NYU students witnessing the 9/11 attacks from their Manhattan apartment.

[-]

VikDamnedLee@reddit

Going through High School: Man, Columbine was insane.

Freshman year of college: Hold my beer.

[-]

spanishpeanut@reddit (OP)

I’m a year older than you. This was my senior year of high school and my sophomore year of college. Shit was no joke.

[-]

Ok-Bad-5218@reddit

Are you sure? I was a junior in HS for Columbine (it was spring 1999 and I was class of 2000) then 9/11 was start of sophomore year at NYU.

[-]

spanishpeanut@reddit (OP)

You’re right. Columbine was junior year because I remember all the building changes that happened the following one. My mind is mush.

[-]

Griffstergnu@reddit

Why are they drinking beer at 846 in the morning?

[-]

Adventurous_Gap_5946@reddit

This is so clearly fake. Drinking beer out of glass mugs at 9:03am while watching WTC tower 1 burn. Ok.

[-]

At this point they'd already seen each tower get hit by a plane and they're drinking and laughing. Probably news about he pentagon, I don't want to look up a timeline. But the tower collapses and that's the horror. That's when you scream.

[-]

Kahmael@reddit

Before it could have been tragic accident. But when the tower came down, it gets more serious.

[-]

sky-lake@reddit

Also it was a really confusing time, I remember going home from college that day (I'm in Canada) and I was just sitting on the bus listening to my napster mix cd like usual. It wasn't until several hours later that the gravity of the situation really hit. I can't describe it, but despite seeing two towers completely disappear, knowing there are 1000's of casualties, I somehow didn't "click" with how serious it was. It was sad, but like something sad you'd say happening after an earthquake in Thailand. "Oh that's terrible, I feel bad for their families" but it's not "here". As you can imagine that POV changed VERY quickly!

[-]

amiableviking@reddit

I mean, shit was crazy, but drinking at 9:59a is a look

[-]

braxtel@reddit

My friends and I were day drinking in the dorms that day as soon as we heard they had cancelled classes. Among other things, I remember us being worried we were about to be drafted.

[-]

purpleteenageghost@reddit

This is what I always tell people about that day. It was my freshman year and I was 18 and the fear of being forced to go to war was very real because we had no context on what happens after something like that happens on US soil.

[-]

spanishpeanut@reddit (OP)

I remember learning from a friend who was a permanent resident that he could be drafted for the US and in the UK (where he was a citizen). He’d lived in the US since he was 3 or so and he was petrified he’d be drafted.

[-]

Kahmael@reddit

Omg, same! The draft fear was real

[-]

RedditsCoxswain@reddit

I was up drinking and popping Valium until 4AM.

Woke up late for my first morning class and rushed to my freshman writing class.

Arrived late and there were only about 7 kids there, this fat kid, “sorry that’s the only thing I remember about him” told me we were under attack and I thought he was lying.

The teacher brought in a TV on a roller and we watched the news and did our 15 minute free writing exercise on what we were feeling

I still have my entry for that day and it’s talking about how we are going to overreact as a nation and our civil liberties were fucked. Also there was some stuff thrown in about Palestine that was a bit ham fisted because I was just a kid.

[-]

OrdinaryBrilliant650@reddit

This has got to be AI. First time we’re seeing it’s in almost 25 years? The fuck outta here.

[-]

Titian-3540@reddit

It’s been out there for decades. The full version used to be on YouTube

[-]

jonnovich@reddit

I was 26 and I lived and worked in downtown DC that day. Before I got to work, I had stopped by the Borders on 18th and L Streets NW to buy the new Bob Dylan album “Love and Theft”. (Yep, he released it that day….back when album releases happened on Tuesdays).

Anyways, when I got to work around 9:15 or so (right off McPhereson Square), my mom called me and asked if I was OK from the bomb. I had no idea what she was talking about. I started to see news reports on my computer (Yahoo! I think…Ha!!!) about a plane hitting the WTC. I thought initially it was an accident. I vaguely remembered hearing about a plane once hitting the Empire State Building in the 40s or 50s. I put it out of my mind and started on the day’s work. Then the reports came in about the second plane hitting the WTC and the one that hit the Pentagon just across the Potomac River from me.

THAT was when the coordination of the thing became apparent. I forget exactly when everyone just started going home, but it was not long after that. My apartment was a 15 minute walk from work. You could see the black smoke billowing to the south from DC across the river. I got home and turned on the TV right as the first tower fell. Then the second tower fell. It was insane. It felt like a movie. Phone lines were absolutely jammed. I couldn’t get hold of my parents.

Eventually I left my apartment and walked around DC with a friend of mine. I felt absolutely claustrophobic just watching the news and had to get out. DC was absolutely eerie. It was an otherwise absolutely beautiful day. Everyone remarks how deep blue the sky was that day….it was. My friend and I stopped by an ice cream shop and everyone was just watching the TV. We had no idea what to do or how to act. But it was immediately apparent that nothing would be the same.

Also, after my friend and I parted ways and I was walking back to my place, there were people selling a “late edition” of The Washington Post on street corners like old fashioned newsies back in the day. It was the ONLY time in my life I ever saw that. It was absolutely surreal.

[-]

Public_Juggernaut997@reddit

I was already in the Army when it happened and I was like damn. Shit got real fast.

[-]

Bluevanonthestreet@reddit

My husband and I were asleep because we were skipping class. His mom called us freaking out. I then freaked out trying to get ahold of my dad because he was an airline pilot at the time. Classes were canceled and nobody came in to the bank when I worked that afternoon. We had a tv on for a few days.

[-]

spanishpeanut@reddit (OP)

My friend in college was in pure panic because her dad was also a pilot. When the planes went down there was no talk of which flights they were and no one could reach anyone on a cell phone or a land line because of our proximity to NYC. I remember people in my building who were from Manhattan were quiet and then all started screaming:/crying/losing their minds.

[-]

sambashare@reddit

I got back to my dorm room and turned on the radio to listen to some music at lunch. I heard the news report and I kind of laughed a little, because it was so unbelievable. I thought it was a joke at first, but it was on all the stations. The music literally stopped and everyone ran to the nearest TV to see WTF was going on. It was nuts

[-]

AZbitchmaster@reddit

Not a lot of people have a video record of when their youth came to an end.

[-]

No-Gas5342@reddit

Truth

[-]

Mike__O@reddit

Pretty much THE formitive event of our generation. A lot of us went to pointless, meaningless wars over this, and quite a few of our generation never came home from those wars.

[-]

CjKing2k@reddit

Not to mention the new phase of culture wars that sprung up at home, the death of good, quality entertainment, and the disdain for expertise and critical thought. It was suddenly cool to be rabidly ignorant as long as you wrapped yourself in the flag and carried a bible. I miss the 90s.