I was 13 Years old in 8th Grade. This we before the ear of Ubiquitous Cell Phones and Media so we were kept in the Dark until bout 10:50 CST when I arrived in History Class, which had a TV, Just in time watch the Towers Begin to Fall.
I literally couldn't believe it.
Had just moved back to AZ after my time at Off-Road.com and was getting moved in to a new place/ready to start new job at the newspaper. Went to my mother’s house for something or other and the first plane had just hit.
I remember thinking that FINALLY we were going to nuke those pieces of crap once and for all or at minimum, Arclight them until they looked like they’d been nuked.
Over the next few weeks as a regional reporter I got to see some of the most disgusting ‘running to the front of the parade’ bandwaggoning by local and county/state pols you can imagine as they tried to capitalize on it to their own ends great and small. As for the actual public, everyone but the liberals (not many here at the time) were looking forward to the retaliation that never really came...at least not the way it should have.
Over the next few years it was interesting to see their attitudes go from pissed off anger to confusion to disgust as the Dems managed to get what they wanted yet again while we lost people for nothing. There was a lot of resentment.