What do you remember about Sept 11, 2001?

[xotoxi]

If you care to, please share your thoughts and feelings about that day.

What were you doing? Who were you with? What did you feel? What did you think?

There will be no politicizing this thread, simple as that. I don't care what ideology you are, where you come from, or who you are. I will move your post, and if you want to continue politicize it after I asked you not to, expect consequences. - Modbert

Second Edit:

Alright, I'm done playing nice with this. I have given enough freebies and I'm tired of moving bullshit.

I have just banned one person for a few days for not listening to me on this after I gave them a warning. No more. Now, if you do it, three day ban. Simple as that. I don't care who you are. If you have a problem with what someone is saying by politicizing the thread, report it.

Hint: Don't bring up Osama Bin Laden, Bush, Obama, or any topic such as that. This thread is to remember what YOUR day on that fateful day.

I don't want to come back to this thread and have to start swinging the banhammer, I really don't but I will if I have to. - Modbert

 

[California Girl]

My Uncle was at the Pentagon. My abiding memory was when my Mom called to say 'he's fine'. I cried.


Just yesterday, I was talking to a friend of mine who was in London a week after - when they had a minute's silence across the UK - he said he had never seen London literally stop, but it did. He said traffic stopped, people stopped. he said it was eerie and incredibly moving. That was nice of the UK, I think.

 

[WillowTree]

I was in Fairbanks Alaska, so it was pitch dark when my husband awoke to tell me to look at the Television. I remember struggling to get my eyes to focus and thinking "this is a die hard movie" went into the bathroom to pee and that's when he said "There are people jumping out of those buildings" Shorthly after that the pentagon was hit. we were at war I thought. I had to stay an extra ten days in Alaska because there were no flights. Hunters were left in the woods with no way out, Canada opened her doors and took many of the stranded in. It is probably the most terrible thing I will witness in my lifetime. I won't forget it. I won't forgive it and I don't give a shit who wants to preach "tolerance" to we in the USA. We are the most tolerant people in the world. Too tolerant sometimes.

I'm terribly glad those 19 devils are dead. But I weep for the innocent who died that day.

 

[xotoxi]

I recall that I was in medical school, working in an outpatient office seeing patients. I had no access to TV.

A rumor started circulating that a plane had crashed into the WTC...I immediately assumed it was a small plane and it was an accident.

Then I heard about a second plane and realized this was something serious.

A staff member was listening on a radio and relaying the information.

Then I heard about the Pentagon. Then there was a rumor that the State Department had been bombed.

I was trying to look this up on CNN, but all the sites were flooded until they got rid of their HTML graphics.

Then we heard about the collapse. I had no idea what it looked like since I had no TV.

I felt numb. I felt like I was in a dark room getting repeatedly punched from all directions.

At lunch, I returned to my apartment and saw the footage.

Prior to the attacks, I recall how beautiful the weather was.

 

[chanel]

I was at school. We had a directive from the principal NOT to turn on the TVs. Then the rumors flew as well. L.A. had been hit. Chicago, Detroit, D.C., etc. He finally allowed us to watch. I sobbed all day long. My grandmother lived in Queens and my brother and sister in law worked in Manhattan. I could not get through to my mom on the phone. But the sweet thing was, as I was sobbing in the cafeteria during lunch duty, several of the students came up to console me. For many of them, NY was as a foreign of a place as Afghanistan, but they showed empathy for me - even kids I did not know.

I suffered mild PTSD for about a year. I am still terrified of flying.

 

[goldcatt]

I was in law school at the time. I'd had minor surgery the day before and was on pain killers, so when a friend came running down the hall yelling that the WTC had been attacked it didn't register at first. Ten minutes or so later everyone who was in the building at the time, students, faculty and staff, were packed into a small TV lounge watching it all happen. We saw the second plane hit the South tower. There was total silence. That's what I remember most beyond the images, the total silence. And in the following days, the frantic phone calls trying to get an open line into NYC. The news that one close friend's wife who worked in the South Tower got out safely. The other calls with news that wasn't so good. There are some things you just never forget. The silence...the voice on the phone...and then once again the silence.

 

[ConHog]

I was at work doing paperwork and we did have the television on, and my most vivid memory is receiving the word to go home and pack a bag and kiss our loved ones just in case we got deployed. Turns out we ended up guarding airports and such and didn't get deployed until 2003 though.

Now I am off to bury my beloved grandfather on this special day. God bless America and we will talk to you people later.

 

[Annie]

Funny how vivid a day that is. I'd gotten to my classroom around 5:30 am, in the dark and worked on lesson plans, the beginning of the year was always about 'adjustments in plans' while getting to know the various classes. I remember on the drive thinking about how just a few weeks ago it was lightening up at 5am and light at 5:30. The radio news said it was going to be a beautiful day.

I'd opened my instant messaging, I had a friend that would 'beep in' with ideas that we'd bounce around together in the last half hour before school started. Myy plans were done by 6:15 and it was light out, the sun was shining; just like yesterday, one could tell even with the warmth that fall was coming. I went and sat out on the walk outside my classroom to have a smoke, drink my coffee and just enjoy what looked to be a gorgeous day.

My school overlooked a forest preserve on 'my side' and the grassy beginnings on the western side of O'Hare Airport on the other. Looking at the treetops I could see that the 'sea of green' was turning into various shades, dotted with the beginnings of rusts and goldens. It really was a gorgeous beginning.

I'd been in Los Angeles for nearly a month for a program to teach civics through mock congressional hearing and just come back two weeks before the start of school. I was trying to pull together the information to download and print to help the kids get started. Around 7:30 5 of the 7th and 8th grade girls knocked on my outside door to come in and help with the office and library, we talked a few minutes and they went to do their chores and I was looking around the Avalon site for primary documents regarding 'our beginnings.'

It seems after that, things just started happening. My IM went off, it was my friend who wrote, "Put on CNN and tell me what's happening. WTC is on fire." I wrote back, "What?" She im'd, "Do it, now." My room had cable tv and computers on. She'd just come in from the parking lot, but caught a bit of breaking news.

So I'd turned on CNN and was looking at the tower, when some of the girls came in from the hallway, laughing. They looked at the tv and the im'g went off again. Always there in the morning, they said, "Mrs. Revak is calling, lol!" I wrote quickly what they were saying, mostly along the lines of, "They're saying a small plane hit, but it's a huge hole..." By now the kids were watching the tv and quiet. Then we all watched the second plane hit, I said, "Oh, shit!" the kids all looked at me with shock, back at the tv with horror. I pm'd my friend and said, "Find a tv, I've got to go." I shut off the tv, told the kids I was sorry, to sit down and be quiet. One of them said, "That Bin Laden guy."

I opened my door to where all the kids were waiting for the bell to ring at 8 and told them to get inside, NOW. The principal was out there, I ran to her and said what was happening in NY, but we both were listening to planes landing and taking off. She helped grab the kids coming out of parents cars and got them into the school. Then I went back to my room, the early kids told the rest of the room what they seen, what I said-at that point I think the later was more impressionable. For the first time ever, it was 8 am and quiet in my room. I told them to stay quiet and turned on the tv.

The rest of the day the 6th and 8th graders came into my room and we watched tv with only a break for lunch. No recess. We saw the Pentagon hit, saw warnings about Sears Tower, listened about the missing plane, watched the towers fall. In my classes we had parents in NY for business and pleasure. We had one student whose father was in the Pentagon. While they were allowed to call home, there wasn't news and they were told to remain at school.

It was surprising that while there were lots of calls into the school, only preschool and kindergarten parents came to pick up their kids and take them home. All tv's except mine for the upper grades and the offices were kept off. It's hard to believe but one of the primary teachers didn't hear about the attacks until after 10 am.

I'd had the other two teachers in my room cover while I ran to call my kids high school to find out their plan. They were doing a version of what we were, they had the whole school in the auditorium, watching projection tv all day. I called home, my mom was very sick and was here with my dad and nurse. The nurse answered, crying. She said my mom was very upset, though seemed to be processing it ok. My dad was just watching and swearing. Seemed the home front would be ok until I got home.

The 7th and 8th graders were just whispering about Bin Laden and what we'd studied about the year before regarding the Buddha carvings and USS Cole. The 6th graders and other two teachers were 'brought up to par' by my students. I was actually in awe of what my kids had picked up through Spring mini-lessons.

That day changed many things, we didn't do mock hearings, instead we did a debate on national id's. The kids were more serious then any group I'd had before or since. At least 3 of them went into the military universities, 5 joined the military out of high school. That had never happened in our little school.

 

[hipeter924]

I just went back to sleep (was sick staying home from school at the time), after seeing it was on fire as only the first plane had been hit then, and so I assumed they would eventually put it out. But in a state of denial none the less. I woke up again, and saw a re run of the second plane hit and my mother was crying by then. Never really understood what it meant until the invasion of Afghanistan began.

 

[Article 15]

If you care to, please share your thoughts and feelings about that day.

What were you doing? Who were you with? What did you feel? What did you think?

I woke up wicked hungover (I was 21 at the time) ... I watched it all go down on TV and I got very angry. The next day I went to the recruiters office and enlisted in the Air Force.

 

[Si modo]

I was in grad school when it happened. I had decided to sleep in that morning because I had been at the lab late the night before. My fiancee at the time had a sister who worked for the UN. He didn't know NYC that well and he called me. I woke from a dead sleep to hear the panic in his voice as he asked me if the UN was near the WTC. I was confused and he told me to turn on the tube.

I called him back and told him to call his sister and tell her to get out immediately and get home. He did and she did. I had a gut feel of what was up already.

Soon after, I saw the second plane hit live. Unbelievable. My gut feel was confirmed. I popped in the shower to get ready to get to the lab. When I got out, I heard the tube say something had happened at the Pentagon. I wanted to be with others but I also didn't want to miss anything. While I was driving to the lab, the first tower collapse happened.

It was an awful morning. I had a best friend from undergrad who worked in the WTC (she's gone). I have a close guy friend who worked in the Pentagon. He is 100% service disabled - got burned and has lung issues with jet fuel inhalation, but managed to help others that day. I recall a Marine telling me over and over that it was a 'bad day to be an Arab'. The quiet rage of so many....

My memory of it is as clear today as it was nine years ago. Some things just get burned into our memory banks.

There's more, but it's more personal than I want to get.

 

[strollingbones]

i was painting the ends of a lumber pile to keep the ends from checking....great fall day....my husband called....said a plane had hit the wtc...like xox i thought it was a private plane and remarked on how the hell could they not see the tallest thing in nyc...he told me to go inside...it was a terror attack....the rest of the day is a blur....the horror coming i couldnt imagine....

 

[Sarah G]

I was at work. My new boss was from NY and he was trying to call his family. We had a tv and people were just standing and watching.

My worst time was driving home noticing all of the stores and actually malls being closed. I was crying and so afraid that we would have a war here in the US. People on the radio were saying gas was going up to 4.00/gal.

It was a half hour drive for me but that day it seemed to take forever.

 

[chanel]

Goldcatt mentioned the silence. I remember how the planes were grounded and realized that I never noticed them over my house - until they were gone. Too, too quiet.

 

[Si modo]

Goldcatt mentioned the silence. I remember how the planes were grounded and realized that I never noticed them over my house - until they were gone. Too, too quiet.

I was in Detroit at the time and there were plenty of planes in the air, there...the Guard... border was watched constantly.

 

[dilloduck]

I was seriously hoping that America wasn't going to apologize for having our buildings in the way of airplanes hijacked by lunatics.

 

[Zoom-boing]

It was my youngests first day of pre-school. I was in the car right at 8:45-8:50 and turned on the news station to check the time. They kept talking about a plane that had crashed into WTC (might have been Peter Jennings talking) and I kept thinking "how the hell do you do that? Didn't they see the building?" -- thinking it was a small plane that had crashed. No one in the school said anything about it so I thought it wasn't a big deal . . . but it nagged at me. Now I wish to hell I had said 'turn on the tv' when I got inside the school.

I don't remember what time we got home - sometime around 10:30 I think - but when we did I turned on the tv. I kept thinking I was watching some news reel from some other time and place. You all thought the same thing, didn't you? You all experienced the 'surrealness' of it all? I don't know what part of what I was watching was happening at the time or what they were showing from earlier because they kept showing the first plane hitting, then back to live, then the second plane hitting, unless I was home when the second plane it . . . I don't know, it's all jumbled up in my head. Especially when the towers fell, I can't remember if I actually saw them fall (I think I saw the 2nd one as it happened). I know I was scared and kept thinking that something else was going to happen. Kept waiting for a bomb to go off . . . I don't know, something.

I live next to a small airport and when they shut it down for . . . I don't even know how long, weeks and weeks, and weeks . . . the quiet was unsettling. The planes that take off from there are all small crafts and it's random times when you hear the planes or choppers, but you get so used to the background sound of them taking off. I will never forget the total silence from them being grounded.

I do remember one night, everything was grounded, but you could hear a jet high, high, high above. I also live five minutes from a nuke plant. Yeah, it was scary.

 

[Rozman]

I got in to NYC around 08:30 AM.I was a little late, my starting time is 08:30 and I just got to the parking lot a few blocks from the Empire State Building.On my way to the office which was one block south of the Empire State Building I remember now thinking what a great day it was weather wise.Around 08:45 AM I got into the Freight elevator to go up to my office and the guy who runs the freight car had a portable radio on and he was telling us that a plane had hit the WTC.I thought as everyone had that it must have been a small plane taking people to an airport or something.

People had their computers on watching the video feed and you could see the damage from the first hit
was bigger then a small plane would cause.I went to do some paperwork and a while later someone came by to tell me that a second plane hit the other tower.There was no doubt we were under attack.

Nine years later and I can still remember that day as clearly as I remember the way the sky looked, it was such a beautiful day and for such evil to take place it makes me wonder what else these people would do to us if given the chance.

There is something troubling about a religion where one person can interpret it as peaceful and another can view it as filled with such hatred for others.

 

[daveman]

I was stationed at Scott AFB in Illinois. Me and a buddy had walked to the squadron HQ to take care of some business, and heard that a plane had hit the WTC. Like xox and bones, we both thought it was a small plane, and made the same joke: "How could it not have missed the biggest thing in the city?"

When we got back to the shop, everyone else was watching the TV in the breakroom. We found out it wasn't a small plane. We saw the second plane hit. My wife called me, crying, asking what it meant. I told her we were going to war. At the time, I had an assignment to the US Embassy in Oman. It was an accompanied tour, but my family's travel was put on hold. I got there in November; they joined me in January.

When the first tower collapsed, one of the Airmen asked what happened. I'd seen enough documentaries about building demolitions to know what the dust cloud looked like. I said, "Oh, my dear Lord, it's collapsing." No one had any idea of the casualty count. One news head said that at that time of day, there could be as many as 60,000 people in the towers.

We didn't get any work done that day. When I left the shop to go home, the BX gas station had raised their prices to $4.50/gallon, and people were lined up. One station owner in Illinois was later convicted of price gouging for raising his prices to $6/gal.

The base went to ThreatCon Charlie ("an incident occurs or intelligence is received indicating some form of terrorist action against personnel and facilities is imminent"), so the entry controllers had to check IDs of every person coming on base. Before, if you had the DoD sticker on your windshield, they waved you right in. Getting on base in the mornings was a nightmare for a couple of weeks until new procedures were ironed out.

Military service hasn't been the same since.

 

[uscitizen]

I lived in Fla, got out of bed turned on the tube and it looked like a new disaster movie was on.

The acting was horrible but the effects were great.