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Post by Mlle Antéchrist on Sept 11, 2011 2:30:40 GMT -5
I was in school at the time. I found out about what happened when I walked into science class (late, as usual) and found everyone sitting around the radio, listening to the reports.
During most of my classes, we either listened to the radio while doing school work or simply sat and watched the events unfold on TV. A couple of my teachers talked to the class about what had happened, in order to educate us on what was happening and reassure us that we probably weren't in any danger (which we knew, but the thought was still at the back of our minds).
The thing I remember most vividly was sitting in English class and seeing the footage of the towers collapsing for the first time. Literally everyone in the class gasped in shock when they showed it. No sobbing or screaming, but it was obvious that everyone was freaked out by it. The whole thing seemed so unbelievable that it took time for it to really hit me that there were real, live people trapped in the buildings.
After school, I sat up watching the news with my dad until I had to go to bed. I was glued to the TV news for the next couple days.
Canada isn't all that foreign, but: The reaction here was a strong outpouring of pro-Americanism. All of the jokes about Americans being ignorant, racist, etc. nearly disappeared for a few months in the aftermath (though there was still the odd asshole who made comments about America deserving it, etc.), views of the US became more positive, and some people even bought and displayed American flags to show their solidarity.
In a nutshell, our reaction was a slightly toned-down version of the response in the US, including the anti-Muslim sentiment, fear of further attacks, and so on.
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Post by Random Guy on Sept 11, 2011 2:40:50 GMT -5
I was 13 and in 8th grade. I was just on my way to the first class of the day when one of my friends walked by in the hall and told me that the World Trade Center had been bombed.
As it turns out, the school heard about what happened but deliberately tried to keep the students from learning about it. One student had smuggled a radio into school for some reason, though, so information did get out.
There were rumors flying everywhere, ranging from "The president is dead" to "The plane that hit the Pentagon was a Russian fighter jet." I actually thought everything was just made up and being spread around for lulz at first, but as the story got more consistent throughout the day, I realized it was true.
My worst fear that day was that my dad, who was in the Navy, was going to be called out to war and I would never see him again. Incidentally, the day before the attack, he had been in the very section of the Pentagon that would be hit by the plane.
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Post by Armand Tanzarian on Sept 11, 2011 2:56:45 GMT -5
Because I'm not American, I don't think I understood the impact of the towers hitting. It was a school holiday so I slept late, so when my mother came into my room to tell me someone hit the towers it was already 9.30am, 12 hours after the towers were hit.
I don't remember feeling anything significant. I suppose it wasn't as big a psychological effect out here, either that or no one actually knew the true impact to the attacks until we all grew older (I was 13).
There's your answer.
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Post by Deimos on Sept 11, 2011 3:12:56 GMT -5
Well when I heard about it was a few weeks after it had happened. I was probably sleeping when it did actually happen though, my best guess. (i was 11 so my memory is a little fuzzy)
As for the reaction, I asked a couple people what they thought, it was basically a shrug and they got back to whatever they were doing.
My reaction though was of general apathy, that was pretty much how I reacted to all world events (if I heard about them) back then
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Post by Meshakhad on Sept 11, 2011 3:12:59 GMT -5
I was 12, living in Cambridge, England at the time. School was just getting out around 4 pm when my mom runs up to me and tells me that planes had hit the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Then the school went crazy as everyone was running around trying to find out what had happened. All we could agree on was that there had been a major terrorist attack on the US. Rumors named pretty much every building on the East Coast as a target. I had actually misunderstood my mom and thought that the Pentagon had been bombed, not hit by a plane. It's a miracle that out of the approximately two hundred relatives I have in New York, not one was killed.
It also took me a few days to believe that the Towers had actually fallen. And two years before I saw any footage. I think I actually avoided it for some reason.
About the reactions of foreigners, I was in a good place to see them. The prevailing emotion was shock that this could happen, in America of all places. There was immense sympathy for America, and most people supported the invasion of Afghanistan. It's hard to compare, because I didn't actually get to see the American reaction as it happened.
There's an American World War II cemetery outside Cambridge. I think that it was supposed to be considered American soil, like our embassies are. I visited it periodically, for one reason or another, while I was there. One of those times was shortly after the attacks. I remember walking into the chapel, and seeing a massive pile of flowers filling the area around the altar - as in, you couldn't reach the damn altar without stepping on flowers. A beautiful tribute from the locals - and I'm one of the few Americans who ever saw it.
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servo
Full Member
Posts: 137
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Post by servo on Sept 11, 2011 3:30:38 GMT -5
I am in Australia so I had the news later due to time zones. 11 September 2001 - It was just another school day, grade 3. We had a few weeks before our school concert, so we practiced our class' performance, set to the Beatles' "A Little Help from my Friends". My teacher was a huge Beatles fan. It was a typical spring day, sunny with a few clouds. 12 September 2001 - I woke up at 7:30am, standard procedure. Hopped out of bed and walked to the lounge room. Before turning on the TV, I change the channel on our VCR to Channel 10, where the cartoons were. I was a Pokémon fan, so I was looking forward to that. When I turned on the TV however, instead of Ash and Pikachu, I saw people running through smoke and dust. I couldn't understand what was going on. Everyone else in the family woke up in time to see taped footage of one of the World Trade Center towers falling. This was hard to process in my 9-year-old mind, I was terrified but fascinated at the same time. Everyone at school was talking about it, but I don't remember much else that day. 13 September 2001 - I guess I was still ticked off that most of TV was still on about the attacks, especially on Channel 2, where cartoons were on in the afternoon. Between programs, they would have news updates with a disclaimer saying that footage was not suitable for children. I thought... what's the point? Just show the news AFTER the cartoons!
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Post by Doctor Fishcake on Sept 11, 2011 5:04:46 GMT -5
I was incommunicado, scanning photos (remember scanners?) that I'd just got developed. When I turned on the TV the first thing I saw was smoke billowing out of the pentagon and a breaking news caption on screen that said Yasser Arafat condemned the attacks (plural). At that point I assumed there'd been a car bomb at the Pentagon - this was only a few years after Oklahoma City and the Atlanta Olympic park, after all. At that point, I still had no idea at all about what happened in NY. From that point on the rest of the day was a total blur.
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Post by clockworkgirl21 on Sept 11, 2011 5:12:21 GMT -5
I was in 6th grade art class. The principal came in and told us planes had hit into the Twin Towers, and left. I had never even heard of the TT, and I was thinking, "That's sad and all, but why would you interrupt class to tell us about a plane crash?" The rest of the day went on as usual. During lunch the news was on, but no one really watched it. I don't remember any talk about 9/11 at all that day besides the principal telling us.
I didn't learn the significance of it until I came home.
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Post by Caitshidhe on Sept 11, 2011 6:18:23 GMT -5
I was in ninth grade shop class. There was an announcement overhead but no one could hear it because we were using belt-sanders, saws, and drills.
The rest of the day there were TVs on in all the classrooms and no one tried to teach any lessons. We were all dumbfounded and staring helplessly at the TVs at the chaos steadily unfolding. The only teacher I had who tried to teach was my English teacher and to this day I hate To Kill A Mockingbird because of her.
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Post by Shane for Wax on Sept 11, 2011 6:22:43 GMT -5
Aww. That's too bad I like that book.
Oh, and I was in... 7th grade?
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Post by largeham on Sept 11, 2011 6:36:14 GMT -5
I was eight and woke up in the morning to watch some TV before school. I remember being annoyed that all the channels were showing the attacks and not Pokemon/Dragonball Z.
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Post by Vypernight on Sept 11, 2011 6:42:05 GMT -5
My situation was kind of freaky. I was off of work that day, and my little brother and I were exchanging Star Wars Stories over emails. I hadn't watched TV at all that morning or looked at anything online except for emails, so I had no clue what was going on.
Anyway, while eating breakfast, I sent one story to my brother and started working on the next one. I finished it, but then remembered I had to go to the store to pick up groceries. While in the car, I heard about the attack on the radio and saw it on TV when I got home. I promptly deleted my story.
The storyline we were doing was a a more-violent group of Imperials had started a new war with the New Republic (NJO hadn't finished yet). My latest story was about a terrorist attack on Corruscant which caused several buildings to collapse (Being Corruscant, it made sense in the story.
Oh, and on my computer, I also had Lego Creator, with an animation of a plane hitting a building. Being legos and being pre-9/11, I thought it was funny.
I also tend to be a skeptic, but I was a little freaked out that day.
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Post by SimSim on Sept 11, 2011 7:10:41 GMT -5
I was 21 and a junior in college, I watched it all unfold live. Turned the tv on not long after the first plane hit, and the anchors on CNN were speculating that a plane had accidently flown in to the one of the towers. I saw the second plane hit, saw the towers fall.
I vividly remember watching some CNN dude standing a building's roof and watching a plane streak by him and hit the second tower. Sat there in a shock for a few seconds and thought that wasn't an accident.
Then there were reports of a fire on the National Mall and reports that the Pentagon had also been hit. That worried me because at the time I had an uncle who was firefighter in DC and he was stationed just off the Mall.
The university that I was attending had a lot of students from Northern New Jersey and New York City area. About 90% of people on my dorm floor that year were from that area. At about 11 one the guys from the room next to me came back from class. He said his mother had called him and said something bad had happened with the towers, but she wouldn't say what it was. This was a guy who could see the towers from his backyard at home and I had to explain to him everything that happened.
The two most striking things about the day were just how somber the campus was and that there were no planes flying. That day was just filled with people talking on their cellphones trying to get through to friends and family. Remember going to the dining hall for lunch and nobody was talking, everyone was just watching the news on the big tv and eating. The day just felt surreal.
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Post by Whore of Spamylon on Sept 11, 2011 7:19:39 GMT -5
I was in 9th grade and I walked into my first class of the day, and the teacher had the TV on as it was happening live. At that point, only one tower had a plane flown into it, so there was still speculation as to what exactly happened (or is happening).
I don't remember the exact channel (I think it was CNN), but I remember that specific channel had its helicopter uniquely positioned on the exact opposite side of the second tower to where the second plane hit. I remember seeing an "explosion" of unknown origin (as characterized by the news anchor for the station) in the second tower, and 5 to 10 minutes later the station was informed that it was indeed a second aircraft. I think they may have even gotten footage from a different angle on the air before the towers fell.
My second period class didn't have a TV rolling, and I think the teachers might have been ordered to turn off the TVs later that day in order to keep normal activities of the day carrying on. I didn't help matters much as everyone had so many questions as to what was happening while the answers came about by word of mouth. I remember it was the second period in which I was informed by my teacher that either one or both towers fell while a plane just flew into the pentagon.
At 15 years old, I still had a lot to learn, but I understood then that this incident required great logistical capability on the part of those that were able to hide in the shadows right up until they carried out their actions, and from that point on my imagination was running wild as to what humanity's future in general had in store.
But what depressed me the most was that, days later, it seemed that many Americans were starting to embrace religious zealotry all the while they were looking down the gun barrel of similar zealotry.
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Post by Whore of Spamylon on Sept 11, 2011 7:25:09 GMT -5
All we did was watch CNN that day, and it was neat to have an expert in the field talk regularly to us about what was going on, where it had come from, and what it could mean. Same here. I was lucky to have someone who as able to put the situation in context since it was context that was needed.
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