17 years. Are we starting to forget?

In couple hours 17 years ago in eastern Pennsylvania I would wake up and tell my mother I wasn't going to school because I didn't feel well. Freshman in high school didn't really fit in any where.
A couple hours later the phone will ring. It's our neighbor from across the street. He asked "where's your mom? There's been a catastrophe in New York" I rolled my eyes (who uses the word catastrophe) and told my mom she had a phone call. Almost immediately I hear her say "oh my god" and head to the living room. I walk in and I saw something I didn't really understand. Two buildings with smoke rising from them.
I recognized them as one of the stops we made in the city 3 months prior while family friends were visiting. I remember looking up from the street and couldn't see top. We went in to catch the subway back to the port authority so we could catch our commuter back to Summerville. I remember walking in this underground mall type thing. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. How in the world are they both burning? I didn't get it.
I asked my mother she said a planes had crashed into them. Then CNN replayed the video of the second plane hitting the tower. My mind still couldn't comprehend what I was seeing. I saw the replay of our president being told of the tragedy unfolding in New York. Then the video of the second plane hitting the tower again and again. Then news of the pentagon hit.
My uncle called to make sure that none of us were in the city. He had been across town on business and saw the first plane hit. It all seemed chaotic then the buildings started to collapse. I watched as the first building fell. The cloud of dust the people running. The confusion then not long after an almost exact repeat the second tower fell the dust chasing terrified people down streets.
My father called from his lab in New Jersey to make sure we were okay and to let us know he was going to our local hospital in order to help with communications of incoming patients. He came home that night and was quiet. My father wasn't huge on words or showing affection but one after another he hugged me and my sister then my mother.

The coming days and weeks I realized that what had happened, what I saw had changed everything. It was so quiet outside. The sound of planes in the sky was absent. 17 years later the current climate of this word seems hotter than it was then. It's 5 am it's time for bed and it seems as though the early news shows are just glazing over the significance of this day. Are we starting to forget?

Its like everything else, we have kind of short memories relevant to human history, I mean how many people sit back on Boxing Day and remember the 2004 Tsunami that killed over 200,000 people or take time to remember the Oklahoma City bombing, the list really could go on but the point is basically the same, its just something we don't do.

After the 20 year mark I doubt the day will ever really be marked in a any meaningful way other than by the relatives of the dead ad those affected directly that day....then they too will die off and before you know it in a generation or two it will just be another story in the history books.

It happened because it was allowed to happen, end of story.

a reply to: Somethingsamiss

I dont think its forgotten, still alot of questions, that said life goes on it is part of the healing. We still got an active forum for this too. Enough people believe the main story and there are enough that are isolated from it that is off their radars that its going to take a new revelation to increase interest. Not to mention in retrospect our reaction was a little off kilter as well as off target.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I was 28. Was working at a restaurant in the midwest. I'd never been to NYC and didn't really know anything about the WTC towers. But I certainly do remember that morning and very clearly. I also remember coming home after work and watching the news for a couple of hours and just kind of sitting here realizing the world had just changed more than it probably ever had in my lifetime in one day. Really, less than one day. Just a few hours.

I knew the towers would probably collapse when I saw them but I didn't think it would happen so fast. Like I said. I didn't realize they were over 1,000 feet tall so as bad as it looked on a tiny B&W screen with bad reception, I wasn't really comprehending the full scale of what had happened there.

I don't think I saw any of the jumpers on TV. Maybe they weren't on TV right then. I only saw that footage clearly years later and was very horrified when I realized what it must have been like for them. Just devastating to think about really. I don't think I will ever go into a tall building now that I have seen that.

I think I remember seeing people on TV talking about people jumping out of windows. I don't know why but it didn't really hit me right then as "OMG!"

I will certainly never forget it.

And I don't think this country has ever been the same. I don't care what anyone says. I believe that day wrecked this country and it hasn't recovered and probably won't for a long time.

I think that kids who grew up after 9/11 or were too young to remember things before then really can't know what older people do. Not really. They can watch old TV shows and listen to music from back in the day but they weren't here before 9/11. They don't remember the innocence that was lost there.

Ill never forget that day.
Getting ready for work, watching CNN, then the breaking news interrupted the show.
Watching the confusion as the first tower billowed smoke...then the second one hit.
I got to work and we were told to get out and go home.
Glued to the tv for the next day, fuming in anger as speculation came in as to who was responsible.
...I was this close to heading to the recruitment office to leave everything behind and to go over there to kick some ass.
Thankful I never did, I ended up with my own fight here - being a volunteer firefighter/EMT
But will always salute the brave men and women who did go...and those who never came home

a reply to: BrianFlanders

I was wondering the same thing and was wondering what an 18 year old thinks of 911.
We saw it and lived it.

There is a lot to remember so its hard to forget.
I like to remember how,in the heat of the moment, people came together and helped each other out,regardless of color,gender or political views.

I didn't believe the media back then either so I didn't believe things at first.
I saw the second plane hit and knew something was very wrong....then the day progressed in horrific fashion.

originally posted by: DrumsRfun
a reply to: BrianFlanders

I was wondering the same thing and was wondering what an 18 year old thinks of 911.
We saw it and lived it.

Well, I didn't see it happen with my own eyes but I meant that at 28, I was old enough that I had already lived 28 years in the world that existed before 9/11. On the other side of 9/11 was a completely different world. If you're old enough to remember before and after, you know what I mean and people who aren't that old just don't understand.

Now of course culture is always changing but I look around me now and I don't see the innocence that we had (even adults and old people) in the younger generation of today. I just don't see it. Of course we live in a society today that is more mature (in many ways). People KNOW this could happen again. And maybe that's good. In some ways. But it introduced a level of jaded paranoia and coarseness and mistrust and darkness into this society that has just permeated and corrupted everything to the point to where people don't even feel like they have a right to be innocent anymore.

You know? There probably hasn't been a day gone by since 9/11 that I didn't wonder if something bad was going to happen just any second. I don't ever remember feeling that way before that. Today's young people grew up with this tension in the air and they have no memory of a time ever when it wasn't there.

a reply to: Somethingsamiss

Oh everyone forgot alright. Obama/Hillary/McCain/CIA/NATO all teamed up with Al Qaeda to blow up Syria and they got Nobel Peace Prizes, heroes deaths monuments, standing ovations, rioting in the streets to become POTUS, etc, for it.

a reply to: DrumsRfun

I like to remember how,in the heat of the moment, people came together and helped each other out,regardless of color,gender or political views.

that's exactly how I remember it


even days later people stopped on the streets and applauded for any emergency vehicles with sirens on, be ambulance, NYPD or FDNY, never saw such unity since, still getting goosebumps thinking about it.

if you were in the City that day you will never forget...

a reply to: DrumsRfun

I like to remember how,in the heat of the moment, people came together and helped each other out,regardless of color,gender or political views.

Oh now it'd take three times loner as we'd have the PC Police down there checking everyones privilege, and dividing them up into groups and regimenting them as such over it. Then if there were too many -certain people- (such as the national average) there'd be allegations of racism, bigotry, and thus Antifa would be rioting in the suburbs by week three.

I lost my Mother 9-11-2001 I will always remember.

Forget?
Probably not the best term.
Heal?
Probably a better term.

My daughter turns 16 this month and to be honest I would rather fill my head with memories of her than of the tragedy in new york.
That doesnt mean forget. My family went to new York a couple years ago and we visited the 911 memorial. We also went to several memorials in d.c. in our travels.

No, not forgotten.

On a side note, anyone working in banking cant forget 911. They are still adjusting to the regulations that changed soon after that day.
Finance stopped that day.

I was only in the 5th grade, it's almost hard to believe I'm 27 now. Childhood feels like it was just yesterday. I lost a lot of my oblivious innocence that day. Some lost a lot more.

-Alee

originally posted by: BrianFlanders
I think that kids who grew up after 9/11 or were too young to remember things before then really can't know what older people do. Not really. They can watch old TV shows and listen to music from back in the day but they weren't here before 9/11. They don't remember the innocence that was lost there.

Sorry to be "that guy", but it is all a matter of perspective. For Americans, the innocence may have been lost. For Brits, we had already had 40 - 50 years of IRA bombings by that point. This was just larger scale.

And that's before we even get to the more insane corners of the planet. In reality, for large parts of the world, innocence was lost throughout the 20th Century (world wars, mass slaughter - civil and military, MNC's raping the planet).

Not to do down the suffering caused that day or since but, really, perspective is key.

a reply to: Somethingsamiss

I remember. I was playing Tony Hawk with my little brother before school, I was in grade 8. I have no idea why we were up early enough to be doing that. My mom got home from work, (she worked graveyards at a hospital) came running over told us to turn the game off and said a plane turned and crashed into some buildings. She turned on the news, the footage was playing. At school, teachers talked about it a bunch. I had no idea what the world trade center was, though I knew what the Pentagon was.

I don't think i'll forget that. I'm pretty sure i'd never really seen my mom freak out about something on the news so much before that and I don't remember her ever doing so again after.

a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss

You sound like you might need a snickers bar.

originally posted by: Flavian

originally posted by: BrianFlanders
I think that kids who grew up after 9/11 or were too young to remember things before then really can't know what older people do. Not really. They can watch old TV shows and listen to music from back in the day but they weren't here before 9/11. They don't remember the innocence that was lost there.

Sorry to be "that guy", but it is all a matter of perspective. For Americans, the innocence may have been lost. For Brits, we had already had 40 - 50 years of IRA bombings by that point. This was just larger scale.

Well, I was talking specifically about America. I thought that would have been obvious, seeing as to how 9/11 happened in NYC and DC.

Today to remember and reflect on the impact of that day, I will walk on my lunch break here in lower Manhattan to the World Trade Center memorial site. I work about 4 blocks from there. Last year there were substantial art pieces, pics, people, etc.
a reply to: Somethingsamiss