Posted on 09/10/2009 9:48:39 PM PDT by DaveLoneRanger
Seeing none from this year, I would like us to share our memories of 9/11. Like Kennedy's assassination or Pearl Harbor, few can ever forget where they were on that dreadful day. Please share your memory of 9/11, where you were, and also tell us in a few sentences how it changed you.
I was still in bed ( Los Angeles)...daughter called us at 5:45 and told us about the first plane that had just gone into the World Trade Center...
We got up, ran for the TV and watched in horror as the 2nd plane hit... Wept and prayed all day!
bump
Just waking up on the west coast, listening to the news on the radio.
I was in electronics class listening to my teacher talk about voltage dividers. [The high school I attended is located in Alexandria, Virginia, very close to the Pentagon.] It was right near the end of class when the PA system crackled on, and our principal announced that the World Trade Centers had been attacked.
The whole school stopped.
People turned on televisions and forgot about class, though some teachers tried to carry on.
I called my dad to pick me up, and he left work early to come get me. I will never forget how I-395 and I-95 in Northern Virginia looked that day: the entire northbound segment was closed and crawling with police from every jurisdiction you could think of.
[The father of a new freshman at my high school was one of the passengers murdered on Flight 77. A woman from my church who worked at the Pentagon never came home that day. And the brother of one of my math teachers was incinerated at the World Trade Center that morning.]
Just beginning our first full week of homeschool with my daughter, then 13. We were listening to Fox News when the first plane hit the tower. From that point on, we were riveted to the tv for the balance of the day and a good part of the night.
I was working as a medical claims entry clerk. I usually took my breaks at odd times, so I could be alone. I came down the steps going into the break room just in time to see the plane fly into the second tower. I ran back up to let my co-workers know what was happening, and none believed me at first.
On a business trip half way across the Country from my family. It was nearly two weeks before I could get back home.
At high school, in Trigonometry class.
On September 11, 2001, I knew it was time to stand against the enemies of America. Today I know that our nation’s enemies have occupied Congress and the White House.
I was only in my mid-teens. I got up early to help with my toddler brother who was sick as my father had to leave for work. I had just turned off Fox News and joined my mother in the kitchen when the radio reported smoke and flames coming out of the World Trade Center. I rushed back to the TV and watched live as the second plane hit. I don’t remember much else about that day. I spent most of it watching what was happening. The day suddenly felt different...like Christmas does, the mindset is so deep that even the air seems different. Only this wasn’t Christmas.
I know that the full consequences did not fully hit me until much, much later. And I know that it killed me to be unable to do anything. I was not even able to donate blood, which wouldn’t have helped anyway.
My emotions were all over the map.
Driving to work in Seattle, not understanding the Radio broadcasts. Got to work and saw the second plane hit.
Bought guns. Moved to North Dakota. Joined CAP.
Our host had recently been in Alaska and quite by coincidence had picked up some Osama Bin Laden wanted posters in the post office. This was well before 9/11. We went into town and distributed them for free to the shops, bars, etc., and suggested that if anyone came in to buy them that the money be sent to the Red Cross. Two days later my friend got a phone call from the Red Cross telling him to stop or that they would take legal action against him. We were shocked and dismayed by this, but having seen how far political correctness has gone since 9/11, I just feel sad about it.
I was in a hotel. Checked my email around 6 Pacific time, found an email from a friend saying TURN ON YOUR TV RIGHT NOW. I did, and after a few minutes the towers started collapsing.
I stayed around for a while, then left to go to a meeting. As I was exiting the hotel lobby, a couple dozen flight attendants, stewards and pilots came in the door, having been bused there from the nearby airport since all flights were cancelled. The looks on their faces is not something I’ll soon forget.
I just woke up, turned on the TV to the Today Show while still in bed like I did every morning to see what’s going on in the world. The second plane was just hitting. i thought “our lives will never be the same”.
What a horrible time....so many innocent people. But just as bad....we’ve just elected a POTUS who says he’ll stand with the Muslims and who sat in Jeremiah Wright’s “church” for 20 years, who bowed to the Saudi King!!! What is wrong with us?????
Calculus class, senior year of high school.
The state senator’s son (a classmate of mine) came in about an hour late an announced it, we turned on the TV, and the teacher said “let’s get back to our studies, we’ll check it again at the end of class.”
When we turned the TV on again and I saw that 2nd tower smoking, I knew then and there we were at war.
Having just done a report on him the year before, I said “it’s gotta be bin Laden”...my friend said “who?” How times have changed.
I’ll never forget the chill that ran down my spine when I saw those towers collapse on live TV.
Never forget...
http://www.pentagonattack911.com/wtc.htm
(I watch this video at least once a year, and always on 9/11)
I got up, getting ready to work and was watching FOX. They broke in with news that a small plan had hit the World Trade Center.
The other one hit a few minutes later. Something major was happening.
I went to work. The towers came down. The pentagon got hit. The plane went down in Pennsylvania...lets roll.
We followed the news all day at work.
Hit a bar after work. Things were coming together as to what happened.
I was glad Bush was prez rather than Al.
I was sleeping in bed when my grandma came in to awaken me and she held me in her arms all day. We watched TV all day. Scenes I will never forget. Later in the evening, my grandpa took us all to Church to pray and light candles.
I was at home barely a quarter mile from ground zero, just leaving my apartment when the first plane hit. My building shook and a huge black cloud with glitter (floating paper shining in the sun) spread out from behind Police Plaza. As bad as it was on 9/11 it was just as bad in the following months with the ash, dust and smell as downtown Manhattan was locked down tight. Never forget, never forgive.
I am on the West Coast. I had been up reading a book (a Tom Clancy book no less) up until about 4 am. About 7am, everyone woke me up and told me to watch TV. I was half-awake and watching all this stuff happen, which was mind boggling. And while that was happening, my wife comes over and whispers to me that she was pregnant!
That was a surreal, surreal day.
Sacramento. Got up as usual to get ready for work. Turned on the TV news as usual. I thought it was a joke - like “War of the Worlds” or something. I somehow went to work and they sent us home. And I had this mental illness for several months where I kept watching the TV coverage of the carnage - over and over. I finally had to make myself stop watching TV and find ways to distract myself from the horror. I think we all went mad for a while there.
We were in Sacramento. I was taking hubby to work at approx 5:30am. Turned the radio on for a little music to wake us up. What we heard did the job. We were flabbergasted and not quite sure what we were hearing was real.
I became a news junkie and I’ve pretty much been angry about a lot of things ever since.
I had driven my husband to work and stopped at my mom’s on the way home. She asked me if I heard about the plane crash. I thought she meant a plane had crashed, which I had thought the story on the radio was about a plane crash.
The tv was on and they were showing the plane crashing into the World Trade Center, and the building coming down.
I was still standing, became mute, and literally sank down into the ottoman, not fully aware if it was really under me, speechless.
I turned on the Today show as well, on my way to make coffee. Tom Brokaw was on chatting with the others, but there were the towers burning behind them. I thought at first they were talking about a movie....Then it sunk in.
Living in Northern Cali. My sister, who worked in Manhattan, kept calling until I got out of the shower and picked up the phone. I turned the TV on just as the 2nd plane hit. I remember that as we watched the unfolding events, at one point she said “Those people just can’t leave those buildings alone can they?” (she actually worked in the Towers during the 1st attack in 1993 and trekked down 45 stories through smoke).
We live near a flight route for Cleveland Hopkins Airport. After all the flights were grounded, the silence in our neighborhood was something I will never forget. Once the planes were able to fly again, the noise from overhead flights made our hearts skip a beat.
I was helping my brother put a deck on his cabin in the mountains of Colorado. A man drove over and told us. He had his radio tuned to NPR. My brother flat out told him to change stations and we immediately tuned into KOA in Denver.
I immediately left the office, formed up the family, and dug out my old DD-214. I then spent the next 6 years back in uniform.
I will NEVER forget that day. I will never forgive that day.
/johnny
I was taking a test for 11th grade social studies/civics. My teacher told us that a small plane had hit the WTC and that was it, about 30 minutes later during my study hall I went to the Library to watch the breaking news coverage, I still do not remember if I saw the 2nd tower fall or not.
A horrible, horrible horrible day.
My husband had just left for work and I was watching Fox news. I thought it was a movie being filmed. I just stood there watching and then I realized it was real. The second plane hit, I felt weak. I woke my son up, my husband called, we all cried.
I went to the store later that day, no one said anything, not a word. It was silent in there. Everyone was in shock.
I was on my way to work in Denver, on the expressway when I heard about the first plane. I arrived at work (a campaign office) and ran inside to where everyone was standing around the television just a few moments before the second plane hit. We all watched the coverage for a while after that, and after the buildings fell we couldn’t watch anymore. I was pretty much in a daze as being at work, and needing to write a press release doesn’t allow for one to experience their emotions... It took me a LONG time to deal with the emotions of that day as I had packed them away so thoroughly at the time. The grief over how many lives were lost before my very eyes didn’t hit me till about 6 mos. after.
How did it change me personally? For one thing it made me re-examine some of my beliefs about the world we live in, and some of my political attitudes before and after that point... It lead me to becoming MORE conservative as many of my libertarian friends were so filled with the “it figures because we’re so horrid” attitude that I literally couldn’t stand hearing it - knowing they were wrong.
Remember to fly your flags!!!
I was driving on a county road near Chico, CA on my way to work in Vacaville, CA when the first news report was made about the first plane hitting the tower. My initial reaction was that this was an intentional act, especially given that the reporter on the radio stated that the skys were clear with visibility at around 20 miles. I called my wife, waking her, and had her turn on the T.V. By the time the 2nd plane struck I was on I5 heading south. My wife called me to tell me about the 2nd plane as the radio news had not yet reported it. I arrived at work at around 7:40am PDT and immediately began watching the horror of the attacks on a T.V. in the library at the Middle School I worked at that day.
Getting ready for jury duty, Las Vegas, NV. Hubby called me and said “Something has happened in NY, turn on the TV NOW!” My boss was about a mile away from the Towers; I tried and tried to call him, to no avail. I remember thinking “He’s got a wife and three kids; where IS he?”
I drove down the freeway to jury duty crying. The rest of that week was a blur; I remember being glued to the television for what was probably days, but I had no concept of time at that point.
I WILL NEVER FORGET. That day changed me forever. Before that, I have to admit, I was pretty much as oblivious as most folks; afterward, no more.
Was at home in El Segundo. (for those in Rio Linda and Port St. Lucie, El Segundo is just south of LAX Airport.)
Had been out late the night before (Monday), after having been out of town the weekend before, down near San Diego. Room was a mess, couldn’t find a clock, wasn’t wearing a watch, couldn’t find what passed for a cell phone. Woke up and had no sense of time. So I decided to turn on the one program, or type of program, that would have the time...the morning news.
Wished.I.hadn’t.
Thought it was a preview for an upcoming movie. Till I put on my glasses, flipped the channels on my vcr, and saw it on every damn channel.
And then I realized why it was so bloody quiet outside. On any given day, I could hear planes taking off and landing, could hear the sound of traffic going north on Sepulveda Blvd.
Not that day. Planes were grounded. Lots of folks were already at work or weren’t going.
First, shock. Then, rage. (Wanted W’s number, to send me to kick...whose ass? All the attackers were dead)..then, profound sadness. For weeks, couldn’t hear the anthem (played by many stations at 6am, noon, and 5pm) or see a flag, without absolutely losing it...crying so much that if I was driving, I had to pull the bloody hell over.
And when I thought I had no tears left, it would happen again.
As an aside, I always said that two things changed my life, in terms of political awareness...as much as anything else could...the recount and 9/11. I never really paid too close attention to politics until those two events, less than a year apart.
When my morning sports show turned all Anti-Bush all the time, I went channel surfing...and found Rush Limbaugh. And not long after that, I found Free Republic. Been hooked ever since.
I fired up Yahoo News on my browser, and couldn't believe what I was reading - it was all so surreal. I turned on the TV, just to see a replay of the towers falling. I let out an involuntary scream - they were twin icons of my youth in NJ - seeing them meant you were getting closer to the city, but they were so huge you knew you still had a long ways to go.
I despise any a-hole, in whatever office (eligible or not), that wants to turn 9/11 away from a memorial and day of vigilance to a day of volunteering and block parties.
I remember watching Fox & Friends that day before I left for class, it was really beautiful out in New York so the crew was outside and were interviewing Robert Urich.
Seems most of the replies are from the west coast... I was Eastbound on Route 78 to School in Newark, NJ and I saw this white mushroom cloud rising on the horizon... at the split where the express and local lanes separate there were people driving like idiots going super slow in the middle of the highway and pulling over into the median.
Right about there is where you could see the tower burning... I got to school, parked and immediately went up to the top of the parking deck. There was a kid up there with a pair of binoculars and he said they said on the news that a Cessna hit the world trade center. I knew it weren’t no Cessna.
Went back down to get ready for class and right then from 7 miles away or whatever it is, I saw the other tower get hit and later saw them collapse.
I don’t like thinking about it too much... September 2001 was an all around bad time in my life.
I was at work when a co-worker ran in to tell us a plane had hit the WTC. We drove over to the cafeteria which has satellite TV. We watched in horror as the second plane hit. I will never forget the feeling of helplessness and despair I felt at that time. NEVER FORGET.
Oh, and how did this day change me? I guess I became less tolerent of liberals over the course of the next months and years. The unbelievable BS they kept coming up with with respect to saying the President and his administration perpetrated this act of war made me cringe and filled with wrath that anyone would be that stupid.
Then, I lived in the outskirts of Boston, (metrowest), but well within Logan airport’s TCA.
It was rare to NOT see a plane or contrails from any window.
Air traffic noise was seemingly non existent until Sept 11. Once all air traffic was grounded, the silence will be a personal remembrance.
Low Mil overflights were all that broke that airspace and silence (and were welcome).
Even after hurricanes or ice storms, there was some air traffic and background noise.
This was the first time that I had experienced that degree of silence in such a populated area.
I was running a few minutes late for work and had just picked up the remote to shut off Good Morning America when the taped broadcast was interrupted by a live feed. Charlie Gibson was saying that a small plane had crashed into one of the Trade towers and they were showing it live.
I was counting the windows on the screen (knowing that a plane that took out 5 or 6 stories wasn’t a “small plane”) when another plane came into the shot and hit the second tower.
I froze and then started flipping channels to make sure I saw what I saw.
I will never forget the poor NBC reporterette who was on a rooftop reporting live who just started screaming and freaking out before they switched back to Matt Lauer on the Today show.
I left at that point and ran the six blocks to my work, went up to my office floor and went into an administrator’s office and turned on the TV. As I left a room full of stunned people, I ran to my desk to find news on the internet. It was locked down for the most part, but Freerepublic was up and accessible.
We were evacuated from our offices about 20 minutes later and I went home and stayed on the phone and Freerepublic gathering info and putting it together for various people around the world. That was a crazy day.
I was asleep. Mom woke me and said something about a building on fire in NY. Watched in a daze as everyone tried to figure out what was happening, then one tower was gone. I remember asking mom where the other building was, ‘weren’t there two?’. Newspeople talking about a plane. Speculating what kind of plane it was and if it was an accident. Then the other plane hit and it was certain that it wasn’t an accident. From then everything seemed to be happening all over the place. Talk of other planes, etc.
I remember just watching and listening and just wanting to know what was going on and who did it. It was a day of being glued to the TV because our local picked up the Shanksville story and went with it to the late, late hours.
I guess my initial reaction was being numb. I don’t think I was able to cry for about two days. Not until they showed interviews with families of people in the Towers who were holding photos of their loved ones and were so sure they’d gotten out. That finally brought home what had happened and the loss. Seeing those people and knowing there wasn’t a chance that loved one had gotten out.
I was in Topeka, KS, at the time. I’m a member of Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) and as such was in town for the Solo National Championships at Forbes Field at the time.
I was working impound for the first heat, scheduled to run third heat as I recall, when I remember someone running over to the impound area telling us a plane had crashed into one of the Twin Towers. I got various other reports throughout the heat about what had transpired. Eventually, the event was shut down (my first day of competition was to have been that day).
Ultimately, SCCA decided that the championships would be decided from one day’s results (normally, the championships are held over two days and the best time from each day is added together). We did complete the championships; I didn’t win, but it’s an event I will never forget.
And one day I will return to the Solo Nationals. I still feel I have unfinished business, as the course I was not allowed to run would have probably worked into my car’s favor and I walked it eight times!
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