# Where were you on 9/11?



## liaconn (8 Sep 2011)

I was in work and a friend rang to tell me the news. I came off the phone and told everyone and they were all pooh poohing and telling me some one was having me on. Then someone went into the Sky News website and discovered it was true.  I remember my first feeling was, shamefully, one of relief that I was right and hadn't been making an eejit of myself.


----------



## Sunny (8 Sep 2011)

Working for an American bank in London at the time. Remember the headlines coming across the screen and no-one fully understanding what was going on. I remember the panic of American colleagues who knew people in the WTC. I remember our risk people having heart attacks as emergency plans went into action. Then I remember security advising non essential staff to leave once it was clear it was a terrorist attack. 

I remember the streets of London being silent and numb and I remember been back in Dublin a few days later when a minutes silence was held and never seeing anything like it.

Hard to believe it is 10 years ago. Watching some of the programmes over the past week really does remind you of it all. To this day, it still seems sureal though.


----------



## Mucker Man (8 Sep 2011)

I was in Bulgaria on holidays and didn't find out until the following day!


----------



## Mpsox (8 Sep 2011)

Listening to it on the radio as the day went on, trying to calm a couple of staff who had family in NY and one working in Wall Street and they couldn't be contacted, thankfully all ok for them in the end


----------



## Shawady (8 Sep 2011)

Listening to the radio and it mentioned a plane crashed into the world trade center. I knew from being in NY, a plane would not fly into one of these buildings by accident. When I heard a second plane had hit, it was obvious something terrible was happening.
Doesn't feel like 10 years.


----------



## Ceist Beag (8 Sep 2011)

In Kuala Lumpur airport waiting for a connecting flight to Australia. I remember looking at the tv screens in the coffee bar and thinking this must be some new movie I hadn't heard of! Must have been staring at it for at least a minute before I copped this was real! I can tell you we were pretty edgy passengers on the way from KL to Australia - I was watching every passenger like a hawk! Daft I know but I've never been so nervous flying as that time!


----------



## flossie (8 Sep 2011)

In Carlow Quinnsworth at the till when a little boy came runnign in saying a plane had crashed into a building.....nobody paid that much attention until somebody else ame in saying it was true. I remember getting back to the parents house and realising the full scale and going ice cold.


----------



## Betsy Og (8 Sep 2011)

At work in an office on the Quays in Dublin. Think I got an email from a friend in London as the first alert, I remember going down to the lobby where it was on the TV - probably 50 or 60 people glued to it, not sure I was convinced it was real until I saw the crowd watching the telly. Cant remember if I was watching when the 2nd plane hit but think I'd heard between the first and second ones.

Got an awful sense of foreboding that it was going to be the start of much trouble.... as turned out to be the case.

Didnt know anyone there so it didnt have that personal edge. Cant remember any panic or special arrangements on the day. I know there was some debate at the time as to whether it was appropriate to have a day of mourning - most people (myself included) treated it as an extra bank holiday and went back to the sticks - that said I think it was entirely appropriate to formally mark the occasion given the close links with the USA and the number of Irish & Irish Americans in the emergency services that died that day.


----------



## Godfather (8 Sep 2011)

At work. And we were all under shock. Suddenly a colleague of mine erupts "guys, fill your car with petrol tonight because tomorrow the price will rise like hell because of this"... An added shock to the already terrible event...


----------



## Firefly (8 Sep 2011)

I was working for a large US consultancy and there was a mad panic in our office. We all pretty much deserted the place and I was glued to Sky News like so many others. It's hard to believe it's been 10 years...I'm sure too that the 10th anniversary was a deadline for getting Bin Laden.


----------



## Romulan (8 Sep 2011)

Running a full scale Disaster Recovery test for the company in our DR Site.

Talk about timing.


----------



## fobs (8 Sep 2011)

I was in work and pregnant with my first child so felt extra emotional as it all unfolded thinking of what kind of world my child was coming into. Am still fascinated by any coverage of it.


----------



## Maximus152 (8 Sep 2011)

I had come home from a trip ... and heard something on the news reel via car radio as I was just driving up to my home, I did not fully understand actually I thought I mis-interpreted what was said. I then opened the  door went to kitchen turned on kettle had coffee turned on TV hit 501 sky news...and my world changed for ever. What happened on 9/11 definitely changed the world for me, since then travelling, war, stock markets, even people seem different. I am a optimist by the way....just in case...but that's what I recall...just like  yesterday...

Maximus
cast a cold eye on life and death, horesman pass by


----------



## gipimann (8 Sep 2011)

I was in my office in work, having lunch at the desk.  A colleague who had been out to lunch and saw the first TV reports came back and told us what had happened.  I put on the radio and we listened all afternoon.  If I remember, we were listening to TodayFM who stopped their regular music programming and stayed with their newsroom.

I didn't see the footage until I got home that evening - it was shocking.


----------



## BOXtheFOX (9 Sep 2011)

We were with a group on a coach in Southern Spain, between hotels. The tour guide was an American lady. Everyone hit the T.V. sets on arrival and stayed in their rooms for most of the coverage that day.


----------



## One (9 Sep 2011)

I was in New York that morning. I was walking around a large park (which was a little like the Phoenix Park but not nearly as large) for a few hours. I was killing time as I was due to fly home that afternoon. It wasn't until I left the park that I knew what happened. Needless to say I was stuck in New York for a week, but that wasn't a major problem at the time. I was a witness to the smoke and dust that filled the sky, to thousands and thousands of dust covered people leaving Manahatten, to the army and the airforce presence in and around New York, etc. It is hard to imagine where the last ten years have gone.


----------



## silverwake (9 Sep 2011)

I was at my faculty's library studying for an exam the next day. I went to pick some documents to the secretary's office and saw a lot of teachers and students gathered around a small tv set. They were all quiet, until one of the janitor's said we'd rather all go home. I asked him what was going on, and he said that it was World War III ¬_¬

I walked to the bus stop, and saw plenty of cars with the doors open and the radios on. It was surreal.
I caught the bus and for the next hour of journey, no one said a word. We were all listening to the news.

It felt as if it was the end of the world.

I totally failed that exam.

For the record, I shall never do a statistics exam ever again. The day before my Statistics I test, Lady Di died, the day before my Statistics II test was September the 10th 2001. I'm jinxed!


----------



## horusd (9 Sep 2011)

In Morocco of all places. A few Moroccans approached me, asked if I was American, and told me that no arab could have done this. It was all a bit surreal. Other Westerners wondered if we could get home as this would result in war. Strange what fear and shock can do. 

All these years later I find the whole rememberance thing strange and more than a bit distasteful. We are bombarded with images of 9/11 and with remembering the 3500 dead, but no similar acknowledgement of the hundreds of thousands, maybe millions who died or had their lives destroyed by the American response to 9/11. There is no equality, even in death. Western lives are clearly more valuable.

Al Queda won in many respects. Our lives have been changed utterly. Security is all-pervasive in the Western world. The body bags continue to return to devastated families from endless wars in the muslim world. Troops return psychologically and often physically maimed. The economic cost of 9/11 has undermined Western dominance of the world, and left us impoverished and debt-ridden. When we remember 9/11 we should remember the folly of it and the true cost of it, not just those who died then, but also all that followed from it.


----------



## michaelm (9 Sep 2011)

silverwake said:


> I shall never do a statistics exam ever again. The day before my Statistics I test, Lady Di died, the day before my Statistics II test was September the 10th 2001. I'm jinxed!


It's statistically unlikely that anything untoward would happen the day prior to you attempting a third exam.  Of course 46% of statistics are made up on the spot.


----------



## Sunny (9 Sep 2011)

horusd said:


> All these years later I find the whole rememberance thing strange and more than a bit distasteful. We are bombarded with images of 9/11 and with remembering the 3500 dead, but no similar acknowledgement of the hundreds of thousands, maybe millions who died or had their lives destroyed by the American response to 9/11. There is no equality, even in death. Western lives are clearly more valuable.


 
Not sure I would be as cynical as you even if I understand where you are coming from. 9/11 shocked people and shocks people to this day because we can relate to it. Most of us have relatives and friends in NY. Most of us have visited NY. The twin towers was an iconic building. And most of us, it was played out before our eyes on tv. 

I don't think anyone likes what has happened in the aftermath  but asking people to treat the deaths of people in places like Iraq and Afganistan the same as what they saw on TV from NY is unfair and doesn't mean they value one lost life less than another. Remember many parts of the Arab world won't just not reflect on the horrors of 9/11 but will openly celebrate the event.


----------



## horusd (9 Sep 2011)

Well Sunny, Shock and Awe was played out on TV, as was the toppling of Saddam and the Taliban. But they were from a different viewpoint; vengence and a display of Western power. The attack on the towers was an attack on Western power. 

We didn't have the_* perspective*_ of the people being attacked because the Western media is Western. Only Al Jazeera showed the impact of massive Western firepower on ordinary people in the muslim world. Just as they showed the impact of Israeli power in the West Bank. 

We should have, and didn't ask a very simple question. Why would people blow themselves up attacking us? What has driven them to these extremes? Could it be they actually have a real grieveance ? A real injustice? No. Instead we labelled everyone a terrorist and an extremist. But we have seen in the Arab spring that muslims want what we want, freedom, justice, peace. They have rejected islamic extremism, just as we have.


----------



## Firefly (9 Sep 2011)

silverwake said:


> I was at my faculty's library studying for an exam the next day. I went to pick some documents to the secretary's office and saw a lot of teachers and students gathered around a small tv set. They were all quiet, until one of the janitor's said we'd rather all go home. I asked him what was going on, and he said that it was World War III ¬_¬
> 
> I walked to the bus stop, and saw plenty of cars with the doors open and the radios on. It was surreal.
> I caught the bus and for the next hour of journey, no one said a word. We were all listening to the news.
> ...



Reminds me of an old book that you might consider!
http://www.google.ie/url?sa=t&sourc...sg=AFQjCNH1p-_gGpBoa1YzFmgBqZ73Ova3XQ&cad=rja


----------



## silverwake (9 Sep 2011)

Thanks Firefly!


----------



## villa 1 (9 Sep 2011)

In Selden Long island at the time. Could see the plume of smoke 40 miles away. Utter devastation among the locals. They were very impressed with our day of mourning.
Came home on the 9th and the terminal building had to be evacuated because of a bomb alert, scary stuff. Sweaty palms coming home on an American Airlines fight. I have some very dear friends out there but they are still very bitter and angry over those events.


----------



## Purple (9 Sep 2011)

I was in work.


----------



## TarfHead (9 Sep 2011)

I was in work and got word of the first plane by text from my sister. Back then trying to get a web page to load in work required great patience. I think I spent most of the rest of the day trying to access US new websites.

One standout memory of the day was how blithely indifferent my colleagues were to it all. When I heard that the first tower had fallen, I was shocked, but the others barely registered an emotion.

I assume that when the towers fell that they had fallen to the side. When I saw that they had 'pancaked' on themselves, I was doubly shocked.

I still have photos at home taken from the roof of one of the towers in 1995, and others taken from street level in 1999.


----------



## micmclo (9 Sep 2011)

Watching TV and they were saying the first plane was an accident 

And mentioning some similar incident after WWII or so when a bomber hit the towers.

Saw the second plane live

I was about to start college in Galway so I was in a B n'B getting my accomadation sorted




horusd said:


> Why would people blow themselves up attacking us? What has driven them to these extremes?



Over seventy virgins in Heaven maybe or so they believe


----------



## gabsdot (9 Sep 2011)

I was working in a preschool which was attached to a house. The lady who lived in the house came in to tell me what had happened and then kept coming in and giving me updates. I must admit I left the kids unsupervised for a minute and went in to watch a bit of Sky News. 
The father of one of my little students was in New York at the time. It took his mum about 8 hours to get in touch with him to make sure he was alright. She wasn't the better for it next day when she dropped  her son off.


----------



## PaddyBloggit (9 Sep 2011)

I was at work also.


----------



## horusd (10 Sep 2011)

micmclo said:


> ...
> 
> 
> 
> *Over seventy virgins in Heaven maybe or so they believe*


 
We who have seen and lived with extremism in our own country (including suicide, remember Bobby Sands?) should know we need to look deeper into the mindset of killers and their motives.

Horizion did an excellent documentary during the week " Are you Good or Evil?" A key point was that normal humans invariably don't kill unless they have very good reasons. The whole 70 virgins thing is a means to trivialise the issue and not ask awkward questions that might point to real grievances in the muslim world. Real greviances that have been caused in large part by Western policies.


----------



## Purple (10 Sep 2011)

horusd said:


> We who have seen and lived with extremism in our own country (including suicide, remember Bobby Sands?) should know we need to look deeper into the mindset of killers and their motives.
> 
> Horizion did an excellent documentary during the week " Are you Good or Evil?" A key point was that normal humans invariably don't kill unless they have very good reasons. The whole 70 virgins thing is a means to trivialise the issue and not ask awkward questions that might point to real grievances in the muslim world. Real greviances that have been caused in large part by Western policies.



There is a world of a difference between the motives of the people who attacked the world trade centre on September the 9th and the (often legitimate) grievances that many Arabs and Muslims have against the USA.
Bin Laden wanted to build a fundamentalist Islamic Caliphate which would “return” the world to an idyllic state last seen more than a thousand years ago. His aim was to provoke a war between modernity and his form of Islam. Basically he was an absolute nutter. 

The people fighting against their oppressive leaders across the Arab world are, for the most part, the silent majority who don’t want to live under any form of extremism (though there’s a lot of truth in the assertion being made by the Syrian leadership that many of those attacking their police and army are extremist Islamic fighters seeking to do what the Ayatollah did in Iran).

Therefore comparisons between the motives of those fighting in the Arab Spring and Al Qaeda are spurious.      

Many of the grievances are legitimate but most aren’t. There’s a general anger at the weakness of the Arab/Muslim world relative to the Christian/Western world (which is understandable considering how utterly dominant the Arab/Muslim world used to be). This is misdirected at the West instead of at the true culprits; their own leaders and a culture that disenfranchises half its population (women).


----------



## Complainer (10 Sep 2011)

The first report I heard was via a friend of a friend who worked in a Treasury Dept and they were working hard to move cash and investments out of the US. Then I saw something on the BBC website. My wife got a phone call from her brother in NY saying 'I'm OK, I'm fine' and hanging up, and she had no idea what he was on about until later. 

When the 2nd tower fell, I was standing beside I colleague who had a dinner reservation for the restaurant at the top of the tower for the Thursday evening.


----------



## horusd (11 Sep 2011)

Lots of very good points Purple and I wouldn't disagree with your assessments on the impact of muslim social, economic and political failure compared to the advance and dominance of the West. 

We probably would be splitting hairs to say which greviances motivated extremism in which case. But undoubtably Western interference in the Muslim world has not shown us as friends to the people there and has fuelled the anger against the West generally.

The wall to wall rememberance of 9/11 as purely a crime against the West and America in particular is a case of our blindness to the true extent of the victims of 9/11 and the impact of American aggression and hubris.

 When we talk about the attack on Bagdhad we call it "shock and awe" or "operation Iraqi Freedom", and these labels WE put on them justify the aggression with inspiring names and in the process we decieve ourselves.  The misery of shock and awe or Iraqi freedom are all too obvious to the Iraqi's. What's surprising is that there aren't more attacks on the West or more obvious anger against the West.


 I haven't seen one programme or article except on Al Jazeera that examined the impact and the casualties of 9/11 from the perspective of the muslim world.


----------



## Purple (11 Sep 2011)

Al Jazeera is, generally, an excellent news source with a good balance of opinion. 
The attack on Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 since Saddam was an avowed enemy of Islamic extremism. 

Despite all of the grand conspiracies by the tinfoil hat brigade I haven’t yet seen a logical explanation as to why the US invaded; there was simply no up-side. It wasn’t about oil since Saddam was more than happy to sell it to anyone who wanted it.  
The explanation that comes closest to making sense is simply the hubris and stupidity of George W Bush and the sycophantic blindness of Tony Blair.


----------



## so-crates (11 Sep 2011)

micmclo said:


> Over seventy virgins in Heaven maybe or so they believe



This one always amuses me, visions of little old nuns lined up dressed innappropriately with Ann Widdecombe leading the way to greet them ....

I was in work, booking a flight of all things when someone came in and said a plane had crashed into one of the towers, so we were all online watching when the news of the second 'crash' came through. 

Always remember that no-one in the office had heard of Bin Laden et al or remembered that they had targeted the WTC previously. When we started speculating about who might have done it those were the first possible culprits that came to my mind.


----------



## onq (11 Sep 2011)

Purple said:


> Al Jazeera is, generally, an excellent news source with a good balance of opinion.
> The attack on Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 since Saddam was an avowed enemy of Islamic extremism.
> 
> Despite all of the grand conspiracies by the tinfoil hat brigade I haven’t yet seen a logical explanation as to why the US invaded; there was simply no up-side. It wasn’t about oil since Saddam was more than happy to sell it to anyone who wanted it.
> The explanation that comes closest to making sense is simply the hubris and stupidity of George W Bush and the sycophantic blindness of Tony Blair.



Saddam intended to sell his oil in Euros.

The implications for the dollar as a World Reserve currency were significant.
The economic consequences of a weak dollar for a nett importer could bankrupt America.
We'll see soon enough, because there are current moves to dethrone the dollar by 2020 I think.

This link shows the supposedly short-sighted understanding of the immediate change to the position of players at the time.
By itself, Iraq pricing oil in Euros would have meant little, but as the start of a cascade that would have weakened the dollar it meant a lot.

 shows that as far back as 2007, several countries were considering abandoning the dollar as a reserve currency.
Again one currency doing this wouldn't have been much, but if a lot of currencies followed suit, the dollar would suffer.

There is little upside for the Eurozone in either scenario, since we export a lot of America.
You can be sure that these machinations will most benefit those masters of finance who like to trade in "the difference" in volatile markets.

ONQ.


----------



## onq (11 Sep 2011)

so-crates said:


> This one always amuses me, visions of little old nuns lined up dressed innappropriately with Ann Widdecombe leading the way to greet them ....



The implication is that they are demure beautiful *young* virgins...
I wonder did any suicide bombers consider this on their way to their ends.

ONQ.


----------



## onq (11 Sep 2011)

Purple said:


> This is misdirected at the West instead of at the true culprits; their own leaders and a culture that disenfranchises half its population (women).



Leaders who have been installed and supported with the help of the West.
Leaders, in Saudis case, who own 10% of American companies traded on the stock exchange.

ONQ.


----------



## onq (11 Sep 2011)

liaconn said:


> I was in work and a friend rang to tell me the news.



I came home early that afternoon and saw the second one hit the tower on the TV - I'm not sure it was live.

I remember thinking -

"There's no way some !"%@^() in a cave in the middle east did this!"


----------



## so-crates (11 Sep 2011)

onq said:


> The implication is that they are demure beautiful *young* virgins...
> I wonder did any suicide bombers consider this on their way to their ends.
> 
> ONQ.



You never know - maybe they were the inspiration behind that Little Britain sketch....


----------



## Purple (12 Sep 2011)

onq said:


> Leaders who have been installed and supported with the help of the West.



Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan are all ruled by regimes that are either anti-Western or pre-date Western involvement in the area.
A number of countries that are allies of America get significant American investment but that doesn’t make them puppet states (if it did then we’d have to qualify as a puppet state as well). This sort of clientism has gone on in the Middle East since Roman times. In the Far East it has gone on for much longer. 
America happens to be the strongest kid on the block at the moment. Eventually it will be someone else and they will exert their power in order to influence events to suit them. That’s the way it’s been for thousands of years and that’s the way it will continue to be. Anyone who thinks otherwise is either very naive or very... sheltered.
The question is what boundaries the dominant power works within. In the case of America it is usually far more restrained than the other big kids on the block, but there are notable exceptions. The high water mark of US intervention/imperialism was over 100 years ago. The two most despicably aggressive and unjust wars they ever fought were against Mexico (Texas and New Mexico) and Spain (in the Philippines).


onq said:


> Leaders, in Saudis case, who own 10% of American companies traded on the stock exchange.


 Source please.


----------



## Ceist Beag (12 Sep 2011)

It would be nice if this thread could be left to the original question!


----------



## One (12 Sep 2011)

ceist beag said:


> it would be nice if this thread could be left to the original question!


 
+1


----------



## liaconn (12 Sep 2011)

Ceist Beag said:


> It would be nice if this thread could be left to the original question!


 
As the OP I agree. I just thought it would be interesting to hear people's memories of where they were when the heard the news.


----------



## dereko1969 (12 Sep 2011)

I was walking back to work and saw the smoke from the first plane on TV in the Phillips shop on Dame St/Georges St, spent the next couple of hours trying to contact a mate in NYC who I wasn't so worried about as she didn't work very near there. Turns out she was down quite near there for a course that day, found out she was okay the next day.


----------



## Leper (12 Sep 2011)

On 9/11 I was talking with my boss who informed me of his reasons for not awarding me with the going lowly promotion (and I may add I had busted my butt for the company).  The successful candidate was one trained by me and since has not covered himself in glory.  I thought things could not be getting worse, then I heard the news . . .

A month later I availed of an early exit package.


----------



## hastalavista (12 Sep 2011)

hill walking with trouble and strife from Glendlough to Cruagh Wood: car was torched in car-park so we had a long walk more while we waited collection.
Have not been since


----------



## csirl (13 Sep 2011)

Was off work that day - September is usually my quiet month, so take leave then. Was just finished lunch and went into sitting room to watch TV - switched on Sky News to get 2pm headlines and saw everything unfold from there. Newsreader (Kay Burley I think) took a while to cop onto what was happening in live pictures. Firstly assumed the plane was a small aircraft e.g. cesena then when the live pictures showed the second jet hitting, assumed that it was a reply even though both towers were in view in the live feed. 

Rang a couple of people I know in States to find out what was going on. Was talking to one, who was working as a contractor in Washington at the time - said there was a sense of panic in the place particularly as the police had just ordered the total evacuation of the city and people were literally running for their lives like something out of a disaster movie.


----------



## Mongola (16 Sep 2011)

I was 17 at the time & living at home: France. ...I was about to start a thrid level education in the tourism industry, which would have consisted of 2 weeks at school and 2 weeks in a tourism agency/tour operator. I was all set: was enrolled at school and had found a small travel agency to take  me on. 

That day though, I was at home, watching an episode of murder she wrote I believe when the screen flickered and scenes that I fought were from a movie were spread across the screen. It actually took me a few minutes to realise that this was not a movie but real life. The next ting was just tears, and more tears and even more tears.....I will never ever forget that day....

The History channel has a fascinating documentary on last wk end. Has any of you seen it? It retraced 9/11, min by min but this time from shootage captured by people pn the ground. Some witnessed it from their offices, some from their homes etc... It was very overwhelming.  10 years have gone by so quickly but 10 years later, I was again in tears as I can only imagine what people who were there that day had to go through.....
So many lives have been unfairly lost that is why when I hear all those conspiracies theories (saying this was orchestrated by US government) it drives me nuts!!!! 

After 9/11, the agency I was due to work in every 2 wks as part of my program, could not take me onboard as tourism suffered straight away. I then decided it was time to pack my bags and head abroad: that is how I found myself here & 10 years later, I am still here and about to marry an Irishman. well next year) I wish I could have had the same path but not triggered by that awful awful day.


----------

