September 11th...my personal thoughts

Started by Dave Gilbert, Thu 11/09/2003 12:59:13

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Dave Gilbert

With the second year anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy being today, I found myself writing this personal essay.  It turned out longer than I expected, but I wanted to share it with you.  Feel free to share your thoughts.

For my grandparents, it was "Where were you when Pearl Harbor was bombed?"  

For my parents, is was "Where were you when Kennedy was shot?"

Now, for myself and my generation, it's "Where were you when the World Trade Center collapsed?"

Ask any New Yorker and they'll each tell you a different story.  One might have seen the towers go down.  Another might have lost a friend or loved one in the towers. Ask anyone, and regardless of the story they tell you will see one thing in common - it shook each and every one of them to the core.  I live in New York City, so people generally expect me to have a better perspective on what happened than most.  Maybe I do, but I've put off writing about it.  Like the millions of people living in this city,  I have my story.  I can't pretend that it's of greater or lessor importance than the others you'd hear, but as the second anniversary of the tragedy has arrived, I suddenly feel compelled to write about it.  Chase some old demons away.  Come to terms with it. What have you.  

My story does not start on the 11th, but two days earlier on the 9th.  I was in the midst of driving home from a co-worker's wedding and decided to stop in Jersey City.  I walked over to the pier to check out the view.  Across the Hudson River was the downtown financial district and the World Trade Center.  It was a bright, sunny day - achingly gorgeous. Boats lazily made their way down stream.  It had been a fun weekend and I was feeling good.

Then my cell phone buzzed.  It was my mother.  She uttered the words that I had been expecting - but dreading - for awhile.  "We lost grandma this morning."

I'll spare you the emotional details, but it's what you'd expect.  It was like the world dropped out from under me.  I admit I felt a little dizzy, and I grabbed onto the iron railing for support.  My eyes wandered out over the river, meandered their way over the buildings across the water, and soon locked onto the World Trade Center.

If you've never seen the Twin Towers up close, it's impossible to describe how overpowering they were.  They dominated the skyline.  They were unwaveringly consistant and solid and just always THERE.  They were untouchable.  I clung to them.  Within the maelstrom of emotions that was my state of mind, I clung to those towers like a drowning man.  We fragile human beings might come and go, I thought, but those towers will always be there.  The thought was somehow comforting.

It was the last time I saw them standing.

Two days later, my immediate family gathered at the funeral home.  There, we were to meet the hearse and drive to the cemetary on Long Island.  The general mood was, as you'd expect, very somber.  I was standing just outside with my aunt and cousin, talking quietly, when my uncle came out, ashen-faced.  

"I'm going to tell you something that'll shiver your timbers," he said.  Yes, he actually said this.  He told us that a plane had just hit the World Trade Center.  

I admit to not being very fazed at the time.  It was a tragedy, but I was sure it was an accident.  After all, it was bound to happen sometime.  Surely someone wouldn't do something like that on PURPOSE, would they?  But then the second plane hit, and we all knew it wasn't an accident.  Something was horribly, horribly wrong.

But tragedy or no, my family still had a duty to perform.  We piled into two cars - me and my immediate family in one car, my cousins, aunt and uncle in another - and started the slow drive toward the connecting bridge that would take us to Long Island, the cemetary, and our grandmother's final resting place.  It was all too much to take in at once, and my father insisted that we not turn on the radio.  "Right now, it's all about Grandma," he said.  "Let's do our duty and we'll deal with this later."  Sage advise.  We drove in silence,  and I somehow managed to shove the recent events to the back of my head.  

Then we drove over the bridge... and saw them.

It is an image that is permenantly etched onto my retina.  The Twin Towers, which two days before had been my emotional salvation, were now on fire.  Superimposed in front of a harsh, crystal-clear blue sky, they were belching smoke like two flaming cigarettes.  I knew it was complete chaos over there, but the world surrounding my family and I seemed eerily silent and calm.  All we could do was gape at the site in utter disbelief, and all I could think was "Thank God grandma never has to see this."

Eventually, we arrived at the cemetary.  My cousins, who had the radio on during their drive, filled us in on what happened.  Both towers had collapsed.  There were no more Twin Towers.  From now on, we'd refer to them in the past tense.  

Somehow, we got through the funeral.  We did our duty.  It was the most surreal moment of my life.  I uttered a eulogy that I had prepared - it was heartfelt, honest and conveyed what my grandmother meant to me and all of us, but each word felt like ashes in my mouth.  I felt guilty.  I felt guilty feeling sorry for myself.  Minna Gilbert, my grandmother, also known as "Gabby" to my sister and I, had lived a very long, very blessed life and died very peacefully with all of her children surrounding her.  We should all hope to go that way.  How could I feel sorry for MYSELF, when thousands of innocent lives had just been cut short in such a horrifying, brutal way?  

I felt guilty and I felt angry.  I also felt cheated.  This was a day for US.  It was a day for us to mourn and feel sad and sorry for ourselves.  And it was taken away from us.  Maybe that was a bit selfish - and I KNEW it was selfish - but I couldn't help myself.  My emotions were a whirlwind, churning and spinning around like puree in a blender, and I didn't know what I should feel.

The government had ceased all traffic going in and out of the city, so we were unable to get back.  Fortunately, my cousins had a home on the island so we all headed there.  We spent the majority of the day camped out in their den, our eyes glues to CNN, listening to everything but understanding nothing.  We glared at the screen, as if by the sheer power of our collected minds we could will the reporters into giving us answers.  In retrospect, the timing of the events worked out well.  Because of the funeral, we were all together.  None of us were alone.  We had just gone through hell together, and we bond as a family was strengthened as a result.

Trains into the city were running again the following morning, so we headed back.  For the last 24 hours I had seen the NYC skyline on television, but I was extremely wary of seeing the sight for real.  When we stepped out of the subway station, my mother looked up, gasped and shuddered.  "I'll never find my way around this city again," she said.  I knew exactly what that meant.  The World Trade Center was the designated Compass of New York City.  You just had to glance up, look for the towers, and you'll be able to tell what direction you were facing.  No longer.

I walked my father, mother and sister home.  They were living in an apartment just south of Canal street.  Canal street was deemed the cut-off point for traffic.  To walk south of Canal, you had to show ID that you belonged there.  After we got there and settled in, I decided that I needed to get back to my own home.  I needed to be alone for awhile.  I wasn't feeling too well and I just wanted to sleep the rest of the day away.  So I hugged my family goodbye and began the 13 block uptown walk to my own apartment in the east village.

It was the longest walk of my life.

In a city that was always teeming with life, one that was always filled with hustle and bustle and people jostling each other with lots of honking traffic and all-around NOISE, there was now silence.  The sidewalk and streets were crowded with people, but the overpowering quiet smothered the city like a blanket.  Everyone's face was downcast and haunted - much like mine, in fact.  At one point, a metal door clanged shut with a bone-jarring clang.  It was a sound that you hear every other minute in New York, but at that moment everyone reacted like they heard a gunshot.  A few people screamed.  Everyone was on edge.

A tired-looking man came up to me and, in a thick jamaican accent, asked me where the Queens train was.  I told him the next one was on 8th street, but I didn't know if it was running.  It turns out he was a security man and had been at the World Trade Center site for the last 30 hours.  I don't know what came over me, but I was overflowing with emotion.  I grabbed his hand, shook it mightily, and thanked him profusely.  It was just one many examples of fellowship that broke out across the city after that time.  New York has the reputation of being an unfriendly place, and maybe that's justified, but when a tragedy occurs we all pull together.

I got home, took the elevator to my apartment, and collapsed into bed.  There I stayed for a week.  I might have gone out for food, but I honestly can't remember.

It's been two years since that day, and the media has put forth many theories on What It All Means.  One often hears the words "in these post-9/11 times" being tossed around like a badmitton birdie.  In these post-9/11 times it takes longer to get through airport security.  In these post-9/11 times we are no longer as innocent.  In these post-9/11 times we must be vigilent.  Regardless of how you feel about the politics, the aftermath or the wars that followed, you can't deny what a searing impact that day had.  Much like any personal tragedy, our history is now marked.  There was life before 9/11, and now there is life after.

Andail

I enjoyed reading that, Dave. Since you avoided connecting it to anything political, I hope this thread stays that way.

Let's just say we're happy to have someone who experienced that disaster up close.
If only we had storytellers here from certain other parts of the world as well.

Then we would be the most broad-minded people out there, but it's probably to much to ask for...

Anyhow, thanks for sharing, Dave

Barcik

After each terrorist attack here, the newspapers do an article called "the stories of the victims". This is much like this post of yours, Dave. For example, one of the victims of the last terrorist attack was to be married later that day.
Reading these articles, as well as yours, makes one realize how quickly a person, or at least part of him can change.



Victims of the WTC attacks - Rest in Peace

Currently Working On: Monkey Island 1.5

Timosity

#3
That was a good read Dave, it's interesting to hear different stories from different perspectives.

Even though I've never been to New York, I still felt something strong that day, I was quietly playing Goldrush when the late news came on at 10:30pm on 9/11 (which in Australia we call 9/11 even though the way we write that date would be 11/9) Then they crossed live to new york after the first plane hit. I was watching in disbelief as they thought it might be an accident. as they where talking, in the background another plane hit, it was all just surreal and I was glued to the tv till 5am not knowing what to do. I saw it all collapse live, and even saw people jumping out of windows.
I just couldn't imagine what it would be like for people trapped.
Those sirens were the most eerie sound I think I've ever heard, I wonder who comes up with these sounds, they really know how to set a strange mood.

There was a definate change in the world that day, even though the people of New York may think it mainly just effected them, that is deffinately not the case.

Loss of lives will always be remembered by their loved ones, whether it be a natural dissaster, tragedy, or time, it is just the natural order of life, mourning is a process that is handled differently by everyone, but is a process that feels different as time moves on, you look back on certain events you thought you would never get over, but at a certain point you can look back and even laugh sometimes (even if you feel guilty)

Sad to hear that your Grandmother died too Dave, but I'm sure you are happy knowing she had a fullfilled life and a loving family, My grandfather passed away a couple of months ago, and the funeral was a really strangely happy time, I learned more about him in the eulogy than I had in my whole life, and he had an interesting life.

I also found out that day that my family dates back to Irish Pirates, I'll have to learn more about that one day.

Sorry to get off topic but this thread brings up some strange memories, which makes you think about life in general.

We Remeber!

R.I.P

Darth Mandarb

Dave

Beautiful man ... I thought we all had a lot going on emotionally that day but geeze man ... I can't even imagine another loss like that on that day.  That you, and your family, made it through is a testiment to your strength.


I had always hoped that, maybe, for our generation it would be, "Where were you when the Challenger exploded", I wish it were still only that.

I won't (As Andail) wished, get into politics.  Rather let's leave it as a tribute to the memory of that day.  I can't believe it was already two years ago.  The image is still so powerful in my head.  It feels like it was yesterday.

I was, at that time, living in Michigan.  I got to work and was called into the showroom where the TV was on.  "A plane hit the trade center!"  I was asked if I thought it was an accident.  I immediately suspected a terrorist attack because I know that planes just don't hit buildings anymore, not now-a-days.  Then right in front of my eyes the second plane comes flying in.  I saw it happen.  The feelings and emotions I felt aren't something I can properly put into words.

I spent that whole day glued to the TV in shock.  It's mostly a blur ...

I wrote about this in another thread awhile back.  The night after, on the 12th, my buddies and all met up at the pub.  It was karaoke night.  Nobody was singing.  The bar wasn't even playing music.  It was quiet in the pub.  Just the ocassional clang of a mug being set down.  Then a fellow got up to the mic and sang the national anthem.  Immediately everybody was on their feet, those wearing hats removed them.  Hands of civilians were over hearts and some military were saluting.  EVERYbody was singing along and EVERYbody had tears in their eyes.  It was one of the most emotional moments of my life and a real tribute to American society.  Sure we had grown aloof and distant to one another but that flame that is national pride and patriotism hadn't been snuffed out.

On the 14th (the first day they opened air-travel) my buddy and I flew to Florida.  We were in the airport for like 4 hours.  Now, normally, this would have been chaos.  But there wasn't one single person who complained.  Everybody was so polite to one another and treated everybody with respect.  There are those now, who after the fact, complain about the pumped-up security at places like airports.  But I will say only this about the subject; if sacrificing some small bit of my civil liberties is the price to pay to avoid having to see two buildings collapse and go through that again, I will gladly pay it.

While on the plane there was a man of middle eastern decent who kept getting up and walking up and down the isle.  I'll admit it was making me a little nervous.  He had his little kid with him, but I had seen the pictures of the 9/11 terrorists with their kids, so this didn't lessen my tension.  Everybody kept staring at him and giving him dirty looks and you could just see the questions in their eyes.  Finally I got up and said, "Look man, I'm sorry, but you've got to sit down and stay there.  You're making a LOT of people nervous".  He looked me dead in the eyes and said, "Imagine how I feel."  That single moment put it ALL in perspective for me.

I won't get into the rights and wrongs of racial profiling or any of that crap.  I will simply say that this statement just made me realize how impactful the event had been.  To everybody.


September 11, 2001Honor the brave, Mourn the lost, NEVER forget

God bless the USA and the World.

cheers,
dm

Nostradamus

I want to send my condolences to all the families and friends of all the victims of the worst, & most vicious terrorist act in history. God bless you all.
Every victim of a terrorist act is a shame for humanity.

With that in mind I'd like to raise your attention for terrorist acts all over the world and the innocent people who die. Two days ago there was a terrorist suicider who exploded himself in a bus station near my base, killing 8 soldiers, soldiers who did not kill anyone in their lives (we are in a base that is far from any Palestinian area, we don't even carry guns). I knew two of the victims and that was very very sad. I was in the same place myself 20 minutes before it happened but luckily caught my ride in time. May they rest in piece. May all victims of terrorist acts RIP.



Trapezoid

Incredible post, Dave.
It really interests me what a wide array of personal stories there are regarding 9/11. My experience was rather mundane, and unemotional. Reading about people who broken down and cried as they watched it all unfold, I can totally understand it, but I personally was not affected very much. I just kept myself informed and managed to avoid panic. I even have relatives in NY, but I found out they were all right before I had time to worry about them. I still thank my lucky stars that I don't have a personal reason to feel sadness today. Only respect.

taryuu

since we ahve a lot of AGS'ers from other countries here.  are there moments of silence planned?   and if so what do you use that moment to think about?

thanks for sharing dave
I like having low self-esteem.  It makes me feel special.
   
taryuu?

Timosity

Quote from: taryuu on Thu 11/09/2003 19:08:42
since we ahve a lot of AGS'ers from other countries here.  are there moments of silence planned?

In Aus we didn't have a planned silence (I'm sure various unplanned one's occurred), except on a political satire show we have here called CNNNN, they had a silence (the one with the typical mobile phone going off)

La Lore

#9
I cry when remember this day.  :(
I was eating when my mum called me and told me: "The twin towers, one plane, the TV...!!!"

Two hours later I was watching TV, and I was keeping still.

I think, 11-S is a sad day for everyboy.

:'( :'( :'(
Lorena ^_^/~
"Please, do stop" - m0ds

remixor

Excellent post, DG.  I think it was admirable that you kept politics out of it as well.  People would do well to remember that most of the people hurt by this tragic event had no direct connection to the political side of it.  As somber as your post was, I very much enjoyed it.  Cheers.
Writer, Idle Thumbs!! - "We're probably all about video games!"
News Editor, Adventure Gamers

Pumaman

Very well written post Dave - it's really interesting to get an insight into it from somebody who was there.

I think Nostradamus also makes a good point - while the WTC attacks were probably the worst terrorist act ever committed, there have been several smaller-scale ones since, such as the Bali bombings, which have received far less attention. To have avoided being in that bus station by 20 minutes must have been a very strange experience.

It's all too easy to forget the human element to incidents such as these, and just to view them all as statistics. I hope that the people directly affected by this day have since managed to resume some form of normal life.

TheYak

One other item we shouldn't forget that makes the twin towers attack fairly unique:  Aside from being one of the larger attacks, it was also in a place designated as a major meeting place of people of many countries.  It wasn't just the US that was attacked, it was the UN and the whole of the peace-loving people of the world.  I don't want a political debate to ensue but it is important to remember that the US was not the only victim.  

As for me, I was in the US Marine Corps at the time.  I was due to get out in December of the year.  We were hard at work, organizing the projects for the day, grabbing our tools and supplies and preparing to finish the day's tasks.  Then, we got a phone call and a meeting of our workcenter was called to order.  Of course, military personnel being what they are, rumors and gossip flooded us before anything more official was said.  We heard about the first plane and wondered if it was a freak accident.  We also had a few moments to wonder if it was an isolated attack before the second plane struck.  Each new news item shocked us as though we were being bombarded by tidal wave after tidal wave.  It changed the remainder of my military service and changed our perspective on our roles.  We were no longer theoretically the defenders of our country, we would now see our friends and co-workers sent to the middle east.  We knew that some action would come of this but couldn't anticipate exactly what would happen.  We helped our friends locate their loved ones and ensure they were okay, despite frustration caused by continuously busy phone lines.  Private phone lines in a 40 mile radius were unusable due to the high volume of calls.  I, thankfully, lost no one close to me in the aftermath but unfortunately had several co-workers that had lost people in New York and at the Pentagon.  In fact, one Marine I went to boot camp with died in the Pentagon attack.  It was bizarre that so many emotions could flood a person within such a short period of time.  Many of us felt angry, sad, frustrated, bewildered, righteously indignant and vunerable at the same time.  For the following month, none of us had any idea if we might have to leave behind our families and ship off to the middle east.  We took the time to spend extra quality time with our loved ones and put our affairs in order.  Fortunately, I was not one of those sent but I regret not knowing now what became of those I knew that were.  

Despite how you might feel about the war in Iraq (I'm personally against it), Americans should be thankful that there are men and women in the armed services that have sacrificed their lives (some in reality and some merely by a promise on paper that they would) to defend our country.  However, I am in much higher admiration of those who helped - not because they were ordered to or were otherwise obligated, but the firefighters, police, medics and civilians who went above and beyond the call of duty to work to the point of exhaustion to do what they could in the days that followed.  

I'm sorry if I've thrown the possibility of political discussion into this but it's awfully difficult to avoid when one worked for the government.  ::)

Nacho

Where was I during the terrorist strike on September 11th? I must confess... I was making "siesta"... It is not a joke, I couldn´t make fun about that, I had an exam that day and I studied till the morning.

I switched the TV on, Antena 3 news... a long take of two big twin towers in flames... I knew which where they... I was in Manhattan one year ago.

I thought on a fire... a huge fire, but I suddenly thought that it was almost impossible to start a fire in both buildings, without intentionallity... I start thinking in Ussama Bin Laden (Of course, I couldn´t recall his name in that dates...) I really had in mind that I was still sleeping and that was some kind of nightmare.

Then I so a replay of the planes... Shit. All the people in the planes was dead... I calculated a couple of hundred casualities in the buildings after the impact... I was thinking in how could they last in lighting the fire off... How will the reppairs least... Tow days for the fire? Three months to reppair the buildings? Will they save the people?

Then they started to collapse... The skyline was going to be wounded forever... that maravellous skyline I saw from a nice restaurant in New Jersey one year ago. I started to feel really angry. I must admit that I was sad for the people before the collapse... After that, I felt rage.

When the second building collapsed I was going to do the exam, taken by my mom in her car. Thanks Lord I have no driving lisense, because when I heard by radio that the second building was collapsing I put my hands in my head.

Someone told something about the exam before entering in class... It was about economy. I told not to worry about the exam, the word was going to change in such a way that what we learned till that day was going to be useless...

And I really feel that... that 2 years had been terrible for the world.

I hope this happens soon.
Are you guys ready? Let' s roll!

MrColossal

jess and i were both sleeping, we both had monday's off

my mother called and said that a plane hit the world trade center, i imagined a small prop plane or something, something tiny and i said "Oh." and then she told me it was a commercial flight. I didn't have a tv in my room so I turned on the radio, jess asked me what was wrong, I told her and we listened to the radio for a while then went down to her room and turned the TV on.

A few minutes later another plane hit the pentagon and then another crashed in ... Pennsylvania? i forget but you all know

Jess was on the phone and i was just staring at the screen while all the new tickers flashed by and the news caster's voice flew by and the footage flew by

then what seems like thousands of hours later they show the footage of people dancing in the streets and then ten minutes later i learn that it was old footage from a football match. to this day i don't think many people know this. A professor i had who taught the art of propoganda didn't even know and this was a year later...

my dad was able to get through to me cause he has friends in the city [as anyone in NYC will tell you, the switchboard went down real quick] and he mentioned the dancing. i couldn't listen to him so i didn't

shops closed up, my dorm was right near a military building and they were walking around with large guns and barricading streets, Frank's Pizza [the best pizza in a 10 block radius] would only sell 1 piece per person then they closed.

the city was flooded with people buying supplies, every store closed. Later at night I was driving with Jess and her friend and her boyfriend who didn't have a license up 5th ave eating Grey's Papaya hot dogs and there wasn't a car on the road...

not much to this post, just telling you what happened

eric
"This must be a good time to live in, since Eric bothers to stay here at all"-CJ also: ACHTUNG FRANZ!

Squinky

I was at work, standing in an old jail cell, watching it all on tv....I just felt dread....

Weird thing is, later that day, I had to go buy a new duty weapon and the guys at the gun shop were all talking war....

Las Naranjas

On the Footage eric, one of the more sickening things CNN did was show footage of celebrations of the 1994 Oslo peace accords in that context.
"I'm a moron" - LGM
http://sylpher.com/novomestro
Your resident Novocastrian.

rodekill

I was at work. A coworker mentioned to me that a plane hit, and I immediately thought it was terrorists. I don't know why. Everyone else assumed it was a small private plane.
Anyways, we had no radio or tv, so I was on CNN.com whenever it would load. One of the computer techs got an ancient 12" tv from storage and we hooked it up just in time to see the second tower fall.
I spent most of the time in #AGS, talking about it with everyone, and giving each other news updates as we got them.
90% of our business is in the US, and the phones didn't ring all day, of course.
When I finally got home and saw the footage for the first time, I couldn't believe my eyes. It seemed like a movie.
I still have the special print that the newspaper put out later in the day. The headline is "Death from the air".
SHAWNO NEWS FLASH: Rodekill.com, not updated because I suck at animation. Long story.
peepee

Layabout

I was on #ags and rodey mentioned it. so i turned on the tv. And DG and me kept saying that if it happened in australia the rest of the world wouldnt find out for a week. Or something along those lines.
I am Jean-Pierre.

Jimi

I was at school. Almost as soon as i got home the phone rang. it was my dad. He sounded out of breath like he'd been phoning repeatidely. He said "Dan, have you seen whats happened?...The TV!...Then Bloody watch!!!"  Its actually strange how i remember him saying those words. I had no idea what on earth he was on about. But I turned on the tv, and there, as soon as  i'd turned it on was a plane going into one of the towers. It wasn't long before i saw images of them falling. I couldn't, and didn't want to watch. It just didn't seem real. I've only been to america once, and it was nowhere near Manhatten, but i just kept turning over in my mind how many people had died.

And then the day after, i walked into the shops by my bus stop, and on all the newspapers were pictures of them falling down, or people jumping out of windows, and I didn't know how they could show those sort of images.

Then two days ago, someone drew them falling down and wrote something above it which i won't repeat. But it made me more angry than I'd ever been before. And I';m a pretty emotional person, really.

I just hope nothing like that ever happens again.

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