9/11 Where Were You?

[Seraphim]

Since the second anniversary of the 9/11 attacks are coming around the bend I would like to hear some stories of what you and or your friends/relatives were doing during the attacks and what was going through your/their mind.

[Skaman]

sitting, eating brekfest about to go to school. I heard on the radio a plane had crashed into the wtc. I thought it was an accident. I turned on the tv, just them, a 2nd plane struck, i dropped the remote and woke up my parents. Even though we live in Canada, it really struck home.

[Vance]

I was in 9th grade (Now 11th) in my Theatre Arts class. My teacher told me two planes had hit the two towers in New York. Me, not knowing what the two towers were, assumed seperate small Cessna planes had crashed into two different airport control towers. In my next class, World Geography, the TV was on and all you could see was rubble and ash and dust. It was then that I saw the replays of the airplanes crashing into the towers, over and over, they kept showing it over and over again...

[Ratamacue]

Around 8:50 AM in 1st period in 8th grade (now 10th) on Long Island, New York. An announcement by the principal came on saying that two jets had crashed into the World Trade Center, and any students concerned about parents that worked there may report to the office and attempt to call home or their parents.

2nd period (probably around 9:35 or so), the classroom next to us had a TV on CNN, showing footage of the Twin Towers and Pentagon burning. A few minutes later while we were watching, the north tower crumbled. The full force of what had happened didn't really hit me until later when I got home that afternoon and I could hear F16's overhead.

[Apogee]

Plebe Year, United States Military Academy. I was sitting in my room in the barracks, working on my chemistry. I had instant messanger on, as I always do and a good friend of mine from high school told me to turrn on CNN b/c a plane had crashes in to the WTC. I told her that that wasn't very funny. But she insisted that it was the truth. So I turned on CNN just in time to see the 2nd plane hit. But, being a military school, we all still had to go to class. When I finally came out of chem class there were MPs everywhere with M-16s. Thats my story.

[Sean85]

10th Grade German class...turned on the TV to see if anything good was on and saw the smole billowing from tower 1. Ten minutes later we saw the second plane hit. I was scared sh**less. That day was the day i also decided to join the army.

[SILENT SCOPE]

I'm not really wanting to talk too much about this, but my father is a 9/11 survivor. He worked on the 73 floor of the north tower (tower 1 is it? I always remembered it as the one with the antenna when I was little) for the Port Authority of NY/NJ.

Here is my account of September 11th, 2001:
I remember I was at school and a friend of mine (who didn't know where my father worked at the time) some how herd about what happened. No one was supposed to know about what happened as the school administrators didn't want kids to go nuts (which sounds quite stupid now that I think of it). I remember that at the moment I herd him say the Twin Towers were hit by passenger aircraft my whole life just kind of froze. I started getting that gut felling that something very bad happened. Not to long from then my mother picked my brother and I up and school and brought us home. I remember the only thing she said as that something bad had happened. I did what anyone would have done and turned the news on when I got home. I saw those towers on fire and I know he was dead. I remember that all i wanted was to see his face again and hug him or talk to him. That is what I get choked up on the most now when I remember what happened that day. When I got home, I have no idea what time it was, the towers were still only on fire. my mother told me later that i had gotten home right after the South Tower was hit. I remember seeing tower two fall and I just prayed that the one my father was in wouldn't. When tower one fell, that was when the **** really hit the fan for me. To this day I can't remember any thing that happened to me after that. I just didn't think life was worth living with out my father for a brief moment. That night (I'm not sure when, but it must have been around 7 or 8 o'clock) the phone rang. I remember my mom running to it and picking it up. From that second on, my father was back into my life again. I can't explain how happy I was to hear his voice on the phone. It was and probably will still be, the best thing that ever happened to me.

My father came home on September 12th and I remember being extremely curios as to how he got down 73 stories, where as so many people couldn't. it was sort of like asking my grandfather what happened to him in World War Two, one day after it ended. My dad didn't want to mention it for a long, long time. Finally one day, about 2 months later, he told us (us being my family and I) about what happened. He said that he was actually below the impact point where the aircraft hit. He told us that he flt the building move, which want abnormal as it move couple feet to each side during high winds. But this time, the movement was substantial enough that he, ans architect for the Port Authority, felt that the building might fall. He said that he passed many fire fighters. he also said that when he looked up the stair case, he say people just lined up moving slowly down for hundreds of feet. He told us that he got out of Tower One, walked away a couple of blocks, and saw Tower Two fall. he said that after that building fell, he thought something else might happen (at that point not too many people thought it was a terrorist attack), so he just kept walking uptown. The story goes that he finally got to a pay phone (no one in my family had cell phones yet) and called my mother. After that he got in touch with a friend and stayed over night.

So that is my story of what happened to me on September 11th. Please note that I'm not trying to impress anyone with what I went trough, but i think that my story is an impratant one to tell. It was a terrible day, but thank God, every thing worked out and September 12th was a much better day for me.

[OzMan]

Freshman year, 1st hour class. The school district or something was giving Hepatitis shots, and 9/11 was the day of the last of 3 shots. I was walking through the halls when someone passed me and said, "The World Trade Center and the Pentagon are on fire!" I knew immediately that something was wrong, with the WTC being in New York, and the Pentagon being in DC. I went back to my first hour after receiving my shot, and told the class what I had heard. No one believed me. I don't blame them.

First hour ended, and my second hour was a technology class, with cable TV in the classroom. I walked in, and all of the chairs were arranged in a semi-circle around the TV, which was tuned into FoxNews. For nearly twenty minutes, no one said a word. Everyone either picked up their jaws, or cried. I looked around the room, and not a single person knew what was happening. I took out a pen, grabbed a notebook, and started taking notes of everything I was hearing on the TV, writing down places, times, and events. The towers fell, and still the room remained silent, apart from some sobs.

I have been told that I have a major problem with patience, and no lack in patriotism, and on that day, the two collided. People throughout the day were saying things like, "Why can't we just shoot them down?", or "It's those damn Arabs again!", or "Well, I guess it's what we deserve". There were several times throughout the day where I had to be physically held back from striking some people.

School ended, and I walked home, past the long lines at the gas stations, overhearing everyone's blaring radioes, trying to stay up to date. My mother works at home all day, and I came home to find her crying on the couch with CNN on in the living room. I went over my notes, made some phone calls to some friends, making sure they were ok, or if they had any additional information. I prepared my ground search and rescue equipment, left it by the door, and kept the phone in my hand, ready for the call.

My father returned home from work, and that day was the first time I had ever seen him cry. I walked up to a local gas station to pick up a special that the Kansas City Star had printed that morning, recapping the days events, and also to meet with some friends. The store owner (who was an immagrant) was taping an American flag to the store's front windows. Everyone's mood was different. The outgoing became quiet and shy, the religious prayed incessently. It was the day where no one could really be held responsible for their actions; it was everyone's unique way of dealing with the stress and harsh reality. When I came home, my oldest brother had come home as well, and was putting out our American flag on the front of the house.

That night, around midnight, my mother said to my brothers and me, "You've got school tomorrow, you need to get to bed.", but she was quickly interrupted by my father who said, "No, you kids need to see this. Stay up as late as you want." I fell asleep around 530 the next morning, with my pen and pad in hand.

The next day my father put flag stickers on every car we own, and our flag has only been taken down once since that day, for a replacement. Our flag flies outside our house everyday, rain or shine, holiday or not.

[StarvingStudent47]

I was in a dormitory of Tufts University, just outside of Boston. I watched the entire thing on the television of the guy down the hall, whose family lived in Manhattan. He was trying to call his family on his cell phone, but he couldn't get through for hours. Luckily, his family was not harmed in the attack.

I don't remember much else that day. I was in shock, and I was also on some very high-powered antibiotics (not cipro but other stuff) from a nasty bacterial illness that had hospitalized me three days before. I remember my Latin professor looking at all of us that afternoon, and saying, "Listen, if you don't want to be here, whether you have family in New York or you're just upset, go ahead and leave. Please go check on your loved ones if they were anywhere near there. Latin just isn't that important. However, if you want to spend 90 minutes in denial with me, I'll be going over how to decline nouns." I was pretty overwhelmed, so I took the escapist route and stayed in class. Nobody actually learned anything, but I'm glad that the professor was willing to do that just to give us a bit of space from the outside world.

[StarvingStudent47]

So that is my story of what happened to me on September 11th. Please note that I'm not trying to impress anyone with what I went trough, but i think that my story is an impratant one to tell. It was a terrible day, but thank God, every thing worked out and September 12th was a much better day for me.

That is an incredible story. Thank you for sharing it. Seriously. I can't believe that a single person here thought that you were just being selfish or trying to impress. Thank God your father is all right.

[JiJoMacLE45]

A buddy of mine owns his owning trucking company that ships mostly electronics and computers, and he had runs to Manhattan on 9/10 and 9/11. He was dropping off half a dozen of these 500lb plasma monitors to a few banks around the city and needed a second set of hands so I go with him. September 10th was actually the first time I had ever been to NYC.

So anyway on 9/11 we were driving through the Lincoln Tunnel into NYC when the 1st plane hit and we were on 6th Ave when the 2nd plane hit. We're coming out of the tunnel, and of course we had to shut the radio off, so we didn't hear any newsbreaks, but we come out the tunnel and a NYPD radio car goes screaming buy w/ 4 uniforms in it. I'm figuring somebodies getting their ass kicked somewhere. I had no idea how right I was. We were close enough that we could see the top few stories of the buildings from our location. So we could see the tips of the flames from the fire and the smoke pouring out the windows. When they came down, were we close enough to feel the vibrations and were just outside of the huge dust cloud that came with it. We didn't actually get out of the city until about 6PM. But we were close enough that you could smell the metal burning and we had a thin film of dust on the truck. I can still taste that burning metal today. Awful taste.

My entire family knew I was up there and knew I was pretty close to the towers and not being able to get ahold of them and let them kniw I was OK, b/c the phone lines were all tied up, that was pretty trippy. We spent most of the day on the street corner b/c there was really no way to get out.

After the towers come down, I remember this sedan pulling up next to us and stopping b/c of traffic, might have been federal, could have been city detectives, I'm not sure. Young blonde guy driving, I walk up to window and badge him, ask him if there is anything I can do, if they are setting up volunteer centers, I can't just stand around and do nothing, right? So the guy looks back up at me, I can see his face while I'm typing this like he's here, and he says "There's nothing any of us can do. We're f*cked." Then he drove off.

It took some time for me to really understand that I had been there. It just seemed unreal. It's one thing to watch it on news and see the overhead views that played out like a movie, but I was there, I saw, I smelt, I heard, I felt it.

[ShotOver]

Was comming home late from dinner, and came home and saw that my T.V was still on and CNN was on...Then suddenly a big alert comes on about a plane has hit the WTC and their cameras were showing it off in the distance.
I sat and watched it the whole night.



9/11/01 Gone but will never be forgotten

[DixieDude]

I was in third period Lit., when we were going to lunch. I remember someone saying at lunch that "Japan attacked us"...and that they bombed two buildings in NYC....Then the principal came on the intercom and told us that two buildings in NYC had been hit by planes. Then, next period we turned on the TV and watched CNN. That's all we did the rest of the day....watch the news....in shock. I too heard people making jokes, or rude comments about what had happened. But, I kept my anger inside only because I was too sad to harm anyone.

Then, I got home. I watched the news all night until I finally fell asleep.

It feels really bad when all you can do is watch thousands of helpless people die without doing anything to help them. Just watch everything they worked hard for crumble and turn to ash.

Knowing that I lived no more than 50 miles from SRS(Savannah River Site) and a nuclear powerplant, I was afraid they(terrorists) might start attacking nuclear facilities. And on top of that I live near a military base, which could have been another target. It was probably to most terrifying day of my life.....

[cut]

haha I can't believe so many of you were/still are in school.
I was in the first month of my gap year at a friends house playing flight simulator... simulating (sorry was bored)


*awaits reaction*....

[Shadow]

Where: At home
Thoughts: Holy ****!

[Light Fighter]

Myself and a coworker were driving to the local police barracks to pick up an ammunition order for my office when we heard it on the radio. Just then I had remembered I had dropped my daughter off for school early that day as they were going on a field trip to the Towers. My heart sunk and I started thinking about worst case scenarios. Finally I rushed home and my wife had gotten a hold of the school who said the bus was sitting in traffic near the Lincoln Tunnel. My daughter had seen the first jet hit, and turned away before the second one. She says she can remember hearing the jets pass overhead. To this day, she still freezes up whenever she hears a jet go by overhead. A day I will never, ever forget.

[seventy6er]

I was at home and watched TV (must've been around 1400 in Germany). I saw it from the beginning on TV, 1st plane, the second plane. Watched TV for the next 10 or 12 hours - shocked. And believe me, I told my girlfriend "There's gonna be war." And I knew it would be Afgh.

[Helly]

It was around 10pm here in Manila, Philippines when one of my friends called me up telling me to watch CNN. It was around 3am before I went to bed that night. It was like a scene out of a bad disaster movie. History was made that day, and we're still living with the effects of that attack.

~Helly

[Upfrontreporting]

I was watching some bike race (Vuelta Espanja or Giro D'Italia), when
the transmission was cut and the news came on. It was right after the second plane had crashed and I spend the next 10 hours glued to the TV.

My initial reaction was something like: Crap, ****, Holy ****, this can't be real.

Contacted people I know and told them to turn on their TV's.

The world had taken a different turn.

[Herrmannek]

Was learning to exam(discrete math), then bored with learnig, turned-on satelite tuner on CNN just after first plane hit(coincidence), first fire videos, no one knew nothing, only speculations(accident?, small plane?, what happened?), after some time second plane hit, then all speculation was cuted, everyone knew for sure that this wasn't accident....

[rangerone]

I was sitting in my Foreign Policy class when another history teacher ran into the room and said that a plane hit the twin towers. We turned on the TV to CNN just as the second plane hit. I just sat there in awe, but at the time, we thought the plane was not a second one but the one that had hit before. Then we realized that it was a second one. The entire school was silent that day. People just walked around with their heads low and didnt really say a word. I remember whenever school got out and a bunch of people were in the parking lot when a plane flew kinda low over the lot. I live by Scott AFB and the planes fly pretty low all around the area. Everyone started to freak out because we thought it was maybe headed for St. Louis. But when we saw the military markings everyone kinda eased up a little. I remember seeeing the long lines at the gas stations and the entire town was quiet. It was the wierdest thing I had ever seen. I stayed up that night and just watched CNN. I couldnt sleep for 3 days. After that, all I could think about was why us and why September 11th. My sympathy goes out to all of the families who lost loved ones that day and also thank you to everyone who is serving in our military. We owe you so much for defending our freedom. GOD BLESS AMERICA!

[DeltaWhisky58]

Hi Guys

I am a professional photographer, one of my specialisations is aviation.

On 9/11, I had been working on the PC all morning and for some reason, unknown even now, had the TV on during the early afternoon. I had seen early reports that suggested a light aircraft had crashed into one of the towers at the WTC, and whilst this was unfolding actually saw the second airliner hit live on TV - I was stunned!

Anyway, having watched the story unfold during the afternoon, I left home around 17:00 to carry out a photo shoot of visiting NATO aircraft at RAF Kilnoss, one of our local airbases.

Well, I arrived at the base to find security was tighter than I had ever seen before, in fact no sooner had I got on base than the entrance was closed - Period. Despite this, I was able to do my job which included a visitng Polish Navy a/c. After a coffee on the flightline, I heard that a USN P-3c Orion had reported finals, so rather than heading home, I waited as this a/c landed and shut down.

The local RAF groundcrew did the necessary to the aircraft and a few USN guys came down the steps whilst I took a few pix. One of the guys - a Lieut. Cdr and possibly the a/c commander - said to me that the whole world seemed a bit screwed up as comms channels were a bit mad that day. Apparently as they had been excercising with European forces thay had had no contact with CONUS at all. Rather than explain what had happened, I suggested they might like to listen to the radio of perhaps TV, ASAP. Well.........they fired up the SATCOM on the aircraft and called home.............as you can imagine all hell let loose.............

The rest is history. It took me two hours to get off base that evening. The base was on alert to receive diverted airliners which had been turned back mid-Atlandtic, and VC-10 and Tristar tankers were queing up to re-fule so that the fighter screen could be maintained off the west coast of Scotland just in case.

I won't forget that in a hurry. Thought the British perspective might be interesting................

[Kriz]

I just got home from school at around half 4 in the afternoon when my mom told me a plane hat hit one of the WTC towers. At first I thought she was joking but then a little later the second one hit.

[FallenAngel]

I was in my car driving to school here in Los Angeles when the first plane hit. When I got to school, one of my friends came up to me and told me about the first plane hitting the tower. She asked me if I knew it was an accident or an attack (since I go to a small school, I am generally known as the guy to come to regarding all things military /foriegn policy.) I told her that I had no idea, but I would find out.

I ran to the class of a teacher who, like me, is very into the military and foriegn policy (he's a civil war re-enactor and a former Marine). I got to him right as he was leaving his class room. He just looked at me and said "Follow me." He led me to the teacher's lounge where some of the faculty was watching the news. Not 5 minutes later, the second plane hit the second tower. There was complete silence in the teacher's lounge. I was the only student who was in the good graces of the faculty allowing me to watch this (I was a model student and class president) while the rest of the student were getting updates from their friends as they continued arriving at school. A few minutes later they showed a charred Pentagon. At first they reported that it was a helicopter, but then they said it was a 3rd plane. Then the two towers collapsed. I remember about that time- 10 minutes or so before the first bell- the principal came in. He asked me to leave while he addressed the faculty. I did so.

In the hall was a group of students from all ages, cliches and lifestyles. Many of them were my friends, and the same girl who first told me about the attacks simply asked "How bad is it?" I then confirmed what they had been told by friends who had arrived just a few minutes before. Both towers had fallen, the pentagon had been hit and that as many as 25,000 people were dead. (This was based on the news reporting that each tower held something like 10,000 people.)

Then the fear struck in. My small private school is in the heart of San Pedro- which surrounds the Port of LA (the largest one in the country). At the time there were several tankers and tanker ships docked within a few blocks of my school. There is also a large oil refinery about a mile away. Since this target is the only thing really worth destroying in LA- there was a sudden fear that IF LA was attacked, we'd be in the bullseye. Our fears were somewhat eased a few minutes later in homeroom when our teacher said all aircraft were grounded and that there was no threat of attack. However, as a precaution about a dozen LAPD patrol units and two LAFD engines companies were within a block of the school to help with the evacuation if needed.

Then, about 35 minutes later, a girl in my first period class shouted "Oh my god! What's that!?" to be punctuated by the whine of turbine engines. Nearly the entire class got up and ran to the windows- a few actually stayed in their seats and started praying. I offered them a relief when I turned back and said "Don't worry. It's F/A-18s. They're Navy fighters from San Diego."

After that. It was just a long quiet day at school. We didn't really learn anything. Just talked about why....who....and what we would do in response.

[MEGR]

Just walking between classes when i heard that a plane hit the WTC.. Immediately i went to the library and saw what unfolded after. The whole thing was un-freaking-believable... I remember this vividly and it reminds me why we are in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places fighting these terrorist scumbags.

[hendrix33]

I was in the middle of the desert (Negev), in a shooting range located 20 minutes drive from my base. There were about ten of us, practicing for a shooting contest, and there was zero reception for our cellphones.

When I finally got to call home, my mom told me what happened. I remember thinking about that Clancy book I've recently read.

When I told the others, they didn't take it seriously. Only in the night a pickup came and we went to the base were we saw it on the big screen TV in the lounge.

[BT_Recon]

it was around 2am in Australia when it happened i think, i was sitting down watching a movie on tv.... it was cut off over to one of the live news reports from CNN, so yeah saw it all "live" on tv... stayed up all night and watched it unfold. Didnt enjoy it one bit :| very unimpressed.

[Fioraon]

In the morning I rise before the sun work out, and get ready for school. I dont listen to the radio nor is the T.V. on in the morning. The rear tire on my car was flat so I had to take the Metro. I noticed everyone was sorta down when I got on the bus and not a word was said till about ten minutes into. At first I thought it was a joke while one friend was informing me the a jet flew into the WTC. Then everyone else jumped in, I swore they were all playing a joke on my. I can still quote myself "you gotta be ****ting me." It wasn't until I arrived at school when it hit home, no one was in the halls cept for the people just walking in, a good friend of mine called me into their home room as I passed the door way, just as I walked in the first tower fell. There was no class that day, and flowers have been planted at the flag for a students father we lost that day.

[Mortimer]

I was asleep when the first plane hit...my brother came in a told me but i didn't really know what he was talking about nor did i care it was late.

then the second one hit and he came in again and i thought..what the? got up and sought of sat there in my boxers watching the tv with a weird kind of nervousness.

The thing that i couldn't quite get used to was that there were people in the planes? i asked a housemate if there was and all he said was...."i suppose so".

it was pretty **** 'ed up.

what was even weirder was the it was one day after i enlisted in the army....

[Bulkowski]

Well, It was early morning here on the west coast and I was going to go to school and as usual I watch the first 30 minutes of GMA and heard about it, and on the radio was Chop Suey by System of a down, so now that song always makes me think of 9/11. Of course this is only like 4 days after school started. So when we are in class they would turn on the tv every now and then just to see what was going on, of course the thing that pissed me off was the stupid kids who started say "whoa cool" "do we get to go home?", and the principle talked about it on the intercom.

[eggroll]

Was onboard an Asiana Flt over the pacific from the ROK, 5.5 hrs into the flight we had to turn around.... Racked up some serious satellite phone charges that morning.

A daunting enough sight to be escorted off the flight @ ICN under armed guard.

Remember spending the next 7 days waiting for resumption of flights back to the states.

[millhouse]

I was taking a shower and my roommate kicked on the door yelling "We just got raped!" I asked by whom and he told me terrorists. When I walked out in a towel I had trouble taking it all in and saw the second plane hit live from the ABC footage. It was confusing at the time, completely unbelieveable. I'm sure everyone had the same mix of emotions: shock, anger, sadness, confusion, all clashing together.

[hood]

Yeah, sep 11th was pretty much the exclamation point on a bad time in my life. My mother had died only a few weeks beforehand and the damage from destroyed communications cables and water flooding put the finishing touches on the now assured bankruptcy of the tech company I was working for. This put me, along with thousands of other new yorkers out of a job within a month if not instantly. Now the country has and will continue to be at war against terrorists for 2 years with no forseable end in sight. Like roaches, you can't kill them all, just keep them under control. The happy ending to the story is that now I've got a site where I've met all you fine upstanding people, which has made all of these things easier to bear.

As for where I was: My boss called me on the phone from our other office and said "Can you believe it?". I said huh? to which he said I should bring up cnn.com. I couldn't, it just sat there. Same for foxnews.com and the bbc site. They were being hammered by the countless millions who were looking for the latest info. Unfortunately they don't have the page from earlier in the day, but here's what it looked like at 4:00pm:

http://web.archive.org/web/20010911200318/http://www.cnn.com/

http://web.archive.org/web/20010911181447/http://news.bbc.co.uk/

It's wonderful to see the statement on CNN there "Taliban issues statement to tell U.S. 'Afghanistan feels your pain'" ... we made this come true shortly after.

After talking with people in the office for a while, I walked outside and went to Times Square where they were showing the 2nd plane hitting the tower over and over again on the giant 90 foot tall Nasdaq screen. There were several hundred people outside in the middle island with no cars anywhere. Later me and a bunch of people from work tried walking to Penn Station down the 4-lane 7th avenue. It was like a scene out of a post apocalyptic movie where the streets were totally deserted with no cars, planes, helicopters or anything else that you'd usually hear. Just tons of people walking in the middles of the streets. I finally got home around 5pm that day when they opened the trains and bridges back up to outgoing traffic. It was 2 weeks before most of the city went back to work.

[Nawlins]

I didn't have classes till the afternoon that day, so I was still asleep when the first plane hit. A friend called me to tell me what had happened, and since I didn't have a TV, turned CNN up so I could hear it over the phone. It didn't really hit me at first... it sounded bad but I didn't really get the enormity of it. I noticed that the hall seemed really quiet. I took a shower and got dressed and when I went down to the lounge area, alot of the girls from my floor were watching the coverage on the TV. That's when it really hit me what had happened. I ended up not going to class. Some classes were cancelled or cut short anyway. I remember thinking how eerily quiet the whole campus seemed.

[NcDeuce]

I was in my 11th Grade Chemistry class. We were taking a test and the teacher got a call on her cell phone and immediately looked concerned and turned on the TV. We watched it and were all shocked and confused. A few minutes later, students' cell phones began ringing. Many of my fellow classmates have fathers in the 5th Special Forces Group or the 160th SOAR, so they were either immediately deployed, already deployed, or being shipped out.

My dad is already retired from the Special Ops realm but still has many close friends in the "business". Yup, I don't know about you guys but I was pretty damn mad that September day. I was also concerned about my safety, due to Fort Campbell, KY down the road...and it would be a key target if the terrorists wanted to do seroius damage to the military.

I remember coming home that afternoon, football practice being cancelled, and there was an odd feeling in the air. It is hard to explain, I have never felt it since then, or before then, for that matter. I saw a few Night Stalker Little Birds and Black Hawks from TF-160 flying extremely low that day, possibly running extra security around post.

Well, that's how my day went. God Bless our President. God Bless the USA. God Bless our soldiers. And God Bless the 160th SOAR and 5th Group!

NSDQ
De Oppresso Liber

[Beowulf]

I lived in clarksville for a while.....it's been about ten years since I lived there but it was cool.

[ibstolidude]

Dry counties suck

[Trigger]

6:30am local time...getting dressed for work...phone rings, it's mom on the caller i.d....mom doesn't call that early unless someone has died. All she said was you need to turn on the news, a plane just hit the WTC. After that it was much the same as the rest of you have already said. I drove to work without thinking about it, didn't get a damn thing done all day. I just felt a mix of rage and helplessness. It was such a surreal day. I'm thankful that those of you who were near the area of the attack made it home safely as well as your family members.

[vryhpyammoadded]

In North Carolina, on the morning of 09/11/2001, I was having yet another round of arguments with my boss wondering why the hell I left the Army to put up with this idiotic MBA drivel or why we hadn’t killed each other when suddenly another coworker burst into the conference room turning on the TV. Moments later some 20+ coworkers had crammed into the small room and in the background I could hear others franticly trying to call, email or even fax friends in the WTC1 and 2. We had a small office, some affiliates and a couple of clients there. Most made it out in time.

What did I feel while all this was going on? Anger towards the barbarian’s responsible, sadness for the suffering people and a desire for revenge against the perpetrators and there supporters were the first thoughts entering my mind. I was also pissed as hell at the government for letting this happen seeing the scenario was not an unexpected one.
The very next thing I did was to call the Army and ask for my last job back training 33’s and 98’s or better yet working with 10th group and getting deployed closer to the action.

It’s too bad the Army didn’t want some old geezer like me back so it’s up to you kids to get the job done. I wish you the best of luck in the coming years in sending those terrorist scumbags and their friends to hell where they belong.

[Sirpad]

Even though i'm israely, i lived in manhatan for almost two years - worked in a big clothing store down at the SOHO (yellow rat bastard), so for me the WTC was part of the everyday view. my girlfirend then (and my wife today) is an american, and i guess i'm quite a bi-cultural person.

we came back to israel on june 01, and the when it happened i was actualy on my way to start a 30 day reserve duty in gaza. 20 minutes before arriving the forward deploynemt base, my wife's best friend called to say a plane crashed into one of the towers - to the trained new-yorker ear, i thought of a small plane, 5-7 dead, and a story that will be on the news for the next two weeks (at least).
upon arriving the base, we went to the base club - and saw it. my first estimate was 20-50 thousand dead, and obviously my feelings ranged between utter shock to gutt-wrenching anger. my imediate fear was, of course, that people i know were there - and later details published about israelys casualties even looked familiar.
luckily, none of my friends actualy got hurt.
six months later, we went to the states to visit her parents in jersey - i could'nt bring myself to go look at the place.

one thought came to my mind a second after i saw the first images, and stayed for many many months:"NOW they know what terror realy feels like"...

[James]

@ 0630 PST, I was getting ready for work, enjoying my coffee. I turned the news on, as I normally did. I wanted to vomit.

[California Joe]

I work for a joint command in Virginia somewhere. We always have CNN on. I saw the plane hit and we all stopped and watched. We started planning how to hit back.

[ibstolidude]

what was it you planned Joe?

"started planning to hit back"?
against who Joe? (consider your answer from the perspective of that time)

[Cpl Stumps]

On 9/11/01 I worked as a Security Dispatcher for a Casino. My shift started at 7am. I was on my way to work listening to a Classic Rock station when the Morning Guys said that they were watching CNN and a plane had hit the WTC. I'll never forget what the other morning guy said, "Looks like an Air Traffic Controller is going to get canned today." All of a sudden they were stunned to silence and then they said that a second plane had hit the WTC. I listened numbly as I drove into work, I knew it had to be terrorism. I walked into our briefing room and the first pictures of the Pentagon being on fire had just come on. Being in security, alot of the guys I worked with had been prior military like me. Some young like me, some old we all just stood there staring.
I went to our dispatch room and started watching a t.v we had. As they showed the two towers burning I was mentally trying to count how many floors were on fire, and was thinking "O.K. maybe 20 floors each tower, they get that fire out and then they can fix it." And right as I was thinking that the first tower collapse. I just couldn't fathom it. When the second tower went down I was just in shock. I looked at the bank of monitors and nobody was gambling in the casino. I'd worked at that casino for a year and half and they had just installed T.V.s in the pits so that gamblers could watch sports and still play, and never had I seen the casino where nobody was gambling. Dealers, Pit Bosses, Shift Managers and guests were all just staring at the t.v. Of course by afternoon their were people playing again, gambling is gambling. I spent the next 18 hours inside a dark room watching t.v and fielding questions from stranded guests.

And finally I just said a prayer for those lost and those that would be lost waging war for America, especially my fellow Marines, that God watch over them all.

[mikec62001]

(British) in London, England

I was in the car with my brother on the way to the dump to drop some rubbish off. listening to BBC five live. Reports of an aircraft hitting WTC. My brother and I thought it would be a small properler type aircraft. THen they said it was 727 size. Both my brother and I siad "SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT". I new then who it was and what it was. Terrorist attack by Osama Bin Laden which I said to my brother.

We spent most of the day from then on...sitting in front of the TV watching the developing news. Second Aircraft hit. THen Penetagon. THen reports of an aircraft going down. It seemed like a full scale assault on the United States. I thought there would be many more targets hit other than the WTC and Penetagon.

My brother had got a sponsorship deal with a UK airline to do his Commercial Pilots Licence. Soon after the attacks...the airline Perminately discontinued the sponsorship training for my brother...leaving him up **** creek without a padel as well as having no job (had to resign from his job before he would have gone on his flying training).

just a tad....PISSED OFF.

[Sabre]

Another British perspective:

I was sat in my living room eating lunch (watching a report from some party conference, don't ask me why), I wasn't at uni yet so I was in that end of holiday daze. That didn't last.

The news cut in with pictures of the tower. I think I had just come back in from the kitchen and thought there must have been a fire. They then said a light aircraft had hit. I sat there quite concerned when the sound of another aircraft started and then WHACK! There was the much-photographed fireball and debris and I just thought...****...

...terrorists...

I phoned my Dad who was just about to meet my Mum in Newcastle. He'd heard about the first strike but not the second. My mum hadn't heard at all.

I just sat there on my own and watched the pentegon burn and the towers collapse. I couldn't believe how easily they did. I just kept thinking, where's the one for the white house/sports stadium...I wondered if it was over, was it world wide, would they hit here? (live near Menwith Hill, a US intelligence gathering facility).

My lasting memories of the day/event was the plane hitting, the towers collapsing and the footage of a man (doctor?), running through the dust to help people, with the constant beeping and falling debris around him. That footage became harder to bear when I realised that every different beep was a firefighter's distress beacon.

===============================================

Written with thoughts for those whose lives were taken on that day, and for those who have died since around the world, because of the actions of a few.

May they all find peace.

[odh2507]

wellmy story is this...i live near saudi arabia......kinda sux there neways because the bastards did it....well since it hqappened on a FRIDAY and that is like the american sunday i was at home with my mom ....my dad was working.....at around 2 PM i thknk this time it happened my dad called and told us to turn the TV on so we did...ten minutes later the base went in DELTA the highest threat level....well it was just screwed up in saudi arabia everybody was scared...and we got out of school for a whole week

[Trigger]

Wasn't 9-11-01 on a TUESDAY?

[odh2507]

well i thought it was a friday but it could also be a thrusday since that is still a weekend where i live.....but i think it was a FRIDAY though

[Seraphim]

My lasting memories of the day/event was the plane hitting, the towers collapsing and the footage of a man (doctor?), running through the dust to help people, with the constant beeping and falling debris around him. That footage became harder to bear when I realised that every different beep was a firefighter's distress beacon.


Just a note...the beeping sound is automatically activated when the firefighter isnt moving. I havent seen the footage your talking about so I can not comment any further.

[molly747]

I was in my junior year of college. My classes on Tuesday were later in the afternoon, so I was sleeping in. My boyfriend at the time called me and told me to turn on the TV, that "we were under attack." I was so confused, I had no idea what was going on. It felt like a movie or a bad dream. It was such a strange sensation, all this going on and I still had things to do, errands to run and such. I was in a daze for the next week. I was so in shock that I didn't even feel any real sadness or cry until 3 days later, when it started to really sink in. There I was, in Athens, Georgia, and I was terrified. It was the first time in my life that I ever felt truly scared and unsafe, as an American.

[JiJoMacLE45]

Yes. it was a Tuesday. There were a few stories of people who worked on upper levels of the towers who called in sick from work or who were running late b/c the Jets had been on MNF the evening prior. That late start saved a few lives.

[Nawlins]

Wasn't 9-11-01 on a TUESDAY?

Yes, it was definitely a Tuesday. Maybe if you were in Japan it would have been Monday night (I think that's right?), but here in the West it was Tuesday.

[specialairservice]

When i got home, my mum told me to turn on the tv and watch the news. I was only 14 at the time and watchin the news instead of playing football wasnt my idea of fun. So i did and i just couldn,t belive it, i just couldn't take it in. Although im british i think it hit me hard not only because of the people that had been killed but i was really in to aircraft and im going to travel the USA when im older so i was really pissed off. I watched the news for 8 hours that night with out moving. It was that night that i found out about that Bin laden and saw him laughing about what had happened and i really wanted to kick his head in.

APRIL 2002
It was on the news that 1000 Royal Marines were to to Afganistan.

Thats what gave me my ambition to join the Royal Marines.

I start my 30 weeks training in march.

God Bless America

[Seoulstriker]

I went to school near downtown Chicago, just outside the Loop. On this particular morning, I spent my time on the train from 6:45 AM to 7:15 AM. I spent the next 30 minutes walking from Union Station (which is right next to Sears Tower) to my school (7:15-7:45). I went into the cafeteria and was there from 7:45 to 9:00.

I had absolutely no idea what had just happened. This particular day was a 'late start' where school starts an hour later. As I walk across the cafeteria getting ready to enter the school, a senior (i was a junior) walked up to me and said, "two planes crashed into the world trade center and a third hit the pentagon!!!" I just kept saying to him, "Shut the **** up... Shut the **** up... Shut the **** up..."

I went up to the library during my free period later and kept seeing those images of the planes hitting the towers. I knew that this meant war.

Basic point of the story, I was enjoying a fantastic morning right near a possible terrorist target (Sears Tower), and then the **** started coming down.

[Seoulstriker]

My brother was working at home when the **** started going down, but he (18), was supposed to go to work at Argonne National Laborotory. When he got there, the gate personnel checked and double checked his car and his person as he was going to the gates. When he finally came to his desk, no one else was around. That must have been creepy. Then he just came home.

[Lobo]

1996
I was a Time's magazine subscriber. I read an article about
a guy called Bin Laden. I found the same article the following
weekend in one of the main's Spanish newspaper. It had taken my
atention so much that I cut it from the newspaper and kept it in
one of those folders where I bury interesting news I forget soon.


May, 2001.
I was really bored at the university library's studying
for an exam. I was so fed up that I pick up from the shelves
Zbigniew Brzezinski's "The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy
and its Geostrategic Imperatives" just for relaxing. I took it home.
The whole fith chapter was about Central Asia. Brzezinski said that
the U.S.A. should pay more atention to all those -istan republics
so after reading it, I started with Ahmed Rahi's "Taliban: Militant
Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia" (people said I was
crazy reading serious book for relaxing while we had exams). I
learnt off by heart the names of Afghanistan's ethnic groups (you
know, hazara, pashtun durrani, pashtun ghilzai, uzbek, turkmen and
tajik) and I read, I'm not sure it was the first time, about the
previous links within Bin Laden and the CIA during the Soviet invasion.

September, 11th 2001. 03:00 GMT
My parents were on holidays and I was alone at home. I was studying for an exam. At 3 o'clock in the morning I asked to myself how the hell I was going to pass the exam if I hadn't read so far many lections. I decided to go to sleep as much my body needed it, skip the exam and take it in December.

September, 11th 2001. 14:15 GMT
I woke up. I could hear my neibourgh's TV. It was about something tragic
and terrible. I understood, or I believed I had understood, the word
"Russia". So I thought about a big Chechnyan terrorist attack in Moscow.
I went downstairs and turned on the TV. The guy in the news was
talking with another Spanish journalist living in NY while watching
the images in slow motion "Oh. That's definitively a second airplane!
It can't be an accident".

I spent five hours watching TV really shocked. They talked about 50.000
people inside the buildings. Maybe more. It seemed unreal, a fiction
film. I only left the coach for going to the toilet and answering people
phoning me to say "Are you watching TV?"

The following weeks everybody was talking about Afghanistan, Bin Laden
and Al Qaeda. I felt I had been studying for it. Somebody told me that
in China when people wish the worst things for their enemies the wish
them living "interesting times". I felt we were going through
interesting times.

[Brandon]

Well, I was at work when it all started. The guys in the office next to us came running over and said a plane hit the WTC. The common response was "Your Kidding". We work right above a bar, so we started watching the coverage on CNN down there. Unfortunately some of the guys I work with werent as sympathetic as they should be, and were even making some VERY inappropriate(sp?) comments. I couldnt believe it. I got some pissed off, and went home for the day. Watched CNN for I dont know how long after that. Even up here they had F-18 patrols for a while after that. Its a pretty erie feeling when you know why they are up there.

It didnt even directly affect me, and even thinking of it now I get all worked up. Our thoughts and prayers were, and continue to be with all that were directly affected by this.