Watching a remarkable programme on ITV as I type, reminded me of my personal circumstances that day. I was working on secondment and in an office of limited connectivity (dial up computers, no internet...) - my first knowledge was via a colleague and I dug out a TV that we had for viewing VHS tapes - I managed to get a grainy image of events. I left the office that afternoon to do some outside work in another town some way away, blanket coverage on R4 suggested the enormity of the unfolding events - the reports of Stephen Evans who was in WTC when the attacks happened still resonate in my mind. It was later that evening on the way home when the Archers were broadcast on time that some semblance of normality returned..
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Nursing a hangover in a Holiday Inn in New Orleans, having been to a fantastic jazz club the night before in the French Quarter.
Got woken up to watch the news (hour ahead of NY) and was grumpy about it, until I started watching the footage properly...and saw the initial shots of people leaping out of the twin towers (before they were edited out).
Spent all morning watching the news in morbid fascination, then decided to do what we'd intended which was a paddle steamer trip up the Mississippi...went to the departure place and had to kill an hour, so sat in the shade of a tall building as it was so hot and humid....then got caught up in a major security flap as all sorts of emergency service people turned up...it was then i noticed the building was the World Trade Centre, New Orleans...we cleared off.
Was damned glad I hired a car (had to be a Mustang) to get there rather than fly (Houston to New Orleans 6-7 hours in the car) as obviosuly all the flights were grounded. People were hiring lorries to use as cars.
Last edited by: Westpig on Thu 1 Sep 11 at 21:45
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Having a pleasant lunch with my favourite Butcher in a pub when someone came in and said....."Have you seen etc etc etc." We nodded and then it hit home and we raced across the street (small Devon town) and viewed images on the TV screens in a shop window opposite. Quite unreal at the time. A shock though like the funeral pyres of Foot and Mouth (travesty) which, in all fairness made me ill. Sorry for the brief diversion.
Best regards......MD.
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No idea. I can't even remember the date now. 9th November or 11th September?
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Myself and Mrs RR were in the car when the first bulletins came in during Steve Wright's show on R2. The first report was of a light plane crashing into the Trade Centre, then all the regular items on the show were cancelled as the enormity of the events unfolded. We got home and watched it on Sky News for the rest of the day, in between taking part on what was up to then the longest and fastest moving thread on the then fairly new HJ Backroom.
I remember that thread as the one where the membership bonded and became a community rather than just a collection of people with an interest in cars, this being well before the separate non motoring section.
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I was at a conference in Warwick, watched it on a big cinema type screen.
I assumed Bush would push the nuke button.
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I was in Bracknell.
BMW head office, everyone was just staring at the TV screens, hardly saying a word.
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Still absolutely fascinating to watch!
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On holiday in rural France, not watching TV or buying newspapers. We missed the whole thing. It wasn't till Saturday (9/11 was a Tuesday) when we were packing up to go that Madame Amoura, who came to check us out of the house, thought we ought to know before we got home. I thought my French was letting me down, because the story she told me of 'avions piratés' and 'le plus grand bâtiment de New York' seemed so bizarrely far-fetched. We chatted with another English family at a motorway picnic site on the way back to the channel, and mixing their account with Mme A's just made us even more confused.
We were in France again on 7/7/2005 and didn't find out till the end of the week. Beware - bad things happen when I leave the country.
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I can remember where I was when all the really bad things happened.
9/11
Concorde crash (I was in France on holiday!)
Black monday
Death of kenedy (even tho I was only 9!)
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We, together with 2 friends, had taken our caravans with our 4 dogs to Goswick Sands near Berwick.
As our pals were renovating their home in Cumbria we were in an architectural salvage place in Wooler. The owner was in his office on the phone and the other three were in the yard looking at something. I dawdled in the ' showroom ' to catch the news on the radio. It wasn't on loud but I soon became aware of what was happening. I called to the others and they, together with the owner, came to listen.
We finished there and got back in the Land-Rover and put the radio on. I wanted a morning paper and I told the lady in the shop to put the telly on as world shattering events were happening.
We drove back to Goswick in silence and watched the news until bed-time.
The atmosphere in town the following day was very subdued.
Vivid memories, like Kennedy's death and the Manchester bomb...which I heard go off and had to go into the city to rescue SWM and 2 friends.
Ted
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In a holiday park just outside Looe on holiday with my girlfriend at the time.
I was watching the news and saw the second strike live. Ill never forget that.
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It was a strange day. At the time I worked for a very small firm, with no internet access and no need to check the news, so was vaguely interested when the man who came to service the dictation machine told us a plane had hit the WTC.
I didn't think anything of it until our boss called on a crackling line from New York to ask us to tell his wife he was OK. We immediately turned on his office radio to hear 'And then the second tower collapsed...'
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I was preparing my store for a vist from our CEO the following day. Word came through and we were immediately glued to the tvs in the shop and saw the second plane crash.
I also remember where I was when the gunman ran riot in Dublane - sitting in a training room in Portobello with reps from a load of stores and someone came in and asked if anyone came from the Dunblane area. Three staff did and seeing the pain they went through until they were able to get word that theirs was OK was horrendous to watch.
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I remember when Diana died too.
I was boarding a plane home from Majorca with the family on the night it happened, as we settle down, before takeoff the captain announced it had happened a litte while ago.
Ill never forget when Michael Jackson died either, if only because it was the night before my wedding to my current lovely wife and she rang me out of the blue asking if it was true because they heard it in a pub on her hen night. Rather rude to steal our limelight really, it was all people were talking about at my wedding reception.
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Diana really sticks in my mind as it was, technically, my last day as a civil servant with HMRC.
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I was driving a lorry from Beds to Wilts and back on 11 Sept 01 - heard the events unfolding on the Radio 1 news through the afternoon. On the way back I stopped at a petrol station on the way out of Leighton Buzzard for some munchies and watched one of the towers collapse, live, on the TV the cashier had brought in to work with him. Surreal day.
Last edited by: Dave_TDCi on Thu 1 Sep 11 at 23:06
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Burying my then girlfriend's mother; first we knew was in the pub for the do afterwards, saw it on the telly.
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SWMBO and I both had the day booked off work for decorating.
I'd popped to the shops to buy some milk, and walked back in to find SWMBO in front of the TV and in tears. As she was explaining what had happened, the second plane went in.
Even after seeing it so many times and over so many years, the footage still makes my blood run cold.
Needless to say, no decorating got done, and we spent the rest of the day glued to the TV.
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I was pulling out of a side road in Sale with a loaded transporter when the radio announced the assassination of Anwar Sadat....funny how things stick.....1981, I think.
Wife woke me in morning with news of Di and Dodi...my initial thoughts were ' suicide pact ' until she told me more.
Ted
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>> Wife woke me in morning with news of Di and Dodi...my initial thoughts were '
>> suicide pact ' until she told me more.
>>
Had gone downstairs to make tea and, as you do, put radio on. Presenter kept talking about the princess who'd died but it seemed an age before I could grasp which one!!
On the day of the funeral, we watched proceedings on the box. That done we thought we'd go into town (I live in Northampton) to put a bomb under the estate agent failing to sell our house. Got to the ring road to find it lined with crowds waiting for the cortege to pass en-route to Althrop.
Not without missgivings we parked by the footie ground and joined the throng. Son was too young to remember but daughter does.
I was about the same age (4) when Kennedy was shot. Don't think I understood what had happened but recall seeing the same bit on TV over again and the adults behaving oddly.
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Like others here I'm reminded how much the internet has changed the spread of news. Today there's always somebody in the office with a news service running on their desktop - plus News 24 on screens in the lobby all day.
Back in 01 we'd just got a network & email but if there was any internet at all it was dial up and on stand alones in the library. I was working on a project to acrredit solicitors and others to do work my then department was getting rid of, we were runnig up to a deadline & under the cosh. Quiet corner of a large building. Boss's wife phoned him with news she'd heard on radio but couldn't take it in - thought of the plane that hit the Empire State and fell to ground - not the other way round.
Guy on the other side of the office (different team to me) had been flying to NY that day. Established that hi-jacked planes were domestic flights so he was OK. He spent four days in Gander!
On leaving the office there were hoards gathered round Berrys hi fi shop in Kingsway watching stuff on the TVs.
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i remember the R101 passing over my grannies house,well i remember her telling me i wasnt actually born then..does that count? :)
Last edited by: zookeeper on Fri 2 Sep 11 at 00:58
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>> i remember the R101 passing over my grannies house,well i remember her telling me i
>> wasnt actually born then..does that count? :)
My Mum remembers the R100 (R101's rival built by a commercial concern) over South Leeds on several occasions. It was built at and initially flown from Howden before going to Cardington for side by side tests with R101.
Actually quite successful but fraught with trouble in development. Designer was Barnes Wallis, later famous for Dambusters bombs. The structural engineer Nevil Norway later found fame as an author under the name of Nevil Shute. His auto biography, Slide Rule, gives his account of the R100 in some detail. Rather coloured by his own free enterprise/right wing politics but interesting nonetheless.
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>> >> i remember the R101 passing over my grannies house,well i remember her telling me
>> i
>> >> wasnt actually born then..does that count? :)
>>
>>
>>
We had a French master who could quite easily be diverted into reminiscing about the Great War. His favourite anecdote was of watching a Zeppelin shot down near Cuffley.
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On the 9th of November 2001 I was in Spain on holiday, however on the 11th of September 2001 I was dashing between meetings in London and caught the second plane hitting the towers on Bloomberg TV in an office reception - the room was full of people watching in horror and disbelief as events unfolded, my meeting didn't happen as we all watched spellbound by what was happening.
I have to admit that I absolutely hate the US practice of writing mm/dd - it is used interchangeably with dd/mm here in Hong Kong and it often causes confusion and (to my mind) makes no logical sense.....
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I was on a plane flying back from a mad four day break with a female friend of mine.
Neither of us like flying and it was only when we left Manchester airport in the car that we heard the news on the car radio.
Pat
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In my annexe up in Warleggan having just cut the grass on a Westwood.
In bed on the 11th floor of a large s.e london council estate when the pelvis died.
Listening to the radio late one night in Warleggan when Lady Di-ed.
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I was in one of our offices on 9/11. Someone mentioned at first they'd heard a plane had hit one of the twin towers and we all initially assumed a small plane.
Started checking the Internet and sites were very slow (low graphic site Ananova was okay) and then found second tower hit. And then a big surprise when it was said the first tower had gone. A very strange afternoon. Then phoned home to get news via my wife and the TV news.
I also remember being in another office on 7/7 when my wife phoned to say a double decker had exploded in London... and then we found out what was going on there. The meeting I was in basically stopped at that point.
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9/11 or in English, 11/9 I saw it unfold as I worked for the BBC.
7/7 I was on a tube train and thrown off at my normal station as the lines shut. Had I gone a different way - as I sometimes did, I might not be writing this.
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9/11 was hot day and was sweating grafting under a fork lift truck.
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Just starting a project in Riyadh being constructed by Saudi B*n L*d*n - the other side of the family. Our American colleagues rapidly disappeared home.
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On 11th Sept 2009 I was at the free trade centre. Okay it proves nothing but these attacks were planned well in advance. Could have very different for any of us. Likewise the poster above who was on the tube but was safe.
Not sure if the invasion of Afghanistan or Iraq was worth it though as a response.
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Sitting in my office in the City in a completely unremarkable 6/7 storey building. The first floor were sent home, "just in case" the rest of the building were not. I must have been out at a meeting when it happened, as a colleague told me an aircraft had hit the WTC and I asked "What happened to it, did it fly on ok?" Then spent the next few hours trying to find something on the internet that wasn't entirely overwhelmed. I recall an Australian news site.
More memorably I remember the spot I was standing when I heard Mrs Thatcher had resigned. She had been PM all my sentient life, and it was a great shock.
Last edited by: Mapmaker on Fri 2 Sep 11 at 10:44
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>> More memorably I remember the spot I was standing when I heard Mrs Thatcher had
>> resigned. She had been PM all my sentient life, and it was a great shock.
That's a good one. I was in a hotel bar in Kiev, trying to work out what was going on from the grainy pictures and dreadful sound quality out of an ancient Soviet TV set. The staff refused to turn the volume up so we were left guessing. Then the news programme finished and it was over to Stepashka and Khryushka for "Goodnight Children".
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I was driving through Cookham in Berkshire in my purple Ford Mondeo (mk2) estate. Listening to 5Live on the radio, I heard Simon Mayo annouce that a light aircraft had hit the WTC. Then I parked up to eat my lunch and the reality unfolded on the radio. Back at the office after lunch, where we had proper internet, everyone was jsut sat there staring at their screens.
Is that the dullest entry so far? Do I win £5?
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We stopped outside a hotel near Le Mans on the way south and found a message on the mobile from the printers asking what had happened to the disk with the pages of the magazine I was editing in those days. I rang and said 'I'm in France - it should have been delivered this morning'. He said 'I'll have another look and ring you back'. So to kill time I turned on the car radio...
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>>>Is that the dullest entry so far? Do I win £5?
Perhaps not... I went to collect the girls from junior school and it was the sole topic of conversation in the mums queue.
Went home and turned on the TV then stood with jaw on the floor for quite some while.
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It was my day of work, and I had the TV on in the background
The news broke, and I watched, and screamed "oh my god there is another one!!!" as the plane hit the south tower.
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Heading home down the A130 after a blazing row with my, now ex, boss, ( I was proved right, hence the ex bit ) with all the world's problems in my head when the first news came on the radio. Thought at first it was going to be a light aircraft or an incident like the bomber and the Empire State building after all airliners don't fly through the middle of New York, do they?
By the time I got home it was unfolding on the TV, my mother in law was convinced she was watching a film, soon realised that the world had changed in those few hours and it put all of my problems into perspective.
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Bellshill McDonalds, flipping burgers. All pretending to work soon stopped and more or less everyone sat in the kids corner watching the TV. All seemed really surreal.
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At home, watched it live on TV.
It was beautiful weather.
Edit.
I remember Mrs Thatcher's resignation. I was at home unemployed at the time.
I remember Princess Di's funeral.
I remmeber walking home from a dance on the day of JFK's assasination..
Funny how events impinge on you and leave a clear memory.
(as did the Challenger disaster)
Last edited by: madf on Fri 2 Sep 11 at 15:16
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>> I remember Princess Di's funeral.
I remember that too. I was flying from Manchester to SFO via London. Early enough to miss it even if the London commuter plane avoided central London as a mark of respect. Due to a problem with a catering truck our 747 needed replacing with a spare. Cue a shut down Heathrow for an hour. You couldn't get anything because everything shut.
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At home and round and about, living normally. Like Cockle on first hearing of the first impact I imagined a light aircraft and a stone skyscraper so thought there would be little damage. On turning the TV on though, was in time to catch the second impact and of course endless replays of the first. Holy excrement Batman!
First thought was, those mad horrible cruel idiots of Islamists have delivered a real black eye to the US. Actually I felt a certain scornful admiration for the carphounds.
My second thought was that George W Bush and his gang of thieving racist and Zionist scum would now get very nasty, as Americans can when flustered. The rest is history.
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>>
>>
>> First thought was, those mad horrible cruel idiots of Islamists have delivered a real black
>> eye to the US. Actually I felt a certain scornful admiration for the carphounds.
>>
I've no doubt the relatives and friends of those working in the Twin Towers felt the same tinge of admiration as they watched their kin leaping to their deaths to avoid being burnt alive.
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>> Actually I felt a certain scornful admiration for the carphounds.
>>
AC,
That really is too much. Thousands of wholly innocent people died in a terrorist outrage. Do the 7/7 bombers invoke the same thoughts?
...or are you trying to get a record number of angry faces on here?
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>> are you trying to get a record number of angry faces on here?
What on earth is the matter with you all? I made it as clear as I could that I despise and scorn the madness and cruelty of those people for what they did, and for the way I know they 'think'.
But, they scored big time in a way they imagine will do them and the world some good. Most of their efforts are small-time revealing the meanness of their intellects. The twin towers job was on an altogether different scale.
Or are we supposed to pretend it was just a fleabite?
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I daresay anyone here old enough to remember cheered when the gallant RAF boys bombed German towns and killed thousands of innocent people.
Of course it's regrettable, probably a crime in the greater scheme of things, but this, we are constantly being told, is war, and ever since we invented the aeroplane, civilians have been in the front line.
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>> ever since we invented the aeroplane, civilians have been in the front line.
Yes. Good point CP.
Not that a grown-up will see Al Qaeda as waging what a decent Norman would call 'war' of course. Still, these crazed ideologues, whose actions and morality are very un-Islamic and whose agenda has nothing to do with religion, think it's one, and unfortunately that's what matters.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Fri 2 Sep 11 at 19:28
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It was what the media used to call a "spectacular" in the days of the IRA. Audacious and meticulously planned - the IRA even in their most perverted Semtex infested dreams, could never have imagined or executed anything like that. Beyond the wit and capability of many nation states come to that. Certainly didn't do their cause any good with right thinking Muslims. Maybe if UBL and his cronies had put as much effort into addressing the basic problems in many of the countries he had influence in....who knows. A cruel and sadistic act.
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>> I daresay anyone here old enough to remember cheered when the gallant RAF boys bombed
>> German towns and killed thousands of innocent people.
The massive loss of life* arising from the bombing of Lübeck , Hamburg, Dresden, Pforzheim
was not reported at the time for fear of the outrage.
*about 125,000 people. In Pforzheim a third of the entire city population were killed.
>> Of course it's regrettable, probably a crime in the greater scheme of things,
Deliberately targetting the civilian population is a war crime in anyones book.
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>> Deliberately targetting the civilian population is a war crime in anyones book.
Yep - sad it happened so recently. Also sad that we had to let the German's carry on with their plans to bomb Coventry when we knew all about it. But these were dark times indeed.
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The bombing of Dresden was in a different category to 9/11. The German nation had waged total war against this country with the intention of enslaving it and we were entitled to do whatever it took to win and to end the conflict in the shortest possible time. If that meant destroying German cities to shatter their moral it was only what they had been doing to us throughout the conflict.
In a situation like that which we were in from '39 to '45 the only casualties to minimise were those to our own troops and citizens, we simply could not afford to worry about the extent of those of the enemy.
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Dresden was bombed in February 1945 - the war was all but won, there was little strategic reason to do what was done. Ask yourself this, why was there no campaign medal for the bomber offensive ever struck ? "Bomber" Harris had lost the plot by this point in the war.
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>> If that meant destroying German cities to shatter their moral it was
>> only what they had been doing to us throughout the conflict.
RR, in one short sentence you have just legitimised what Al Queda did at 9/11.
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>> RR, in one short sentence you have just legitimised what Al Queda did at 9/11.
>>
Not at all.
We were in a "Winner takes all" conflict with Germany, and in addition to what Dog posted the Germans were also trying to develop the Atom Bomb. Anything that brought the end of the conflict one day closer was worth doing.
9/11 was nothing more than a pointless act of mass murder by people whose religeous beliefs would have them classed as mentally ill in any rational society.
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>
>> We were in a "Winner takes all" conflict with Germany, and in addition to what
>> Dog posted the Germans were also trying to develop the Atom Bomb.
Due to "Ultra" we knew they were a long way behind the Manhattan project. The German Atom Bomb was never a threat. And we knew it.
>> 9/11 was nothing more than a pointless act of mass murder by people whose religeous
>> beliefs would have them classed as mentally ill in any rational society.
Bomber command killed 12 times more civilians than your people with religious beliefs yet you claim they are perfectly sane?
Of course 9/11 had a point. If you don't know what the point was you have your head buried in the sand.
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>>The massive loss of life* arising from the bombing of Lübeck , Hamburg, Dresden, Pforzheim was not reported at the time for fear of the outrage<<
And what do you think would have happened to us, if Hitler hadn't been stopped?
"Near the end of the war, German scientists were working on chemical and possibly biological weapons to use in the V-2 program. By this stage, the Germans had produced munitions containing nerve agents sarin, soman and tabun; however, they had never used any of them".
Source wiki.
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Dog,
There were questions asked in the house in 1939/40 about damaging private property during the first raids on Germany.
As Churchill said that the Germans "sowed the wind and reaped the whirlwind" Bomber Command was turned from a tiny ineffective force at the outbreak of war to a vast industrial tool of destruction, they weren't particularly good at precision bombing, but became hugely efficient at carpet or area bombing. My belief was that Bomber Command was probably out of control in the end. Churchill largely tolerated its policies before D Day as it was the only thing he could use with Stalin to show that some "practical" support to their huge effort/sacrifice in the East. We messed up badly in WW2 - we didn't fight a good war really.
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>> at carpet or area bombing. My belief was that Bomber Command was probably out of
>> control in the end.
Churchill nearly had Bomber Harris cashiered near D-Day because he refused to re-target from bombing German cities to strategic German defensive targets in France.
And then again, when he tried to refuse re-targetting to Peenemünde and V2 pads and V1 launchers.
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>>There were questions asked in the house in 1939/40 about damaging private property during the first raids on Germany<<
I wonder if the civilians who lost their homes or their loved ones in Aberdeen, Barrow-in-Furness, Belfast, Bootle, Birkenhead, Wallasey, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Clydebank, Coventry, Derby (Rolls Royce) Exeter, Glasgow, Greenock, Sheffield, Swansea, Liverpool, London, Kingston upon Hull, Manchester, Portsmouth, Plymouth, Nottingham, Brighton, Eastbourne, Sunderland, Southampton, Hull, etc., etc. were asked for their opinions about the air raids on Germany?
If it wasn’t for the brave young men of the RAF in the Battle of Britain, it would have been a totally different story
Over 50,000,000 people died in the 6 years of WW2 – FIFTY MILLION!! The world was at war – Total War ... Two devastating evil weapons were dropped on Japan, the effects of which are still felt today by many people,
War is devastatingly evil but – once it’s begun, as terrible as it may seem, it’s up to ‘your side’ to win through – whatever the cost may be, the alternative doesn’t bare thinking about.
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>> >>The massive loss of life* arising from the bombing of Lübeck , Hamburg, Dresden, Pforzheim
>> was not reported at the time for fear of the outrage<<
>>
>> And what do you think would have happened to us, if Hitler hadn't been stopped?
>>
>> "Near the end of the war, German scientists were working on chemical and possibly biological
>> weapons
>> Source wiki.
And so had the allies.
In 1942, during the Second World War, Gruinard was the site of a biological warfare test by British military scientists from Porton Down.[7] At that time there was an investigation by the British government into the feasibility of an attack using anthrax: to test the viability of attacking Germany with a British bio-weapon.
Source Wiki.
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All this argument is simply reinforcing my point that this is war. That's the West's definition - we are supposed to be fighting the War on Terrorism. Horrible things happen in war, and each side will justify them by reference to pragmatism and necessity.
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And that, is precisely, what's happened in the ten years since. The dead Iraqis outnumber the dead of 9/11 for instance, that's the inconvenient truth, and arguably a most of them were just as innocent as the victims of the Twin Tower atrocity.
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>> My second thought was that George W Bush and his gang of thieving racist and
>> Zionist scum would now get very nasty, as Americans can when flustered. The rest is
>> history.
>>
Have a read of his autobiography...you might see him in a different light.
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Anyone can try and rewrite history by adjusting their memoirs!
Essentially, when the time came to step up to the plate, aka 9/11, it was a leadership and administration paralysed by lack of information, poor communication, bad command and control, fear and indecision.
I sincerely doubt our administration at the time would have fared any better.
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>> I sincerely doubt our administration at the time would have fared any better.
I suspect we did a wee bit better on 7/7. But these things depend on the scenario being comparable to one you've planned for. 11/9/01 was not in the box.
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>>
>> I sincerely doubt our administration at the time would have fared any better.
>>
...or anyone else's
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Going back to the OP, I found the program fascinating last night.
The fighter pilot who was also a part time commercial airline pilot who was ready to shoot down a plane full of American civilians if asked to do so. What a job to have to carry out if instructed.
I still have my suspicions about the fourth plane that was brought down by the passengers, allegedly.
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It was well made, interviews with the big shots, good historical document.
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One thing that came out of 9/11 was how useless the US air defence was. Flight 93 would in all likelihood have reached its intended target, unhindered by any US jet fighters.
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Recall a peaceful afternoon in my (then) office in Brighton. Like a lot of folk, assumed it was a light aircraft that had bashed into the first tower.
The footage of the second plane hitting makes me shudder involuntarily to this day. A damn big airliner flying damn fast, bashing into a damn big building damn hard. Horrible.
I was somewhat surprised that Bush didn't nuke most of the Middle East back to the Stone Age. If there hadn't been oil under Iraq, however........
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I was in hospital recovering from an op when I heard the early am news about Di.
As a consequence, my breakfast was late, and as I was just regaining my appetite I have never forgiven her.
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Look on the bright side, Hospital food is never worth waiting for.
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A couple of my colleagues at the time were working at a airfreight company and they said at the time "all hell broke loose" so I got the heads up very early on.
They had aircraft heading for the USA with airports closed down and priority for other airports in Canada given to those carrying passengers or very low on fuel. For a short time, until they had permission to land in Canada, I am told things were very fraught.
More prominent in my mind is 7/7. I was traveling to London and had decided to drive only because the station car par was full.
On route I got a phone call from someone who wasn't my ex wife, checking to see if I was safe!
Last edited by: zippy on Sat 3 Sep 11 at 18:05
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>>The fighter pilot who was also a part time commercial airline pilot who was ready to shoot down a plane full of American civilians if asked to do so. What a job to have to carry out if instructed.
Not something that comes easily, I am sure!
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>9/11 - Where were you ?
In Kephalonia.
Called into our favourite taverna for a cold beer on the way back to our apartment and the owner's son told us what had happened. I was expecting a punchline so he brought a radio outside and translated the news broadcast for us.
>I remember when Diana died too.
This was a very odd experience for me.
We were living in Austin and I'd been working late so I stopped off in my favourite watering-hole for a drink and something to eat, (Mrs K. was away chasing dolphins somewhere off the coast of Mazatlan).
I didn't know about the crash until I walked in and saw it on the TV.
I had about half a dozen folks who knew me come up, shake my hand and offer their solemn condolences as if it were a family member who'd died.
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>> I had about half a dozen folks who knew me come up, shake my hand
>> and offer their solemn condolences as if it were a family member who'd died.
>>
A proper Irish Catholic funeral is like that, i wonder if there's an Irish influence in Austin.
But then people can still be polite and respectful once you get away from cities wherever you go.
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We were living in Austin ... I had about half a dozen folks who knew me come up, shake my hand and offer their solemn condolences as if it were a family member who'd died.
Curious. I was in Austin early that September and had the same thing, although not from acquaintances but people in shops, restaurants, even a pizza delivery man. I wasn't even that upset about Diana but I began to feel I ought to be.
If there's a dominant European ethnic influence in Central Texas it's German rather than Irish. Don't know if that casts any light.
Last edited by: WillDeBeest on Sun 4 Sep 11 at 17:48
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Well! this is not going to be popular but here goes...
Deep breath...
Frankly I am getting a little bored, in fact slightly irritated, by all the over the top wailing mawkish press about 9/11. Given today's newsprint/Radio/TV output one would think half the population of the world, all of the new born babies, and every pet dog in the world had been thrown into a giant volcano.
Given that the death toll from the Japanese Tsunami (a televised event with just as much shock and awe factor) is over 6 times higher than the events in the US, will we have a as much press coverage in ten years time about that event? you bet your boots we wont.
In truth all this public heart wringing is doing is providing the perpetrators of the event everlasting press, No doubt to much smirking, glee and satisfaction.
It happened, no-one is going to forget it, so just get over it.
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If I analyzed it, I'd probably agree with you. In reality that's a feature of our culture. Trouble is we all have our personal 9/11s which we have to cope with.
Last edited by: R.P. on Sun 11 Sep 11 at 16:36
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Given it some thought again - maybe I don't agree with you either. 9/11 defined the rest of the decade, I have heard it compared to the battle of the Marne (probably the most significant battle of a very significant war, nearly a 100 years ago now) also compares with Princip's shot in Sarajevo in 1914 - the reverberations of 9/11 have affected us all - our country has been at war continually since 2001 because of it.....but then again I think there has been too much coverage on the media this time around.
The Tsunami doesn't really bear comparison for a couple of reasons (although I agree with your examples) - 9/11 attacks were an act of war a deliberate murder plot, which speaks volumes for our species - the Tsunami was a natural disaster - two different things really.
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>> Given it some thought again - maybe I don't agree with you either. 9/11 defined
>> the rest of the decade,
I don't think it did. Ok its made getting onto a plane a deeply annoying event, but as for the country being at war? the Islamic terrorist merely inhabited the vacuum left by the Irish Nationalists.
Anyway made my points!
Last edited by: Zero on Sun 11 Sep 11 at 16:49
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>> In reality that's a feature of
>> our culture.
In truth I don't think it is a feature of our culture, I think its a purely manufactured press event.
Trouble is we all have our personal 9/11s which we have to cope
>> with.
Exactly, so what makes the 9/11 victims so special? (sounds bad put like that I know, but I think this press overkill about 9/11 devalues other similar tragic events or personal losses)
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In isolation I agree with the Press overkill - doesn't detract from the historical significance of the event. It was the end of America's childhood.
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>>Frankly I am getting a little bored, in fact slightly irritated<<
+1 ... In fact I've so-far managed to avoid the 'news' on the telly and the wireless but,
I've noticed the freedom fighters in Afghanistan have managed to injure 77 US troops in Bagram.
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While I can understand the reason for marking the tenth anniversary the whole thing is now suffering from the Diana Effect, false grief and hand wringing for no other reason than people feel they should.
Three thousand deaths is a lot less than occurred on many a day during the two world wars.
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I was in town with the daughter,people where looking into shops televisions.Daughter and me thought there was a sale on.We had a look and saw the buildings collapsing.Not a nice way to go whatever the rights or wrongs.I think its the deaths in one go what is the shock.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki comes to mind.
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>> Three thousand deaths is a lot less than occurred on many a day during the
>> two world wars.
Very true, I think that about 2,200 people die of malaria every day.
Still, I think that 9/11 is going to reverberate for a long time yet. Both the Afghan and Iraq wars have a foundation in that day, and they will have long term ramifications.
I think that it will also lead to further action in the future, Iran being a possible flash-point.
But really, there is little point in comparing deaths from malaria to deaths from terrorism, at least to an involved party, or a party that feels at threat.
If somebody I knew was murdered, the fact that 2,000 people had died on the same day from malaria would have little significance to me, even less if I thought that the group that carried out the killing was hoping to kill again.
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I was doing some work at the MOD at the time when we heard about it. Couldn't get any information on the internet since I guess too many users were trying to log on. In the end I went into the car park and sat in my car listening to the radio.
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I was teaching a class of Year 9 when my son rang me - he worked in a local radio station and was in newsroom when first news came through. Oddly, I always switched my phone off when teaching but had, by accident, left it on on this occasion. "Dad, switch on your TV NOW" he said. "Film coming in of a plane flying straight into World Trade Centre". Don't be daft, I thought but switched on TV anyway - I think pupils thought we were going to watch a video of Amazon Forest destruction! I switched on TV and class were transfixed - I sent a couple of pupils to other classes to tell them and they switched on TVs also. Shortly afterwards, bell rang for change of classes but no-one in school moved - everyone was just sitting gaping at the TV pictures. Thing I remember most was the strange silence, apart from the odd gasp and a lot of "Oh my God". Everyone was in a state of shock - some pupils even thought it was a hoax, a strange sci-fi film.
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"Three thousand deaths is a lot less than occurred on many a day during the two world wars. "
Quite right. 60,000 casualties (not deaths) on first day of the Somme. But the sense of shock is the thing. It's something you couldn't believe would/could happen - Kennedy, Martin Luther King, 9/11, 7/7, individual young soldiers killed in Iraq or Afghanistan - these things make a mark. Jim Morrison's and Otis Redding's deaths affected me more at the time than Diana's did - I couldn't really understand the fuss about her. But then I can go to a WW1 cemetery in France and shed a tear for some unknown young man killed all those years ago......... especially if it mentions on the gravestone his wife and young kids.
One thing is certain, it makes me realise how lucky I have been ..... carpe diem you lot
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9/11 - Where were you ? - Westpig
