, Canada, all a around Europe and the rest of the world. We also have quite a few Pakistani-born colleagues. They tell a tale of their own: One of weekly suicide bombings and terror following the decade after 9/11. The war in Afghanistan that followed drove a lot of terrorists / Taliban /Al Qaeda into Pakistan territory, where they plotted against all kinds of targets and killed a lot of civilians. All in all the numbers of civilian casualties there are well above 10,000 with more than 5,000 killed since 2001.

My colleague said that at some point they just had to go on with their lives, even though there was an enduring threat from attacks.

While we remember those fallen on 9/11 itself we should also remember these, more distant, less known dead and injured.

My birthday falls on that date and it certainly destroyed my mood in 2001. I still remember eagerly awaiting my presents ( I was 12 at the time, so I still got a LOT of presents ), when my parents called me into the living room with the old tube TV.

First I thought, they were watching some kind of action movie I showed no interest in. After repeatedly telling me that it was real and after realizing that ACTUAL news reporters were talking about it on all channels, it sent some of the biggest shivers down my spine that I can imagine.

Needless to say: Presents were not important on that day anymore. The first few years after the tragedy, it always felt very weird to celebrate, while a lot of people were in mourning.