9/11 Memories

[tamthebam]

I was a lowly underpaid dogsbody in an HR department at the time. We ended up watching the news on a wee TV in the staff canteen. We started to discuss who might have been responsible. Gaddafi, the North Koreans, Saddam and Osama bin Laden were mentioned (Osama was a known terrorist before "9/11"). 

With great timing I had booked a holiday in Finland flying out on September 12th from Edinburgh Airport. Security was tight there and I was flying to Helsinki via Brussels. When I got to Brussels Airport I noticed that the Belgians weren't exactly in a state of high alert.. flying to Helsinki I was trying to think of anyone who would hate the Finns and I decided I was fairly safe flying to Finland.

I missed that week's news being in Finland and staying with a friend who didn't really watch TV.

I had planned to go back to Finland in 2020 when, gosh, a global pandemic broke out. I suspect I might have to sneak up on Finland as every time I want to go there some bad shit happens 

 

[tamthebam]

1 minute ago, Shandon Par said:

15 minutes later, someone’s boss got someone’s boss on the phone and eventually the military air traffic control room “were like, cool!”. The police pulled over one of the pilots for speeding the day before too. Seems someone at the flight school he was attending hadn’t told the authorities it was odd their new intake of jihadi pupils were only interested in the part where they point the plane at stuff and not the landing.

It makes such a mockery of conspiracies when you see just how shoddy “homeland security” was. 

Even when they brought in "homeland security" a disgruntled Government employee told a reporter that Republican budget cuts meant that they had about 15 coastguards covering the whole Pacific coast in Oregon and Washington.

[Don Diego De la Vega]

I had  passed my Engineering officer of watch oral at the MCA in cessnock that morning and headed into town where I planned to get rat-arsed. by time I arrived in the hall on Sauchiehall Street, from Oblamov via mcphabbs, the 2nd plane was just about to hit. 

honestly thought I was watching a movie but the reaction of the larger than normal group watching tv in pub on the Tuesday afternoon told me otherwise, utterly surreal and sobered up pretty sharpish, did try another few beers just didn't feel right 

[Shandon Par]

5 hours ago, gav-ffc said:

Coming home from school and being raging that Art Attack had been taken over by the news

(irony I know)

“Greetings young infidels. I will now create a wonderful picture of an AK47 using shells I collected on the beach and some Fairy Liquid bottles”.

[Rugster]

36 minutes ago, Distant Doonhamer said:

Off work with a viral bug and feeling shit. Switched on the TV to witness an aeroplane flying into the first tower. Spent the next few hours watching the whole thing unfold with a mixture of disbelief and horror. An awful day.

There was no footage of an aeroplane flying into the first tower for days after the attack. The only footage is from a fly on the wall documentary which didn’t surface  for a good time afterwards. 

[Miguel Sanchez]

3 minutes ago, David W said:

I can also remember Clyde winning a penalty shoot-out that night against Stenny. I can remember a bit of an outcry because games went ahead on 9/11; I think a lot of European games were cancelled the following night.

The Italian Grand Prix that year (16th of September) had a lot less fanfare, had the podium presentations curtailed and had a lot of people not wanting to do it. Ferrari ran a livery with no sponsors:

I can't imagine Ferrari running a car at their home race with no sponsors now.

[Adamski]

I was working near Cambridge at the time. I'd been out the night before and was toiling through work with a stinking hangover.

The first I knew of anything happening was from reading a post on a Queens messageboard (by the guy who occasionally still posts here as Frankie S) that mentioned a plane crashing into the WTC. Like many others, I assumed that it was a light aircraft or something similar. It tweaked my interest and I wanted to find out more, but being the internet in 2001 and the amount of people who were probably doing similar on the it was pretty much impossible to access any news site. So off I went to spend more time with my hangover and try and get some work done.

I can totally picture the moment an hour or so later when I walked into a room where the radio was on just in time to hear the headlines: both towers were down, various aeroplanes were unaccounted for, etc. A scary, sombre day.

Not really meaning this in the classic P&B 'could have been me' context, but I was at the top of the the WTC almost exactly a year earlier. Imagining it no longer being there, and the absolute horror of people in places that I'd been not very long before took a fair bit of wrapping my head around.

[Hillonearth]

Must have been a nightmare flying if you looked vaguely Middle Eastern for quite a a while afterwards - I remember I had to fly to Hannover for a meeting along with a few colleagues about ten days afterwards - the way the seating worked we were all separated.

One empty seat on the plane next to me, and about 10-15 minutes delay on the flight until a guy in full Arab dress walks on and takes it.

All I hear is a "Wooohh-aaaah" noise from my scattered workmates along the lines of the noise you'd hear when an opposing keeper takes a bye kick.

Cheers guys.

 

[tamthebam]

6 minutes ago, Hillonearth said:

Must have been a nightmare flying if you looked vaguely Middle Eastern for quite a a while afterwards - I remember I had to fly to Hannover for a meeting along with a few colleagues about ten days afterwards - the way the seating worked we were all separated.

One empty seat on the plane next to me, and about 10-15 minutes delay on the flight until a guy in full Arab dress walks on and takes it.

All I hear is a "Wooohh-aaaah" noise from my scattered workmates along the lines of the noise you'd hear when an opposing keeper takes a bye kick.

Cheers guys.

 

It was a bit of a nightmare before. There was a good guy on my history course called Mo (short for Mohammed). As Scottish as anyone but he only had an Iranian passport as that was his family background. He told me going on holiday to the States had been an "interesting" experience...

[Christophe]

Was travelling in the States at the time, having done working the kids camps for the summer. Guy i met at camp was a wrestling coach at a school in Rhode Island and told me to come up and stay with him for a bit, and he'd get me a gig pouring kool aids at the school at lunch time for a few bucks while we bummed around the beaches of RI on our time off getting wasted and trying to pull birds. Ended up doing a few different jobs with a mate of his who was a likely-lad type, with lots of things on the go....gardening, DJ'ing mobile discos etc. I was only 19 at the time and so this was a fucking great way of life compared to boring old Scotland, and i ended up staying in RI for way longer than planned, and felt like i could stay there forever and never have to grow up, i really envisaged staying on for good at one point.

Anyway we went out to get the bus from his place in West Warwick to the school in Providence. Stood at the usual bus stop at the end of his road and nothing came by for ages so we walked back to phone a colleague of his for a lift in. He broke the news that school was off and what had happened and we switched on the TV and sat aghast in front of the TV for about the next 12 hours or so, don't remember much conversation about it, just utter shock and taking it all in, in silence. Not sure what the knock-on effect was for public transport/buildings closing etc. nation-wide was but it certainly had an immediate impact on it for us as it was pulled before we even had any idea what had happened, and we were in a dead-end town in a dead-end State about 200 miles away. Nuts. 

Best summer of my life but the mood completely changed, understandably. I was supposed to go onto stay my uncle in Boston and ended up having a blazing argument with him on the phone instead, because i hadn't been in touch about getting up to see him yet what with having the time of my life in RI. Everyone was so tense and everything was pretty mental for a while. Just remember thinking "f**k you then, i'm going home now" (i had an open return ticket) but couldn't get booked on anything for a while, the cash in hand work was drying up, so i spent what felt like an eternity bumming around libraries, parks etc to fill the days until i could fly home. Guy i was staying with was getting fed-up with me being there by now, everyone's mood had just turned and felt like everybody went going totally insular towards any kind of foreigner, so christ knows how it must've felt to be arab or asian at that time. He subtly recommended i head up to New York City and volunteer helping with the clean up at Ground Zero, "you're sure to meet someone who will give you a room". f**k that, head to another state with zero money left and hope for the best? No chance, I managed to cling onto his good will and get a few more nights out of it at his place until it was time to go home.

Some of the other British folk i was at camp with were off travelling doing their own thing and turned out they had been in NYC and up the WTC tour a few days before, then moved onto Toronto by the time 9/11 happened. Doubt they'd have been up there at 8am or whatever it was, but makes you think anyway!

[Arthur daley]

16 minutes ago, Hillonearth said:

Must have been a nightmare flying if you looked vaguely Middle Eastern for quite a a while afterwards.

 

 

[Hillonearth]

16 minutes ago, tamthebam said:

It was a bit of a nightmare before. There was a good guy on my history course called Mo (short for Mohammed). As Scottish as anyone but he only had an Iranian passport as that was his family background. He told me going on holiday to the States had been an "interesting" experience...

I can vouch for that - I remember flying into Washington Dulles a couple of years before 9/11 via Schiphol where we'd picked up a bunch of Swedes coming in from Stockholm. We arrived at the gate next to a flight from somewhere Muslimy - Jakarta I think it might have been. The contrast between the way they were handled was an eye-opener....the Dutch, British and Swedish NW Europeans - a significant proportion of whom were blonde - were pretty much waved through by the time the first half dozen or so had cleared from the other gate.

Edited September 1, 2021 by Hillonearth

[Shotgun]

We were living in Phoenix at the time and as I left for work before Mrs Shotgun, our usual routine was for her to watch CNN while still in bed, then get ready after I was finished. I was on about my 3rd pass through the bedroom before I noticed what she was watching. The footage of the smoke coming out of the side of the 1st tower was on an endless loop so when we saw the second plane hit, it took a while before we realised this wasn't the first crash.

I got to work a couple of hours later than usual to find people sitting at their desks in total shock, some of them crying. After a while, word came down from the high heid yins that the office was closing. I went for a bike ride on almost totally deserted streets. It was a couple of days before any news web-site (including the BBC) would open. 

At first, I was pleasantly surprised at the restraint the US Government appeared to be showing. Of course, that couldn't last.

[Adam]

That morning, Rangers were told they had to go and play Anzhi Makhachkala in a European tie near war-torn Chechnya. I can remember hopping in the car for my lift home and saying as much to my Dad. He said, "Aye, but wait until you hear what's going on in the USA".
Rangers, of course, ended up playing that tie in Warsaw after the events of 9/11.
I can also remember Clyde winning a penalty shoot-out that night against Stenny. I can remember a bit of an outcry because games went ahead on 9/11; I think a lot of European games were cancelled the following night.

That’s incredible, 20 years later and I have just remembered having a discussion in the playground that day about the game being played in Dagestan.

I was in second year of high school, last period of the day was English and we heard some rumours prior to that about a plane flying into the WTC. Didn’t really think much more about it until I got home after school and I called my Mum at work to ask if my Dad was planning on going to the football that night, and if not, could I go with my friend’s Dad and him. Asked me if I had heard about the plane attack (this would have been about 4pm UK time) and told me to turn on the news.

Remember our game against Stenny was one of the very few that weren’t postponed, and was probably the first (and to my knowledge) the last, penalty shootout I can remember us winning.

[marty_j]

I was working for a newspaper publisher in Berwick driving back from Scottish Borders
I put on Mark and Lard and for first minute assumed it was one of their sketches.
Called in at home and sat and watched it unfold
Felt like the world was ending - was utterly surreal watching first tower come down

[101]

8 hours ago, Hillonearth said:

Must have been a nightmare flying if you looked vaguely Middle Eastern for quite a a while afterwards

20 years since and American random selection is still racist so yeh maybe things will change one day but I doubt it there must be folk doing that job that can't remember 9/11 but I guess that means they can't remember not treating nonwhite people with suspicion.

[Mark Connolly]

My then gf had been at Camp America (as one of the staff, smartarses), before spending a week in NYC and was due to fly home on 9/11. I spent half the day getting panicked phone calls from her maw asking if she had been in touch yet, because she hadn't called them. It definitely didn't help her mood when I told her that if she tied the line up calling me constantly for an update, her daughter might struggle to get through to either of us.

She did eventually call her maw, who, of course, didn't bother her arse to tell me.

[Sergeant Wilson]

9 hours ago, tamthebam said:

I was a lowly underpaid dogsbody in an HR department at the time. We ended up watching the news on a wee TV in the staff canteen. We started to discuss who might have been responsible. Gaddafi, the North Koreans, Saddam and Osama bin Laden were mentioned (Osama was a known terrorist before "9/11"). 

With great timing I had booked a holiday in Finland flying out on September 12th from Edinburgh Airport. Security was tight there and I was flying to Helsinki via Brussels. When I got to Brussels Airport I noticed that the Belgians weren't exactly in a state of high alert.. flying to Helsinki I was trying to think of anyone who would hate the Finns and I decided I was fairly safe flying to Finland.

I missed that week's news being in Finland and staying with a friend who didn't really watch TV.

I had planned to go back to Finland in 2020 when, gosh, a global pandemic broke out. I suspect I might have to sneak up on Finland as every time I want to go there some bad shit happens 

 

I'd  imagine  Finland keeps a low profile if they know you might visit.

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

9 hours ago, Christophe said:

Was travelling in the States at the time, having done working the kids camps for the summer. Guy i met at camp was a wrestling coach at a school in Rhode Island and told me to come up and stay with him for a bit, and he'd get me a gig pouring kool aids at the school at lunch time for a few bucks while we bummed around the beaches of RI on our time off getting wasted and trying to pull birds. Ended up doing a few different jobs with a mate of his who was a likely-lad type, with lots of things on the go....gardening, DJ'ing mobile discos etc. I was only 19 at the time and so this was a fucking great way of life compared to boring old Scotland, and i ended up staying in RI for way longer than planned, and felt like i could stay there forever and never have to grow up, i really envisaged staying on for good at one point.

Anyway we went out to get the bus from his place in West Warwick to the school in Providence. Stood at the usual bus stop at the end of his road and nothing came by for ages so we walked back to phone a colleague of his for a lift in. He broke the news that school was off and what had happened and we switched on the TV and sat aghast in front of the TV for about the next 12 hours or so, don't remember much conversation about it, just utter shock and taking it all in, in silence. Not sure what the knock-on effect was for public transport/buildings closing etc. nation-wide was but it certainly had an immediate impact on it for us as it was pulled before we even had any idea what had happened, and we were in a dead-end town in a dead-end State about 200 miles away. Nuts. 

Best summer of my life but the mood completely changed, understandably. I was supposed to go onto stay my uncle in Boston and ended up having a blazing argument with him on the phone instead, because i hadn't been in touch about getting up to see him yet what with having the time of my life in RI. Everyone was so tense and everything was pretty mental for a while. Just remember thinking "f**k you then, i'm going home now" (i had an open return ticket) but couldn't get booked on anything for a while, the cash in hand work was drying up, so i spent what felt like an eternity bumming around libraries, parks etc to fill the days until i could fly home. Guy i was staying with was getting fed-up with me being there by now, everyone's mood had just turned and felt like everybody went going totally insular towards any kind of foreigner, so christ knows how it must've felt to be arab or asian at that time. He subtly recommended i head up to New York City and volunteer helping with the clean up at Ground Zero, "you're sure to meet someone who will give you a room". f**k that, head to another state with zero money left and hope for the best? No chance, I managed to cling onto his good will and get a few more nights out of it at his place until it was time to go home.

Some of the other British folk i was at camp with were off travelling doing their own thing and turned out they had been in NYC and up the WTC tour a few days before, then moved onto Toronto by the time 9/11 happened. Doubt they'd have been up there at 8am or whatever it was, but makes you think anyway!

So what your saying is you were the real victim of 9/11 because it ruined your hot boy summer?

[Meldrew]

10 hours ago, David W said:

That morning, Rangers were told they had to go and play Anzhi Makhachkala in a European tie near war-torn Chechnya. I can remember hopping in the car for my lift home and saying as much to my Dad. He said, "Aye, but wait until you hear what's going on in the USA

......just 11 years later, Rangers would also be dead.