I was in 8th grade in my biology class goofy around and doing what kids do. The teacher turned on the news and we all saw what was happening. I remember wondering what the Twin Towers were and that I was glad no one I knew was on any of those planes. We spent the rest of the school day in class watching the news.

When I got home my mother was crying and I just assumed she and my father had got in another argument. Then my mom and dad asked me and my sister to sit down on the couch, they had something to tell us. I thought they were going to say they were getting a divorce, but instead they told us my aunt, my father's sister, was on the plane that hit the pentagon. My mother and my sisters and I sobbed as my father continued to tell us he'd be leaving for North Carolina to take care of everything for my grandma and grandpa. He was gone for 3 months. It took 2 1/2 months to bury her. That was the hardest time of my life. I pray that the people who are responsible for 9/11 burn in hell. And I pray that the families like mine can one day find peice...I still haven't...the pain is still there and still feels so fresh. God Bless America and our troops who fight for our freedom and to keep us safe!

I'm sure your wife is looking down with shame that she could have ever been married to a person like you.

You symbolize everything that is wrong with the world and are a perfect example of why a person like you should never be in charge. You would be no better then any tyrant who has ever existed.
A true leader seeks harmony and peace and has the wisdom to respect the differences each culture brings.

To paint everyone with the same brush is an admission of your ignorance. NO one is every completly bad and no one is ever completly good. Were talking about people. Not imaginary monsters.

two people i grew up with and went to high school with were killed that day. RIP

A mate came running down the road saying there had been an accident with the world trade centre.

we all looked to the horizon before my mate could add "The WTC in New York not in Melblourne CBD".

We went inside and all huddled around the tv sushin people so we could hear what had happened.

I ooked at the footage of the planes striking the towers and said "That'll be Bin Laden" I didn't pronounce it correctly as I'd only read about the guy.

Over the next few days I got some very odd looks from people who couldn't understand how I'd known he was behind it.

Reading is a powerful magic it'd seem.

It was a surreal night.

And one other thing.

The guy who posted above me here under the delightful user name of Muslims Suck.

Keep it up fella, it's thinking like that and voting in accordance with that vitriolic garbage that will havethe US hooked into more and more wars more and more death more and more suffering of your own people.

You can NOT beat a terrorist force, you can not beat a terrorist force that is willing to die for it's beliefs.

Not that easily said from a Lazy Boy "I'd die for my beliefs" but actually covered in C4 and ball bearings and blowing yourself up.

The Soviets were beaten by these sorts, no one in the Red Army wanted to fight against people who would run at tanks with an AK47 and 2 satchel chargfes tied to themselves.

It annihilates morale.

No terrorist force has evr been defeated by force of arms.

They are brought into the mainstream they are appeased they are elected.

Look at palestine look at israel look at Northern Ireland.

All governed by one time terrorists.

And AQ are no different. Sure they talk a mean rhetoric of a global islamic state, but that will never happen, the idealogues die and more moderate voices are heard, young blood cools as parenthood dawns.All parents want their kids to be healthy happy educated and have a future.

Even terrorists.

So all of your swagger and aggresion serves only to make you feel better, but in doing so you and those who hold your cartoon ideaology are brewing up trouble and strife that you won't have to deal with, your troops will have to deal with.

So effectively you and your armchair general sound a likes serve only to make thijngs harder on troops you purport to support.

A good deal less about your religious pogrom, your espoused genocide from all such swerer minds might help to if not calm things then at least stop hitting the hornets nest thinking it a pinata.

But what is it that makes 3,000 who died in a single, dramatic moment more tragic than 3,000 who died in their own, small, unnoticeable tragedies?

Are deaths of American citizens more tragic than deaths of foreigners? If they are both strangers to us personally, what is the different?

Is innocent death by violence caused by terrorism more tragic than innocent death by violence caused by falling bombs?

Yes, the crime of 9/11/2001 was tragic and unforgiveable. There can be no question. It deserves to be mourned.

But why the annual ritual of mourning for this crime, and for nothing else?

I know that personally, I feel worse about crimes I might have committed than wrongs done to me. If my taxes helped killed an innocent, that weighs more heavily on me than a crime I have no culpability for.

In the last five years, at least 100,000 Iraqis, and maybe up to a million, have died. That represents at least 30 september 11ths.

In the Vietnam War, around 2 million civilians died trying to repel a foreign invader (us) from their country…that’s almost 1,000 september 11ths. Where is their memorial?

Of course, 50,000 GIs died in that war too. They have a bleak memorial in D.C…but, they are largely forgotten.

In Guatemala, 300,000 indigenous peasants were murdered in a cruel and relentelss war throughout the 1980s, while our government funded and armed the murders, knowing their crimes…Who has noone made a list of them for public mourning? Is it because they are so different from us, because we can’t understand their life stories?

Hell, in our own country, 300,000 die every year from smoking..which at least is their own fault. More people probably die every week due to fast food and the junk food we feed our children than died on that day-and I would argue that years of incapacity and misery followed by death is much worse than sudden death. Between 30,000 - 100,000 die from side effects of prescription drugs. Where is their memorial? Vioxx alone killed more than 20,000 people - after studied showed that it was potentially lethal. That’s more than six september 11ths. The executives in the company knew about the study and buried it. Why is there not a similar national outrage calling for their heads, calling for them to be drawn and quartered? We know who the criminal are in that case, we know their crime. Yet they still live in mansions and own private jets, and enjoy all the fruits of wealth and liberty.

I am not criticizing anyone for mourning the 9/11 attacks - especially if you had a relative or friend who died in it. But this ritual of mourning every year for something we had no control over, replacing reason with emotion, promotes a feeling of victimization, of helplessness, and draws attention away from what we can control.

As human beings, we are only responsible for our own actions. If someone causes us harm, then we have a right and a responsibility to find justice. But if we focus on the crime committed against us and our victimhood, we lose track of our own potential to create good in the world, and prevent evil.

P.S. On a different topic.

The real danger of 9/11 is that it was such a stunning act that it can be used to justify anything.

The right wing has "islamofascism" - a threat so great and grave that, by just invoking the name, it can be used to justify anything. Who wants a nuclear bomb going on in times square?

The left wing has "global warming" - a threat so great and grave that, by just invoking the name, it can be used to justify anything. Why wants our seaside cities drowned?

Of course, the solution presented to both is fundamentally flawed - the RAND corporation, certainly no bastion of liberalism, just released a study stating that any military solution to terrorism is bound to fail. And global warming is, probably, a giant crock. When we are deciding what to do, we have to remember something that has been common knowledge for as long as politicians been around - most politicians are self-interested crooks. If they claim they are trying to help you or protect you in any way, don't take it at face value. Don't be taken up by emotional calls, but rather consider everything rationally.

What is past is past. Many millions of people have been killed by evil in history, many millions probably will be killed by evil. What matters is now, what can be done now. In the here and now, I don't want to lose my country and my liberty to politicians who cynically demagogue these fears in order to justify their own agendas.

It is important to remember that - as vile as islamic fundamentalism is - both Nazism and Communism came not out of that part of the world but out of the Christian westernized lands of Europe. They were both created, basically, by politicians in times of crisis promising to provide protection from very real enemies (the nazis promised protection from the largely jewish communists and the communists promised protection from the ruthless capitalists), and both promised to improve the lives of the people.

Already, America today doesn't in any way resemble the America our parents knew - there is so much less freedom, so much more government, so many more police, so many more laws and regulations, so much more fear.

America can never be destroyed by bombs and guns and terrorists. We are physically too strong - we span a rich continent, and we are extremely well armed and resourceful. We can only be destroyed by forgetting the ideological basis of what makes America.

It was the first time in my life, at 21, that I felt a global sense of fear. I couldn't imagine what was going to happen next and spent the rest of the day monitoring several news websites on the internet, refreshing every few minutes.

Every time I hear those chilling 911 tapes or see footage of the World Trade Center on 9/11 I can feel the same fear I did that day. I will remember it for the rest of my life.

Let us not forget the outrage of that day. Let us not forget if these same people said these same words on that day, that we hear right now on this board, being tarred and feathered would be the least of their concerns.

This day is not about partisan politics or advancing some agenda. This is not about drawing some parallels between Americans going to work getting slaughtered for being American, and some people starving overseas due to their own corrupt gov't that is somehow our fault.

We did not cause 9-11, unless you consider being American and living the American way of life by simply going to work a just cause for murder. Those who blame America, are the same ones that blame our way of life and wish to change it to suit their means.

We did not start this war, we as a nation were dragged into it. The war was started with our nation on 9-11. We can, and we will win it. We will only lose the war if we lose our resolve.

Do not underestimate the seriousness of the war, or the importance of the result on mankind. This is a classic example of good vs. evil. We, along with the world, will be judged by the outcome. Ducking and running, ignoring the threat, pretending everything is ok, ignoring the obvious, will only invite more and more repeat occurences, on our soil, against us.

It will continue, until we finally have the resolve to say enough and say, in one collective voice, we will not allow our nation to live in fear of the people who hate us.

Never forget the pain of 9-11. Think for a moment the outrage you felt on that day as you saw a couple of buildings in an American city crash and burn with your fellow countrymen in it. Always remember how violated you felt that day. Teach what that day meant to your children. Let our nation not forget the lesson.

American blood spilled out on the streets that day and if we forget the day, or abandon the cause, they will have died for nothing. When we say that we will always remember 9-11, it is not only about the individuals that died that day, it is also about what we need to do about it so that it is never repeated.

Although I cannot pretend to understand how the families of those victims feel, my heart breaks for each of them. May they find peace.

Everyone will be greatly missed and I remember 9/11 all too well.
It was the quietest day I can remember. And weird to see no planes in the air.

I remember the headline of one of the newspapers the next day, with the simple exclamation "BASTARDS!" above a mid-hit tower photograph. It meant something then, and still does now.

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