Question of the Day: 9/11
Eleven years ago today, America was changed forever. The Post Communist Era that began when the Soviet Union crumbled, and the Berlin Wall was smashed to pieces was over. The Age of Terror began.
So where were you that day?
How have the events of 09/11/01 and what followed effected you most?
I was at home on my day off. I woke up moments after the first plane hit the tower. Unusually for me I turned the tv on, and heard them talking about it onevery station. I’m not a tv person so this was a bit disconcerting, sure it was a tragic accident but not much more. I logged into a chatroom on AIM I almost lived in then, and you could tell who had turned on the news, radio or talked to someone who had. Universally, the first comments, even before greetings were “oh my god” or some other inadequate and inevitable expulsion of disbelief, horror and shock.
Then the second plane hit. I knew the world I’d come to know after the Wall and the Curtain fell was burning. Then reports of the Pentagon crash. More people filtered in and out of chat and the mood went from numb shock to blind, atavistic rage of the kind I don’t think Americans had experienced en masse since Pearl Harbor.
How has it affected me most?
I think the knowledge that our country will never escape the professional alarmist, no acceptable risk, safety over liberty mentality that rose from the pyre of terrorist acts, and how sad it makes me for future generations, is the biggest one.