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September 11, 2006

I work in a telecom technical control center in DC. We always have a big screen tv on CNN as world events do tend to explain certain outages on the network. (The SF earthquake comes to mind)

I remember seeing the first images of the damage to the north tower and right away I knew that no pilot could blunder into such a disasterous crash on such a pristine and clear day. Although I'd visited the WTC towers I still thought it looked like a commuter plane sized hole. (scale is hard to properly invision...the towers were massive...as was the plane)

As we stood there puzzling over the improbability of such a thing we saw the South Tower just explode. I never saw the plane...just the fireball. Soon thereafter came a report that the Pentagon was burning. We went up to the roof of our building on M street NW in DC and watched. All around us other somber people gathered on other rooftops...just watching the sky as a fighter plane circled overhead and the smoke smeared the otherwise cloudless sky.

Back down in the tech control we had work to do. The Pentagon needed some of their circuits placed on emergency re-routes. When the towers fell we lost a rather large chunk of circuits which transited Manhattan...us morning guys stayed until midnight helping to find re-route paths for government international circuits. It was just as well...I remember looking out a window at absolute gridlock on the streets outside my building...we weren't going anywhere.

I remember all day long hearing reports that there were fires burning at the Smithsonian...the Capitol...and White House...all false reports which were spread by various media outlets. It was chaos....and the CTers...don't they love to hang their hats upon the earliest reports. Morons!

Every day when I'd ride into the city we'd pass the Pentagon after coming off the HOV lanes of 395. I always noticed one window full of trophies close to the helipad. I always wondered who owned them and what they were for. It was a lazy thought I had had every day for at least two years after first noticing that window. But after 9/11's smoke cleared that window and all it contained was simply gone. I still hope that Mr. or Ms. Trophy guy was off that day; but a person that energetic and competative likely wasn't off slacking.

-z
 
Sword_Of_Truth said:
I heard about CNN webcasting thier original coverage as it happened.

Expect thousands of loosers to stay at home today happily quote mining as though anything said within the first hours after the attacks were the proclamations of a god-like omniscience.
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Well, i ain't a looser, but besides for that(and the quote mining) it sorta fits me. Though i lost 20min of the webcast. For instance, the second plane. Hope i can get the missing pieces from somewhere else.

Already heard a lot of good stuff, like "it was a propellar plane". I'm sure the 9/11 deniers will LOVE that.

/me fumes
 
NDBoston said:
I was at 7WTC on the 43rd floor when the first plane hit.

There's not a day goes by that I don't think about what happened and saw and I mourn the loss of my friends.

I won't ever forget and won't rest until people like Dylan Avery and Alex Jones stop profiting from the death of my friends.
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:hug2:
 
My tiny contribution

My local newspaper, the Brattleboro (VT) Reformer, proved once and for all that they're a pandering bunch of journalistic whores by publishing this front page article ( www.reformer.com/localnews/ci_4317648 ), today -- on the farking anniversary of 9/11, no less.

I just dashed off the following letter. I'll let you know if they publish it:


Editor of the Reformer:

How dare you?

How dare you, on the fifth anniversary of the tragic events of 9/11, print a completely uncritical, front-page story about a local band of 9/11 deniers? How dare you call them the "9/11 truth group" (note the uncapitalized "t" in "truth," as if you're simply stating a fact). How dare you headline the continuation of this story on page 6 as "Truth"? Is this an attempt by the reporter (and by extension, the Reformer) to telegraph his support for the 9/11 deniers? Doesn't the Reformer have any sense of occasion, or even shame?

Had your reporter been even remotely interested in a balanced story, a simple web search would have quickly revealed that every one of the 9/11 deniers claims -- *every one of them* -- has been utterly debunked many times over (for example, see www.loosechangeguide.com/LooseChangeGuide.html). Why didn't he mention that no qualified structural engineer or demolitions expert has endorsed the 9/11 deniers theory that the Twin Towers were brought down by a controlled demolition? Why didn't he mention that the leaders of this so-called "movement" lack any qualifications whatsoever to give an informed opinion of what happened that day? Why didn't he offer even a single skeptical word in the entire article?

Perhaps even more interesting is what your reporter chose to leave out. Why didn't he mention just a few of the insane theories the 9/11 deniers are promoting? Among other things, some of them believe that when the Twin Towers were constructed in the early 1970's, they were *built with explosives mixed into their concrete*, for the day when they could be blown up. Many believe that no planes crashed into the Twin Towers or the Pentagon -- instead, these buildings were hit by missiles, with holographic images of airliners projected onto them. Most believe that no passengers called their relatives from the doomed Flight 93; instead these calls were placed by government agents using voice morphing technology. And that's just the tip of the iceberg to their craziness. It's also interesting that the article doesn't mention the very strong streak of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial that permeates the 9/11 denier community. Worst of all, 9/11 deniers have accused thousands of people of premeditated murder with no evidence whatsoever, including members of the government, a father who put his own son on the plan, and most despicable and cowardly of all, members of the New York Fire Department who saw many of their brethren die that horrible day. But I suppose mentioning such inconvenient facts would have made it harder to show the 9/11 deniers in such a sympathetic light, wouldn't it?

There's no good way of saying this: The timing, placement, and content of your article was a ringing insult to the memory of all those who lost their lives that day. It was a despicable article about a despicable group of people, and the Reformer should be thoroughly ashamed for even considering running it.
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I couldn't even bring myself to conclude with "Sincerely" above my name -- screw them.
 
Sword_Of_Truth said:
I heard about CNN webcasting thier original coverage as it happened.

Expect thousands of loosers to stay at home today happily quote mining as though anything said within the first hours after the attacks were the proclamations of a god-like omniscience.
Click to expand...
Interesting, the first tower collapsed a few minutes ago and the reporter is constantly referring to the collapse (which he isn't yet aware of) as "the second explosion". Isn't that wat CT's often refer to?

Edit: Oh and the explosion reported near the capitol was actually the part of Pentagon collapsing.
 
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NDBoston said:
I was at 7WTC on the 43rd floor when the first plane hit.

There's not a day goes by that I don't think about what happened and saw and I mourn the loss of my friends.

I won't ever forget and won't rest until people like Dylan Avery and Alex Jones stop profiting from the death of my friends.
Click to expand...
Salutes.

Gumboot, thanks very much. *raises a glass*

DR
 
I woke up and turned on the TV for my dose of news just moments before the second tower was hit. Through my sleep addled brain, I thought it must be an accident, like when the Empire State Building was hit because of thick fog. But then my brain cleared up a bit and I realized, there was no fog. It was a perfectly clear day. My mother-in-law called later and was angry that I sent the kids to school. I thought living their normal lives would be better for them, rather than to sit around watching the news all day (most cable channels stopped broadcasting their regular programs). She felt that after attacking big city New York and Washington DC, the terrorists were going to come after sleepy suburban Huntington Beach.

Anyway, I remember feeling physically ill all that day and the next couple as well. And very jumpy whenever a plane flew by.
 
I was living in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates on 9-11 and had gotten home from a day at work when my friend Eddie called and said to turn on my TV, that a plane had hit the WTC. I admit that I thought it had been a small plane and waited a few minutes before going to my TV room and turning it on, sitting on the couch and turning the remote to CNN.

I didn't move off that couch for at least six hours.

It was very quite the next day at work. I had Arab, Egyptian, Indian, and Somali colleagues all come up to express their shock and condolences over the events. For that short time, all differences were forgotten.

Now I am back in the US, politics and life seem to be going on as normal, and yet...and yet..
 
I was broke, out of work, and driving from pawnshop to pawnshop trying to unload an old video game system when I heard about the first on the radio. I got home just in time to watch the second plane hit.

I cried, just staring in horror.

I was just at the age to watch Challenger on closed circuit in elementary school. I thought that would be the defining tragedy of my generation. I'm so, so sorry that I was wrong.
 
Sword_Of_Truth said:
I heard about CNN webcasting thier original coverage as it happened.

Expect thousands of loosers to stay at home today happily quote mining as though anything said within the first hours after the attacks were the proclamations of a god-like omniscience.
Click to expand...

Grrrrrrrrrrrr. I've been watching the CNN footage from that day, and the conspiracy freaks are going to go NUTS with it. Lots of talk of explosions when the first tower collapses, that kind of thing.

It's interesting - the CNN affliate who was on the air when the second plane hit didn't realize for some time that it had been a plane, despite the fact that the camera caught it on tape. He thought it was an explosion. And a number of the eyewitnesses, because of their angle, I guess, didn't see the first plane hit, just saw the explosion. One even outright denied there was a plane.

Expect to see those quotes taken hopelessly out of context any moment now...
 
I was in the US that time - California, to be more precisely. A friend of mine called me and we turned on the TV. I could not understand what happened at first. My wife told me "there is only one tower! Where is the other tower?". I told her it was certainly behind the one we were seeing. But I was wrong, of course. We had been there 6 months earlier on Spring break. What a sad day. My wife was pregnant and I was thinking what kind of world our child would live...

I also will always remember the day after that. I was out for a walk (my regular exercise) at the exact time the president was going to give a speech (I had an AM radio with me). There was nobody around. And I mean *nobody*. Also, the fact that there were absolutely no airplanes above was kind of eerie. This is what a lone survivor of a nuclear holocaust would feel.

Anyway, it is five years later now... what can I say? We're all new yorkers again.
 
In the middle of the afternoon here now. My deepest sympathy to the people who lost someone that day.

/Hans
 
I was in class in high school. It was about 11:30 before I heard anything. By that time, I was sure that it was some kind of joke, so I went online to CNN to find out. The rest explains itself.
 
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Arkan_Wolfshade said:
I think I'll do like many of the others here on the forums and take a 24-hr break from dealing with the CTists.
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I was going to do the same, but then I realized I couldn't live with myself if I gave the Deniers free reign on this, of all days.
 
I was working an IT job very close to DFW International airport. I'd been listening to the news on the radio while driving in, and like the cliche goes, it was just an ordinary day. I got into the building, and one of my co-workers, whose wife worked for American Airlines, told me that a plane had hit the WTC. I was a bit skeptical, because I'd just been listening to the news and had heard nothing of the sort. It had happened between the time I parked the car and the time I entered the building.

Having worked within spitting distance of the airport for several months, the noise had pretty much become aural wallpaper. But the lack of noise and activity from the airport after they grounded all air traffic was downright creepy.
 
I can still remember where I was when it happened, my college ended early that day, so I went home. Just in time to see the first live reports.


As a side note, I am growing concerned that the loosers are getting more and more backing in my country........
 
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