Althouse: September 11th, the 11th anniversary.

September 11, 2012

September 11th, the 11th anniversary.

Beginning the second decade of annual remembrance.

57 comments:

rhhardin said...: Love of soap opera ensures it.; 9/11/12, 7:35 AM
Matt Sablan said...: On Sept. 11, I was still in high school. I began the day by getting to school and going to the Upper School Library to do a final proof/edit of a physics paper. I used a floppy disk to move the files around, and it was large enough to hold multiple papers. It was a marvel of modern technology.

Before I could turn in the paper though, everyone was staring at a TV, classes without TVs had moved to crowd into rooms that did, one teacher was using a radio.; 9/11/12, 7:38 AM
rhhardin said...: Imus is going to have a minute of silence at 8:45 or whenever the minute was.

I trust that radio affiliates will automatically spot the dead air and go to commercials.; 9/11/12, 7:39 AM
Bob Ellison said...: Google.com is marking the anniversary. Google.de, google.co.uk, and the rest, not so much.; 9/11/12, 7:43 AM
Old RPM Daddy said...: On September 11th, I was at work in Crystal City. That was a bad day.; 9/11/12, 7:43 AM
vet66 said...: Never forget those who lost their lives at the hands of radical Islam.; 9/11/12, 7:45 AM
Mark O said...: It was a terrible day.

It has been followed by terrible years of the increasing loss of American civil liberties.

As long as I have to take off my shoes to board a plane, the men who flew into the towers are winning.; 9/11/12, 7:47 AM
The Repairman said...: Thank you President Obama for keeping us safe.; 9/11/12, 7:48 AM
Roger J. said...: it would be nice were there no posts about who was at fault--Radical Islam was at fault. But I fear that this thread will devolve into yet another finger pointing exercise.; 9/11/12, 7:48 AM
wyo sis said...: My son was in Washington DC getting ready to fly home. He didn't make it home until a week later. It was a tense time. Babies born that day are in 5th or 6th grade.; 9/11/12, 7:48 AM
Ambrose said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 9/11/12, 7:50 AM
prairie wind said...: Beginning the second decade of annual remembrance.

Made me laugh. We should never forget any time our country is attacked but sometimes the constant 9/11 remembrances feel masturbatory.

I remember 9/11 every time I go through TSA. Pisses me off every single time...but that came from Bush, not from Al Quaida.; 9/11/12, 7:50 AM
rhhardin said...: I claim it's entertainment.; 9/11/12, 7:51 AM
Colonel Angus said...: I remember 9/11 every time I go through TSA. Pisses me off every single time...but that came from Bush, not from Al Quaida.

Good point. Increased security after 9/11 was idiotic.; 9/11/12, 8:00 AM
KJE said...: I was on my way to a law school internship with the State Public Defender's Office. I met my attorney-supervisor for the first time that morning; and about 45 minutes into it, the Milwaukee County Court House was closed.

I still believe in civil liberties.

I think the USA PATRIOT Act has faults; but is a very necessary resource at this time.

I still want the day to come where we can repeal it, or let it expire.; 9/11/12, 8:01 AM
Curious George said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 9/11/12, 8:02 AM
Curious George said...: Was working from home at the time, got a call from a girlfriend on her way to work "Can you believe it?" Had no idea what was going on. Turned on the TV and a few minutes later the first tower collapsed. Surreal.

Later that day went to play some golf...I had to something other then watch TV. Had to connect with normalcy I guess. Didn't find it on the course. Nine holes and nothing was said with the three guys I ended up playing with. I don't mean nothing was said about the events. I mean almost no communication at all. I guess we were all still trying to process it.; 9/11/12, 8:04 AM
a psychiatrist who learned from veterans said...: One of those acts in history breathtakingly disproportionate to the provocation.; 9/11/12, 8:04 AM
furious_a said...: The reading of the names always gives me pause. Thanks, Pres. Bush, for pursuing AQ,and Pres. Obama for continuing the pursuit.

Fox New reader: "...searing images burned into our memory...". /face palm/; 9/11/12, 8:13 AM
Lyssa said...: I had just gotten married 3 months before it happened, and I was a college student. I still remember walking around campus, having watched the news before I left home, and wondering how many people there just didn't even know yet. Sureal - I can't believe that it's been that long, and I can't believe there was ever a time without it.

Odd how much the flow of information has changed, too. My husband worked in retail and had left before it started; I recall calling him, but not until late that afternoon, and wondering if he had even heard (he had, in fact, a customer had come in and told him what was going on, and they both went to the break room and watched the 2nd plane hit on TV, but to even think of that as not being known immediately now blows my mind.; 9/11/12, 8:17 AM
Patrick said...: I felt very alone that day. I'd just started a job, and didn't know anyone. My wife went home early, and when I got home, we went to vote. After watching several hours of TV coverage, I needed to do something, so I fixed the toilet.

I live near an airport. When the planes returned to the skies, they appeared very sinister for about a week.; 9/11/12, 8:19 AM
cubanbob said...: If Bill Clinton had done what he should have after the first WTC bombing or after the Khobar Towers or after the embassy bombings or after the USS Cole attack, 9/11 might never have had happened.; 9/11/12, 8:23 AM
Bob Ellison said...: I went to work that day, like everyone else at my company in Arizona. We had a rare all-staff meeting to start the day, and all staff was told to take the day off, and whatever else was necessary. Nobody left, I think. We did what Mayor Giuliani said: get to work.

The skies over Phoenix always have airplanes, but not on that day.; 9/11/12, 8:25 AM
ad hoc said...: I was at work in the DC metro area. After the Pentagon was hit, many headed for home, myself included. It was a terrible day. The weather today in DC is almost exactly like it was 11 years ago, a cool cloudless fall morning.; 9/11/12, 8:29 AM
Joe Schmoe said...: I spent the next few weeks waiting for more shoes to drop. I remember thinking that was the first salvo in a series of coordinated attacks. I really thought it was the beginning of a war on American soil. Luckily that didn't happen.; 9/11/12, 8:36 AM
kristinintexas said...: I was working part-time and living at home, and had just gotten out of the shower when my mom came to tell me what had happened. I watched the second tower fall on TV with dripping wet hair.

Later that month (!) I flew on a cross-country flight to school (that university was on the quarter system and started later). The (smaller) airport flew out of was a ghost town, but the new security measures weren't in place yet. Flying home again at Christmas was a different story.; 9/11/12, 8:42 AM
Michael said...: I think last year was when we began our second decade of rememberance.; 9/11/12, 8:43 AM
edutcher said...: I was at work when one of the testers said someone "had done a kamikaze into the World Trade Center".

Never forget who did it, and never forget those who have enabled them.

Especially the Enabler-In-Chief.

The Repairman said...

Thank you President Obama for keeping us safe.

No, thank you, Dubya, Darth, Rummy, Condi, and all the men and women who put it on the line every day in the US Armed Forces.

a psychiatrist who learned from veterans said...

One of those acts in history breathtakingly disproportionate to the provocation.

Just like Pearl Harbor, right?; 9/11/12, 8:43 AM
Michael said...: I was in Hawaii on business so didnt find out until around five A.M. The next couple of days were odd out there in the middle of the ocean. The lights of planes normally a constant on the horizon off Honolulu were absent. Only stars. Understanding what had happened on the flight that was stopped by passengers I had no fear of flying and havent since.

The heroism of those men was remarkable and we should meditate on that quality today.; 9/11/12, 8:48 AM
Old RPM Daddy said...: @Cubanbob: "If Bill Clinton had done what he should have after the first WTC bombing or after the Khobar Towers or after the embassy bombings or after the USS Cole attack, 9/11 might never have had happened."

Maybe, maybe not. We like to think hindsight is 20/20, but it really isn't. What the terrorists decide to do isn't entirely dependent on what we do.

As for the rest of the day in our building in Crystal City -- I remember hearing somebody say that the State Department got hit, and our admin assistant, whose husband worked in Foggy Bottom, was beside herself. Traffic going south on US Route 1 was at a standstill. I remember walking outside, looking up at the sky, and wondering if another plane was going to take me out.

Eventually, I made my way home, and went for a walk with my eldest daughter, a high school freshman at the time. She had heard about the strikes during band class. Many of her classmates' parents worked at the Pentagon, so they were terribly afraid. I went to work early the next day, and what struck me as I walked across the courtyard to my building was the smell -- burnt plastic, among other things. The Pentagon was still smoldering.; 9/11/12, 9:04 AM
Known Unknown said...: I remember not being sad.

But intensely angry.; 9/11/12, 9:05 AM
The Drill SGT said...: Here's to Rick Rescorla, a Real American

Absent Companions!; 9/11/12, 9:08 AM
MadisonMan said...: Days like today remind me of the mid-60s rememberances of Pearl Harbor, or D-Day. And I ponder that in 20 or 30 years, memory of 9/11 will similarly fade into the past, as it will not resonate with the young.

In less than 10 years, the Beloit College annual make-me-feel-old press release will note that TSA has always been around. Because, unfortunately, it's so hard to get rid of a government bureacracy.; 9/11/12, 9:08 AM
kjbe said...: My husband was traveling for work and had stayed an extra day in Orlando to visit Disney World. 10 minutes after he got there, they closed it up, understandably. It took him a week to get home, via train and bus.

I was working at home that day and caught the coverage on the Today Show. HS freshmen daughter came home early, I believe. I remember having so much adrenaline, I didn't know what to do - I could not sit still. It was a very bad week. Went to extra meetings and tried to play some golf (was struck by the completely empty skies)...also discovered Sponge Bob, that week, as a worthy distraction.; 9/11/12, 9:15 AM
test said...: EMD said...
I remember not being sad.

But intensely angry.

Yes, anger at many people. The jihadists most of all. But also at those who cheered 3,000 deaths. Anger that the media virtually immediately began censoring the news lest Americans come to understand unapproved realities. Also at the academic activists organizing teach-ins that very day to initiate the narrative that it is all America's fault. Anger at those holier than thou Europeans who took the opportunity to show how much they hated America also. So many bathed in ignominy.; 9/11/12, 9:21 AM
XRay said...: "But intensely angry."

Yes. And it really hasn't left.; 9/11/12, 9:21 AM
Sydney said...: I remember learning about it bits and pieces. I was part of a large group of doctors then. We had a common area where we handed a piece of paper with the diagnosis and billing info for the visit to the receptionist and finished up our notes between patients. The woman who did our filing had a radio on in the medical record room. She would come out every so often with an update. I remember it like this:

Clerk: Where's the World Trade Center?

Me: New York City, why?

Clerk: A plane just hit it.

Me: What? How does that happen? Those towers are big. (thinking it was a small private plane)

Went on to the next patient. Came out 15-20 minutes later.

Clerk: It was a passnger plane

Me: What? How could that possibly happen?

On to next patient. Back to common area in another 15-20 patients.

Clerk: Another plane hit another tower. They think it's terrorism.

I don't remember saying anything. It went on like that - through the Pentagon, through the shooting down of the airplane in PA. A lot of the staff went home to collect their kids from school. Everyone seemed to have a need to hold those dear to them close.

I kept on working because I had a full schedule. No one cancelled that day. I remember finding it really difficult to care about someone's painful arches after what had just happened.

About a month later I attended a family medicine review course that is usually heavily attended by military doctors due its location. They were all absent that year.; 9/11/12, 9:40 AM
JAL said...: I was in the doctor's office with my mom and no one said a thing.

We went across the street for a late breaksfast, and as we paid the bill the radio was on.

They announce a truck bomb had gone off at the Pentagon, the World Trade Center had collapsed and another plane was out there ...

"This sounds like a Tom Clancy novel" I said.

I ended up running the VCR and watching TV for what ... 4? 5 days?

One daughter was in Kenya and due to come home so we did communicate later about which way she should fly (Europe was jammed up). She came home through Europe eventually.

An older friend -- a retired academic / scientist rode with his sweetheart journalist lady friend to the airport in NY that morning and got back to his apartment as hell broke loose in lower Manhattan.

His lady friend was on the plane over Shanksville. He developed a tremor and he, a Jew who had walked in on one of the concentration camps and seen the horror at the end of WWII, was overwhelmed with grief and anger.

I watch the America Attacked slide show (Enya sings) and weep for the losses.

Also
Samuel Barber - Adagio for Strings, op.11

It is not wrong to stop. It is not wrong to walk in the war cemetaries of Europe. And remember.

This is an evil world.

" ... if we are not inspired to lead again, one of two things will happen – no one will lead and that will foster chaos —- or others who do not share our values will fill the vacuum." Condoleezza Rice 2012; 9/11/12, 9:46 AM
Kelly said...: We were stationed at Fort Knox 11 years ago. My husband was in Korea, my oldest daughter was home from school pretending to be sick. Life turned upside down that day. We went from an open post, free to drive on and off, to routine car searches and in the beginning; it took 2 hours just to get back on base.

Fed up, my 3 year old pounded the head of the soldier who was unfortanute enough to stick his head in our car to search for weapons. My car received a top to bottom search.

It was jarring to walk out the door to see a humvee driving down our street with a soldier manning a machine gun on its roof. Military families knew what was coming. Never dreamed it would go on this long.; 9/11/12, 9:52 AM
Sofa King said...: Bing.com has a nice animated picture of the memorial today.

I was in my junior year at the UW. I had set up my computer to automatically turn on CNN in the morning as a sort of alarm clock, and so I awoke to the aftermath of the first plane hitting. Of course, I assumed it had to be some kind of terrible accident, until the second plane hit. I was very shaken by this and poured myself a shot of bourbon to calm down. I made my way to the dining hall and remember eating my breakfast when I watched the towers collapse on the dining hall television. I stopped eating because I suddenly felt that I might vomit. The rest of the day is hazy after that, I don't remember much. I don't think classes were cancelled.; 9/11/12, 10:02 AM
Stilton Cheeseright said...: If I was a federal cop I would spare no effort to locate the corpse of UBL, bring it up from the depths and never stop kissing its ass.

Grievous harm was done to all the people who died and all their families and the entire country. This was the kind of harm fades with time even if only because everyone effected eventually dies.

Lasting harm was done by getting all of our home grown assholes all worked up and active and damping opposition to their crimes against a people still nominally free. We were attacked twice. One of the attacks continues with no end in sight. Send in the drones.; 9/11/12, 10:05 AM
Scott said...: My office was directly across the Hudson River, at 10 Exchange Place in Jersey City. I had arrived to work late, and did not see the second plane hit. My only thought was, "I've got to get home." But that was difficult because most public transportation was stopped. I managed to hitch a ride with a couple of girls, who drove me and some others from JC to Newark, where I got a train back to Rahway.

Today I'm working from home. A commenter yesterday suggested that all the gentrification projects happening in Manhattan and Brooklyn suggested some new uplifting pioneering spirit among New Yorkers. I think that viewpoint is superficial. Trauma does tend to reset people's priorities; but this is due to a survival mentality that is not a positive thing. You really have to live here to see it. Bloomberg issues some asinine edict about soft drink cup sizes or breast feeding -- and people just grumble and take it. There's no fight left in your average New Yorker.; 9/11/12, 10:17 AM
Aridog said...: What is there to say? It was a very long day compressed in to one ending around 1:00 PM for me.

Coincidently, I saw the 2nd plane hit on television, in our office, several floors up in the local federal building, and by the time the 3rd plane hit the Pentagon I was reading messages, unclassified and classified, regarding emergency response planning (and edicts), coming from there and elsewhere in Washington DC. From that point on...just after the 3rd plane hit, I was on auto-pilot and without much emotion. Way beyond anger, focused, just determined to let nothing and no one get in my way, in our way, period, by any means necessary.

I began sending staff people from our office home by 10:30 because one by one their fear became palpable...fear poured from their eyes, so to speak. Tears followed. How do you make a civilian stay (and why would you?) when they're in tears? You don't. You do not know what is next, only what has happened and that's ugly. Very ugly. We weren't sure what was happening to our associates in WT 7...they all escaped before the collapse...but we didn't know that until much later when we heard from the US Army Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn....and our NYC operations office in New Jersey.

Other Chiefs began doing the same thing as well. One staffer pointed out to me that our building was on a clear unobstructed path from our metro airport, straight down a major roadway. True that. Several were staring down the highway looking for the plane they thought might be coming. Seems also to silly now, that so many were unabashedly afraid. Or maybe not. I understood it then, but I did not feel it. I felt nothing...nothing positive anyway.

By 10:30 AM all 27 floors and the plaza perimeter were covered by uniformed, some ninja or swat clad, law enforcement from Secret Service, FBI, DEA, Federal Protective Service, and some I'm forgetting I'm sure...most carrying sub-machine gun weapons. That amped up the fear factor I believe....but seemed necessary at the time.

At 1:00 PM we were ordered to clear the building and shut it down completely...and to go home. Part of that directive was to find all of our people and determine where they were...using VPN networks supervisory folks had for global connectivity, email, and such, plus out cell phones.

I drove home, to a neighborhood with the largest concentrated population of Arabs in the USA. The first person to greet me was a Lebanese neighbor woman in tears, crying...."what we fled has followed us here." It didn't "click" in my mind until later. I just sat down in my yard with out our dogs, and smoked some cigarettes. I spoke to no one else.

I had one MIA who had been attending a meeting in Crystal City outside of DC, near the Pentagon. I found her, or she found me, by late that evening I think...when she'd managed to get to Union Station and get on a Amtrak train for Chicago, with connection on one to Detroit. Rental cars were gone in DC by noon or before.

That was my day on 11 September 2001. 10 days later, a neighbor and friend, a Federal Protective Service officer, was gunned down and killed in the lobby on our building. By a WASP ass crazy man. 21 September 2001 sucked even more.; 9/11/12, 10:35 AM
The Drill SGT said...: add Father Mychal Judge, FDNY Chaplain, who died in the lobby of the North Tower, alternately giving last rites to victims and giving mass absolution to firemen going up 70 flights of stairs in full gear to their deaths.; 9/11/12, 10:55 AM
Aridog said...: The Drill SGT ....Agreed.

I am in awe of those men who went up the down stair cases into a conflagration they must have known they could not win. But they tried and from what I've read, saved many lives while losing their own.; 9/11/12, 11:01 AM
The Drill SGT said...: Aridog said...
I am in awe of those men who went up the down stair cases into a conflagration they must have known they could not win.

all it takes is one formal or informal leader to say, "Follow me", then the same ethos that motivates soldiers kicks in.

Not Patriotism, but rather the fear that they will be thought cowards in the eyes of their peers.; 9/11/12, 11:50 AM
vza said...: Are you serious? How On earth is President Obama responsible for enabling the terrorists who struck on 9/11?

ed butcher said:
"Never forget who did it, and never forget those who have enabled them."

"Especially the Enabler-In-Chief."; 9/11/12, 11:51 AM
SJL said...: Ann Althouse........you have nothing else to say? That is disgusting!; 9/11/12, 11:53 AM
SJL said...: Actually, you said nothing, which is worse. I am so disappointed in you.; 9/11/12, 11:57 AM
SJL said...: I suppose you are more interested in politics and fuel economy. Go for it.; 9/11/12, 12:00 PM
Methadras said...: May they rest in peace. Bin Laden is eternally tormented in hell and thank god for it and for ST6 for sending him there.; 9/11/12, 1:16 PM
XRay said...: "but rather the fear that they will be thought cowards in the eyes of their peers."

I disagree with this.; 9/11/12, 2:18 PM
The Drill SGT said...: XRay said...
"but rather the fear that they will be thought cowards in the eyes of their peers."

I disagree with this.

Read the great Army Historian BG SLA Marshall's 1950's book, "Men Under Fire". It documents based on thousands of interviews, the reason that men fight. Ultimately, it's not God, mother, or Apple pie. That may get men to join up and get to the battle, but when the metal meets the meat, men fight for the respect of their squadies. If some men go forward, none dare hang back.; 9/11/12, 2:38 PM
XRay said...: That all may be, just wasn't my experience is all. When you're well trained and motivated you're drawn to it like a moth to flame. Not all, of course, but then that's what you're speaking of, the others. Understood.; 9/11/12, 3:26 PM
Anonymous said...: Fire Fighters who died that day. I think it is well worth it at least looking at their picture and remembering them as hero. And if one is able give them a greater blessing to where they are headed.

A tremendous sacrifice.; 9/11/12, 4:10 PM
Petunia said...: I don't see anything on Google US commemorating the anniversary. Kind of like how they often ignore Memorial Day and the 4th of July.; 9/11/12, 4:21 PM
rhhardin said...: Mayor of Los Angeles double-splits an infinitive for the occasion

"We vow to never ever forget"; 9/11/12, 5:02 PM