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You are incorrect for there are events in history before this where people did exactly that. The FedEx DC-10 hijacking with the intent to put it into a city. The PSA crash in the 80s where he shot his ex boss, then the pilots, and put the plane into the ground at Mach 1. Further, the Marine Barracks car bomb in Beirut and then, in a similar fashion, those that blew themselves up against the USS Cole.
As I said, there were just so many instances in history where the ground work was laid and while we didn't put it all together, someone else did.
My recollection is, that Clinton first raised the issue of a growing terrorism risk to the US. He must have been briefed on it by government security agencies. I don't recall (if it was even known) what he may have done about it behind the scenes. But those responsible for national security definitely noticed a trend, and were following it. In fact, now that we're discussing it, I vaguely recall reading, that someone in those circles had warned about a potential coming attack on the US.
Yes, it was known that something was afoot and the DoD was on alert for a possible attack. Members of the armed forces in sensitive positions were put on standby in the weeks leading up to 9/11. That was the frustration of coordinating all the intelligence that was coming in. But that is a different topic from Remembering 9/11/2001. Yes, 9/11 was a never forget moment like the Challenger burned into my memory.
Was a 10 year old Fifth Grader at the time, the night before my dad made me watch Larry King Live on CNN in my room. I remember turning the TV on and literally waking up to it, about 5:55 AM-ish. Went into the living room to turn on the big TV so mom could see it because dad had already left for work. Here in AZ it was 6:03 AM when the second plane struck and I was standing in the living room screaming for my mom to come watch.
30 minutes later me and a bunch of other kids are standing at the bus stop across the street from my house, dead silent, nobody talking. We get on the bus, nobody talking, our bus driver was listening to an AM station in Tucson playing Howard Stern giving the blow by blow. When I got to school we got swarmed by other kids asking what's going on, and when we got into class the first tower collapsed. We didn't do the Pledge of Allegiance like usual, just listened to Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA" over the intercom. And then just watched the whole rest of the day play out at school.
It was hot here that day, bright blue sky, not a single cloud.
Yes, it was known that something was afoot and the DoD was on alert for a possible attack. Members of the armed forces in sensitive positions were put on standby in the weeks leading up to 9/11. That was the frustration of coordinating all the intelligence that was coming in. But that is a different topic from Remembering 9/11/2001. Yes, 9/11 was a never forget moment like the Challenger burned into my memory.
Yup, they were expecting "something", but not sure what.
But interesting little tidbit. There was a Sam Goody's (music store) in the Concourse of the World Trade Center. In the weeks before 9/11, there was an apparently homeless guy, ripped up clothes, long dreads, sitting outside Sam Goody's near an entrance leading outside. He would stare as you walked past, looking kind of hostile, but that wasn't unusual in and of itself. There were always homeless people in the public spaces of the WTC.
On 9/11, one of my coworkers, a young guy in his 20s, was pulled out of line in the stairs by emergency personnel and asked to help carry down someone who couldn't walk. This was something they were doing, having young strong guys help carry down disabled people or walk down people who were burned and disoriented from the higher floors to free up the firefighters. Therefore, "Tony" got down later than the rest of the people who worked on my floor.
He told me later that just after he handed over the guy he helped carry to paramedics, he saw a group of cops and guys in suits standing together in the lobby, and he said, "You remember that homeless guy with the dreads who sat outside Sam Goody's? Well, he was standing there with them in his beat-up clothes, only he was wearing an FBI badge."
There were always threats against the WTC, and after 1993 it was pretty much expected by all of us who worked there that there would be another attempt, and sometimes you'd see the cops with the bomb dogs down in the PATH well, but the presence of that "homeless" FBI guy in the weeks before 9/11 tells me that they were expecting something at the WTC.
It was all over the news. I knew it was a terrorist attack. Looking at the videos of the airplanes flying into the twin towers. Did they really kill the right guy who was responsible for the attacks. Claimed it was Osama Bin Laden.
Some Middle Eastern folks seem to know it is going to happen.
One guy who runs a brokerage firm in the tower,his son attends school and have a classmate of Middle Eastern background,and his family told him-tell your father not to go to work that day !
He did not go to the office not because of the warning but he has to be somewhere else,some of his office staff died.
I have 2 family members in NYC,I call their homes and the phone rang,so I know the building is fine,but one of them walked all the way from Wall street home,she was covered with dust and dirt !
Back in the 80s ,I recall watching TV and it was talking about the glut of office space in NYC and it said the solution to solve the glut is that those 2 tower building collapsed,and the screen show these 2 buildings coming down,I wonder if the terrorist got the idea from the show?
Back in the 80s ,I recall watching TV and it was talking about the glut of office space in NYC and it said the solution to solve the glut is that those 2 tower building collapsed,and the screen show these 2 buildings coming down,I wonder if the terrorist got the idea from the show?
Middle eastern terrorists were already making threats against the building in the early 1980s. I was a secretary until 1985, so it had to be before that when my boss got a memo saying that the FBI had received intel that terrorists posing as engineering students might request tours of the Mechanical Equipment Rooms with an eye toward planning sabotage and to report it if we had any such requests. Security consultants recommended closing the parking garages in the late 1980s because it was a weak spot for terrorism, but the PA wanted to keep the building accessible.
Nobody anytime suggested collapsing the WTC to solve a glut of office space in the 1980s, though. That's just silly. Yes, they were having trouble renting the space back then, but to claim that someone would "collapse" the towers as a solution is ridiculous. The idea was to market the space to make it more attractive. They did. It was at 95% occupancy on 9/11/2001, virtually full.
That morning I was working on my computer at home, in a town just north of Boston when the phone rang. It was my husband telling me to turn on the tv because it was just like Pearl Harbor.
A lot of Boston people were on those planes.
People suddenly changed and I have never felt closer to every other American in my entire life. We were hugging police officers and fire fighters, we cared about everyone. I remember one bridge was totally draped in American flags for a very long time afterwards. That unity was the only good thing about it.
I'm a little late in posting here but my childhood friend lost her boss who was from Boston area. He was on Flight 11. Peter Gay worked for Raytheon and often commuted from what my friend told me. He had brought in donuts to some of workers on Friday and that would be the last time she saw him. She worked for Raytheon in El Segundo and they were all devastated.
I believe there were a few who were on that plane who worked for Raytheon but of course Peter Gay is who I remembered.
I worked from home and will NEVER forget that morning. I was on the phone with my friend letting them know what was going on. Soon, they got word about Flight 11, and later had access to a TV there at work. I was glued to the television all day. Horrible day!
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