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9-11 Never Forget


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I was just talking with some fellow parents while at my kids elementary school this morning that it's been 17 years since I was actually in a school on a September 11th morning. The principal had made an announcement over the intercom system to just remind students and teachers about today and at first it kind of spooked me because it's been so long and I only recall the last time I heard an announcement on this day in a school was during the attacks. I think that 9-11 is one of the few handful moments of my life I can vividly recall almost every detail.

 

Never forget.

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Can't believe it's been that long, still remember it like it was yesterday.   I was working at Otis ANGB on Cape Cod when the two F-15's launched in response to the hijacking.    Shortly afterwards, we saw the towers come down and decided to call it a day and get home with our loved ones.   

 

The one thing I still remember about that day was how absolutely beautiful the weather was.   Just a classic NE fall day, hard to believe a few hundred miles south, there was carnage on an unimaginable scale happening.

 

Lost a HS classmate in one of the towers.  RIP Steven Roach.

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I was on the west coast and it was about 8am and the first tower had already collapsed when I turned on the TV to catch some news for a few minutes as my wife and our 2 young daughters were getting ready.  I recognized the tower as the WTC but could not understand why there was only 1 tower.  Once i understood what had happened, I figured someone was going to get nuked before sundown.  To me this was a Pearl Harbor moment in our modern times. 

 

It was a crazy time and sadly the world seems worse today.

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4 hours ago, SBARC said:

It was a crazy time and sadly the world seems worse today.

Perhaps it seems worse, but I have to ask, is it really? I mean, yes there's a lot of mess going around...But overall I think things aren't nearly as bad as some would like to believe. It seems like there's a group, maybe it's generational or something, but there is a group in search of a disaster. They are very vocal and they seem to be looking for their "defining moment". Their version of the 60's. But if you examine it at it's core, in my opinion it's simply not there. Not saying there aren't problems. But overall, is it really that bad? I think the medicine of time has helped people forget how bad things did actually get there right after 9-11. And also how great things also shined. As you said, it was a Pearl Harbor moment that helped to unite more than just our country. It also started a chain of events that got really bad. I simply don't feel we are anywhere near that level these days. I see a very positive outlook. A lot of challenges, yes. But an optimistic future.

 

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I'm an air traffic controller and was working that morning. I'll never forget turning everyone around and getting them back on the ground. Then watching the eerily clear airspace except for the ADF F-16's out of FAT for days. Professionally and personally it changed me.

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17 hours ago, SBARC said:

I was on the west coast and it was about 8am and the first tower had already collapsed when I turned on the TV to catch some news for a few minutes as my wife and our 2 young daughters were getting ready.  I recognized the tower as the WTC but could not understand why there was only 1 tower.  Once i understood what had happened, I figured someone was going to get nuked before sundown.  To me this was a Pearl Harbor moment in our modern times. 

 

It was a crazy time and sadly the world seems worse today.

 

 

12 hours ago, niart17 said:

Perhaps it seems worse, but I have to ask, is it really? I mean, yes there's a lot of mess going around...But overall I think things aren't nearly as bad as some would like to believe. It seems like there's a group, maybe it's generational or something, but there is a group in search of a disaster. They are very vocal and they seem to be looking for their "defining moment". Their version of the 60's. But if you examine it at it's core, in my opinion it's simply not there. Not saying there aren't problems. But overall, is it really that bad? I think the medicine of time has helped people forget how bad things did actually get there right after 9-11. And also how great things also shined. As you said, it was a Pearl Harbor moment that helped to unite more than just our country. It also started a chain of events that got really bad. I simply don't feel we are anywhere near that level these days. I see a very positive outlook. A lot of challenges, yes. But an optimistic future.

 

 

 

I'm a little less free every year since. 

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On 9/12/2019 at 5:03 PM, TaiidanTomcat said:

I'm a little less free every year since. 

 

I agree with that. 

 

On 9/12/2019 at 4:10 AM, niart17 said:

Perhaps it seems worse, but I have to ask, is it really? I mean, yes there's a lot of mess going around...But overall I think things aren't nearly as bad as some would like to believe. It seems like there's a group, maybe it's generational or something, but there is a group in search of a disaster. They are very vocal and they seem to be looking for their "defining moment". Their version of the 60's. But if you examine it at it's core, in my opinion it's simply not there. Not saying there aren't problems. But overall, is it really that bad? I think the medicine of time has helped people forget how bad things did actually get there right after 9-11. And also how great things also shined. As you said, it was a Pearl Harbor moment that helped to unite more than just our country. It also started a chain of events that got really bad. I simply don't feel we are anywhere near that level these days. I see a very positive outlook. A lot of challenges, yes. But an optimistic future.

 

Some changes since 9-11

  • TSA
  • Arab spring which has destroyed various countries (Syria, Libya etc).
  • The rise and fall of ISIS
  • Mass refugee inflow into various western countries (Europe etc)
  • Unstable situation in many central and south American countries leading to massive hardship and flow of people to escape violence etc

There are plenty of other changes since 9-11...Iraq invasion and occupation etc...Afghanistan War etc

 

The birth of the surveillance of the internet by various governments since 9-11, of everyone that uses the internet.  I do not direct this at the US Gov't only, China and many other countries are deep into this.

 

When you start adding up all these changes, it does not appear to me that things have gotten any safer or better in the last 18 years.  I see our little world as more unstable.  Dictatorships have firmly taken hold in Russia and China with China officially having a leader for life and Russia unofficially embracing a leader for life idea.

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On 9/12/2019 at 4:23 PM, sideshow said:

I'm an air traffic controller and was working that morning. I'll never forget turning everyone around and getting them back on the ground. Then watching the eerily clear airspace except for the ADF F-16's out of FAT for days. Professionally and personally it changed me.

 

That must have been quiet the experience for you and I can only imagine being a fighter pilot and having empty skies.  It all seems rather chilling.

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7 hours ago, SBARC said:

 

I agree with that. 

 

Some changes since 9-11

  • TSA
  • Arab spring which has destroyed various countries (Syria, Libya etc).
  • The rise and fall of ISIS
  • Mass refugee inflow into various western countries (Europe etc)
  • Unstable situation in many central and south American countries leading to massive hardship and flow of people to escape violence etc

There are plenty of other changes since 9-11...Iraq invasion and occupation etc...Afghanistan War etc

 

The birth of the surveillance of the internet by various governments since 9-11, of everyone that uses the internet.  I do not direct this at the US Gov't only, China and many other countries are deep into this.

 

When you start adding up all these changes, it does not appear to me that things have gotten any safer or better in the last 18 years.  I see our little world as more unstable.  Dictatorships have firmly taken hold in Russia and China with China officially having a leader for life and Russia unofficially embracing a leader for life idea.

Good points Steve and all valid. 

 

Biggest impact on the US since the attacks has been the absurdly name Global War on Terror where we have US troops fighting and dying all over the planet as some sort of global police force.   Then we have the Axis of Evil (wait, is it now the Triad of Evil since North Korea are now good guys?), where we undoubtedly will soon be in armed conflict with one of the members of that club.   Aside from the body count (both US troops and innocent civilians) and the tens of thousands maimed kids, we've drained our coffers.  Our military (which is an order of magnitude larger than any other force on the planet) is nothing but a hollow shell, suffering from disciplinary problems from some of our most elite forces and readiness rates often in the single digits.  To fund this,  we've turned our domestic infrastructure and education / health care systems into a joke when compared to rest of the world. 

 

All this due to misguided reactions from events on that horrible day. 

 

 

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Many cite the burning towers or the towers collapsing as images that they'll never forget from 9/11. Shocking images indeed. But I'll never forget the haunting images of the ruined and vacant first responders vehicles that were shown throughout the day:

Image result for Fire Truck 9/11 

Image result for First responders vehicles on 9/11

You just knew that the crews who left those vehicles to rush in and help folks were  most likely not coming back. It sounds strange, but the vehicles themselves seem to look sad.

 

.

 

Don

 

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3 hours ago, 11bee said:

Good points Steve and all valid. 

 

Biggest impact on the US since the attacks has been the absurdly name Global War on Terror where we have US troops fighting and dying all over the planet as some sort of global police force.   Then we have the Axis of Evil (wait, is it now the Triad of Evil since North Korea are now good guys?), where we undoubtedly will soon be in armed conflict with one of the members of that club.   Aside from the body count (both US troops and innocent civilians) and the tens of thousands maimed kids, we've drained our coffers.  Our military (which is an order of magnitude larger than any other force on the planet) is nothing but a hollow shell, suffering from disciplinary problems from some of our most elite forces and readiness rates often in the single digits.  To fund this,  we've turned our domestic infrastructure and education / health care systems into a joke when compared to rest of the world. 

 

All this due to misguided reactions from events on that horrible day. 

 

 

 

Very valid points.  As the US keeps spending money it doesn't have and borrowing to pay the debt.  Russia sits on the sidelines watching the show and conserving cash and China keeps expanding it's reach when the US makes a miss-step or pulls back in any part of the globe.  China is expanding it's reach into much of the developing world with bribe and shady financial dealings. 

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3 hours ago, Don said:

Many cite the burning towers or the towers collapsing as images that they'll never forget from 9/11. Shocking images indeed. But I'll never forget the haunting images of the ruined and vacant first responders vehicles that were shown throughout the day:

 

 

You just knew that the crews who left those vehicles to rush in and help folks were  most likely not coming back. It sounds strange, but the vehicles themselves seem to look sad.

Don

 

 

That is truly heart breaking. 

 

The ability of humans to choose destructive actions and not constructive actions will never cease to amaze me. 

 

Studying the Roman Empire and it's rise and fall is rather chilling.

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On 9/12/2019 at 7:23 PM, sideshow said:

I'm an air traffic controller and was working that morning. I'll never forget turning everyone around and getting them back on the ground. Then watching the eerily clear airspace except for the ADF F-16's out of FAT for days. Professionally and personally it changed me.

I was flying to Atlanta that day. I walked into the station office just in time to see the second plane hit. We got stranded there for several days, and eventually got permission to ferry back to RDU. It was eerie, spending days in a hotel right next to ATL airport and not hearing a single airplane other than the occasional fighter. When we ferried home, we could only hear the ATC half of the conversations with the military planes, since the military was using UHF. The only traffic we saw was a flight of F-16s with a KC-10 cruising above us near Columbia SC. 

 

Professionally and personally, it changed me, too.

 

Ben

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