Another tragic event that was hard for me to understand in my pre-teen years was the kidnapping of Patricia Hearst by the Symbionese Liberation Army. They demanded ransom from her family--she was granddaughter to wealthy newspaper mogul, William Randolph Hearst. The story got bizzarre after that. Hearst was seen on video taking part in some bank robberies and she made some videos in support of the SLA. It seemed she had decided to join her captors. She actually was arrested and convicted of a bank robbery in spite of the fact she had been held hostage, threatened with execution, and raped by her captors. I guess that wasn't enough to establish duress. : (

 

It appears she may have been a victim of what we now know as Stockholm Syndrome in which people held hostage start to identify with their captors. It is obviously a psychological coping mechanism for survival. At any rate, Jimmy Carter later commuted her sentence so Hearst was released from prison for time served. Bill Clinton pardoned her on his last day in office.

 

This isn't the saddest event I in my lifetime but I found it sad because this young girl who had everything going for her had it taken away in a moment, in such a public way, when she was kidnapped. Then as her kidnapping continued it got strange when it was reported she had joined the SLA and was now a willing part of their criminal and terroristic activities. Public opinion went from feeling sorry for her to vilifying her and she was convicted of crimes and served time in prison. I found it to be sad, tragic, and really confusing. And like most of America at the time, I blamed her.

I'm just a couple years younger and was a sophomore. I feel exactly the same. I can still be moved to sadness over that day and it's been almost 16 years now.

 

I was a sophomore too. Remember everything about that school day.

I was a sophomore too. Remember everything about that school day.

 

Yeah and honestly the rest of that week. They cancelled our soccer game that night. They played patriotic music in the lunchroom all week. Had a big assembly that week to talk about what it all meant.

 

That day and Columbine will always stick with me.

Yeah and honestly the rest of that week. They cancelled our soccer game that night. They played patriotic music in the lunchroom all week. Had a big assembly that week to talk about what it all meant.

 

That day and Columbine will always stick with me.

 

The school receptionist came into my first period geometry class (we were on block scheduling that year, 90 minute classes) and turned on the TV saying a plane and flown into the WTC. We sat there and watched, like many others, as the second plane flew into the second tower. I distinctly remember my stomach dropping because one of the news anchors said something to the affect of "The United States is at war." Scared the crap out of me.

 

We didn't change classes that morning. We stayed in our 1st periods until lunch, watching all the coverage. We returned to our normal schedule after lunch changing classes, but all we did was move from one room to the next watching TV all day.

 

My mom worked at the capital in Frankfort at the time. They eventually evacuated and sent them all home.

Torn between 9/11 and The Who tragedy. One of the kids who passed away at The Who concert had skipped school and bought me a ticket. I doubled my money and sold it to skip the event. Couldn't imagine if I was there near him and the horror that parents felt with the news being reported and not being able to communicate with their kids. (No cell phones and many kids did not know what had happened).

I'm going to go with the Beverly Hills Supper Club fire. Really hit close to home as I can remember pieces of the club falling down on my street while still on fire. My neighbor was a fireman so we listened to his radio all through the evening and sat on a hill at the reservoir and watched the club burn. I'll never forget the smell of death that lingered at the Ft. Thomas armory (makeshift morgue) and along U.S. 27 for months whenever we drove by.

 

2nd would be 9/11. I was on a plane heading to Chicago that morning so the whole day was just surreal; being stuck in Chicago when I was only supposed to be there for the day, tracking down a rental car because I was determined to drive home that evening, driving like a mad woman all night and finally making it home. Flew into NJ the following month and a carload of us drove into to NYC to tour the site. Another moment in time that I'll never forget with all the missing person flyers everywhere and the military forces patrolling the streets.

 

3rd would be the Challenger disaster. I was a senior in high school and remember standing in my best friend's kitchen and watching it all unfold with her grandmother (who kept asking us why we weren't in school - we skipped that morning) LOL RIP Granny

Flew into NJ the following month and a carload of us drove into to NYC to tour the site. Another moment in time that I'll never forget with all the missing person flyers everywhere and the military forces patrolling the streets.

 

The first time I went to the WTC was five or six years after it happened, and it was incredible how much rubble was still in the "pit," and how many of the adjacent buildings still had complete sides of them missing glass and scaffolding from the ground to the roof. I can't imagine what it would have looked like only a month after it happened.

9-11. People just working, some sitting on a plane, while other people plotted a hideous day. I often imagine what it must have been like to be on one of the planes, when I used to travel a lot, or in one of the Towers seeing a jet coming at me.

 

Regarding the previous, politicized, comments about Katrina. It was a tragedy and little precedented act of God. States of emergency were declared locally and federally. However, there is a difference in a conspiracy and an insufficient response. No one was prepared for the intensity, the devastation and the breach of the levees. There were instructions to evacuate, and buses for this, but not enough drivers, and the Governor did not sign a waiver to allow any licensed driver to drive a bus. Would people have evacuated anyway? When the tornado sirens go off, does everyone take shelter at home and go to a safe area?

 

But @sciencefriction let's not miss an opportunity to blame and politicize. Sorry, but the act is tired.

The political and misguided fiasco that was the Vietnam War and the personal tragedies that it caused......and is still causing.....to the soldiers who fought in it. Our country drafted them to serve and then conducted the war with one hand behind our collective back. That was not fair to our soldiers on the ground. There is still a lot of PTSD out there along with individual guilt and anguish resulting from what our soldiers were asked to do or had to do to women and children. We were ill prepared to fight this kind of war. We had about 58,000 men and women killed.

I know this is not a sudden tragedy but the cumulative effect of it is certainly tragic.

9-11 for me as well.

For all who have said 9-11 (and I do concur) have any of you visited the 9-11 Memorial and Museum? A truly awe inspiring place. I couldn't make it through the full exhibit area, the emotions were to strong.

The introduction of the DH.

All the ones mentioned previously hit home for me as well, but there is one that to this day gets me more than any of the others. Less people died but I was hit the hardest to this day by the Comair Flight 3272 crash that happened in 1997.

 

'Comair Flight 3272 was a Comair flight departing on January 9, 1997, from Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport for the Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport. While on approach for landing, the aircraft, an Embraer EMB 120 Brasilia, crashed nose-down 18 miles short of the airport. All aboard, twenty-six passengers and three crew members, died as a result of the accident.' Teri was a passenger on this flight who I worked with, and I was working on a work project with her and it was her turn to come down here. She originally was booked on a later flight that nite but told me she wanted to try and finish up early because as a single mom she wanted to get home to a play or recital that her daughter had that nite at school. Of course we were able to get done early so that she could get on the earlier flight - this flight. Back then Comair had quite a few flights each day between CVG and Detroit so it was pretty easy to get on an earlier flight or a later one. Unfortunately Teri bumped up to a flight that never quite made it home. Too this day I get a little teary eyed every time I think of this, and think of the daughter who lost her mother who was just trying to get home a little early one day.

 

As mentioned, all of them are truly sad events in our history, but this one is the one which personally hits me harder than the rest.

911 and then the JFK assination.

911 and then the JFK assination.

 

For those old enough to experience both, I wonder how the role of media played in the emotional impact between those two?

 

There were still photos but no film or video broadcast of JFK. The Zapruder film was not released until years later. 9/11 was pretty close to constant live and replayed over and again.