9/11: Five Years On – Open Thread
Aussie Dave | Sep 11, 2006 | 10 comments
Please share your thoughts and recollections in the comments.
About the Author
An Australian immigrant to Israel, Aussie Dave has been blogging since early 2003.Filed Under: General
What a shame that so many people now look on such images as something out of a Hollywood movie. They have forgotten the shock, anger and disbelief that they must have felt in 2001 and replaced it with a search for what ‘we’ did to provoke this.
This time there is no conscription, there are no mass sign-up lines to join the Army, RAN or RAAF but this is war all the same. I just hope that this anniversary people start to realise what and who we are up against and stop the useless search for ‘root causes’. There is NO ‘root cause’ which could justify the murder of 3000 innocents.
Rest peaceful everyone who fell on the that day.
Sorry to double post in your comments, but I thought it might also be interesting to compare Le Monde’s front page 5 years on (I live here in France).
From ‘We are all Americans today’ to this.
Seems not even 9/11 anniversaries are exempt from an article pointing out protests against Bush in New York and the divisions in the US over Iraq on the front page of Le Monde.
I personally cannot bear looking at most of the photos and even reading some of the articles distresses me.
I know of no one personally who lost their life in those attacks but watching what happened live on TV that day seems to have traumatized me. I have tears on the edge of my eyes now just writing this and thinking about it.
I never would have expected that an attack, even in my original hometown, from where I have long ago moved 1000s of miles away to Jerusalem, would leave me with an emotional scar but it has.
I have vivid memories of the Twin Towers, the commotion, the escalators, the visits on the roof, the Coca Colas in the Window on the World restaurant I bought for the dates that went nowhere (lots), the dozens of Kodachrome slides I shot of the WTC when I was learning how to use my first SLR.
In the once in a while visit to NY, if I’m in the area, I make it my business to go over to the plaza and stare at the emptiness.
I own no coffee table books or DVDs about 9/11 and that’s the way it’s going to remain.
May the world find the strength to defeat humanity’s enemy, the beast known as Islam.
I was a working psychologist in the mental health clinic of the veterans medical center and saw the surreal scene when I came into the waiting room. I stared at it for some time, seeing the second plane enter the building, and remained for some time in shock. I continue to be amazed five years later that the American people generally do not recognize that Islam is at war with the west, that the general public is so accepting of the perfidious behavior of the political left.
Came home from working late at 11pm Sydney time. Normally would go to bed, but this time, just happened to turn the TV on. 1st plane had hit. I rang my sister-in-law in New York to talk to her about it – her husband/my brother was on his way to Manhattan to work. As we spoke, the second plane hit. I think we both instantaneously knew this terrorism. She said “I gotta go.” Phone went dead.
(My brother spent the day at a mate’s apartment in mid-town. The mate had been at the pedestrian crossing about to enter the World Trade Center when the plane flew over his head and into the WTC. He ran then cabbed back to his house still shaking and covered in dust.)
I remember hearing the reports coming in about the Pentagon, and Flight 93, and thinking to myself “Stop!” but not knowing at that time who this should be shouted to.
I remember a couple of days later, as part of work, we visited an insurance company who had sent their best young employee to work in the New York office from Melbourne as an award. She died in the towers.
I remember hearing of firemen who turned their backs away from the bodies hitting the ground having thrown themselves out of the windows. (The sound of the thumping still haunts many of these people today).
I remember seeing the Palestinians cheering in the streets. But this coverage was shown only once. I never saw it again.
I remember the article in Le Monde called “We are all Americans now”. (I remember reading later that the article was duplicitous in that it implied the US had it coming to them.)
I remember when people momentarily shed their political correctness to support the concept of war as a natural survival mechanism. (I remember soon after this feeling starting to ebb away from many).
I remember reading of the brave people on Flight 93, who could not agree on whether to storm the cabin – but in tragic, triumphant irony resorted to one of free people’s most valuable assets: they took a vote. This was the first battle won – at great sacrifice – by people from free society.
That was the day that changed the world. It was the day that the US realised it had to enter a war that had been started years earlier.
The moment I saw the 2nd plane hit, I had no doubts who and what was behind the attacks and I cursed the Muslims out loud in a rage in front of my TV. How could anyone not know at that point?!
As the world turns.
Shy Guy
I remember being sure that this will wake USA up to the rise of their most terrible enemy ever. “Here come the nukes”, I thought (at the time I was in rehab after being broken in the army).
Now, though… if another 9/11 happened, I would not be surprised; nor would I be surprised if nothing should change as a consequence.
I remember that Tuesday so well. I was in a courtroom in Burlington County, NJ, where I had uncharacteristically arrived early. So, I was sitting there, shooting the breeze with a couple of other attorneys when the then-Presiding Judge of the County, The Honorable Ronald E. Bookbinder, came out to address the attorneys present. Since you aren’t from the area and don’t practice law here you wouldn’t know this, but Judge Bookbinder is an extremely outgoing, friendly man with a booming voice (a voice loud enough that he did not require a microphone). That day, he came out early and, looking ashen, asked if there were any attorneys from New York City present, or if there were any who had family members who worked in “The City”. A few raised their hands, and were immediately told to come back to his chambers. With one exception, we in the courtroom did not see any of them again. As it turned out, my case was the very next one the Judge called back, and when my opposing counsel and I got back there, Judge Bookbinder had a television on in his chambers. We walked in just to see the highlight–if that’s the right word–of United Airlines Flight 175 hitting the North Tower of the World Trace Center. We just looked at each other, mouths agape. After about five minutes of silence, the Judge looked at us and asked us why our case had been called in that day. Neither my adversary nor I could recall. The Judge sighed, and said “I can’t concentrate on this. Can you?” We both shook our heads, “NO”. He walked back out and essentially dismissed everyone from the courtroom. As I walked out of the courtroom, I saw one of the New York attorneys frantically dialing his cell phone. Our eyes made contact and he asked me if I could get a signal on my phone. I tried and got that “All circuits are busy. Please try your call again later” message that we all hate to get. I told him that I couldn’t get through. He looked back and said that his brother-in-law worked on the 100th floor of the South Tower. Not knowing what to say, I wished him the best and headed out of the courthouse. I never saw him again and have always wondered if his brother-in-law made it out. On the car ride back to the office, I kept trying to call my wife, and finally got through. She told me that they had been watching what was going on in New York before her boss turned off the tv with the admonishment that “What’s going on there doesn’t affect us. Go back to work.” That response still amazes me five years later. She also told me that there were reports of another plane hitting the Pentagon, and other flights which hadn’t been tracked down yet. I arrived back at work and found that everyone was gathered around televisions, and saw the damage to the Pentagon, before news broke of a United flight crashing into a field “somewhere” in central Pennsylvania. Around 11:00 that morning, the partners in the office sent everyone home. As one of them put it, “We don’t want to be here right now, and can’t imagine that you do, either. Go home and be with your families.” One of my co-workers was trying desperately to reach his mother-in-law, who had a meeting in the World Trade Center that morning. It was only later that afternoon that he found out that she had managed to get out of the Twin Towers and had had to walk halfway across Manhattan before finding a public telephone that worked. What struck me most at that point was the silence. People were silent. More ominously, the skies were silent, as the FAA had grounded all flights. I spent the rest of the day glued to the tv……………
I was in class when 9-11 happened. I did not know about it until about 1 1/2 later when I was in another class and my computer instructor told me there was some sort of explosion in NY. Then I remember all my classes being cancelled and everyone around radios and TV’s hearing about it….but the way the media showed the attach over and over and over. It was too emotional…
On JewishConnection.com, someone was in New York City and said that there was ash EVERYWHERE and that the whole city smelled like ash, gas and fire.
I am both a New Yorker and an Israeli. I grew up in New York. I can remember when they were building the World Trade Center. It meant “home” to me when I would see the towers from the airplane on my visits back to the USA. I would get butterflies in my stomach just from the excitement of seeing them.
On 9/11 I was on my way home from work (in Israel). My friend called me and told me to turn on the radio, and I was in shock. I sped all the way home and ran to the TV – I don’t remember sleeping that night – I just sat and cried as if a part of me had been amputated. I watched and prayed and I believed that this is finally what would wake people up. I believed that they would feel violated and understand what all victims of terror go through.
Five years later, I still get tears in my eyes when I see the pictures, I find it difficult to watch it replayed on TV, and worst of all, I am discouraged by the world’s reaction to terror and terror organizations. I am wondering whether they will ever “get it”.