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Bu**er - one of my friends worked on the 105th floor and I had dealings with the whole desk of Cantors (floors 104 & 105).
Earlier that year I'd been in NY in Windows on the world and up on the roof (viewing platform) still amazed that helicopters and weather planes were below us.
Everybody I spoke to in London knew someone in the building, fortunately a lot got out OK. Another friend got on the Staten island ferry just before the first one came down.
The weeks following it were surreal.
I for one did partake in the 2 minute silences, my mate's wife was expecting their second.
Why `shrill'?
Why is being as bothered about non American and British lives `right on'? If it is then fine.
Political idiocy - yep seen lots of that in the last 3 years...
I'm sorry you lost loved ones, and I'm just as sorry for families in Iraq who lost loved ones in the ensuing war as well.
How did I feel when the Americans killed the innocents? Ditto. How do I feel having seen the events at Beslan? Ditto. Life is precious. God help us all...
It werent until later that I found out about the towers and the reason why he was panicking was because his brother was a few blocks away from the towers. Fortunately he was o.k.
I will never forget the pictures I saw on the news when I got home. I just couldnt believe what I was seeing.
I suspect we can all remember what we were doing that day - if only because the media coverage of the event was so intrusive and the pictures so dramatic.
It was an atrocity which ended the lives of some 3000 innocent people. We should also remember that it has led to the deaths of thousands more since, as a result of Bush's dishonest linking of this attack with Saddam Hussein's Iraq - and that the toll is still rising.
Btw, does anyone remember what they were doing when they first became aware that hundreds (yes, hundreds) of thousands of people had been massacred in Rwanda?
Thought not.
Why do you wish that I hadn't started the thread? Some people have chosen to say what they were doing when it happened, I haven't, I was merely reflecting on the cultural significance of the event itself. The fall of the Berlin Wall was also a significant event during our life time* but I don't remember what I was doing when I heard the news. Possibly Sept 11 is the first major "event" during my adulthood, all I know is is that it generated fears in me that weren't flamed by the media or Government announcements. Maybe a better comparison of the effect of the event would be to compare it to how the Americans felt when they discovered that Cuba had Soviet nuclear weapons on it's shores and they felt they were standing on the brink of an all out nuclear nightmare.
As terrible as the event itself, my feelings/fears at the time of Sept 11 were far more personal and along the lines of "Are we/am I next?".
*well I consider it significant as it signalled the end of the "Cold War" and the collapse of the Soviet Union
The atrocities in Rwanda have been going on for years, I first became aware of it when working in Zaire in 1991, and have kept a keen eye on developments in that region ever since. Sickens me know every time I read about it. The riots in Kinshasa that prompted me leaving also left 000s dead. I don't think that was reported at all here.
The difference with sep 11th was that for most westerners it was a bit too close to home and the fact that it was ruthless slaughter in the workplace hammered the point home. Even being in London for IRA bombs (Canary Wharf/Baltic Exchange/London Bridge) didn't have the same effect.
I don't value one life more than any other, however it is my nature (rightly or wrongly) to feel more compassion for a nation with whom I personally have close affinities.
Therefore the Rwanda/West AFrica thing for personal reasons, and all Western events including the Berlin Wall (GMTV before going to work). I feel sad about events in the middle east but it doesn't strike the same feelings in me. Sorry.
My feelings then were that it was all rather surreal - it is a hard statement to make but like most of us I am probably more used to tens of thousands of people in the third world being massacred or starving than I am terrorist attacks on this scale in the centre of New York.
It didn't affect me emotionally - I didn't know anyone involved and I didn't relate to the victims in any way - it was another tragedy but as others say not unknown in scale.
I do find it a difficult subject because on the one hand you want to respect the fact that thousands died - on the other hand the commemoration of this tragedy above many others is in itself a political act.
I do find it rather telling that they couldn't leave the area as a memorial garden - we all know why.
I'd ran the FLM for them earlier that year. The planes had been crashing whilst we were on the train journey up from Portsmouth. We never learned what had happened till about 4pm.
The thank you reception got cancelled & we had to rush back to Waterloo for fear that the rail stations were going to closed & we'd have been stranded in London.
We did get home okay though - after some understandable delays.
TTT.
Friend was in NY. Big time city Banker. Had a few txts flying back and forth offering to be of any assistance I could as he couldn't get out of USA. Wow.
Found out the other day, apparently 50% of the twin towers was asbestos, ie the big white cloud of the aftermath. That'll be fun in 20 years.
Didn't connect emmotionally as I didn't think there was anyone I knew in NYC, latter found out that my cousin left the trade centre one hour before the attack. To be honest the attack in Russia affected me more, can't understand why anyone would hurt children
I think one of the things about Sept 11 is the fact that almost all of it was captured live on TV whereas most of the events before it haven't been.
Recently I was in Moscow for work and had to fly out the day after their 2 planes were bombed and whilst I was there the metro station bomb and the Beslan siege also happened. At the moment I think its changed my perspective on things and I find it hard to listen to radio DJs talking about inconsequential crap and don't find it interesting to read all the rubbish printed in the papers.
I didn't until an hour or so later
and then sat there thinking we were entering world war 3. very very weird, and horrible feeling. was waiting for an announcement that london had been attacked, it really felt like all out war. horrible
Last Saturday's a complete blank to me.
Our hotel was attached to a World Trade Centre in the far east. I felt the fear!
I remember for a few months afterwards, whenever there was a large building shown on TV, I half expected a plane to appear and crash into it.