Lexis

Tomorrow is going to be a sad day as we remember what occured 5 years ago in New York, Washington DC and Pennsylvania. 2,973 people died that day, many of them firefighters and police officers who were trying to help others to safety.

I'm sure none of us will ever forget that day (nor should we).



Collection of photographs of those killed (except of 92 victims) during the terrorists attacks on September 11, 2001

The British poet Simon Armitage has written a poem to remember the day, telling the story of a fictional trader trapped inside the tower (read at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...40506,00.html). It is hard to read but I think important. Its extremely long but it ends:

All lost.
All lost in the dust.
Lost in the fall and the crush and the dark.
Now all coming back.

Five years on, nothing in place:
the hole in the ground
still an open wound,
the gaps in the sky still empty space,
the scene of the crime still largely the same…
but everything changed.

Five years on
what false alarm can be trusted again?
What case or bag can be left unclaimed?
What flight can be sure to steer its course?
What building can claim to own its form?
What column can vow to stand up straight?
What floor can agree to bear its weight?
What tower can vouch to retain its height?
What peace can be said to be water-tight?
What truth can be said to be bullet-proof?
Can anything swear to be built to last?
Can anything pledge to be hard and fast?
What system can promise to stay in place?
What structure can promise to hold its shape?
What future can promise to keep the faith?
Everything changed. Nothing is safe.

Simon Armitage

My thoughts will be with all those who died, all those who lived and those left behind.

chicah

R.I.P. to all the victims of 9/11! You and your poor families are always in our hearts.
Never ever let it happen again.
I hope people won't discriminate muslims even more after tomorrow, they were looked down upon enough after 9/11. It's not their fault.
I just hope the world won't forget this in the future and that hopefully, the families and the victims can after a while regain peace in their hearts.

SoLongSelf

Thanks for starting this thread!

With the 5th anniversary of 9/11 tomorrow, my thoughts and prayers go out to all of those who lost a loved one on that day. You will not be forgotten! Thank you from the bottom of my heart to all of the firefighters, police officers, port authority workers, etc who risked their lives on that day. You will not be forgotten! Thousands of innocent lives ended in the WTC, Pentagon and in Pennsylvania. You will not be forgotten! 9/11 united this country. I'm so proud to call myself an American!!! Thanks to the men and women who are fighting to ensure that we have the freedom that we deserve. God bless our troops. You will not be forgotten! 9/11 will always hold a special place in my heart. It has affected who I am and who we as a country have become!

I will forever remember 9/11!!

Excerpts from President George Bush's 9/11 speech:

Full speech here

Rainstorm Jenny

Even though today is my birthday, I will of course remember the tragic that happened on that day for all those who lost someone in their lives.

Lexis

Yahoo has an interesting before after slideshow at Yahoo! News - The Week in Photos

Dreamsingr

Happy Birthday Jenny!

R.I.P. Everyone who died today.

TokyoNiGHTS

For those interested CNN is currently showing the news cast they did on 9/11 on their website.

CNN.com - Breaking News, U.S., World, Weather, Entertainment & Video News

It's definetly hard to watch but it shows just how innocent and how everything was going as usual. Things usually discussed such as hurricane talk, even stuff like talking about fashion.

$Helen$

I'm Italian and I don't never forget that day...i'm absolutely American Today,I Love You and I pray for all people that have lose their relatives,friends. TWINS TOWER NEVER FORGET! I LOVE YOU SO MUCH! Helen

quaist

US remembers 9/11 five years on

Two minute-long silences have been observed at the World Trade Center site to mark the fifth anniversary of the 11 September attacks.

After the first silence, which marked the time the first plane hit the north tower, relatives began to read the names of the 2,973 people killed,

Beforehand, bells chimed, a choir sang, and tearful families gathered, clutching photos of loved ones.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg quoted a poem as the ceremony got under way.

"If I ever lost you, how much would I cry - how deep is the ocean? How high is the sky?," the wife of one of the victims of the attacks read, using the words of a song to express her loss.

President George W Bush joined firefighters to observe the silences.

Mr Bush is also due to attend commemorations in Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon in Washington.

Flags flew at half mast as the first silence was observed at 0846 New York time (1246 GMT/ 1346 BST).

A second silences was held at 0903 (1303 GMT), the time of the second strike. Further silences are planned for 0959 (1359 GMT) and 1029 (1429 GMT), the times the two towers fell.

Silences are also being observed at the Boston airport from where the planes that hit the towers took off.

TV address

Mr Bush will later visit the Pentagon, hit by a third plane, and the Pennsylvania crash site of the hijacked United Airlines Flight 93.


New Yorkers reflect on the attacks of 11 September 2001

In pictures

In the evening, at 2100 local time (0100 GMT), he will make a formal TV address to the nation from the Oval Office.

It will be only the fifth time that Mr Bush has made such an address to the American people - the first was on the day of the attacks.

At Ground Zero on Sunday, President Bush and his wife, Laura, began the commemorations by placing floral wreaths of red, white and blue upon two dark pools of water as a bagpiper played America the Beautiful.

They later attended a remembrance service at a nearby chapel.

Mr Bush said the anniversary would be "a day of sadness for a lot of people".

He added: "I vowed that I'm never going to forget the lessons of that day. There's still an enemy out there that would like to inflict the same kind of damage again."

Protesters

As the US began the anniversary, broadcasters aired an apparently new video from al-Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who urged Muslims to increase resistance against the US.

In the footage he referred to the recent Israeli bombardment of Lebanon, saying al-Qaeda had been given "every legitimacy" to keep fighting the US and its allies.

The events come as Mr Bush continues to face criticism over his "war on terror" in the run-up to November's mid-term Congressional elections.

Both Vice-President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the US was now safer than it was before the 2001 attacks.

Mr Cheney said: "There has not been another attack on the United States. And that's not an accident."

But Democrat Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid countered: "Vice-President Cheney's influence over our nation's foreign policy has made America less safe."

White House spokesman Tony Snow insisted Mr Bush's TV address would not be "a political speech".

"It is a reflection of what 11 September has meant to the president, and to the country; the realities that it has brought to all of our attention and how we can move forward together to try to win the war on terror," Mr Snow said.

Mr Bush's ratings soared after 11 September, but have declined with the war in Iraq and growing doubts about the administration's handling of the "war on terror".

Even as the president laid the wreaths at Ground Zero, crowds of protesters calling for a US withdrawal from Iraq gathered nearby.

Source

R.I.P., 9/11 victims!

TheAngel

It feels like it was a dream, but at the same time I remember everything that took place that day like it happened yesterday. It's still difficult to imagine that human beings can be capable of such hatred and can cause such pain.
My thoughts are always with the families of those touched by 9/11, all 290 million of them.

chicah

It was so weird, no one even mentioned it at school. This might provoke some of you but I actually didn't think that much about the fact that it was 9/11 today, I had almost forgotten it. One of our teachers is away for a couple of months, I know that we'd talk about it with him. But now we had a substitute teacher the first lessons, he was very young and probably didn't think much about it, he just did what was on the note from our teacher. Then we had one of our regular teachers after the big break but he didn't mention it either, I guess it's because he had brought his 4 year old daughter along because her kindergarten was closed. Or maybe he thought we'd talked about it earlier, or maybe he just forgot. Basically I don't think anyone really remembered that it was 9/11 at the moment.

Jacob1983

That is how America. 9/11 was a wakeup call to America. It showed that America isn't invincible. It was a horrible day in American history. And I wish it never happened. But that wish won't come true. 9/11 did bring people together and unite them as a whole. However, after a few weeks from 9/11 things went back to normal. Cause I remember many people were becoming very religious a few weeks after 9/11. After they got their quick fix and "felt better", they went back to their normal lives.
The sad thing about is that everyone wants to play the blame game and not offer any solution to it. Blaming people is not gonna change what happen and it won't make things better.

Lexis

Blaming people won't change things but identifying where systems failed, how the terrorists managed to commit these atrocities will hopefully help stop other attacks.

Jacob1983

Yeah and ever since 9/11, we haven't had a terrorist attack on America soil. Some people say that the reason why there hasn't been an attack on America since 9/11 is because most terrorists are not interested in America and want to plan their terrorist acts in places in the Middle East. I disagree with that. I get mad when people say America isn't any safer since 9/11. We are definately safer. We got air marshalls on planes and the security at airports is extremely tight. In my opinion, there should have been air marshalls or some type of security guard/cop on planes years before 9/11. Our troops got Saddam and that was a great thing. The guy was a madman who gassed his own people and did many other horrible things.

Lain

Jacob, I kinda agree to that. But while it's safer, many things have changed, whether for the better or the worst. It's noticeable from our government to airport security, and so on.

Yes, today's the anniversary of 9/11 but I guess over here, we didn't really do much of a celebration (such as standing outside buildings and here the bell toll). It was briefly mentioned during my Philosophy class by one of my classmates and we were hoping to get in to another argument about it but alas, it is not.


I think it varies from person to person and how much they are affected by the event. But that's just my thought.