Personal Historical Anecdotes Thread

[Veho Nex]

I was actually at a hospital and they had the news on. As we(My mom and I) were leaving the office, one of the ladies in the waiting room fainted and we ran out there to see if we could help. My mom turned to the TV and said Oh my (Profanity here). Later on I found out that we had been watching since about 2 minutes after the first plane hit, and I watched the second hit and the towers crumble. Most traumatic thing was watching people jumping from the 50's on up and falling for what seemed like 3-4-5 seconds at a time.

[Tristuskhan]

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan: I was four and a half years old and wondered why those soldiers wanted to go to "Hood". Hood="cagoule" in french, and well, "Kabul" was very close to "cagoule" in my ears.

[Ariovistus Maximus]

I was 8. I remember pretty well though. I'm sure most people in the US remember where they were at the time.

I was in school, things going as usual. Then our principal came in (it was a very small private school so he adressed us all at once) and asked us all to come into his office.

Then he showed us the footage of planes hitting the WTC. He told us it was a hijacking. I never really heard of hijacking; didn't really get what it was. But I learned what it was then.

Why don't people remember it any more? They felt all patriotic for about a month, then they got back to life and don't think about it any more.

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Have another one; my grandpa's, as per your suggestion.

He was in the occupation of Japan. He taught them how to handle big machinery like bulldozers, caterpillar equipment, etc.

He told me once about being in Japan and seeing all these troop ships and warships in the harbor; might have been in Tokyo, I don't remember. But I remember being so amazed at all the things he saw.

[rasoforos]

The wall

I was quite young. It seemed like a great thing...

Iraq War

Pre cold war propaganda was still quite strong so it seemed like a good thing...

9/11

I went to buy a CD-ROM player for my desktop. The guy at the shop told me that 2 planes hit the World Trade Centre and that the towers collapsed and people were jumping of them etc...

I said 'Yeah ok' or something like that because I thought he was crazy

[Sarmatian]

When the Berlin Wall fell, I was really too young to "get" anything... Only learned to read and write couple of years before...

In the case of 9/11, I admit I was mostly in a "you reap what you sow" kind of mood. Not enough time has passed since 1999 apparently. I felt sorry for the people, thought, they didn't have anything to do with anything really.

I do remember April 1999 vividly. I didn't pay attention to politics much at that time. I was 16 and I was spending most of my time thinking about girls, alcohol and computer games, I was a really passionate gamer. In April that year Heroes of Might and Magic III came out, one of my favourite games and after a lot of time and effort (it was a state of war in the country) I've managed to get my hands on one copy. Came home, installed it and wanted to start playing when sirens started. Then it was a couple of "booms" and electricity was gone. I'm inclined to think that if a psychologist would dig deep enough, he'd find in that event the source for my dislike of NATO . Didn't get to play HOMM III till June...

[Brenus]

Vietnam: my childhood was under the Vietnam rules and images: Tet offensive, B52 on Hanoi, North Vietnamese Offensive, fall of Saigon, boat people. The Chinese attack on That Khe… All these with the comments from my father, veteran of the French one…

Men on the Moon: Aldrin, Amstrong and I never remember the third one (Collins?). The entire world on front of the TV was watching it. The village school was opened for the villagers to see it as most them didn’t had TV.

Kippur War: Stunned at the Israeli defeat, enjoy the push back.

Lebanon and the hostages of Hezbollah, attack on the French Paratrooopers.

Falklands / Malvinas war: Was with the English, but had to admire the determination and courage of the Argentinean pilots.

9/11: I was working in Novi Sad when my secretary came with somebody hijacked US planes, 3 or 4. I just told her we were going to a kind of hostage crisis like in the Black September times…
She said no, they blow up some buildings. I went back home to see what happened on the French TV. I couldn’t believe it. It was an absolute chaos and the images were shown “en boucle”, first plane, second planes, rumours of more planes crashing everywhere…

[rotorgun]

These are all great posts so far guys! I am really fascinated at the way everyone sees the things that happen through a different lens. I am also learning something about how those outside my country view us in the US and interpret our historical events much differntly than we do. I suppose the same is true for how we view the events in other countries as well.

Keep 'em coming fellahs!

EDIT 2: Great idea for a thread mate! CountArach

Thanks Count!

[drone]

I do remember April 1999 vividly. I didn't pay attention to politics much at that time. I was 16 and I was spending most of my time thinking about girls, alcohol and computer games, I was a really passionate gamer. In April that year Heroes of Might and Magic III came out, one of my favourite games and after a lot of time and effort (it was a state of war in the country) I've managed to get my hands on one copy. Came home, installed it and wanted to start playing when sirens started. Then it was a couple of "booms" and electricity was gone. I'm inclined to think that if a psychologist would dig deep enough, he'd find in that event the source for my dislike of NATO . Didn't get to play HOMM III till June...

I was living in the UK at the time, and some friends had come over to visit. We decided to jump on the Chunnel and spend a few days in Paris. We were doing the usually touristy things, I'm not sure we even knew what was going on in the outside world, and my poor high school French was not up to the task of translating news reports. So we are at the Louvre, walking through the Jardin des Tuileries, and we see a big crowd. Like idiots, we follow them until we get to the spot overlooking the Place de la Concorde. And the riot contained therein. Protesters were dragging metal barricades into the traffic circle, while police were charging them back and clearing the road. Some tear gas and riot shields, nothing major, good times. Then some idiot in our crowd whips out a Yugoslavian flag and starts waving it around. At this point, I guess the police decide our crowd is too big and potentially hostile, so we get some canisters lobbed our way and we disperse. Sirens wail through the city for the rest of the day and night, but otherwise uneventful as the police got mobilized in force. Didn't really get clued into what was going on until later that evening. If I remember correctly, this was March 25th, 1999. Spring time in Paris, nice weather, beautiful girls, and tear gas.


My grandfather was a bomber pilot in WWII, and later flew for the Border Patrol. While with the BP, he was part of the federal effort to get James Meredith safely into the University of Mississippi. He flew in US Marshals and other troops to quell the riots. He didn't get shot at, but he got a thank-you letter from JFK.

[rotorgun]

Speaking of Grandfathers, one of my granfathers was stationed in the Pacific in the China Fleet in the mid-late 1930's. He was aboard one of the cruisers that responded to the Panay incident which almost sparked off hostilities between Japan and the United States in 1937. I am not sure of the details, but there was some sort of stand off between the small sqaudron his ship was part of and a Japanese one in Chaing Hai harbor. Diplomacy prevented it from becoming a shoot out.

After he got out of the Navy in 1938, he later on became an inspector of industrial sized valves for the Chapman Valve Company in Indian Orchard Massachusetts. This company made valves for the top secret Manhattan Project. He went on many trips to Oak Ridge Tennessee to inspect the final installation of numerous valves used during the construction phase. He also inspected valves used in the first nucler powered sub, the USS Nautilis, and some of the early Skipjack class.

[Ibrahim]

well, I have a few:

I was born on the 45th anniversary of the remagen brigehead's establishment (look it up-too lazy to elaborate).

I was a baby in Kuwait when the Iraqis invaded Kuwait on August 2 (barely remember a thing), and my mom's 30-some birthday was on the day the coalition troops attacked Iraq to topple Saddam. sooq sharq was struck by scud missile shrapnel days later-the sooq is about 30 miles away from where our apartment used to stand. and I still remember where I was when Uday and Qusay were reported dead (just leaving the apartment to my grandparents apartment), and when saddam was caught (casually watching CNN, and a newsflash just popped up).

ooh, and I lived 1 mile from a shootout between Kuwaiti paramilitary and some terrorists-at least the kuwaitis deal with terrorists the right way.

and I was in the lobby where Oswald supposedly stood to shoot kennedy (mom says that I climbed the boxes there). otherwise, I have nothing much else to do with the kennedies.

I was about to take the physics test in highschool in Kuwait, when the guy who supervised the buses I rode in intercepted the bus I was in and informed us that the test was postponed-shaikh jaabir II had just died. at tha time, it was predicted that my class was screwed, but the three day moratorium helped the whole class pass physics well.

the family was all at home, minus dad (go figure), when we saw the WTC go down. we were getting ready for school, with me checking my notebooks and other stationary. still remeber what I felt (a mixture of horror, anger, disgust, and outrage).

@ brenus: bah! they had help in that war..americagahsuahfeag...and from the messup the Syrians made themselves at golan.