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Post by 1camper on Sept 10, 2015 18:28:03 GMT -8
The changes have been positive for me. I quit smoking that day. In the days following I heard someone on the radio say "if you've never seen the Rockies, you should go because your freedom to do so could be affected by rising gas prices, etc.." I took that advice and saw the Rockies for the first time in June of 2002. Changed my life. So now 14 years later, how are you different?
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JiminMD
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Unrepentant Smartass
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Post by JiminMD on Sept 11, 2015 7:04:41 GMT -8
I was a rookie cop in a Washington DC agency. My whole department changed that day. There is no doubt that my viewpoints on how I perceived threats changed that day. I was listening to the news as they described the attacks as I drove to work. When they announced the Pentagon had been hit, I was just a few miles outside of DC. I put the accelerator on the floor and flew into town. As I rounded a bend on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, the city came into view and I could see smoke rising up from the South West. I have lived since that day knowing that it could have been me in that building, and knowing every time that I step into the US Capitol that Al Qaeda's one great truth is that they ALWAYS come back for targets they missed the first time. I have known since that day that there is a very strong chance that I will be in DC the day they come back. My wife works in DC. By mutual agreement, our kids do not go to school or daycare in the city. We want them clear of the city and the fallout zone in case they hit downtown with something good. I have never looked at an unattended bag the same way. I have never looked at a tourist taking pictures of police the same way. I have never looked at someone wearing a heavy garment on a warm day the same way.
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Post by 1camper on Sept 11, 2015 8:15:03 GMT -8
Thanks for your service Jim.
When I went out west that year I remember a brief discussion I had with a woman as we waited in the lobby at a visitors center in Yellowstone. She was about my age and from Pittsburgh. I told her how I heard that guy on the radio and it inspired me to not put off doing things that I intended to do one day. She said, "people out here don't understand we are at war". There are certainly big differences in perceptions about what that day meant.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 11, 2015 8:45:39 GMT -8
It's tough to say for sure. Renewing my driver's license requires more documentation now. I had to let my HAZMAT endorsement go because it got too expensive to maintain. And there are various token security measures in places that out here have been quite distant from the action thus reported.
The moment I heard the news of 9/11, I knew it meant war, and I've been disappointed to see the shape those wars have taken. The economy has been up and down, but how directly related is tough to decipher. Often when the national economy goes down, the state economy fares much better — but that has not been good for conservation in my area. The national determination to be energy-independent has led to an increase in mineral extraction and an influx of workers to my region.
But the effects on my life seem much more indirect than the valuable description JiminMd provides. I've long been rather cynical about the future of humankind. And if 9/11 and its aftermath have done anything, they have served to confirm my cynicism, such as it is.
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zeke
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Peekaboo slot 2023
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Post by zeke on Sept 11, 2015 8:55:08 GMT -8
I was at work, in Portland, Oregon. We started at 6, so most of us were there by 5:30. As we heard things over the radio, we went to the rooftop and watched the skies. We were about 5 miles at most from PDX, and it was eerie to realize the skies were emptying of all air traffic. There were a couple of NG planes flying around, but nothing else.
Some of my co-workers began flying big flags from their trucks. I never understood that. if they weren't flying patriotic flags before, why then? It certainly did not make me feel any more patriotic. Yes, we were attacked, but not by anyone flying any sort of flag. Terrorists win when we give up freedoms, like we did with many aspects of the Patriot Act. I long for the days when there were no TSA at the airports. They have yet to stop a terrorist attack, no matter the hoops we jump through.
How am I different? I choose aisle seats on any flight, as far forward as I can. I travel with cable ties long enough to go around my thigh, or a small roll of duct tape. I watch people in public settings more carefully, but not with dread. I look for the out of place, and have yet to see anything that would concern anyone. I am just more aware of my surroundings.
For the same reasons TSA has yet to apprehend a terrorist, I have yet to see cause for me to be worried. I'd fly on a flight that had no luggage screening, no passenger pat down. My odds of dying from an attack are far less than me dying on the way up a decent switchback.
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davesenesac
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Our precious life is short within eternity, don't waste it!
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Post by davesenesac on Sept 11, 2015 9:14:26 GMT -8
In all the common ways each of us now has to interact with society and infrastructure. On a personal level not much. The general feeling in our American world is rather similar to those of us that experienced the Cold War of the 50s and 60s with the frightening threat of nuclear war, with all the emergency siren drills of that era and media madness of fallout shelters and how to escape from urban areas.
David
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Post by 1camper on Sept 11, 2015 9:39:32 GMT -8
I remember an F16 pilot calling in to the local blowtorch in town in the days after those attacks. He was landing his aircraft at Fentress in chesapeake just across the intercostal waterway. He said just as he cleared the trees and could see the water there was a rather large boat. The person on the boat reached for a long cylindrical object and started to raise it up toward his plane. The pilot said it scared the hell out of him until he realized the guy was just waving real big flag.
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VAN
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Post by VAN on Sept 11, 2015 10:13:36 GMT -8
I was a senior in high school (yes, yes, I know.. young). Within 2 years I would be dating a Sailor and within 4 years I'd be married to one. We are a military family today (still, 12 years later) because of 9-11 and the National Call to Service program that was created. It opened my eyes to understanding the bravery and sacrifice it takes to keep this country free. It also helped me to know that we have to support or service members even if we do not always support their mission. I am a social worker who works with PTSD in veterans because of 9-11 and my experiences as a military spouse. And my spouse got his GI bill and got his MBA and we got a house from the VA home loan. Our lives are 100% different and impacted because of 9-11.
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Post by 1camper on Sept 11, 2015 10:18:13 GMT -8
Thanks for your service as well.
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amaruq
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Post by amaruq on Sept 11, 2015 10:29:30 GMT -8
I was at a drafting table in shop class in grade 9. Got home at the end of the day not really knowing what was going on and my parents were glued to the TV. I was still quite young and growing up in a small isolated community in Northwestern Ontario, so there hasn't been any major ripple in my life outside of the friskier USBP and TSA. It was, however, awe inspiring to see the entirety of the US come together in the wake of the tragedy. Humbling and very much squashing of that holier-than-thou attitude you find amongst some Canadians towards Americans.
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gabby
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Post by gabby on Sept 11, 2015 10:40:42 GMT -8
Nada.
Given all the prior attacks (even on the WTC in 1993, by essentially the same people), was anyone actually surprised? As usual, we tend to prepare for the largest/most effective/most surprising attack of the past instead of paying attention to the possibility of what might come - like looking for your keys under the streetlight because you can see better there instead of looking where you last were when you lost them. And then there's the business of cost. The attacker (as I invariably explain to the gun hawks) has the advantage in the attack - unless you have a "crack outfit" like the CIA working for you, you have no idea when or where or how the guy is going to hit you next. And sometimes even if you do have "experts" working for you. The attack in 1993 and the other activities of KSM weren't clues? Really?
I was watching TV and waiting for my daughter to get ready for school when the report of the first plane hitting the north tower came in. Everyone thought it was an accident (it had happened before with much smaller aircraft) until the second plane hit 15 minutes later. The wife had called just after the first plane and we were exchanging opinions about the incident when the second plane hit. I remember saying, "I guess that pretty much seals it."
Anyone who sees this first successful attack as a "turning point" wasn't, IMHO, paying attention for some twenty or thirty years prior to it. Instead of looking at the 1993 incident as unique, the intelligence services could have projected some ideas about, given the failure of that attack, what method the guys who did this sort of thing might try next. I guess they had (and have) too much on their plates already probing the air defenses of the commies and fighting off our own rabid homegrown (and well-armed) terrorists.
ETA: And, as davesenesac said, the Cold War had a much larger impact on me, probably because I was so much younger and had a much more optimistic view of what the world was like. I read an article recently - about 9/11 - that expressed that better than I can. We all flinched when Russia did anything back in those days. The end of the world was close at hand. I remember graduating from high school a few months after the Cuban missile crisis. The primary topic of conversation at our Senior Picnic that year was whether or not there would be a recognizable world left after we graduated. Childish overreaction, perhaps, but it all seemed very real at the time.
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FamilySherpa
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Post by FamilySherpa on Sept 11, 2015 11:24:22 GMT -8
I dug a giant hole in my back yard, where I stock pile beer, toilet paper, & campbells soup (not the chunky kind).
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reuben
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Gonna need more Camels at the next refugio...
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Post by reuben on Sept 11, 2015 11:32:27 GMT -8
I worked harder. I expressed love for family and friends more frequently. I cried. Several times.
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johnnyray
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Argle-Bargle, Jiggery-Pokery, and Applesauce
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Post by johnnyray on Sept 11, 2015 12:14:03 GMT -8
I was working on a house west of O'Hare Airport, we had just heard about planes crashing into the World Trade Center on the radio. I was surreal when the overhead air traffic just stopped, we were right under the flight path, our employer started bitching at us to get back to work. I'm much more politically active since the Iraq invasion.
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Post by Lamebeaver on Sept 11, 2015 12:48:55 GMT -8
I now have to take my shoes off when I go through airport security. And I can't carry on things like drill bits.
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