Remembering 9/11
It changed the world as we know it, but where were you when 9/11 happened? Do you have an opinion seven years on? Feel free to add your own comments at the bottom or email ryan@theSprout.co.uk and I'll add them.
"I was 14 at the time, and was in an after-school IT lesson when my teacher received a phone call and announced it to the class. He put the radio on for a little while and then we all went home. I was pretty naive at the time and didn't really understand what was going on. I spent the entire walk home contemplating the beginning of World War III, before I got home and had a dose of reality watching the news with my family." - Danny
"I was in school. I arrived home to an empty house, and turned on the TV to find crumbling buildings on every channel. As a naive and ignorant 14-year-old, I was in shock and couldn't understand the full extent of what had happened. I was scared and just wanted my parents to come home from work as soon as they could to protect me." - Ceri
"I was shopping in Naples centre where I used to live and my mom called me on my mobile and told me to rush home and see what was happening. I was very sad, I cried a lot during the next few days and very worried also. It could happen anywhere." - Rosaria
"I was on a long bus journey back from sixth form with my phone on silent. When I got home I checked my mobile and had about a dozen messages from my friends telling me to turn the television on and call my aunt in New York. I had no idea what they were talking about until I turned on the news. I flitted between abject horror, sadness and anger. I was angry at the the people responsible, all the people responsible, not only the hi-jackers but politicians worldwide. I was also terrified at the American response to it and of further attacks in the US and UK." - Sazzie
"I don't mean to sound unsympathetic about this, but that same year, 2001, there were upwards of 20,000 killed in the Gujarat earthquake and those were only the direct casualties. The last estimate I read for the death toll in the twin towers was 2,752. Strangely enough, nobody ever mentions the anniversary of the deaths in Gujarat..." - Sheenagh
"I was in School at the time, and was worried because I have family over there and was also scared about what else may happen, and if Cardiff was at risk." - Steph
"I was walking through town after a film studies class. I bumped into a friend who told me what happened to one of the towers and that Osama Bin Laden was going to bomb us all. I think she may have over-reacted slightly. I was shocked and curious and wanted to get home to see what was happening on the news." - Laura
"I was in school, I came home and I found out on the news. I felt angry. At the time I was living in a Muslim enviroment and the people I had spoken to about it at first said it was justified after what America has done to various Muslim countries. At the end of the day, they took human lives. Regardless of what the American government has done, nobody has the place to take the life of another human being. One person dying is a tragedy... what about 5000? That's such a vast number I can't comprehend it, it's a hole in the fabric of existence. Everyone that died there was somebody's mother, father, sister, child. I feel angry and consumed by fury that so many people died needlessly." - Yasmin
"I was on Playa d'en Bossa beach in Ibiza when I overheard a Dutch girl telling her friend 'a helicopter has crashed into one of the twin towers in New York.' I wandered up to my hotel bar, ordered a beer and just held it for an hour as I watched both towers collapse. It felt so close to home. I know people say that this kind of mass slaughter goes on in Iraq and Afghanistan, and witnessing 9/11 has made me appreciate those and other countries' awful suffering, but when it's at the epicentre of The Big Apple it seems so much more real. But I guess that's down to how we've been fed by the media." - Ryan
"Obviously it was a terrible, terrible tragedy: many parents lost their children, many children lost their parents, brothers sisters, loved ones, all lost. But it made me think how unfair it is that the loss of American lives were given just so much, unrelenting exposure. What about the lives being lost in Israel and Palestine, were they less important? Children were and still are being slaughtered without any obvious conscience. It's sickening. But media pertains to the requirements of society, does that mean we think tragedy is more important if it's on our doorstep" - Claire
"9/11 is one of the most memorable days of my life. Not because of personal loss, but because of the loss to man as a whole of freedom and good harmony. It was a day that shook the world. I have always said that people make the Earth go round, not money or anything like that. But on this day, they made the world stop too. We all felt the pain of those who were lost and those who lost loved ones. On 11 Sept 2001 we were replacing our old car. We had to traipse what seemed like miles to the middle of nowhere to get this car. We had the radio on all the way there, and all the way back. It was the first thing we did when we got the new one... that is to tune the radio so we could follow events. We were all stunned. The hype of a new car, the birthday of my mum's best friend; it all meant nothing. No matter how many times we watched the planes go into the towers, we couldn't believe it; we didn't want to believe it." - Tom
