Where were you on september 11 2001

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6 years 6 months ago - 6 years 6 months ago #301272 by Lykeios Little Raven
I was at school. It was the first or second week of eighth grade for me. I remember exactly which one of my friends told me about the attacks too. Mark Stafford. He rushed over to me as I was just getting on campus and said something like "did you see the news? We're under attack, the Trade Center is falling!" Then I remember none of my teachers bothered assigning work or teaching anything, they all just put the TVs on to news channels and we all watched the towers fall. I remember being angry. Very angry.

I don't remember being scared or anything. Just angry and filled with hate. I'm pretty sure I suggested (strongly) that we should just nuke the crap out of the terrorists until there were none left. Thankfully I've grown up since then.

“Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.” -Zhuangzi

“Though, as the crusade presses on, I find myself altogether incapable of staying here in saftey while others shed their blood for such a noble and just cause. For surely must the Almighty be with us even in the sundering of our nation. Our fight is for freedom, for liberty, and for all the principles upon which that aforementioned nation was built.” - Patrick “Madman of Galway” O'Dell
Last edit: 6 years 6 months ago by Lykeios Little Raven.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Kobos

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6 years 6 months ago #301278 by

Adder wrote: The only us and them I read into the OP was the attacked and the attackers, which side one aligns to would seem to be up to the individual reading it I would have thought?


You've got my meaning precisely Adder. I think it is very likely that we will likely be, or know, or meet, someone who creates "us" and "them" groups based on misunderstandings about hats. (It's more than this, but I prefer to keep things light). That is how pervasive I feel the rhetoric after 11th September became, and that is my enduring memory of the day.

Two of my partners' friends were killed in a terrorist bombing in Brussels - they were siblings, and had met there to continue on their way together to visit their parents. Their parents told us at a memorial at the International School how important it was that this did not become an attack of "Islam" on "Belgians". It was not the twin towers, but they are the people I know with the closest personal experience of the impacts of terrorism on citizen lives. I was tremendously moved by how they had overcome the potential to hate general groups after the loss of their children. That is courageous compassion.

We could help people to see themselves as "in the us group, not the them group" as Adder did; but I think it is also important to challenge the talk of "us" and "them". I know this, as I can know myself as an "us" person - but I will be treated as a "them" if I wear a particular hat. A woman was kicked down the subway steps in Berlin because of her hat. Feeling I am in the "us" group will not stop my arm being broken by ignorance. I need to challenge it when I perceive it in others. I believe the rhetoric after September 11th made those groups far larger than (relatively) small number of "the attacked" and "the attackers". And I can safely say much of the Middle East was more Western facing ideologically and politically, before that day. The rhetoric changed perceptions in false ways internationally; and I feel those perceptions need challenging.

I think, and hope, Jedi are equipped with the skills to challenge this tricky problem, whatever hat it wears today - socialism, being old, being brown, being atheist, being gay.. People on these forums mix with an extremely diverse group, and they're trained to tolerance, to listening, to perceiving; I think the Jedi will make a good bunch of folks to challenge the "us" and "them" -ism that came after September 11th.

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6 years 6 months ago #301282 by
I was part of USN 7th Fleet combat command, and the one who triggered the alert for the Pacific theater. My best friend died in the Pentagon that day. Come October I was shipped off to Afghanistan.

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6 years 6 months ago #301288 by
I was supposed to be in the pentagon that day, the third plane hit the Navy area of the pentagon. However my Bride was in the hospital because her appendix just ruptured, so my trip was delayed.

Once they hit, still waiting to find out how my bride was doing, I was called back to the base to open up the emergency weapons magazines and advise the base Commander. The base went into lock down. I could not leave.

Three days later I was deployed. I am used to deployments, but this one was very unexpected, and I was leaving my loved ones in the ICU of the hospital. This event changed a lot for the future of the military.

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6 years 5 months ago - 6 years 5 months ago #302954 by
Hello,

Actually I was flying in a plane :blink:

My journey from the Alpine mountains Pictured in my Profile.

:D
Last edit: 6 years 5 months ago by .

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