I was at my girlfriend's place when it happened. She'd grown up living through bombings in Croatia, and didn't see what the big deal was. I had to convince her that "September 11th" would be talked about for more than one news cycle.

I was asleep from a long night and my friend and room mate called me and said turn on the news. I said, dude, I am asleep I will watch later...but I heard something strange in his voice. He repeated, turn on the news. I turned on the news to see a smoldering hole that used to be one of the twin towers. I had only been watching for several moments, but I had gathered that one plane had run into the tower. Just as that realization sunk in, the second plane hit, I was confused.

It was all surreal at that point. I was still in a state of mind like I was watching real TV or some other worlds worst disasters shows. It all felt so far away. But then, the first tower came down. There was a shot from the ground of people running, running in terror for their lives as a cloud of dust and glass rushed towards them. As it overtook them they all fell to the ground screaming, and then, silence and darkness. Not realizing that I had jumped to my feet, at that moment of darkness, I collapsed to my knees and started to cry. It was at that moment that I knew that thousands of people were dead, and they died right before my eyes, I saw them die. It was a profound moment, one I will never forget.

Ah, the good ol' days, before news tickers and updated terror alert levels, when war in the Middle East was covert and lied about.

16-day tribute
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messenger's girlfriend's reaction reminded me of this quote:

Noam Chomsky: The events of Sept. 11, first of all, were historic. There is no doubt about that. It was a terrible terrorist atrocity, but that, unfortunately, is not the reason it was an historic event. Unfortunately, it is not unique in scale, by any means. What's unique about it, is the victims. This is the first time in hundreds of years that what we call the west - Europe and its offshoots - have been subjected to the kinds of atrocities that they carry out all the time in other countries and that is unique. The guns are pointed in the other direction for the first time.

It doesn't lessen the nature of the atrocity. It is an atrocity. But, outside Europe and the west, it is well understood that there is nothing new, unfortunately, going on right now.

I was asleep and my girlfriend had gotten out of bed, and already showered. She then came into the bedroom and turned on the TV, which was followed quickly by a "Holy fuck!". I opened my eyes and saw the first twin tower on fire. At first, I thought it was the opening scene from Armageddon, you know, when the meteor fragments had struck NY and they do that pan across the skyline? We had Starz at the time and the movie was in heavy rotation as I remember it. Anyways, it wasn't until I saw the "LIVE" up in the corner that I blinked and sat up in bed, agape.

I live on the West Coast and had gotten up early (before 6AM) and gone to my apartment's gym to work out. Because it was so early there was no one else in there. I was on the treadmill and had the TV on. The news was on and they were showing President Bush reading a book to kids, I think in Florida, when the aide comes in and interrupts him. The news commentators were speculating about what was going on, and then suddenly the broadcast cut to the World Trade Centers. I wasn't really paying attention so at first when I saw all the smoke I was wondering if it was the anniversary of the 1993 WTC bombings. That's when they played the footage of the first plane hitting the tower and I quite literally fell off the treadmill.

Watching this vid reminds me of different a place the world was pre-9/11. And yet, in some ways it is exactly the same. I think we as Americans still have no idea of what is really going on "out there" beyond our borders beyond what mass media spoon-feeds us.

"The last hour before the world changed forever"

lol for stupid amercans that are totaly oblivouse to reality and had and still have there heads up ther ass.