Greater resonance to you

Started by bayonetbrant, July 22, 2013, 02:09:20 PM

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GDS_Starfury

the Panama invasion as far as first major events that happen in life.  one of my dads clients at the time was noriegas finance minister.  his daughter was getting married the weekend we invaded.  my mom canceled the trip at the last second.  >:(  we would have stayed in the hotel that was assaulted by Rangers.  what could have been the best trip ever ruined....
Toonces - Don't ask me, I just close my eyes and take it.

Gus - I use sweatpants with flannel shorts to soak up my crotch sweat.

Banzai Cat - There is no "partial credit" in grammar. Like anal sex. It's either in, or it's not.

Mirth - We learned long ago that they key isn't to outrun Star, it's to outrun Gus.

Martok - I don't know if it's possible to have an "anti-boner"...but I now have one.

Gus - Celery is vile and has no reason to exist. Like underwear on Star.


Keunert

9/11 was intense too. i was at university learning for the final exam when all of a sudden nervosity hit the library. everybody was standing up and went to the tv in the cafeteria. most were shocked, some stupid boys cheered or acted like this was nothing. but most of all there was shock and silence. i have to admit that i was thinking more about what the rection would be and not about the victims. i believed that we witness the start of another war.

i remember that the first gulf war destroyed my hope of world with less conflicts that emerged after the fall of the Mauer in Berlin. but then those wars were not on the same scale like Iran / Iraq or Vietnam. 9/11 was the start of terrorism on a different scale than known before. and i guess that is something the world has to deal with in coming years.
Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
Oscar Wilde

Special K has too much class.
Windigo

LongBlade

Quote from: Keunert on July 23, 2013, 06:02:31 AM
i remember that the first gulf war destroyed my hope of world with less conflicts that emerged after the fall of the Mauer in Berlin. but then those wars were not on the same scale like Iran / Iraq or Vietnam. 9/11 was the start of terrorism on a different scale than known before. and i guess that is something the world has to deal with in coming years.

Honestly the world is pretty much as it is pre-9/11 with the exception of the 9/11 attack.

There are a bunch of scattered bad guys trying to do us harm running from shadow to shadow.

Meanwhile we go bankrupt spending billions of dollars listening to everyone's phone calls. The result? We learn that 99.9% of Americans aren't terrorists, though if you pretend hard enough they all *could* be.
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

Martok

#18
For me, there's been three particularly memorable moments that resonated with me. 


3.)  The Challenger disaster:  It was the first major incident that truly had an emotional impact on me.  It gets relegated to third place, however, because I think I was too young to fully appreciate what it meant (I was only nine at the time). 

2.)  9/11:  I very much doubt I can say anything about that day that hasn't already been said by others a thousand million times before.  Suffice it to say it affected me deeply, and that I've never been quite the same since that terrible morning almost 12 years ago. 




As for my #1 moment...  It isn't actually listed among the choices, although it's closely related to one of them:  I speak of the Soviet hardliners' failed coup against Gorbachev, and the subsequent destruction of the USSR. 


When the Wall came down in 1989 (a few weeks shy of my 13th birthday), I was not quite mature/intelligent enough to realize that a tipping point had been reached.  At the time, my thinking was just because Communism was crumbling in the other Warsaw Pact countries, I didn't see any reason why the Soviet Union itself would be affected. 

I had basically grown up indoctrinated (because of both the media and our education system) in the belief that the USSR was this towering monolith that would last virtually forever.  It was honestly inconceivable to me that anything could bring about its fall (much less internal forces) in my lifetime -- the Cold War was a fact of life, and would remain so til long after I died.  (The true significance of things like the GDR's implosion, the restiveness in the Soviet Baltic republics, and Yeltsin's election as president of the Russian Federation was lost on me at the time.) 

Thus, it was only when the hardliners launched their failed coup two years later, and the subsequent announcement that the Soviet Union would officially cease to exist at the end of that year, did it hit home for me that the monolith had fallen, and that the Cold War was actually over.  I still remember how utterly stunned I was by events, and especially by how quickly everything transpired.  For several months, I was honestly more than half-convinced that it was all some elaborate hoax/prank (although to what end I couldn't begin to imagine). 

It was only after we were well into 1992 (at which point Russia, Ukraine, & co. were fully operating as independent nations) that the reality truly began to sink in for me.  I still remember the curious combination of shock, disbelief, awe, and giddiness I felt during that time. 



EDIT:  Grammer and speeling is gud. 
"Like we need an excuse to drink to anything..." - Banzai_Cat
"I like to think of it not as an excuse but more like Pavlovian Response." - Sir Slash

"At our ages, they all look like jailbait." - mirth

"If we had lines here that would have crossed all of them. For the 1,077,986th time." - Gusington

"Government is so expensive that it should at least be entertaining." - airboy

"As long as there's bacon, everything will be all right." - Toonces

bayonetbrant

Quote from: Martok on July 23, 2013, 11:36:50 AM(I was only nine at the time). 

who let the kids in here?!?!
The key to surviving this site is to not say something which ends up as someone's tag line - Steelgrave

"their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of 'rights'...and lost track of their duties. No nation, so constituted, can endure." Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers

Martok

Heh.  I don't think I'll ever get used to my being one of the "young-ins" on this site. 

"Like we need an excuse to drink to anything..." - Banzai_Cat
"I like to think of it not as an excuse but more like Pavlovian Response." - Sir Slash

"At our ages, they all look like jailbait." - mirth

"If we had lines here that would have crossed all of them. For the 1,077,986th time." - Gusington

"Government is so expensive that it should at least be entertaining." - airboy

"As long as there's bacon, everything will be all right." - Toonces

Windigo

Quote from: Martok on July 23, 2013, 12:10:37 PM
Heh.  I don't think I'll ever get used to my being one of the "young-ins" on this site.

I prefer to identify "young-ins" as 'hoodlum-punks'
My doctor wrote me a prescription for daily sex.

My wife insists that it says dyslexia but what does she know.

Gusington

That's a great post up there Martok...I felt very similar at the time being close to your age. The Tianamen Square massacre almost hypnotized me. I remember thinking how unbelievable it was...


слава Україна!

We can't live under the threat of a c*nt because he's threatening nuclear Armageddon.

-JudgeDredd

undercovergeek

I suppose for me it was the Falklands Is - the first time id really seen soldiers getting off ships, and planes in combat over a war zone, i was only 10 in '82 but i remember been shocked as we all watched in school the Sheffield getting hit by the Exocet

Secondly, simply because it seemed to be a cornerstone of my childhood and early adult life was Margaret Thatcher leaving office and then the Conservatives losing office

Thirdly, and although i dont claim to be a royalist, the total shock and 'that cant be right' of seeing the news headlines of Princess Diana's death in Paris

and fourthly, but i suppose most 'holy shit' was 9/11 - watching on a massive screen in an exhibition hall in the Docklands, surrounded by US exhibitors and visitors even more dumb founded than i was and then hearing sirens i didnt even know existed as Canary Wharf got evacuated.

What struck me then and now is my father ringing me to see if i was ok, he knew i wasnt in New York, he knew i was safe but it was so profound, so earth shattering that i think he just wanted to ring and say 'are you ok, we love you' and im sure i wasnt the only one that horrible day

Gusington

True story: on 9/11 I was on the phone with The Girlfriend (who later became The wife) as everything began to deteriorate. Then the phone went dead. The night of 9/11 I spent at my Mom's and there was still no phone service. It wasn't until I was finally able to get home on the night of 9/12 that I was able to speak to her again. She ran down the street as I walked from the train and hugged me right in the middle of the street. For about 36 hours she thought I was dead. I won't ever forget that.


слава Україна!

We can't live under the threat of a c*nt because he's threatening nuclear Armageddon.

-JudgeDredd

Martok

Quote from: Gusington on July 23, 2013, 01:13:13 PM
That's a great post up there Martok...I felt very similar at the time being close to your age. The Tianamen Square massacre almost hypnotized me. I remember thinking how unbelievable it was...
Thanks Gus.  Yeah, the Tianamen Square massacre (and the protests preceding it) had a definite air of unreality to it as well. 




Quote from: Gusington on July 26, 2013, 01:21:18 PM
True story: on 9/11 I was on the phone with The Girlfriend (who later became The wife) as everything began to deteriorate. Then the phone went dead. The night of 9/11 I spent at my Mom's and there was still no phone service. It wasn't until I was finally able to get home on the night of 9/12 that I was able to speak to her again. She ran down the street as I walked from the train and hugged me right in the middle of the street. For about 36 hours she thought I was dead. I won't ever forget that.
Damn; I didn't know that.  (Of course, I realize you understandably don't talk about that day much...)  That must have been hell for her, not knowing. 

No, I wouldn't forget that either. 

"Like we need an excuse to drink to anything..." - Banzai_Cat
"I like to think of it not as an excuse but more like Pavlovian Response." - Sir Slash

"At our ages, they all look like jailbait." - mirth

"If we had lines here that would have crossed all of them. For the 1,077,986th time." - Gusington

"Government is so expensive that it should at least be entertaining." - airboy

"As long as there's bacon, everything will be all right." - Toonces

undercovergeek

Quote from: Gusington on July 26, 2013, 01:21:18 PM
True story: on 9/11 I was on the phone with The Girlfriend (who later became The wife) as everything began to deteriorate. Then the phone went dead. The night of 9/11 I spent at my Mom's and there was still no phone service. It wasn't until I was finally able to get home on the night of 9/12 that I was able to speak to her again. She ran down the street as I walked from the train and hugged me right in the middle of the street. For about 36 hours she thought I was dead. I won't ever forget that.

I haven't known you long enough gus and would never ask you to recall the day but from comments on here I assume you were closer than most?

LongBlade

Quote from: undercovergeek on July 27, 2013, 04:54:13 AM
Quote from: Gusington on July 26, 2013, 01:21:18 PM
True story: on 9/11 I was on the phone with The Girlfriend (who later became The wife) as everything began to deteriorate. Then the phone went dead. The night of 9/11 I spent at my Mom's and there was still no phone service. It wasn't until I was finally able to get home on the night of 9/12 that I was able to speak to her again. She ran down the street as I walked from the train and hugged me right in the middle of the street. For about 36 hours she thought I was dead. I won't ever forget that.

I haven't known you long enough gus and would never ask you to recall the day but from comments on here I assume you were closer than most?

He was very close.
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

undercovergeek


bayonetbrant

Hey Brits!

When you guys think of the Falkands, is there a particular encapsulating moment that stands out?  Is there the iconic photo or moment that y'all recognize as "THE FALKLANDS" the way the flag going up on Mt Suribachi wraps up Iwo Jima for us?
The key to surviving this site is to not say something which ends up as someone's tag line - Steelgrave

"their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of 'rights'...and lost track of their duties. No nation, so constituted, can endure." Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers