Where were you and what were you doing when 9/11 happened?

I was at my nan's house. Everyone there watched it on the television but I can't remember it and I very much doubt I knew what was going on. I can only imagine how horrible and depressing it would been to watch the events unfold live on television.

I have no recollection of it at all, I doubt I cared.

I was attending college that day, which was quite a train journey from home. I didn't get to see or hear anything of the event until I walked past a Dixons in the nearby shopping district, and saw footage from New York of two pedestrians struggling to get away in all the dust and rubble. I think a caption mentioned one of the collapsing towers, and I assumed it was just some earthquake.

I went home and thought no more about it until finally my mum told me about the terrorists and the planes, and the buildings being brought down. And even hearing about it it was horrifying to know all those trapped passengers died, and wondering what kind of evil men could do this.

My family was very left-wing and so unfortunately I had to hear a lot of bullshit apologetics and contrived grievance-creating about the attacks over the years, which were very hard to stomach. And I have to say I wanted to see revenge against Al-Qaeda at any price, so I certainly wasn't as against the Afghan war as the rest of my family (indeed, as James O'Brien said, some of those anti-war meetings were so confused, navelgazing and moribund, it was easy to leave them more convinced of the pro-war argument than you were when you entered). I wanted to buy into the idea that it would be a few surgical strikes with minimal collateral, and that Al-Qaeda would be quickly exterminated.

But then I was ignorant of just how long and counter-productive that war would end up being, and how much the terrorists would actually thrive from our middle eastern wars.

The sad fact is, back then a terrorist attack like that was genuinely shocking. Now they feel like a common occurrence.

There's a lesson to be learned somewhere in there I suppose but I'm still not sure I did.

The first time I knew about the towers was when I watched Home Alone 2 with my family. I just remember being told that the tower he was standing on no longer existed. It was difficult for me to comprehend.

Listening to it on the radio.it was a shock for sure

I think I heard about the first one last thing at night, but I assumed it was a light plane and had been some kind of accident.

Then I got up in the morning and my mother was like "There's gonna be a war!" I was like:

I was at home and my g/f at the time rang me and told me to put the TV on. It must've been some time after it actually happened, and they were replaying the film footage.
I almost thought I was watching a movie. Shocking stuff.....

I was only a little baby back then, so I couldn't really comprehend whatever was going on during that time. My father did say that he was in New York during a business trip and was shocked when hearing it on the news. I can't imagine the hell that everyone sadly went through during that horrific time.

I was a little over a month away from being born, although my parents have conveyed many times in the past how horrific and shocking it all was when reported on TV and countless news outlets, and how my Mum feared for my own safety at the time. I could scarcely imagine the sheer horrors of it all myself.

I was in Cosham high street after visiting the Job Centre, watching it through the windows at Radio Rentals while munching down on a warm sausage roll.

It felt almost biblical. Like the world was about to fall apart or something.

I had to get it out of my mind as I was on a promise that evening.

The plan in 1993 was to cause the north tower to crash into the south tower. The devastation would have been far greater than 9/11 for sure. I wish they still stood. That said, if I went back to 2001 I wouldn't try and prevent the attacks just as I wouldn't kill Hitler before the start of WWII. It just wouldn't be the right thing to do.

I was trapped on the thirteenth floor of what was often voted as the most ugliest building in London, The Brown and Root Tower on a repellent New Deal Workfare Scheme, where I'd been sentenced to 6 months servitude.

When we heard the news we immediately looked out the window hoping that the next plane would be heading our way.

We ended up spending the day productively lobbing paper aeroplanes out the window instead.


This is where I woz during Sept 11th

I was working in an off license helping people get pissed. A bloke came in, said he'd heard about it on the radio and "It's just like Die Hard, innit?"

Can't remember. I think I was shagging someone.

I assumed they were making a movie in the towers and one of the effects guys had buggered something up.  I remember thinking they should have used models instead like they did in the old days. It was only later when I was eating cheerios out of a box and listening to an Alphaville record when it dawned on me that it was actually a terrorist attack. I'm a cold, warped bastard but even I thought they went too far. I just remember hoping Christie Brinkley wasn't in one of the buildings when they fell.

One of the funnier stories to come out of the event was how one woman who's husband worked in the tower found out he'd been cheating that day.

He was lying in his mistress' bed after a session, curtains closed and then he got a frantic call from his wife who'd been watching the news, asking him where the hell he was.

He replied "I'm at the office".

Came home from college, dad told me on the way home.

Sorry, not that exciting is it?

At home thinking that America kind of deserved this. But at the same time, feeling bad because non Americans were also hurt.

I still stand by that America deserved it. But I still don't think it should have happened. It's a morally complex area for me.

Zarius wrote:Came home from college, dad told me on the way home.

Sorry, not that exciting is it?

Not really. You should have lied and said you jumped out of the building and hang glided to safety before the second plane hit. Can't beat a bit of bullshit.

I remember the next day after seeing the full news footage remarking to my fellow detainee at the New Deal prison camp, "Shit, they're definitely going to go into Iraq after this!"

How right I was.

Shame Hitchens is dead now. He was a very smart man.

Indeed.

I didn't agree with every position of his (namely the Iraq war), but he was always great at rebutting the creeping Al-Qaeda apologia in the cultish anti-war left.

Genkimonk wrote:At home thinking that America kind of deserved this. But at the same time, feeling bad because non Americans were also hurt.

I still stand by that America deserved it. But I still don't think it should have happened. It's a morally complex area for me.

No country deserves having more than two thousand of its own people killed. One is bad enough as it is.

Pepsi Maxil wrote:

Genkimonk wrote:At home thinking that America kind of deserved this. But at the same time, feeling bad because non Americans were also hurt.

I still stand by that America deserved it. But I still don't think it should have happened. It's a morally complex area for me.

No country deserves having more than two thousand of its own people killed. One is bad enough as it is.

Indeed.

And in any case it was the best aspects of modern America that Al-Qaeda were against (democracy, secularism, LGBT and women's rights), rather than the worst.

The 9/11 hijackers themselves were actually the middle class, spoilt, rich scum of their societies. Not the aggrieved or impoverished.