I'm going to bore you with another perspective about 9/11. And then I'll just ask you where you were at the time. I remember the day quite clearly because I was working for an airline (FedEx) at the time. And obviously air travel was seriously affected for a while. I was doing a delivery route in Killingly, Connecticut. Wasn't my favorite place to work because at that time you pretty much had to run your ass off all day, and it covered a large geographic area. Stressful. At first we got a message on our little communication thing that just said something to the effect of "a plane flew into the World Trade Center". Didn't think much of it at first. I imagine most people didn't. I imagined it was just some dumbass in a small private plane. Well a bit later I was making a delivery to some campground near the Rhode Island state line and the people there happened to have CNN on. So I stopped and watched for a while. I'm not sure how long I stayed there, exactly. I think we all ended up forgetting the rest of the day's work and just returning to the station. I can't remember for sure. I know we were home pretty early. I do remember getting home and continuing to be glued to the television. I drank about a half bottle of scotch for some reason. That seems ridiculous in hindsight, but it seemed to make sense at the time.
A couple of days later I was driving an overnight tractor-trailer run from Norwich, Connecticut to Newark airport, New Jersey. The route takes you right over the GWB. This was TWO DAYS later, and it was still visibly smoking. I could see it as clear as day, despite it being night. That was a bit emotional.
My sister went to a high-school prom with a guy who was on one of the planes that flew out of Logan. I myself didn't know anyone directly involved. But I ended up meeting a surprising number of folks who were over the next few months.
I also remember how thirsty for revenge we all were. How anxious most of us were for a fight. How easily we as a country more or less agreed to start some war. And where has that brought us? Because it's been seven years and things have only gotten worse. That, more than anything else, makes the loss of thousands of lives an outrage.
Meh. People suck. Those responsible, but also those who initiated our reaction. And I'm guilty too.
A couple of days later I was driving an overnight tractor-trailer run from Norwich, Connecticut to Newark airport, New Jersey. The route takes you right over the GWB. This was TWO DAYS later, and it was still visibly smoking. I could see it as clear as day, despite it being night. That was a bit emotional.
My sister went to a high-school prom with a guy who was on one of the planes that flew out of Logan. I myself didn't know anyone directly involved. But I ended up meeting a surprising number of folks who were over the next few months.
I also remember how thirsty for revenge we all were. How anxious most of us were for a fight. How easily we as a country more or less agreed to start some war. And where has that brought us? Because it's been seven years and things have only gotten worse. That, more than anything else, makes the loss of thousands of lives an outrage.
Meh. People suck. Those responsible, but also those who initiated our reaction. And I'm guilty too.
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dr_lizardo:
Sad thing about it is that it came our before our iraq shennanigans. People knew just how these things happen but they still happened again anyway.
if:
I was at the state police barracks in Scituate. I was getting my background check for the social work job I just left. I had been waiting for the results for a few minutes when everyone in the office started freaking the fuck out, and for a minute I thought something bad had come back on me (not that I had any reason to worry). That was actually my first day on the job too. After the cops told me what happened, I almost called out and went to a recruiter, but I decided to wait and see what was happening first. In hindsight, that was an excellent decision, because I could never take part in Iraq.