This was September 11, 2001 for my family. My sister died two months prior and my dad was active military. Living on the west coast, the attack was very early for us and I’m not sure what got my mom to wake me up but she did and in a very weird way I’m thankful for it. I rather have known what happened than hear it afterwards. Being a child, it was a very surreal day. I thought I understood death and its magnitude after my sister died but I couldn’t comprehend this kind of scale.
I know we make light of it the event on the internet (I’m totally guilty of that too)… However I’ve been seeing videos of personal recounts of people there in the moment and it’s made me check myself. My families life changed fundamentally but it pales in comparison to so many others.
There’s a certain account that animates personal stories (that I believe are largely NY/east coast based) called Story Corps. Every single post has made me cry.
For all those whose lives were changed through this tragedy, I’m so sorry.
I was at MEPS that morning (military enlistment processing station). I was supposed to go to boot camp that day. We were in the middle of some physical when a civilian employee pops in, says, “y’all need to see this.” We watched the attacks in the break room. My parents had to come get me and I shipped out the next week to Fort Sill.
Ooohhh fuck that didn't even occur to me and I work under the Air Education and Training Command umbrella. Tuesdays are swear-in/ship-out days for the military. Chaotic on even our smoothest days, so I can't imagine what that was like. I'm so sorry that happened to you. A lot of young men and women that day probably woke up thinking they'd be traveling the world and doing stuff in east Europe at most. Desert Storm was a decade in the past at that point.
Right on. My story was a little different that day, since I never enlisted. In the blackest of humor, I can say that was the day my childhood ended, because I turned 18 the next day; 43 tomorrow.
Still had a lot of thoughts about what it meant though, especially with that Selective Service card freshly added to my wallet.
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u/reddot_comic Finessed Impropriety 15h ago edited 14h ago
This was September 11, 2001 for my family. My sister died two months prior and my dad was active military. Living on the west coast, the attack was very early for us and I’m not sure what got my mom to wake me up but she did and in a very weird way I’m thankful for it. I rather have known what happened than hear it afterwards. Being a child, it was a very surreal day. I thought I understood death and its magnitude after my sister died but I couldn’t comprehend this kind of scale.
I know we make light of it the event on the internet (I’m totally guilty of that too)… However I’ve been seeing videos of personal recounts of people there in the moment and it’s made me check myself. My families life changed fundamentally but it pales in comparison to so many others.
There’s a certain account that animates personal stories (that I believe are largely NY/east coast based) called Story Corps. Every single post has made me cry.
For all those whose lives were changed through this tragedy, I’m so sorry.