Tell me your version

[PhaseDMA]

Okay. Here is the deal. The point of this thread is strictly to deal with the history of the below event, and not the political side of it. I do realize that the two do overlap, but in the interest of not scaring off certain people (who quite frankly I really want to see respond) I beg people to strongly refrain from making this a political thread.

So. I got to thinking a couple weeks ago this year will mark the 10 year anniversary (anniversary? somehow I think that's the wrong word for this) of September 11th. That being said there are kids who are now 10 years old who may actually be able to grasp the concept if told about the events of that day.

So here is what I am looking for. Assuming you are speaking to someone in the future who you don't need to dumb down the events to how would you describe September 11th to someone who knows nothing about it?

Keep in mind there are no wrong answers. You can talk about how it was done by terrorists, or you can say how it was a US government plot, or whatever. However I want serious responses. This isn't a story. This is how you would seriously talk to your future children about the events.

Here is the other thing. DO NOT READ THE OTHER POSTS BEFORE POSTING. DO NOT GO AND ASK YOUR FRIENDS FAMILY BEFORE POSTING. I want to see what *you think*, not what you have come up with the help of other people. Ideally you also won't fact check before posting, although I won't strictly forbid it.

All posts describing the events should be their own posts. That means don't write up your own entry and then go back and read the others and comment. 1 double post in this thread is fine, and in fact encouraged.

One last thing. After your down post throw in a page worth of dashes or whatever to prevent people from seeing the bottom of your post when they reply with the quick reply.

Example:

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[PhaseDMA]

Note: I think I got rid of all the spelling errors, but I copied this from notepad, and the spell check didn't want to work at first after I pasted it into the browser, so... Ya...



So September 11th was a day that terrorists attacked the United State with hijacked large aircraft. They took over the aircraft with box cutters.

The first attack of the day was on one of the main World Trade Center buildings. I can't remember if it was the north, or south tower, but as you will understand in a moment it really doesn't matter which was attacked first.

At first I think most people thought that it was a massive accident. After all the World Trade Center towers had been hit with planes before. In fact the buildings were built in such a way as to take hits from small accidental hits.

Although there is video of the first hit there really isn't any good video since people don't make a habit of filming the sky. Although it seems that someone is always filming something in NYC. It just doesn't mean it is the focus of the video so there is video of the event. It just isn't great video.

So after a while (I think it was like 30-45 minutes) after the first plane hits the first tower a second aircraft hits the second tower.

Of course at the point it becomes quite clear that the US was being attacked by a group of people, and needless to say a lot of emotion was created very quickly.

At this point the events become a bit sketchy as far as time goes.

However I'll try my best.

At this point people could not escape from the towers above where the planes hit. When the planes hit they engulfed the area a large explosion (the planes had just left area airports with lots of fuel bound for the west coast) and substained fire. Because they could not escape, or be saved from the building people jumped to their deaths rather then suffer burning alive.

Eventually one of the towers collapsed, and people that in hindsight were far to close to the buildings ran for their lives as the building came down. Other's ran from a huge dust cloud that engulfed just about everything for what I think was about 7 square blocks. The dust was everywhere, and in quite large amounts once it finally settled.

Something of intrest that I didn't know before the events. The World Trade Center includes many buildings beyond the two large towers. When the tower collapsed it hit many of those smaller buildings. I don't think that anyone in those buildings was killed, but as you might expect the falling towers caused massive damages to some of those buildings.

So while all this was happening there were two other planes in the bound for other targets.

One of those other planes hit the Pentagon in Washington DC. Honestly I know nearly nothing about this specific attack. I don't think anyone on the ground died, but I may be wrong.

There also was a final (4th) plane, but instead of allowing their plane to be hijacked the passangers revolted and attacked the terrorists. Sadly while they prevented the plane from hitting it's target (many think the target was the White House, or the Capital Building) it still crashed into a wooded area in PA. Although everyone on board died no one on the ground died.

In all 3,000 people died that day. Yes. Exactly 3k.

So NYC spent weeks looking for people in the World Trade Center. They actually found people alive after what seemed like a impossible amount of time burried in the rumble.

There is actually a lot of combined video of the day's events in NYC. Some of it from the news, but a lot of it from amature video. A few places have tried to complie the video and it makes for a very humbling experience watching it.

The US quickly realized the attaks were orcrastrated by Osama Bin-Laden and his al-Qaida group.

The clear goal of al-Qaida as to frighten Americans, and really the entire "western world". I think that they failed at this goal. Much in the same way that that Americans came together after the attacks on Pearl Harbor they came together after the 9/11 attacks.

In a effort to respond to these attacks the US declared war with NATO, and the UN on the country of Afghanistan where of lot of al-Qaida was not only located, but being protected.

While we have yet to capture Bin-Laden I would say our efforts have largly been successful. Although we have yet to capture Bin-Laden he has gone from a suprisingly visble figure head to a man that has since never came out of hiding.

Today I believe only the events of Pearl Harbor and the atomic bombs being dropped on Japan overshadow the events of 9/11 as far as US war history goes.


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[plasma2002]

Couldnt find a tl;dr

[PhaseDMA]

I post something that is half a page, and you post something that is 10?

tl;dr my ass.

[Jenna]

Sufficient, Brian?

[Portfolioso]

Why not grab exact facts from Wikipedia or something? Even I wouldn't be great with the exact details and I live a half hour north of NYC.

I think a better way to phrase this would be to tell your opinion and personal account of the day (more of a where were you and what was your day like type thing).

[cokalsM]

At first I thought the goal of this topic was going to be about how little people actually know about September 11. But I think I grasp the concept...

Bear with me because I was 9, maybe 10, years old when this happened.

An airplane was hijacked sometime in the morning and was piloted into one of the World Trade Centers. It was originally thought to be an accident. Later the other tower was hit, followed by the Pentagon, in which the US now knew the acts were intentional. A fourth plane was hijacked and headed for the White House but the passengers aboard fought and the plane crashed into the ground.

The NFL postponed football games the next week. Not sure how that fact sticks with me.

Writing this post makes me realize how uniformed I am about the topic. It's kind of upsetting, actually. Since I was in like 4th grade (too lazy to try to figure it out), I remember hearing all kinds of stuff from kids that I believed which skews my understanding. Unfortunately I've never looked it up. For example, I remember hearing that the attacks were supposed to be on 9/11/2000 instead of 2001 but they were not ready yet.

[PhaseDMA]

[quote=Portfolioso]I think a better way to phrase this would be to tell your opinion and personal account of the day (more of a where were you and what was your day like type thing).[/quote]

I'm trying to grasp what people remember. The fine details of a person's version of the story. Like how cokalsM talks about NFL games being pushed back because if it. That isn't something that you would find in a Wikipedia entry about the event.

Plus personal stories outside of NYC are going to be boring. I mean here is mine: "I was at school. We watched it on TV in the class room, but certain teachers didn't want us watching it while others encouraged it. My mom took me out of school. The rest of the day I watched it on TV..." Real exciting huh?

I mean you got to remember. For our generation this is the single largest news story. Everything else (good or bad) is pretty tame in comparison right? What is the next biggest thing? The 2003 Northeast Blackout? Even that only effected one piece of the entire country. If you lived on the west coast I doubt many people cared past seeing it blasting on CNN for the entire first day. Next biggest event after that? Gulf Coast Oil Spill??

Plus I think how a person describes a event you lived at the same time says a lot about a person that you otherwise wouldn't see in "everyday communications".

The other thing is I have seen countless accounts of what a certain person went through that day. It really isn't that often, if ever that I hear someone recount the actual events of the day.

[Thermite Man]

My account.
My parents woke me up early the morning of 9/11 and told me something had happened. They were discussing weather or not I should go to school that day so I was super excited to miss a day of school. My dad eventually talked my mom out of it and I had to go anyway. We did nothing at school except watch the news. I didn't think much of the events, I was young and I just wanted to get my lunch and move on with my day.

What I would tell someone.
On September 11, 2001 a series of planes were hijacked by people who then ran the buildings into various buildings that symbolized America. Some people say that it was an act of terror by a radical group of people called Al Qaeda others believe that it was a deliberate attack on the US in order for the government to get a tighter lock down on the people of the nation.

The buildings that were attacked was the pentagon, the world trade towers, and a place believed to be where the president was staying, that was flight united 93. The passengers of that flight took matters into their own hands and over powered the people who had hijacked the plane but died in their attempt. There were books and a TV show made after that flight where the term "lets roll" was coined by the passenger who got everyone together to take over the plane.

[askmeques]

I remember being in theatre class and watching the news all day on TV. I was a freshman in high school.

I have a horrible memory anyways, but I know that a hijacked plane was crashed into one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York, and then soon after, another plane hit the other tower. Another hijacked plane also hit the Pentagon.

Al Qaeda and it's leader Osama Bin Laden were associated with the terrorist attacks. We still can't find him, 10 years later.

A lot of people died.


...That's about all I've got.