Have we Americans learned ANYTHING from 9/11/01, both on a personal level, and on a sociological level??
483749
I can't speak for other American citizens, but here is what I have observed. I am too old to learn anything new, only confirm what I have known, or believed.\n1) our fereral government only knows how to react. Not to prevent.\n2) In our country, out of disaster, rises greed.\n3) Our federal government, state government and local government officials will never do the will of the common people, only the will of the rich people.\n4) Our mislead soldiers, sailors and marines have been duped again, into believing that they are defending freedom. What they are doing is defending an illusion. The illusion that the united states knows what is best for the world. They are spreading a belief. The department of defense should be defending. That is why it is not called the department of offense\n5) I agree that the perps of 9/11 should be brought to justice. Lets find them and bring them to justice already.\nThat would be justified, but that other stuff (Iraq) is based on one thing (refer to statement 3).
613924
September 11th, 2001.
979230
9-11.  I remember I slept in that morning.  I got up and went to the auto store to purchase some parts for my car.  The radio was turned up and the pentagon just got hit.  I listened farther and heard about the planes crashing.  Then I heard the cashier going off saying that President Bush better take serious action.\nAt that moment I remembered my brother was on one of the flights that was crashed.  I don't even know how to express the horror and fear that went through my entire body.\nA couple days later I found out my brother was sick on that day and someone took his place.  I am so glad my brother is still alive.  But my heart grieves for everyone on the planes.  And I grieve for this country.  I know how I felt when I thought my brother died and I am sadden that anyone had to experience 9-11.\nI want to thank everyone who has help anyone effected by 9-11.
657180
I've been to ground zero.  It happened.  Whether Osama, Israel, or the US was  responsible ---is all guesswork at this point.   The US has defiantly staged events like this in the past to justify a war---The sinking of the Maine, Gulf of Tonkin, etc...  But 9/11?   We saw Osama admit it in the videos.  I wouldn't want to think that our country is so evil we could ever do this, although in my heart I know there is a chance we could have.
835748
I think 9/11 will always be an infamous day for us Americans.  I wonder if the London bombings will always be remembered too?
613598
I was there...\n\nI was riding the A-train (one of many train lines heading into the NYC) on my way to school ( I was in college at the time). \n\nBut things were running very slow due to massive delays in the underground. People grew impatient and starting coming out of the trains, when suddenly rumors started spreading that two "small" planes hit the towers. Details were still hazy as information was being gathered at that point.\n\nThe train conductor had told people either to go home or take the F-train right across the platform. I was one of those people and took the F-train to Chambers street, three blocks from where the towers were hit.\n\nWhen I came up from the subway stairs, it was total grid-lock. Hundreds of thousands of people were crammed around the subway, on the streets. Traffic was non-existant, which was a fete in itself in this city. It seemed like everyone and their mother was on their cell phones, telling their loved ones what they were seeing.  They were all looking up at the same thing: The Burning towers.\n\nI couldn't believe it was that bad. Then I rushed over to the front my school, which is right across from City Hall NYC, and I bumped into a couple of friends. They told me they saw people jumping from the buildings where they stood and that they were totally horrified by what they were seeing. \n\nI worked in my school Library at the time and after finding out bits and pieces of what happened from my buddies outside, I went to inside the library. I rushed in to see my supervisor, but she left because her kids go to school a couple of blocks from the towers. Apparently she panicked and left to find her children right away.\n\nI went to speak to my co-workers and they told me at the time that the Pentagon got hit and some other plane that crashed (which was later found out to be United 93). And I was so freakin' shocked, it was unbelievable.... This was a plot. An actual terrorist plot.\n\nThen that's when it hit me: my aunt works in one of the towers and from there I was in FULL panic mode. \n\nI left the library to catch my breath and from there I wanted to call my dad to tell him what was going on and wanted ask him if heard anything from Auntie Rose(his sister), but couldn't get any service. \n\nThere was a huge-@ss line for use of the public phones for that very reason: Apparently, the lines were so busy that service got cut off.\n\nThen came the most horrible sounds and shaking I won't ever forget. I was like a Richter 10 earthquake the way the building shook. And all of a sudden you heard blood curdling screams and a huge bum rush of people scrambling for their lives. \n\nI was nearly frantic. I didn't know what was going on, so I ran down the other side of the lobby where there were glass windows which allowed you see exactly what was going on outside:  A massive smoke came from all directions of the streets, engulfing everything and everyone around it. It was quite the most horrifying scene I've ever witnessed. \n\nPeople were rushing down the streets in droves, but they couldn't outrun whatever the hell that was engulfing them.\n\nAll I could remember saying at the time, frozen at that very spot, was "Oh....My ...God. Oh, my f**kin' god."  For fear that something was going to crash through the windows, I ran like I never did in my life down the lobby (almost breaking my ankle) and raced down the stairs to the basement area.\n\nFrom there, things became a lot clearer: One of the towers had collapsed...and when I heard that, I couldn't believe it. No one could....  \n\nThe area was packed with students, professors and the security guards tried calming shocked and scared people, telling them  either to head to the basketball courts, which would serve as a make shift bomb-shelter in the Sub-level or for those who wanted to take a chance and run for it acroos the Brooklyn Bridge, were on their own.\n\nIt was one of the hardest decisions
90836
Well, I guess that every one learns from the other one.\nHowever, if you think about it, when some one come to the USA. They need to learn The constitution, and ajust them self to the USA culture, so it is not realy a change on the American Folks, is more to the Immigrant more, I know some times folks say that it is changing the way we do things...
87593
No, I dont know anyone in the 9/11 tragedy...but when I heard aobut it, I was freaked out, but I was still a naive kid, but I wasnt screaming 'Mommy! Mommy!' I was in school when it happened (I think) and I had no idea until I got home when my mom told me. I wasnt too concerned...until now after I watched Farenheit 9/11 (really cool movie) and saw Bush's reaction to it, which got me against him. I mean, he's our leader and when some dude next to him says 'The nation's under attack', he does nothing except read to the little 1st graders. My point being: I HATE BUSH! and that I was freaked out about 9/11 :P
595073
Some people think 9/11 was a purposeful choice when choosing when to attact the World Trade Center because across America we use 9-1-1 when there is an emergency.  My own opinion is that it was a coincidence.  I guess no one will ever know for sure.
967504
Where do you begin. Good luck with that one!!!\nLook at things like how 9-11 was handled, the war in Iraq, the political scandals, etc. That should tell you what you need to know.
771323
At work, like most Americans that day, A buddy stopped in the shop and asked if we knew what was going on,,,,,,From there, the atmosphere just fell apart.....We where all ,as you said, shocked, and in disbelief. Pissed and terrified at the same time. I will never forget that day. It has shaped me into a different and better person ever since.
856858
One lesson to be learned: the Mid-East did not - does not want us there anyway.  Sometimes we can learn from a terrorist, if we can actually open our eye's long enough to understand when we are not welcome to butt in their business for our own political gain etc.  \n\nThe next is that most of the upper class's in the US has no qualms with war profiteering.  It's just "doing business' for them.  Capitalism of the worst kind.  Let alone creating wars and death so they CAN earn their families a little more money, or a few extra vacation homes, a few more diamond ring's, etc.\n\nIt brings to mind Bush joking around about his wealthy base that Michael Moore made a point of exposing in Fahrenheit 9/11
472622
We are pretty darn ignorant of our surroundings. 89% of America did not know where Afganistan was prior to 9/11.\n\n40% still don't.
544195
Yeah. If USA was not intervening with other countries' business, it would have been prevented. From the way US is acting in Iraq and with Iran, I am not sure what US have learnt from 911 though.. Osama and his people are devils trained by US.
1113853
I think we learned a lot. I watched the program, too, and lived through the hippie scene, so I had a lot of feelings and thoughts.\n\nI think, in the end, what we learned is that we don't have to be cookie-cutter copies of the "norm." My parents (WWII era folks) honestly did not know that.\n\nBut we also learned that you can't really reject the society around you, because, face it, baby, you IS the society.\n\nAnd we learned that, while perhaps LSD and pot weren't as bad as our parents thought they were, the cows don't get milked when everybody is too stoned to milk 'em.\n\nOh, yeah, we learned to question authority. That's a real good lesson, and one we need to hold on to.\n\n"Free love," well, that seemed kinda neat at the time, but it loses its patina when you keep waking up in strange places with strangers. And then there's HIV, of course, and that sure ain't groovy.\n\nHippies were young people, as a rule. And young people are idealistic, as another rule. That's how it should be. But getting older teaches you that throwing out ALL of the old ideas isn't necessarily the best course of action.\n\nWe learned that not all drugs are good, not all people trustworthy, not all ideals worth dying for, and not all revolutions bad. (Or good!)\n\nAll in all, it was an amazing time. Since I couldn't have gotten here without coming from there, I don't know what I'd have been like in a different time, but I think I'm glad I was there.
36311
It will always stay in my mind...I was in a class at my company's HQ in Baltimore.  During our 10 AM coffee break one of the guys came in and said that a plane had hit the World Trade Center...we thought he meant the WTC in downtown Baltimore...we all went outside to look...nothing wrong there.  We all went next door to see the TV and realized it was in NYC...by then the 2nd tower had been hit.  Class was out for the day...we were all glued to the TV...everyone in the company was sent home early because Gov. Glendening was going to close the I-95 tunnel under Balto. Harbor.\nBy the mid-afternoon there were F-16s flying combat air patrol over Baltimore.\nOur class got out that Friday; all of us had to drive home - no flights available; another guy and I had a rental car from the week before.  I live in Oregon; he lives in Arizona.  We started driving - dropped him off with his brother-in-law in Detroit, then I drove all the way to Portland.  One guy had to rent a U-Haul to drive home; rental cars couldn't be had for love or money.\nOne of my cousins is a lawyer in NYC...we like her in spite of it:)...she had an early morning meeting in the WTC, and got out of the north tower 1/2 hr. before the first plane hit...
637144
THEY DID ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001