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OTLounge Anything and everything NOT having to do with cars... for better or for worse! |
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#1
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5 years ago the United States suffered a great tragedy. So much has already been said about this event and I don’t see the need to repeat what others have said so instead of writing something about patriotism or whatever else may come to mind I would like to share with you and read about what others have to say about this tragic day. Where were you? Do you know anyone that was directly involved (police, fire/rescue or victim)? How has it changed you and/or your views?
I was living in the downtown area of San Diego with my wife and our 2 rabbits. I remember waking up to her alarm clock which normally would be playing music but this day it was the news… I normally would never wake up to Tiff’s alarm but something caught me off guard. I heard the person on the radio say something about a World Trade Center building being struck by a plane. I immediately sat up and asked Tiff if she heard what I heard. I then turned on the TV. We both sat there in near shock for over 2 hours. We watched a second plane hit the other Trade Center tower live just as much of the rest of the world did. More or less speechless, we both finally left for work. Tiff drove to her job at the law office and I rode my bike to my job at the bike shop. I talked to Tiff a few times throughout the day and she was basically just listening to the radio and doing law office stuff. At my work, we just listened to the radio and talked about the insanity of what was unfolding. One of the most memorable things about that day at my work was on normal days we could see the planes that had just taken off from Lindbergh Field in downtown San Diego and on this Tuesday we didn’t see a single plane all day due to all flights being grounded. I’m sure most of us take planes in the sky for granted but when you live or work near an airport and all of a sudden there are no planes flying, you notice. From 9 AM until I left work at around 3 PM we only had 1 customer, a dad buying a tube for his son’s bike, whom he let stay home from school because of the events happening in our country. After I left work I met a few friends at a local skatepark. All I really remember about being at the park was at one point a single cargo or commercial airliner took off and flew over the skatepark. Everyone in the park stopped skating and just watched the plane fly overhead. To my knowledge, I don’t know anyone that died at any of the locations but as I am from the east coast I knew some people that were very near some of the incidents. My friends Pat and Jen lived in New York City. Jen was working for Nickelodeon in Manhattan and was out of touch for a few hours but did finally phone her family to let them know her and Pat were okay. My friend Amy has some family that lives in Washington D.C. and they were eating breakfast when they saw the plane that hit the Pentagon fly past their window. My uncle Jeff and his son Shawn are both in the fire department in Baltimore, Maryland so I think all the losses suffered by the fire department in New York hit a little closer to home than anything else that day. I felt so helpless sitting here in San Diego, all I wanted to do was go to New York to try and help in any way possible. I didn’t make it there to help but Tiff and I did visit Ground Zero in December of 2002. More pictures coming soon, share your's if you want. |
#2
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I have to go to LA tommarow. I hope every thing goes good and we have not problems. Im a little scarred
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#3
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hmm i remember that i was in art class (wow i was in highschool(yeah i know im a baby
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#4
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Wow I can't believe it's been 5 years already.
I was asleep at a friend's house when it happened. I was still in college and had classes that day so I didn't have to work until the evening. I woke up because his phone rang and it was his father calling to tell him what happened. I checked my phone and had 20 missed calls...all of them were my mom. We turned on the television and saw the most horrible images in the world. The Trade Center and Pentagon had been hit, but the flight that crashed in Pennsylvania hadn't been reported on yet. I watched for like 20 minutes and then left to go home. It was so crazy because when I was in the car driving, I was listening to the coverage on the radio and crying. Then I was stopped at a light and I looked over into the car next to me and the woman driving was crying, too. I felt like I was having some sort of weird dream. School got cancelled and everything that day so I sat with my mom all afternoon and watched the coverage on TV. Then I had to go to work and noone was coming in at all (it was when I worked at Kinko's) so we brought the television up to the front and kept it on the news. The next day I had to go to my internship at the newspaper (The Baltimore Sun) and we had a big meeting about terrorism. There was never any security there really and suddenly there were gaurds EVERYWHERE. In 2004, I practically lived in NYC. I visited Ground Zero by myself one afternoon. There was still a condemned/damaged building there with a big black sheet over it. The air just felt different there. It was very emotional.
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Now with 75% less sodium. |
#6
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I watched a bunch of coverage this morning before work and it totally made me cry.
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Now with 75% less sodium. |
#7
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I remember I was about to go to school that day, and CSULB cancelled all classes. I remember I could barely make a cell phone call, because of the traffic over the airwaves. I remember going there with my church and crying with the fire-fighters, who were overwhelmed with joy that people cared enough just to serve them a small cup of coffee in a little styrofoam cup, and listen to them. I will never forget the events of September 11th.
I was at the gym this morning, watching some of the things on T.V. It brought back a lot of those memories.
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#8
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I was senior in HS, I was waking up and getting ready. Turned on the news and I was stunned at what I saw, woke up my family to show them what had happened. I saw the second plane hit on the news. School was slow that day, no teaching. We all were watching the news and discussing what had happened.
I actually talked to a recruiting officer, I wanted to join the army. Instead of going to prom, my good friends and I saved our money and went to NYC to visit ground zero that summer. It was heart wrenching thinking of the events that happened that day.
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2004 Mazdaspeed Miata 2013 Mazda 2 |
#9
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about the same for me |
#10
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It's always a sad day when 9/11 rolls around every year. Thankfully I didn't lose anyone close to me, but I did know people who were killed, people that had close family that were killed and those that worked in the recovery efforts and are now feeling the effects of breathing in the dust that blanketed much of NYC's financial district.
My story that day wasn't very unique, just at home checking email before heading off to my senior year of college. I can remember seeing the news bulletin on TV that a plane had hit the North Tower, with no indication yet that it was a terrorist attack. By the time I was one exit away from school in my car, the second plane had hit and it was pretty clear what was going on. Needless to say school was a bit of a madhouse, as people frantically tried to contact their loved ones (mainly FDNY and NYPD, as the majority of them live on LI)...long story short, school got cancelled and with nothing else to do I went surfing, looking west to see the long cloud of smoke quietly trailing from north to south over the water due to the winds that day... I think what strikes me today is how quickly people forget/have become indifferent to what happened. So far today I count myself as the only person I saw wearing anything with an American flag on it, and more than once heard people asking "what's today's date?"...I think it says something about the unfortunate attention span of our nation...
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C63 AMG
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#11
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This event has always stuck out to me cause growing up my dad always told me about what it was like when Kennedy was shot.... He could remember every moment of the day... where he was what he was doing everything... and that he hoped I would never have such a day...
9/11 is that for me... I was sleeping... and my I.M. started going crazy... it was 530am or something like that.... A very good friend of mine in NYC was IMing me... she was frantic and I couldn't reall tell what she was going on about... finally she just said to turn on the TV... The First plane had hit... ok... shit happens... tragic.... and like all of us as I watched the second plane hit I was pissed.... things went on that day..... and were wierd... I can think about ten different things that just were wierd... or like Salt said... like a dream.... |
#12
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I remeber evacuating from my high school as soon as the second plane crashed.
My school was right next to NSA HQ.. NSA was one of the high priority target they assumed..
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///R53S |
#13
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#14
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I remember turning on the news before taking Otto to school. The second plane had just hit. I sat there dumbfounded, just repeating holy shit over and over. Being from Western NY, I had visited the WTC many times, but didn't know anyone involved. We saw the towers go down before leaving for work/school.
On the way to drop Otto off he asked what was wrong, and I really didn't know what to tell him. I said we may be at war, and he asked if I had to go back to the desert. He knew I had been in some war over there and didn't realize I did not have to go back. The radio was full of false reports of possible other hijackingsand crashes. The only one that turned out to be true was the PA crash. At work we all just watched TV or streaming video all day, mesmerized and terrified. I taped a flag onto my M Coupe's mast antenna and left it there until it was in pretty bad shape. We flew a flag at the house for a year or so. We have T Shirts that we bought from fire companies in NYC that were selling them to raise money for the families. Still have them. Susan, my wife, visited ground zero a few months back when she was in NYC. I watched the HBO special for a bit yesterday and couldn't take too much.
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"... what manner of jackassery is this?" |
#15
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I just watched the second part of that movie on CBS.
I don't think I have any more tears left in me right now.
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Now with 75% less sodium. |
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