Do you remember what it felt like?

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

H2Andy

Contributor
Messages
29,643
Reaction score
390
Location
NE Florida
# of dives
200 - 499
14 years ago this morning.

I thought we were in for years of terrorists flying planes into buildings before things got under control.

i felt at war.

i didn't feel afraid: I knew we'd be alright in the end.

i had no idea of the carnage that would follow in Afghanistan and Iraq. their tragedy has been 100,000 times worse than 9/11
 
I may not be from the USA, but I remember feeling just numb for most of the day. When it finally sunk in what happened, it was hard for me to feel angry, as I was too filled with sadness for all of the families that were destroyed.
 
Yes, I was 1 mile away and could see it from my apartment. I knew some people who were much closer and witnessed people jumping from the buildings, one of them, a really sweet person, kind of lost her mind and ended up in a mental hospital. I remember walking way up-town to donate blood because all the downtown ones were overrun with donors , filling out the form outside, and hundreds of us being told that they couldn't process any more donations. etc.
 
i didn't feel afraid: I knew we'd be alright in the end.

Oddly enough, for me was kind of the opposite. Let me open with an analogy. When the colonists rebelled against England in the Revolutionary War, the redcoats came to fight on U.S. soil. Historically, they were used to fighting in Europe, where massive deforestation made battlefields very open - I suppose rather like golf courses. Their approach to troop fighting reflected that. Not much cover. When they reached the U.S., they faced colonists who were more familiar with the concept of shooting at foes from cover (e.g.: trees). Took awhile for the new rules of engagement to catch on.

Or at least I've been taught that at some point in a history class.

Cut to the late 90's/2000. The U.S. is the leading global superpower with a nuclear arsenal that could destroy human life in Earth many times over, technological superiority to the Soviets, and the Soviet Union had largely collapsed, leaving the U.S. the major post-cold war world leader. We knew there were terrorists in the world; we heard about places like Beirut & Lebanon. We knew our servicemen stationed overseas were occasionally targeted. And as in the Iran hostage drama at the close of the Carter administration, we knew Americans abroad in hotspots were at some small risk.

Or at least I've been given to understand & recall.

But nobody would mess with us on our own soil; even a 'war' with the U.S. on foreign soil would be an exercise in whether we should crush you with vastly superior military might, or nuke your crappy country into a radioactive crater. Nobody wanted a piece of that.

911 Brought terrorism to U.S. soil. You're not safe just because you stay home in the U.S. of A. We learned what foreign governments facing guerrillas long knew; a terrorist organization spread amidst a civilian population is not amenable to crushing with nukes or similar massive military annihilation. They're not like redcoats standing clustered in an open field; miss one you'll hit the one behind him? No. And while a government will not choose suicide in the pursuit of a cause, some individuals will, and with modern technology, they can do a lot more damage than a musket.

But 911 wasn't one nut job with a car bomb. It wasn't even an Oklahoma government building bombing where the killer made a really big blast. No, this was organized, involving a number of people, and they could strike at targets I would've guessed almost impregnable.

Cut to 2015. Like the redcoats, we've had to adapt to modern realities. When you go for your plane flight, family can't accompany you to the gate to see you off. There was already security, but not like it is now.

To sum it up, on 9-11-01, my reaction was a chilling realization that 'The Rules Have Changed.'

Richard.
 
It was my Sr. Year in high school. I had 2 weeks prior signed with a marine recruiter.


were you deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq?
 
not rude at all
 
I say that due to so many people always wanting the gory details and I know they mean no harm in asking, but for anyone who was there it's not something they want to remember. As far as a non military memory I do remember that on the 11th I was sitting in an electronics technology class when another teacher came in the room whispered to my instructor and I recall him taking a very deep breath and putting his hands behind his head then standing up and addressing the class. After that I went into the wtf have I got my self into state. That's where I stayed till half way through my 3rd week of bootcamp.
I don't think many US citizens will forget where they were or what they were doing at that moment..

Sent from my galaxy S5 Active.
 
I remember being bewildered by the shift in our country afterward. I am a child of the Cold War; I grew up "under the shadow of the mushroom cloud," as it were, always with the threat of full-scale nuclear war looming. Then 9/11 happened, and the total death count was less than either Hiroshima or Nagasaki, both of which were only small nuclear bombs compared to what existed in my day, the 80s. So why were people, even of my generation who remember, so much more scared post 9/11 than they were during the Cold War? I still don't get it.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

Back
Top Bottom