Where were you on September 11, 2001?

[Aikmaniac]

I love football too, but I think we can take a couple minutes away from our favorite pasttime and reflect on one of, if not, the darkest days in our country's history. Sure, we cannot live in fear or keep ourselves from moving on, but I think it's very important to keep 9-11-01 in the back of our minds throughout our lifetime. Post where you were and any other items you remember that unforgettable day.


I was spending the day with my dad after he went through surgery on his eye. We were sitting in his office listening to a local morning show when the news broke that a plane hit one of the towers.

My dad and I are huge aviation buffs and remember reading about a B-24 hitting the empire state building, so it wasn't out of the question. Was it so foggy that the plane didn't see the Towers until too late? As more information came in, the worst of our fears were brought into reality. We then headed to the house to watch the news the rest of the day...in horror.

Where were you?

 

[BrAinPaiNt]

I was thinking about doing a thread like this as well.


I was at work and another guy at work said that a plane hit one of the twin towers.

I thought he was pulling my leg as we are always goofing around about stuff.

He kept saying he was telling the truth so I looked on some news sites and there it was.

Even though I was reading the stuff and seeing pictures of it, it just did not seem real until I got home and was watching the news....terrible thing.

The next few days everybody at work were bringing in radios or listening to the radio via the net.

I remember most of the boards on the net went from Football talk to 9-11 talk....most of the sports radio stations went to talking about 9-11.

It really brought forward the things that were important in life and made the other things that seemed important take a back seat.

Terrible thing that happened but at the same time it brought the country together in a way nothing has since Pearl Harbor IMO.

 

[SoTex]

I was at work here in San Antonio. Ironically, we were building a road going into San Antonio International Airport. Our crews were cleared out of the area as the airport was secured. I went back to my office and watched the horrible events unfold. I will never forget the rage that burned within me...... It was only overcome by sorrow as the casualties mounted.

 

[Juke99]

Harrowing day.

I live in NY.

I was on the train, going into Manhatten. We were stopped in a station called Woodside. Cell phones were ringing. People were either paralyzed with shock or panicked beyond description.

The planes had already done their damage and from where we were, one could see billows of smoke coming from downtown.

The doors to our train were opened and we all got out in an amazingly orderly fashion.

The last call I got was from my office (before all the cell phone went dead)...after the initial questions about my well being, the last words I heard were "...and there are still planes up in the air that have been hijacked"

I recall as a kid having to practice air raid drills. And now, this was the real thing.

I clearly remember two thoughts...one was that a company that employed me for a number of years was owned by Cantor Fitzgerald...they were at the top of one of the towers...I dated someone that worked there. I hadn't spoken to her in a few years. I later found out she had moved to, of all places, Dallas.

The other thought I had was that in order for this to happen, someone(s) were asleep at the wheel.

I would say that I also "thought" about the welfare of all my customers in NYC...but that was more of an emotion that gripped me...it wasn't a mental process...it was anything BUT a "thought"

The journey home, pure insanity, took a while. A group of us approached a cab and basically threw money at the guy.

There was a bond built among the people in that cab...I often wonder how they fared...if their families were impacted directly by any of what happened that day...I sometimes regret not taking their telephone numbers during all the bedlum...

For me, living here in NY, visiting NYC 3-4 times per week, the impact of that day has never lessened. Everyone here, through varying degrees of separation, knows of someone that died that day.

I appreciate threads like this because I think, for those of us here, our lives were changed, to one degree or another, for ever. And I think that although, all of America became NY'ers And DC'ers that day, that for others not so close to it all, the memory has waned and perhaps we have lost a bit of the lessons from that day.

A thread like this reminds us to NEVER forget the new world we live in.

Thanks for starting the thread.

Note: Maybe this thread should be "stickied"

 

[Yeagermeister]

I was sitting in my office and I had went in to a yahoo chat room and a couple of people said something about a plane hitting a building. I thought it was BS and logged out but when my boss came in him he asked me if I was following what was going on. I turned on the radio and they had stopped playing music and went to a news feed. I just sat there listening to it looking like . Needless to say it was kind of hard to work that day and when I got home I didn't have power. So I had to wait an hour or so before I could see what actually happened. What a terrible day

 

[Aikmaniac]

Juke, your memories are very vivid and clear...and sombering. I live in Tampa, so we were about as far away as you could get and there's no way I'll be able to imagine what you and yours went through. I did feel the sense of anger, remorse, and fear all wrapped into one.

I made this thread because no one at my business has brought up 9-11-01 at all this week and that disappoints me. It disappoints me because something like this will always be in back of my mind and it really affects me around this time of year as I'm sure it does you.

 

[DStely8]

i was in school, i remember my teacher always had the radio on and we heard that a small plane hit one tower and another came to help and crashed into the other one. Later in the day the principle announced that it was a terrorist act. When i got home i saw that they collapsed. the footage was so unreal it didn't hit me what happend until a day later.

 

[Juke99]

i was in school, i remember my teacher always had the radio on and we heard that a small plane hit one tower and another came to help and crashed into the other one. Later in the day the principle announced that it was a terrorist act. When i got home i saw that they collapsed. the footage was so unreal it didn't hit me what happend until a day later.

I'm curious...what grade?

 

[SoTex]

I made this thread because no one at my business has brought up 9-11-01 at all this week and that disappoints me. It disappoints me because something like this will always be in back of my mind and it really affects me around this time of year as I'm sure it does you.

Every Sept 11 (2002, 2003) at work we gather around first thing in the morning and have a moment of silence. We then open the floor for discussion and hand out US flag lapel pins. I think Sept 11 is a very important day in our history and should never be forgotten or taken lightly.

 

[Mamba]

Well it was the 2nd or 3rd week of my Freshman year of college. I was on my way to school, when the radio station said something about a plane crashing into the WTC. I think nothing of it, since they made no big deal about it, and their details were very very "smokey". I get to school, and this girl is crying and my professor has this weird look on his face. So i sit down (it was a 200 plus lecture class) and Dr. Purdy starts to explain what is going on and that class is cancelled. But to stay if we want to discuss what is going on, etc. So we are there for a while talking waiting for stuff to develop and a TA runs into class saying that people are jumping off the buildings to their deaths. Also she says that one had gone into the pentagon and I believe a number of planes(don't remember the exact amount were missing) This is when it sinks in that this stuff is real. My various classes ran thru 3 o clock that day. The same TA laters runs in and says that one of the towers has gone down, and is literally crying in tears. We all are given a chance to pray individually, and a couple of phone calls are made to their loved ones in Manhattan by a few colleagues, nobody answers, phones are dead all over the place. Anyway, we get back into discussion on who might have done this, and truthfully never think that it could have came from within the country (ala mcveigh). If it wasn't for the teacher telling us that it was a possibility, it would have never crossed our mind. So we turn on the tube and start watching coverage on what seems to be the day that the "United States" stopped churning. Real Ackward feeling, one that i would prefer not to experience again, to this day it amazes me how people that are thousands of miles away, could have affected me like if they were my good friends. For that little time, it felt great to be a COUNTRY, we all had each other's back. It seemed like Racism amongst Hispanics, Whites, and Blacks had stopped and we were just all one big family. This day was very very sad and it made me think of our gov't in a very different light.(as far as homeland security is concerned) A time after this happened, I talked to my cousin from Houston, when he came down to visit. He was a now a converted Christian. So we get into discussion about why and what drove him to it. He said that he had a meeting there on the 90 something floor of the WTC in the morning of that Sept. 11. That meeting was cancelled only two weeks before sept. 11. He gives all the credit to the man upstairs for looking after him and his two teenage daughters and wife, for not leaving them husband-less and father-less. However, you cut it, Sept. 11, is something that affected every American and in that matter the world some way or another.

 

[GTaylor]

I was getting ready for class when the wife called from work and said a plane crashed into the WTC, I then turned the t.v. on and saw "Pentagon hit" so I told her she was incorrect, it was the Pentagon, not the WTC. She then freaks out so I watched the news for a few minutes, then it finally hit me what had happened.

I remembered I started driving to school but then stopped halfway and headed back home, at each intersection I checked out the other drivers, noone had any expressions, they were so much in shock.

BTW - If anyone here is a Howard Stern fan I have the Show from 9/11, it's about 27 megs. It's really interesting to hear them talk about Pamela Anderson, then break into the story (At first they thought it was a small Cessna), then chaos ensues as they watch the second tower hit...

 

[CowboyPrincess]

I was a manager at a major computer company in Oregon. 9-11 happened 8 wks after I lost my husband. Two days before the tragedy, I had gotten a call that another family member had passed away so I had taken some personal time and was working from home. I had just got done talking to someone from Cisco - who's offices were in the WTC about a half hour earlier. My kids had just gotten out of bed to get ready for school. I turned on foxnews and they were talking about a small plane hitting the first tower. I remember thinking how odd that was. My son was 9 at the time and he came over and sat next to me on the sofa. I remember seeing the second plane come on screen and telling my son "hey Erik, looks like they are going to get a better look at the damage". Now why I would think a plane would be sent to do that, I don't know... Right after I said that the plane hit the second building. The first words out of my mouth then was "Oh my God no! We're at war". I literally went into shock. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I kept my kids home by my side that day. I remember feeling all alone and scared that I was all there was to protect my kids. There were still planes in the air and the Pentagon had been hit too...I cut my personal time and I went to work w/ my kids and calmed my employees. I allowed them to use the internet for live feeds of the coverage. We all had friends and customers in those buildings. You could see the pain in their faces. We spent most of the day crying in front of monitors and trying to recognize people that were shown coming out of the buildings. And as the other tragedys occurred, I was getting more scared for my kids. I don't remember making dinner or eating that entire day. That night I called my daddy and told him I was moving the kids and I back home to Texas and that I was scared and couldn't handle anything else happening. He told me to get my open jobs finished up, cash in my stocks and come home. I just needed to finish out my projects. For several weeks after the tragedy, we had customers from the WTC that called us about loosing their hardware and software and they were needing our help. I watched my employees cry on the phone with these people. I monitored calls and it was the hardest thing to listen too... they were telling us what they saw and cried about how hard it was going to be to go on and start at a new location... we did what we could to help them by sending them equipment to replace what they lost. After we took care of our NY customers, I loaded up a 17 ft Uhaul with me, my 2 kids and a 13 yr old dog and left. 9-11 last year, I lost my mother -in-law.

I lost a few friends that day and I was forever changed. I took lessons and learned how to shoot a gun - I'm a pretty good shot too.. and became even more protective of my kids. And I vowed to never take anyone I loved for granted again. And I became a lot stronger in my faith too... Faith in God, my Country and the citizens that rallied to NY's side and put their arms around the big apple and comforted it.

 

[jacs]

When i woke up the plane had already hit but when i was at school i fell asleep

 

[GTaylor]

Correction - the Howard Stern file is 57 megs, not 27...however the first 2 hours is normal Stern stuff. The 9/11 event doesn't occur until afterwards...

 

[StanleySpadowski]

I was playing golf. I was putting out on the first green when my private cell rang up at the cart. (Only 4 people had the number for emergencies). One of my foursome starting complaining about cell phones on the course but I said I had to check this message.


Our nanny left a near-hysterical message about planes hitting both twin towers. I jumped into the cart, as did my partner, and told the other cart "something huge is wrong in NY, sounds like terrorists or something, I've gotta go".

They ran into the clubhouse to see what was happening while I jumped in my car and raced home, getting the whole story from our nanny on the way.

As soon as I walked in the door, they announced that a plane had crashed near Somerset (less than 50 miles from my home). I called my wive's lab and got her secretery, telling her what they were reporting about Somerset. Not having any radio or television access there, she went off, telling me that it wasn't funny to joke about what was happening and basically hung up on me. (I'm a known pratical joker and she looked at it as WTC, Pentagon and.....Somerset?? To this day, she still apologizes every time she sees me.)

I don't think I slept for the next 48 hours, trying to contact loved ones and watching the coverage.

In the end, I lost 3 people close to me that day and 2 since in the war on terror, but in the words of Gunny, " God Bless America? HEL* NO. GOD F*** the bastar*s who did that."

 

[DStely8]

I'm curious...what grade?

Freshman year

 

[Rude]

It was my first year in college and I had just left my 7:00 am class (we got released early) and I heard on the radio that a plane had hit the WTC. They were saying it was an accident and etc. So when I got home, I put it on the news right before the second plane hit. Scared the crap out of me. I had to go back to school after that and I went to the student lounge to see the news before my class started. Well, I barely got in the lounge since their it was completly full with people (this student lounge only gets like 7 people since its early)

 

[CowboysFan02]

I was getting ready to go to school for 0 period while watching the news they said a plane hit the tower. At the time they thought it was an accident.

I then went to 0 period, upon leaving 0 I walked out on campus and EVERYONE had this look like they saw a ghost. It was sorta scary and even more so when we found out what happened.

My first period I set up the class computer and hooked it up to the TV and we all watched it via the internet(me being the computer program's teacher's assistant knew how to do that.(which put me in great demand) and no regular TV since they were renovateing and there was no anntenna).

I then went to 2nd my TA class I had just finished setting up the TV in another room and came back into the room. I remember the silence in ALL the rooms it was deafning.

I then had to fix our TV and find a better site that had a good stream.

And I will always remember this, the minute I got the connection back up and turned around to check to make sure it was good. The Tower collapsed, I will always remember that horrible pixelated picture that I had just fanagled into coming back up and seeing such a horrible thing.

There was just such a silence around the entire school, the security guards were even more aware actually not checking out the girls and were alert. The rest of the day seemed like a memorial, people in small groups talking in hushed voices.

A day I and many others will never forget.

God bless all those that lost their live,
God bless and thank you to all of our men and women in uniform past, present and future.

 

[Hostile]

A friend of ours called and told us that a plane had hit one of the WTC buildings. I turned on the news and just a few seconds later the 2nd plane hit. Then of course we heard about the Pentagon too.

I was a fireman for 7 years. When I saw those towers come down I was numb. I couldn't even fathom that.

I was glued to the television the whole day. I don't remember exactly when they showed the hijackers pictures but I will never forget that as long as I live.

When the face of the last hijacker, Hani Hanjour, came on the screen I went numb again. I had met him when he was here in Tucson going to the University of Arizona. I was working for a property management company. We were managing some apartments for college students and he had brought some guys by for an apartment. I remembered him because of the name Hani. It reminded me of Haji from the "Johnny Quest" cartoons.

I called the FBI and they asked about the apartment. I took them there. It was abandoned. I got the key and when we opened the door I just froze. Aerial photographs of Tucson with the Davis Monthan Air Force base, Raytheon Missile Systems, and other strategic targets were highlighted. Posters of Bin Laden. Flight manuals. I was interviewed for 6 hours.

My Brother-in-Law worked in Naval Intelligence. At times he was at the Pentagon right where that plane hit. He knew 8 people who died that day. I always find it kind of ironic that Hani was the pilot of that plane. A little too close for comfort if you know what I mean.

The most surreal thing for me was not seeing planes in the skies for that week.

My Brother-in-Law got called up to active duty right away to McDill AFB in Tampa at command central. The day flights resumed I flew out to MD to move his wife and kids down there with him. In Phoenix at Sky Harbor Airport I boarded a plane bound for DC. They told us the plane had a problem they were fixing. I had a window seat and I noticed no planes were taking off but they were landing. People were really cool until our time sitting on the ground approached an hour. Then they started to get angry.

That's when I told them what I had been observing. A passenger on the other side of the plane said a Southwest Airlines plane painted up like the AZ Cardinals that had landed before us was still in their terminal too. When we finally started to move again planes were lined up as far back as we could see for takeoff. To this day I have no idea what caused them to ground the planes that day, but something was going on. I am sure of that.

When I got ready to fly home a week later we were flying out of DC on a 757. The same kind of plane the hijackers had taken. The tension on the plane was amazing. I am a big guy and the 2 guys who were in the same row as me were big as well. Turned out one of them was a Marine and the other was Navy. I mentioned that no one was taking this plane unless they killed me first. They both agreed. I said we should announce that to the plane and they agreed again.

So, we stood up and I asked for everyone's attention. The guy that was a Marine introduced all of us and said I was a former ranger. That wasn't true by the way. The Navy guy then said that if anyone wanted to take this plane they had to kill the 3 of us first and we weren't going to die easily. The entire plane started to cheer. When the meals were brought we got extra portions and the stewardesses all thanked us for easing the tension. As people left the plane we shook more hands than in a wedding reception. People were genuinely relieved.

A little over a year later I went back to DC to see the 9/11 exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution.

Those days changed my life forever. Anyway, that's where I was.

 

[DLK150]

I worked 2nd shift at the time, and hadn't gotten out of bed yet. My stepdaughter called us and said someone had bombed the WTC. I turned the TV on just a few minutes before the second plane hit.

I'll never forget the moment, and it still hits home sometimes. My wife is past it all, but she's lived in Indiana all her life, while I lived in NJ for years. I went to NYC semi-frequently, and the idea of them being destroyed was hard to fathom. I could remember when they were being built and the 1st time I saw them. I couldn't imagine the NYC skyline without them, and it still seems odd to see it the way it is.