Generation 9/11

[Inquisitor Brock]

http://www.newsweek.com/id/215044?GT1=43002

I remember the day, quite well.

When the first tower hit I was in the truck with my dad riding to class when the news came over the radio. My dad paid more attention to it than I did. I had a friend convinced the stock market was gonna crash because of the attack.  

[Lunaria Canis]

I was in math class when it happened. I started freaking out because my grandparents were out on the road when the towers were hit, Luckily, they were safe because the bridge they were traveling on was closed.  

[Isaol]

I had just got off the bus when my stepfather came and picked up me and my sister. They were talking about it on the radio, I think I was 9 or 10. I asked my stepdad how someone could be that mean and why they would do it, I then asked how many people survived. I heard him sniff then shake his head and said in a cracked voice, "I..I don't know." Later on my sister told me that my stepdad's eyes had tears in them and he was clutching the steering wheel really hard. I watched the news for like 3 hours that night. When we got back to school everyone went to the cafeteria and a projector played recordings of the news on what had happened. We had three consolers that each told us some stuff and all said that if anyone wanted to talk about it they could go to them. We stayed in the cafeteria all day. We didn't go to recess, we just sat in the cafeteria, barely anyone talked.  

[Rainey_angel81]

My mom woke me up to tell me what happened. I just said, "oh..you didn't have to wake me up" and promptly went back to sleep. It was a good day though because I didn't have to pay attention in class and could zone out all I wanted to  

[Artemis Vulpes]

I was sleeping in bed and was wakend, called down stairs to see something on TV. They neglected to tell me what I was seeing was real and I thought it was some new movie promotion so went back to bed. It kind of took awhile for the reality of it to sink in.  

[Garek Maxwell]

I like how the (roughly rounded) 3,000 (from various sources such as CNN and CBS) who died in 9/11 eclipse the 5,000+ (Washington Post) service members who've died since then. But that's bad PR, especially for companies profiting off of this...American ones at that, but also foreign ones! But that's nothing new really, I mean, there really shouldn't be any outrage over this...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5WbaOztwpg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PR9s2b6kZY&feature=related
(For a shorter version, here's this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDU8MoYN7mU )
Before anyone gets all upset over this video, just wanna drop a little info that this was made by a veteran who was outraged by the sensationalism surrounding the war. And yes, probably every single corporation sued the guy.

Going somewhat beyond the US, no one seems to shed a tear for the 66,000–237,062 (wikipedia) deaths from the atomic bombs being dropped on Japan. Then again, those were foreigners and not as important. Plus, it happened in the past so no one should care really. Well, that totally elimates the whole Native genocides. Maybe the Srebrenica Genocide that killed 8,000 or so Bosnians in 1995 would be more relevant today? ....Nah, it's the Balkans. They're the Africa of Europe. Speaking of Africa...

Let's not forget about the whole AIDS thing, which will likely surpassed the Black Death. Of course, it really only effects gays and Africans. No one cares about them anyway. That's why Ronnie Reagan intentionally let it spread ignored it instead of trying to stopping it before it got out of hand. ...Oh, well, he did try later though. You know, when it got into the wealthy white heterosexual people populace.

But you know the funniest thing of all?
I really don't have a clue what my point is. I just somewhat find it outrageous that, while 9/11 was a terrible thing to happen, pretty much everything else got ignored. Well, maybe not totally, but you know, if you saw those videos earlier in this post, 9/11 was treated the same. About 1 hour of footage set on repeat for about the whole week after it happened, followed by patriotic things like group consumption of mini flags likely made in China, and sensationalism regarding the conflict. Everyone got a say in the whole invasion thing too! You know, those with and against America.

If you've managed to waste your time on my entire post, you know by now I have no point. Maybe it's a bit of a post-modern post. Neither I nor the reader knows what the hell is going on, but it feels like it's making a point. That's okay too. I once got to read a book that somewhat dealt with the whole "Where were you when ____ happened". It was about post modernism. You know, I think my point lies somewhere between sensationalism and profit, a feeling that the US (I don't know what to put here in place really.) is more important than the rest of the world, and generally a disillusionment with so so much, but not in a good way. I kinda liked not knowing and caring long ago. It was simpler and less confusing, like before I read that damn book. Also kinda like this post when I first started. This has almost nothing to do with 9/11. I think I'll stop now.  

[Shaviv]

For me, it was a Tuesday on the second week of my senior year in high school, which was on Ave. J in Brooklyn. I was called down to the office for some administrative thing. While I was talking to Mrs. Sanders (the principal in charge of my class) one of the secretaries for another one of the principals rushed in. "Ronnie and Joe [volunteer EMTs as well as school staff] got a call. It's in Manhattan, a plane hit the World Trade Center."

I went back to class - the class early that morning was Classical Hebrew Literature, one of the most impossibly boring classes I've ever taken. The teacher just went on with the lesson, although after a few minutes it was interrupted when Principal Levy [the Ronnie mentioned before] got on the PA system to mention that there had been a pair of plane crashes into WTC 1 and 2, classes would continue normally but anyone who had family in or near WTC should feel free to come down to the office and use the school's phone system to call. No cell phones were allowed outside of lunch breaks or free periods, so you couldn't really call otherwise.

The next class was a two-period Talmud study class. It didn't go too well, because one member of the class was listening to the radio and giving periodic updates on the situation; half the class was listening to him and ignoring the teacher, and the rest were splitting their attention between the radio and the teacher; the teacher was angry, but I think he realized he couldn't do anything about it.

Then the talk on the radio suddenly changed, because the reporters were dazed by the destruction when the buildings started to implode. The best comparison I can give to the way the reporters sounded is from my own experience, if you've just driven your car into a solid object (e.g., another car) at high speed, and for a moment the world outside your skull is overwhelming confusion - the thump of impact, the world whirling around as your eyes are jolted in their sockets, the sound of metal being crushed and torn, a moment of pain and panic - and then sudden silence, a ringing in your ears, and it's like you're in a dream. You've survived relatively unharmed, maybe a concussion or a broken nose, yet when you look up, you see that pieces of car are scattered all over the roadway.

At lunchtime, I went up to the roof and looked toward Manhattan. Nothing could be seen but a plume of dirty grey smoke that obscured the horizon.

After lunch, about 12:30, instead of having English comp, the teacher just took everyone down to the school library where we watched the news.

At 1:30, Levy came on the PA again to say, basically, "Go home." I lived thirty miles away and traffic was going to be impossible, no transit services either, so I made arrangements to stay at a friend's house in Brooklyn. As we walked home - he, his sister and I together - it began snowing bits of ash, little grey flakes. It was surreal.

The front-page story on The New York Times that day was about school dress codes. I read through the Science Times section but damned if I remember any word of it.

Edit: my apartment in Newark faces Manhattan, and since I'm on the tenth floor, I could see the beacons, even through the bleak grey haze and the rain. That reminded me of it too, as did my roommate watching the speaking of the names. I wanted to hang around until they got to Joshua Rosenblum, a volunteer EMT, the only one of the nearly 3000 fatalities I'd had any contact with, but I had a study meet scheduled.  

[Manda_Tifa]

I was in my junior year in high school...I was taking part in a technical school, which meant I had to walk to my school, and then take the bus to the neighboring town's school. So by the time I actually got to class, the attacks had already happened. I was in cosmetology, so we had this huge classroom, and class started as normal, but I had noticed that the IT class across the hall we all grouped around the tv, instead of at their respective computers. Then one of the students came into our classroom, and then the rest of the IT class came over, and all of us watched the news. The teachers said that if anyone had family in that area, we should go to the office, and anyone who wanted to was excused to counseling. The rest of the day progressed as pretty much normal.

I didn't even realized the reality of it all until the next day, when it was all anyone was talking about.  

[Psycho Lee]

I woke up, turned on the tv, saw something about a plane hitting the pentagon. The news didn't know what kind of plane it was at first, thought it was a prop plane. I thought it was an accident but the news mentioned terrorism. Then they moved to new york and showed the flaming buildings and I was like "s**t, mom, check this s**t out!!!"

I went to school at noon, and everyone was clustered around TVs. I had one class, a linux class, and I spent the entire time online on chat rooms and communities, and watching live news.

I had to work that night, the store was empty, and me and a fur friend sat in Electronics and watched the news feeds all night.