This is terrible! (Thread orginally posted 9/11/2001)

[LongballMG]

As is tradition...

Please remember the lives lost on 9/11/2001. The families torn apart, the friends lost forever, the parents who lost children, the children who lost parents.

We remember them!

 

[mightyduck]

It's September 11, and I can't believe 19 years have passed since this day. Thank you for maintaining this thread for us, Steve.

This is always home for me on 9/11. I miss you all, and once again, thank you to everyone here who helped us hold each other through that day.

 

[MrPromey]

It's crazy to think that this event happened 19 years ago.

There are a whole generation of adults now, who weren't even alive when it happened.

My son, will learn about this in history class when he's old enough and it will feel like a detached thing - the way my generation learned about Vietnam.

It's so crazy for something that feels so recent and still makes me think twice about my surroundings.

So many of us from that day are gone from this site but it's nice to see a check-in, just to know everyone is still okay out there.

Where else on the internet does that sort of thing happen?

 

[Flugell]

I have just discovered this thread and the stories and raw emotions within it are heartbreaking. The sentiment of unity, is rightly strong and the remembrance of the victims and the desire to educate the younger generation who have no memory of events is essential.
I am from the U.K. so remember it well from television newscasts at the time. It seemed unbelievable then and still feels unbelievable now.
Strangely we did have a personal contact, my boys were at school and one of their teachers lost her only son in the collapse of the twin towers. Colleagues of his said he had got out safely but went back in to help others from his office and was inside when the towers collapsed.
The school collected donations and bought a memorial bench for the quadrangle. Every year the older children collect money for flowers that are placed on the bench and the chamber choir and orchestra play a selection of solemn music and the American National anthem. No teacher asked them to do this, they felt the need and as the younger children saw the tradition so they have continued.
I have been lucky enough to visit New York once, in 2015 and think it was the most incredible city. We were searching the whole time for a fire house and found one on Wall Street. We wanted to buy T shirts that were/are? sold to provide financial aid for the NYFD survivors and victims families. We were invited in and shown the room that had once been the gym which was now a memorial to the firefighters from that firehouse who died on 9/11. The tears rolled down our cheeks as we looked around but the firefighters that day seemed pleased that someone from outside the USA would take the trouble to seek them out.
The following day, proudly wearing our T shirts, we went to the museum. The thing that struck us the most was the quiet reverence of the place, there were small children there but even they stayed with their parents and remained silent. The worst moment was when we were listening to conversations between firemen climbing the towers. We realised that they were from “our” firehouse and were the men whose memorials we had seen just the day before. It was more than we could stand and the tears flowed again-even faster. Yes. those brave heroes became our firemen and we think of them on the occasions when we wear our shirts.
I realise that this is a long rambling post and apologise for this but I needed to reach out and explain that the majority of the world stood with you that day and here, in the U.K., the majority stand with you still. X x x

 

[Lilofan]

Never forget 9/11/01. God Bless America!

 

[BlooCheese]

20th anniversary.

 

[Fievel]

20 years already....

 

[tanc]

 

[muddyrivers]

I cannot believe it has already been 20 years and yet I remember the day so vividly as if it was just last month. Rereading these threads as the events unfolded is such a unique window into history that makes me glad forums like WDWMagic are still around.

 

[Magicart87]

 

[donaldtoo]

20th anniversary of 9/11.
Sometimes it still seems like it was just yesterday. So vivid are the memories.
There was only one other coworker in the office when I got there about 7:45a (same building we’re still located in).
I got settled in and a few minutes later he came to my office and said a plane hit the WTC a few minutes ago. My first thoughts were of a B-25 bomber that hit the Empire State Building back in 1945. But, that was in heavy fog, and this was a clear day in NYC.
Most of us were in the office to see the second plane hit the other tower on one of the partners office TVs.
No chance it was an accident now. I'll never forget the all-enveloping sick feeling I had.

I had met the pilot of Flight 77 (the one that hit the Pentagon) on one of my former flight attendant SILs layovers here in Austin once.
He invited me into the cockpit and we talked aviation while DWifey and her sis sat in the front first class seats of the plane and chatted.
Also lost on that flight was a friend of SILs and fellow flight attendant, and her husband, also a flight attendant. She was working the flight, and he was flying a jump seat to California with her for a vacation. She was also our guest book attendant at our wedding.
Just a horrible day all the way around. Seems like everyone I know was affected/connected in some way or another.
Continued prayers to all affected.

In memory of Charles "Chic" Burlingame, and Jennifer Lewis and her husband.

Charles Burlingame - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Jennifer Lewis | Pentagon Memorial Fund

pentagonmemorial.org

 

[Flugell]

In eternal, loving memory of all the innocents who were murdered on 9/11/2001 and of all the rescue workers, emergency services and people caught up in the ash and rubble who have died as a result since.
Special thoughts to Wall Street Bulls, the pride of South Street, Engine 4, Ladder 15 whose fire station and memorial we were privileged to visit on our only visit to New York in 2015. (See post 644) We proudly wear their T-shirt today.
Remembering the 69 people from the U.K. who died on that day, especially
Michael William Lomax, an old boy of my sons’ school and only son of one of their teachers.
20 years have passed but the raw emotion of that day still feels like yesterday.
and

 

[Timmay]

Remembering that day…not something I tell often. This is long, so forgive me.

I was still a cop/paramedic at that time and on the Tac team. Had just gotten home around 6 in the morning (mountain time zone) after a early morning activity for work. Got out of my gear and right to bed. My wife wakes me up about an hour later and is basically ordering me to get up. I stumbled out into the living room and my jaw dropped when I saw the tv. My wife looked and me and said “you’re going back to work.” On cue, I hear my pager going off in the bedroom. I will never forget the message. “terrorist attack imminent report to xyz location for airport duty.”

I spent the rest of the daylight hours set up near an armored vehicle with 5 others at the third roadblock about 100 yard from the main airport terminal. My orders, due to previous experience 10 years earlier in a foreign desert, was to forcibly stop any vehicle that got through the second roadblock and within about 25 yards of our position. I literally spent the next 10 hours with an MP5 pointed at the second roadblock actually praying “God, please don’t put me in a position I have to do this. Please.” I’m fortunate the prayer was answered. Only 4 vehicles that day made it past the first roadblock, and all were completely stopped at the second and turned around.

You have to understand info was also sketchy and sparse coming our way. There were no smart phones, no real clear way for us there to get up to date news. Stuff would come through our earpieces…the pentagon had been hit ( how we didn’t know…bomb, vehicle, what?), buildings were collapsing, major infrastructure was being targeted…all kinds of stuff. It wasn’t really until I was able to get inside the airport and take a break that evening I was to fully understand what was known and happening at that point.

The rest of my time at the airport was outside in a vehicle with another Tac officer guarding a vehicle entrance onto the tarmac. What I remember most about that was one of the busiest airports in the country was dead quiet…normally aircraft arriving and departing at all hours. Nothing but the sound of two blacked-out ANG F-16’s circling the city all night and early morning hours.

I got back home about 5 in the morning on the 12th and stayed glued to the TV until that night.

God bless all those lost, and all those still suffering the losses today.

 

[hopemax]

It has been interesting reading this thread, and the similar one on the DIS today. I was not a member here yet, or following the Community board there. I was on LaughingPlace.com's message boards, and in some archive somewhere the account of that date is preserved, and I wish I could read it too.

I was still living in the PacNW, never having been to NYC, DC, or Pennsylvania. Still haven't. So the context and visualization of the WTC others have are unknown to me. I only became aware when my husband woke me up with a phone call, and bewilderment to what he was saying about the Towers being gone. What tethered me to that moment was the report which came from a Laughing Place poster named TheRedhead. He was at his job in the South Tower that day. He recounted the moments the first plane hit, and he and his colleagues decision to immediately evacuate despite some calls for people to shelter in place. He recounted feeling the impact of the second plane, and completing his escape from the building and making his way back home. And the realization that his office was likely within the impact zone of the second plane, and that decision to leave without delay was the difference between life and death. In the years that followed, he shared he had left his profession and NYC, and had moved to Virginia and became a teacher. Life has moved on, and Laughing Place as well. But if he is still out there in the Disneyverse somewhere, I just wanted to say on these anniversaries I always think of him, and hope life has been kind.

 

[ArmoredRodent]

Thank you, Steve, for this thread, and to those who have posted on it, twenty years later.
Lost people I knew on Flight 77, watched the smoke from the Pentagon from my office window, stood outside next to my friend the military attache from the Portuguese Embassy while two circling F-16s broke the silence of the airspace above D.C. (and we now know they took off so fast they weren't armed, and had planned to stop any more hijacked planes by crashing themselves into the planes). Everyone in parts of downtown evacuated, just kicked out of their offices, walking home in silence. My kids were held at their school in D.C. until the afternoon. Roads were eerily empty when I drove to get them. My wife was stuck at the White Sands (NM) Missile Range and couldn't get back for four days.

 

[MsSnuzi]

Remembering that day like it was yesterday. Thankful to all the members on this forum as we tried to make sense of that terrible day. Lives were changed forever across the country. Prayers to all that lost someone personally and to all for the tremendous loss to out nation.

 

[mightyduck]

Where have twenty years gone? As always, a big thank you to Steve for preserving this. For the first time in twenty years, I did not read through this thread. The local base was quiet today--they livestreamed their memorial ceremony this morning, and saw a few minutes of that. I saw a clip of Springsteen singing this morning. But I have avoided the coverage. Twenty years collapses into a moment when I think about that day. I'm so thankful to have had this space and these friends to support me, and please know, everyone on the original day-of thread, that I often think of you but never more than today. I'm thankful that the base suspended training today--I bought my parents' house and still live in the same house I was in on 9/11, still in the flight path for the joint base, and some days the sound of the jets or the planes or the helicopters are so close my husband, a veteran, goes outside to make sure it isn't crashing or attacking us. That day is still the most afraid I have ever been in my life.

I did read and reflect on the names of my university's alumni lost that day, and there were many. I thought about the freedoms so many lost that day and the terror our Muslim, Middle Eastern, and Indian neighbors suffered for years. I had a Pakistani student when i returned to teaching in October 2001, and there were a lot of adults and students who were afraid of him, or tormented him, or talked about calling him in as a threat for no reason other than his heritage. I always have to balance the feeling of safety and unity I had on these boards with what life was like for others on that day and remember that it wasn't a strong sense of unity and safety for all. Someone asked me the other day if I would relive the last 20 years if I could, and if I have to say that if it meant living through the fear of 9/11 again, I don't know that I would do it, even if I got all the years that came after. 9/11 pushed me to return to the classroom, and here we are, twenty years on, and I'm almost ready to retire from teaching. I'm hoping for a second act and am a doctoral candidate looking for something new to do with my time. September will always feel like I should be teaching, but the world is so different now.

Sending much love to all those who held me close and lifted me up that day. I am grateful every year that I have the memories of all of you and your comfort to balance out the rest of the day.

 

[MrPromey]

Where have twenty years gone? As always, a big thank you to Steve for preserving this. For the first time in twenty years, I did not read through this thread. The local base was quiet today--they livestreamed their memorial ceremony this morning, and saw a few minutes of that. I saw a clip of Springsteen singing this morning. But I have avoided the coverage. Twenty years collapses into a moment when I think about that day. I'm so thankful to have had this space and these friends to support me, and please know, everyone on the original day-of thread, that I often think of you but never more than today. I'm thankful that the base suspended training today--I bought my parents' house and still live in the same house I was in on 9/11, still in the flight path for the joint base, and some days the sound of the jets or the planes or the helicopters are so close my husband, a veteran, goes outside to make sure it isn't crashing or attacking us. That day is still the most afraid I have ever been in my life.

I did read and reflect on the names of my university's alumni lost that day, and there were many. I thought about the freedoms so many lost that day and the terror our Muslim, Middle Eastern, and Indian neighbors suffered for years. I had a Pakistani student when i returned to teaching in October 2001, and there were a lot of adults and students who were afraid of him, or tormented him, or talked about calling him in as a threat for no reason other than his heritage. I always have to balance the feeling of safety and unity I had on these boards with what life was like for others on that day and remember that it wasn't a strong sense of unity and safety for all. Someone asked me the other day if I would relive the last 20 years if I could, and if I have to say that if it meant living through the fear of 9/11 again, I don't know that I would do it, even if I got all the years that came after. 9/11 pushed me to return to the classroom, and here we are, twenty years on, and I'm almost ready to retire from teaching. I'm hoping for a second act and am a doctoral candidate looking for something new to do with my time. September will always feel like I should be teaching, but the world is so different now.

Sending much love to all those who held me close and lifted me up that day. I am grateful every year that I have the memories of all of you and your comfort to balance out the rest of the day.

I still remember much of our conversation that day.

 

[mightyduck]

Twenty-one years. Thank you, Steve, for preserving this. The world is so different than it was in 2001. I look back on this thread and think about how, if it happened today, the division in this country might have prevented the bonds we all formed on that day.

I'm not partaking in any of the coverage today. It's too much. After all these years, it's still too overwhelming. I spend a lot of time thinking about who owns public memory and who gets to decide what and who and how we remember.

To my friends who spend that day and the following days on this thread, I think of you often, but always on 9/11. I miss the Big Dog, and find myself wondering what he would think of all that has transpired.

For those who don't know, watching what happened on 9/11 changed the trajectory of my life. I had left teaching and even noted in this thread that I was headed to a "pink slip" party in Manhattan on 9/11--a gathering of editors and writers looking to network. I was freelancing full time at that point. By the end of the week after 9/11, I had sent out a resume and was offered a job the same day I interviewed. Less than a month after the attacks, I was back in the classroom. This is my 25th year as a full-time educator.

I had already booked flights in November to visit UMinn's American studies PhD program on 9/11. I still made the trip, but I didn't apply. I decided to stay in education. Now, all these years later, I'm hoping to finish my dissertation this year and graduate. A dream deferred, but that's okay. Everything in its time.

Because of the pandemic, I'm not traveling. I'm heartbroken to miss the 50th birthday party. Somewhere in these chit chat threads you can see me talking about going for the WDW 20th anniversary, and how I would go for the 25th, and someday, the 50th. That seems like it won't happen now.

Reading through this thread always brings it back. The sound of the planes. The fear. The sense of helplessness.

Marcia, as always, sending you lots of love today.

 

[LongballMG]

As is tradition, for the past 21 years, we have gathered here to remember the lives lost. Please remember them and their families.