/11 Memorial Thread
09-11-2016, 04:57 PM
I was on leave and at my best friend's funeral in a suburb of South Philly. He was sort of like the little AMOG of our town and his death was a big shock to us all, even to the older generation. He had overdosed on Xanax and Methaqualone on Thursday the 7th and the service commenced at 0800 on Tuesday the 11th. Once everything was said and done we met up at a local restaurant to have one last toast in his honor. A dozen or so people were outside smoking and they were all asking me if I had to go back to my ship since we had been attacked. Naturally I said "what the fuck are you talking about" and they said "yea man someone crashed a bunch of planes into the WTC and the Pentagon".
So I ran inside and joined the crowd that was glued to the news. They had the little picture-in-picture continuously showing the impacts/collapse while the anchors speculated on events. Watching those planes impact Ive never felt more confused in my life. Rage, fear, doubt, suspicion. One of my friends' dad put a beer in my hand and pulled me into a conversation about who did it. We knew right off the bat it wasn't the Red Army Faction or the Weather Underground. I knew that my leave was cancelled so I called my command to ask them what I should do. I asked them, someone naively, if I should go to DC or NYC to assist them and was told "absolutely not, stay put". There was zero transportation. Flights, trains, busses, you name it, it was all shut down. So I had to sit and wait. Like everyone else, my anger grew.
My old house was under the flight path for PHL, and the silence crept me out more than anything. I was due to come back on Friday the 14th and by then things had begun operating again so I was able to catch a flight out of BWI, and I have never seen since such visible fear and paranoia on people's faces. You could have heard a pin drop it was so quiet. No one talked to anyone else, everyone clutched their bags and tried not to be terrified of the NG soldiers.
As for what happened in the aftermath, that is for a different thread.
So I ran inside and joined the crowd that was glued to the news. They had the little picture-in-picture continuously showing the impacts/collapse while the anchors speculated on events. Watching those planes impact Ive never felt more confused in my life. Rage, fear, doubt, suspicion. One of my friends' dad put a beer in my hand and pulled me into a conversation about who did it. We knew right off the bat it wasn't the Red Army Faction or the Weather Underground. I knew that my leave was cancelled so I called my command to ask them what I should do. I asked them, someone naively, if I should go to DC or NYC to assist them and was told "absolutely not, stay put". There was zero transportation. Flights, trains, busses, you name it, it was all shut down. So I had to sit and wait. Like everyone else, my anger grew.
My old house was under the flight path for PHL, and the silence crept me out more than anything. I was due to come back on Friday the 14th and by then things had begun operating again so I was able to catch a flight out of BWI, and I have never seen since such visible fear and paranoia on people's faces. You could have heard a pin drop it was so quiet. No one talked to anyone else, everyone clutched their bags and tried not to be terrified of the NG soldiers.
As for what happened in the aftermath, that is for a different thread.