Editor's note: Our readers responded to our call for memories from Sept. 11, 2001 as we draw closer to the 10th anniversary of 9/11 this Sunday. Here are their responses:
I am a United Airlines pilot. Prior to that day, I flew both the United planes that crashed one into theTrade Center and the other into the ground in Pennsylvania. Myco-workers who diedprobably had their throats slit before impact, something that has stayed with me all these years.
While I don't ever want to say the firemen weren't heroes on that day they were but no one speaks about the pilots and flight attendants who, to this day,put their lives on the line every time they go to work. They are your first line of defence. Today, think about the pilots, and especially the flight attendants, whoreceive such little recognition for what they do keeping you safe. They deserve the accolades.
Don Chapman
The New York Police Department lost 140 officers and the New York Fire Department 330 on 9/11.
Last week my family and I visited the 9/11 memorial site situated at Ground Zero, after I competed in the World Police and Fire Games. What a sobering place. None of us cared to speak while in the memorial, even though we were in it for over an hour. It is just so shocking and surreal, that you become immersed in the moment. Considering neither of my two teenage kids have much recollection of 9/11, the impact of the memorial site on their perspectives was profound.
My son was mesmerized by a running video, identifying the names of the people killed that day. The video continues uninterrupted for 4.5 hours.
My daughter was moved by the last words of a husband on Flight 93, who left a voice recording to his wife just before the crash in the Pennsylvania field.
Considering 9/11 had a significant impact on New York, it is very evident that, while devastated, New Yorkers have picked themselves up, dusted themselves off and begun to move onward and upward following the event.
Murray Smith
My daughter Amy and I were there in New York at the Penn Plaza (Media Building) when I called home at 9 a.m.
While talking to my husband, I saw the first plane crash into the first tower on the monitor, only to get caught up being locked into the city for three days.
Feeding the forgotten homeless, communication limited, meeting the minister who served rites over body parts, devastation all around us, and sheltering newly homeless in our rooms. Curfew meant tanks and fighter jets were now reigning, and barren streets sent shivers now to plan our escape from terror.
This changed our lives forever!
Joanne Chiasson
The wife and I were just sitting down to breakfast in our bed and breakfast in Santa Fe that morning when a panic-stricken guest ran inside and breathlessly stammered, "a plane hit the Twin Towers and it's burning."
An airplane hitting what? We continued eating as if nothing had happened.
A few minutes later the same lady ran inside the breakfast area again and screamed, "I can't believe this. You guys should see this. It's horrible."
We rushed into our own room to watch this unbelievable and horrendous event taking place, repeated over and over again on TV. Later on we went outside and saw that military personnel surrounded the Capitol building. Pedestrians walked around as in a daze and I remember crying a lot that day.
Bill Endert
That morning, I had arrived at Vancouver General Hospital for day surgery, ignorant of what had just happened. Staff enlightened me.
Though I felt compassion for the innocent Americans killed and their families, I knew that millions more around the world had died over the decades, as a result of the U.S. intervention in their countries.
I was not surprised by the use that the American empire made of this incident invading the wrong country, causing thousands of deaths, the legitimization of torture, the scape-goating of minorities, and the suppression of dissent.
The costs of 9/11 continue, and all of us are paying.
Anne Miles
I lived on a farm in Stouffville, Ont. My son Darrin phoned from Toronto,
"Ma, they're bombing the Trade Center in New York!"
Television stations broadcast the same picture one of the Twin Towers was burning. We watched in horror as people tiny dots flew to death out of the burning skyscraper.
When the plane hit the second tower and it started to crumble, flashes went through my mind to 1944 after my family fled Stalin's occupation of Ukraine, and we ran for cover while planes dropped bombs, destroying buildings in Germany.
Was this the beginning of World War III?
Jennie Tschoban
I was in the public library on-line when I learned of the 9/11 attacks. My thoughts were "burning kerosene (jet fuel) can't do that to a sky scraper," and "after decades of U.S.A. attacks on smaller nations, why are they so astonished?"
Clearly the Yank moral code is highly flexible favouring their own interests.
George Neil Murray
Where was I on 9/11? In the old Yacht Club with a dozen or so male club members watching events unfold on television. It was a Tuesday morning and coincided with the traditional "every Tuesday men's coffee klatch."
The tradition continues but not, of course, in the old building.
Bernard McGrath
I am a licensed architect from the U.S.A. since 1987.
On Sept. 11, at 5 a.m. while on a business trip to Hawaii, I was awakened by my wife calling from Gibsons. She said to turn on the TV. It was New York and it was horrible.
I watched the video replay as both towers fell, and I knew immediately the towers top to bottom were bombed in a controlled demolition.
On Sept. 12, I saw the news footage about WTC 7, and it confirmed my opinion.
I waited months for the evidence to come out to say that terrorists demolished the three buildings that day. I will go to my grave with the opinion that it was the demolition of three towers that killed the most people that day. I've waited now for 10 years, but the truth never came forward.
Many want to ignore it or they want to believe that fires brought down skyscrapers that stood strong for 30 years.
I may be university educated in physics and structural engineering along with 24 years of work experience on steel structures, but I can't be the only human in Gibsons that knows the story for 9/11 does not match the reality of 9/11 or am I?
Scott Davis
