Remembering 9/11

I really wish we still had those original threads.

That's the first time I've seen those threads. It's a good reminder that people do care about each other. The 5 years since 9/11 seem to have gone by so quickly, although in fairness there have been some major changes in my life so that could be partly why it feels that way to me. I hope that we never do let it slip from our minds what a terrible day that was. We owe it to the ones lost, their families, ourselves & all future generations.

We had about 4 threads that were multiple pages that were extremely bonding and scary and stuff that transcended the snark and infighting this place is known for. I wish they were salvagable.

I read a breaking news article about a plane hitting a WTC tower, while I was at college. Not much details on how or why at the time. I got home an hour or two later and both towers were gone, I couldnt believe it, even now I sometimes cant believe the live images I saw on TV that day, so surreal.

We see and read about horror everyday in various parts of the world, the New York urban setting gave this a new dimension, the fact that it was American civilians on American soil gave it a new dimension, no nation deserves what happened five years ago.

But it continues to happen anyway, Lebanon has seen its own type of 9/11 more recently, buildings were slammed with rockets instead of planes but the terror and loss of loved ones is the same.

All we can do is continue to care about each other best we can, regardless of race, gender, etc, like those threads display. Dont become your enemy. I truly believe you can and you should counter evil with good. Maybe some snark, but not too much.

The day it happened, with sites like CNN flooded, I wasn't getting my news from tv--I was literally reading the thread on CHUD and reporting it back to my journalism class.

People always talk about how they'll remember seeing the towers fall on television, but for me, it's radio. We didn't have a tv in our classroom when we got word, so I'll always remember Dan Rather describing the first tower falling over the air.

And as someone who lived in New York for the three years after (2002-2005, including the '04 RNC), it was certainly an interesting time to be living in that city. I really bonded with the place and I do consider it my home now and I was extremely affected by visiting Ground Zero at eleven o'clock at night one winter evening. However, I realize that it's different for me because I wasn't there, and even talking about it with my friends--who by and large were--is still awkward and weird. I feel closer to the events of that day now that I've lived in the city, but I think that I'll never be able to relate. I really wanted to go back for a few days for the 5th anniversary, but that wasn't possible.

I remember finding the second or third thread on one of those archive sites out there a few months ago, but the initial one, where it goes from "Hey, some dumbass pilot fucked up" to "Um, dear God," that's lost in the ether.

I remember sitting at my desk at Morgan Stanley (a job eventually lost as a result of the attacks) madly typing in updates from the UP newswire our stock ticker had and not able to believe I was actually reading some of it. I remember the "Nuke the bastards" contingent, the cooler heads prevailing, harsh words and then reconciliations, furtive wonderings as to Devin and Diva, wild rumors, wilder truths, and the stunned simultaneous posts when the towers finally fell.

When people ask what these boards are capapble of being, it's too bad we don't have those threads to point to.

I recall waking up on 9/11, casually flipping to CNN and then having this surreal, disconnected feeling about the whole thing.
I wasn't scared and I wasn't particularly shocked (that reads cold but I felt something like it had to happen eventually), I just knew that we all got caught with our pants down and I wanted to know the who? what? and why? It seemed to beat the alternative of freaking out and flagging people down with doomsday signs, which I saw plenty of on that day.

After things got a little "clearer" and we got a name and a purpose attached to the act, I was all for hitting these guys as hard as we could but with the caveat that we'd finally get to know and understand our neighbors; too bad the people running the machine felt otherwise.

I remember the enormous surge of goodwill towards us in the days following 9/11. You had the National Anthem being played at the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, and American embassies all over the world being thronged by people leaving flowers, candles, cards, signs, or just standing there generating positive thoughts towards us. And five years later, we've pissed all that goodwill away.

That's the year my first daughter was born, and I remember me and my wife scarred for her safety for the very first time. We saw the whole thing live, I was not working because I was taking my baby to the doctor.

At the doctor's office one of the nurses told us "They hit the Pentagon" and I told my wife how she was clearly wrong because that was impossible. We got back on the car and it was confirmed, what a surreal and sad day.

Exactly. I wasn't bloodthirsty, I was optimistic, and then Iraq...

I forget where I read it--I think it was in an Al Franken book, or maybe Maureen Dowd's (whose article on 9/11 is just amazing)--but the author made the point that after September 11, the United States had an amazing, unprecedented opportunity, the opportunity that comes along once in a lifetime. He had one chance, one moment, to take advantage of that worldwide unification--across race, gender, religion, lines--and he chose instead to alienate everyone, rip civil liberties to shreds, and, as Richard said, piss all that goodwill away.

Sad.

Yes, unfortunately, that is the Path From 9/11.

I don't think everything can be put down to the goodwill being pissed away. I think the sad truth is that a lot of people do forget how bad that day was, and not deliberately, but in the way that time naturally makes us think less about things. The old saying that "time is a healer" is true, but it's not always a good thing. That's why I believe things like this thread are such a good thing, they give us a way to remember that day & what it meant to us. I'm sure at some point tomorrow I'll shed another tear for the people who died, and for the act of sheer hatred that led to their deaths. I always do whenever I watch anything about it.

I just finished watching "United 93" for the first time. I wept openly the last ten minutes, I am not ashamed to admit.

9/11 is what got my fat ass to drop 80 lbs and join the military. Little did I know that I would be headed to Iraq instead.

It was a surreal feeling that day. It didn't matter who you were, there was this sense of shock and dread in everybody. I remember "Band of Brothers" had just premiered a few days earlier, and how strange it was the next week watching it after we had our own version of Pearl Harbor.

The point of this thread is how close everyone was as this all went down and I don't think things are as different as people wants to portray it, regardless of what has happened in CHUD world. I wasn't registered here at the time, but I read CHUD. I read the boards. I saw what went on and I know that similar feeling of being connected went on on every board imaginable. I was concerned and worried about many NY people that I either extensively or superficially talked to. It was a very strange, very sad, surreal series of days as we all communicated and tracked down one another and shared stories. It's the one moment in my existence that we were ALL Americans and it's a damn shame that political and religious beliefs have become so intensified and polarized since then so that we no longer feel that connection.

I don't think this site is all that disconnected, despite the ammount of snarky sniping and infighting that goes on. I dare say that, regardless of what we post, regardless of how much shit we talk to one another, we're a pretty tight nit community. Except for the very new, we all sort of know each other and at the core, respect one another to a certain degree. The worst poster here is still more pop culture knowledged and connected to me than most of the people I know.

Hold a moment as an example of coming together, view a time period in rose colored glasses if you will, I think we're still pretty much there and I hope we never have such a moment again to prove it. Nick, you've said yourself, there's lots of good posters left. I think because of the nature of this site, there always will be.

There's my first and only up with CHUDdies moment, but I think it fits. This site has always had better than average posters and I'm betting it always will.

I've had a few laughs this morning reading peoples away messages that are now 9/11 memorials. God knows what their MySpace pages look like.

Howard Stern re-aired the 9/11 show at the exact 5 year anniversary that the first plane hit. It's really interesting and very raw. Nobody has their composure, which is quite the opposite of most journalists on that day and is far more interesting.

Co-worker of mine is listening to Hot 97, and they had a moment of silence annouced this morning at the moment the first plane struck. Sounds nice, except that it was done in the typical booming radio announcer voice, and was followed immediately by "DOWNLOAD THE BEST TRACKS FROM HOT 97 ON ITUNES, YA HEARD?"

Also, someone's got an agenda today. They've got people "calling up" talking about how sick they are because of working down there. It's obviously been written down because they cough before starting their conversations and then go into a monotone of the horrors of that day. I've never heard someone talk about people jumping 100 floors to their death with no emotion in their voice before, but hey, there's something new every day.

Don't get me wrong, I know people who've gotten sick (even someone who got leukemia) but jesus fucking christ, this is why I don't ever listen to mainstream news or radio. I'll mourn my own way.

I hear you. I had a rare free couple of hours today where I could watch United 93 undisturbed. I'd been putting off watching it for awhile but today of all days I watched it. After having a lump in my throat for much of the film I have to say I totally lost it at the end.

I started the missing Chud 9/11 thread. I did so after this Russian programmer told me that his wife just called from the WTC and said they were evacuated. I looked on CNN and the headline was Plane Crashes Into WTC --- which I believe was the thread title.

Which makes me very important.

I am history.

Great. Now Indy and Belloq are going to fight over you.

/puts down bazooka.