My husband and I were on a plane from Texas to Calif. When we were told to buckle and stay in our seats as we were making a landing halfway to our destination, it was amazing how quiet the plane was. They did not tell us anything until we landed. When we approached I knew it was not an emergency as there were no emergency personnel near the landing strip. Right when we touched down the guy ahead of us made a call and his admin. told him we’d been bombed/attacked. Getting off the plane was surreal but also very sad as many of the crew and ticket agents knew those who died.
It took me awhile to be at peace flying again and about 8 years to fly on 9/11.
Yes, I was glad I knew Jesus then as my Savior and Lord.
It was a day none of us will forget. As a corollary, I recall my mother talking about her memories of Pearl Harbor Day, she had just turned 18 two days earlier and had a date that Sunday afternoon with a British pilot in training at a base in south Georgia. They were at a soccer game when the announcement came and the Brits began to cheer and celebrate because they understood that with us finally in the war, it would be won by the allies. She never forgot that day like we will never forget 9/11/01.
For a little levity on this sad day this is what I heard happened to the WAL-MART CEO while on his flight that day on his private aircraft...
During the flight the pilot gets the notice to put the plane down. He reports to the CEO who gives an outburst...”THAT IS NOT ACCEPTABLE!”
Pilot is still in contact with ground and again tells the CEO who again yells “THAT IS NOT ACCEPTABLE!”
Pilot then tells the chairman “Well, YOU go talk to them!” which the CEO does, and gets the word...”You will put that aircraft on the ground or YOU WILL BE SHOT DOWN!”
He put the plane on the ground.
The anthrax scare happened at the same time, and Art Bell seemed to be right on top of that story, more than anyone else. There was no air traffic, so if I happened to see or hear any airplane during those weeks, it REALLY caught my attention.
A couple of years ago I made a pilgrimage to Shanksville. It is in a very remote location, lovely countryside. It helps to put a human face on Flight 93 when you read about each individual victim, who they were, about their families, and why they were traveling. But I came away with my blood boiling and my hatred of muslims stronger than ever. There is no other way to react.
After his visit to Shanksville, President Trump showed great restraint in not pushing the nuclear button.
I recall working in a call center in Western MA. There were some folks getting really panicky. A couple of my staff just got up and left to go pick up their kids.
When word got around that there was still a plane missing people really started getting squirrelly.
Finally, I went out on the floor and asked them if you were a terrorist, and you only had one flying bomb left would you turn it around, go 300 miles out of your way, and crash it into a stupid call center building that most people did not even know existed?
Throughout that day, and subsequent days, it was important to keep the world in perspective. As an expert said that day, if you want to keep yourself safe...use a seat belt. Your chances of being in a car accident were about a thousand times more likely than being hurt by terrorism.
I wish there were a way to combine these threads. There was another one of these earlier today and I would like to see all the freeper memories. What happens with duplicate threads is one is eliminated, eliminating all the comments. I wish we could have a more tree like topic grouping with different threads under one subject here.
My 9/11 memories are still so vivid. I think they may stay that way. I was sleeping with talk radio on. It was 6 am. Through my dreams, I heard people screaming about a plane hitting the World Trade Center in New York. My first thought was, they’d better stop playing around like this on the radio or people are going to think it’s real. Then another plane hit and the live recording they had on was filled with screaming, and the announcer was freaking out. I jumped up and ran for the tv.
As I saw this this was indeed real, watching the film of the second plane hit, two thoughts entered my brain. 1). This is war. 2) OMG IT IS NINE AM IN NY AND PEOPLE ARE IN THAT BUILDING.
My third thought was, how did terrorists get empty jetliners? (How naive, how sad we will never be that naive again.)
I was at a bar in Shanghai, China (they are 12 hours ahead). Hurried home to my foreigner’s apartment complex, where the authorities allowed 1 US cable station on TV, so watched MSNBC for the next 7 hours.
The next day at work with my Chinese colleagues (who were all well-educated, white collar professionals) was very interesting. Even the strong Chinese nationalists, who generally did not like US foreign policy, understood the gravity of a national attack. Other colleagues, who were more quietly pro-American, were quite visibly upset and concerned.
Was sent home with instructions to return that night for a flight. We launched out of Tinker AFB after midnight on a NORAD mission and orbited near Chicago where we were controlling a 2-ship flight of F-16s in a CAP.
We listened to Navy ships checking in on NORAD SATCOM all night. Everyone was super tired and I remember asking the guy next to me: “Did this **** really happen?”
The weird radio traffic, plus the almost empty radar picture made it a surreal experience.
But We Have Already Forgotten ~
Every year on September 11, we recognize the worst attack to ever occur on American soil. But, what should have galvanized Americans against the common enemy of radical Islamic terrorism has devolved into a virtue signaling pity-fest of heroic ideation, and a celebration of the attack itself, rather than the resulting consequences we inflicted on our enemy for having attacked America in the first place.
Imagine, if on every December 7th we recognize those who died in Japan’s preemptive attack on America’s Pacific Fleet, and the heroism of those who rescued our survivors, but then failed to acknowledge America’s decisive military retaliation, which eventually led to VJ-Day and the unconditional surrender of Imperial Japan. The difference between these two events is both striking and appalling.
On September 11, 2001, America was first called to patriotic duty by Todd Beamer, who was aboard hijacked United Flight 93, when he famously said, “Let’s Roll.” But, America didn’t roll. It rolled over instead – almost immediately besieged by an America-hating liberal media, who condemned anyone who sought retaliation against the very Islamic terrorism that just claimed 3,000 innocent American lives. In fact, they demanded restraint because “innocent moderate Muslims” might also be blamed.
“No dumb bastard ever won a war by going out and dying for his country. He won it by making some other dumb bastard die for his country.” – George S. Patton Jr., General, U.S. Third Army (North Africa, 1943)
Only 7% of all Germans were members of the Nazi Party, and most weren’t members of the Waffen-SS. Likewise, almost no Japanese civilians were members of Tojo’s Imperial War Cabinet either, but every man, woman and child paid the price – from Dresden, Hamburg, Bremen and Berlin, to Nagoya, Osaka, Kobe and Tokyo. At that time, America was committed to defeat our enemies so completely that they’d never again contemplate an act of aggression against us.
Under Obama’s watch alone, there were 24 domestic Islamic terrorist attacks that slaughtered 132 Americans – from Ft. Hood to the “Pulse” night club. They were followed by the media’s requisite “Muslims Fear Backlash” articles, as if to absolve them from complicity. How many times do you remember Muslim organizations publicly condemning these acts, or demanding peacef and loyalty to the United States? It hasn’t happened yet.
So, another 9/11 has arrived. We play the sad harps, cellos and bagpipes. We ring the bell and read the names slowly once again. We light candles, mourn the innocent lives lost, and salute our heroes. Meanwhile, Muslim training compounds are springing up all across America; Democrat Socialists are demanding open borders, which will spawn even more terrorist cells, and openly opposing immigration bans from known terrorist countries; all while America is in a dead-heat race with European countries to see which will be first to surrender its national identity and sovereignty.
Not only have we forgotten, but It seems as though we’ve learned nothing at all.
I was doing some work in a chemical plant on the Houston ship channel. I was in a break room when someone brought in a tv and we watched the 2nd plane hit. My wife texted me to ask is I was in the middle of all those refineries and chem plants. I texted back yes and got the hell out of there.
I’ll never forget what 19 Muslims did to humans.
I was listening to Hugh Hewitt on the radio when he announced the first plane hitting. Then he mentioned the second plane. I shut off the radio and turned on FoxNews.
My son was a flight attendant and in the air at that time. I was on pins and needles until he called to l me know he was safe.
My heart was broken for the families who didn’t get that call.
I was working with Fairchild Defense in Washington DC...
Another engineer came out while we were have a smoke break and said a plane just hit the TWC...We all thought it was a small plane, a Cessna or something...Then we heard the real news and all hell broke loose...
I love these stories. Thank you all.
I was teaching with another professor on 9/11. We didn’t really believe the first plane crash, in our isolated room, and continued with class. Then the second plane hit, the college was shut down, and I went to the nearby school to get my son. They had not said anything to the children, but I told my son as soon as we got into the car. I remember all three kids were worried that our tiny town would get hit. I also remember how my husband was watching the TV repeating the video of the crashing planes until they (thankfully) realized the damage of seeing it again, and again, and again.
What I also remember was a martial arts event that I went to soon thereafter. Our grandmaster could not fly from California, but many others were there. I remember Albany police/martial artists demonstrating how to defend against gun and box cutter attacks. The energy and emotions there were more poignant and intense than I’ve ever seen at subsequent events. It was memorable, to say the least.
My son called and asked me to turn on the TV. We were both stunned, because my daughter was at work in the North Tower. It was almost noon before my husband and I learned she was able to get out. I lived in NJ and I still grieve deeply on 9/11.
I was working in the HQ of a major high tech company in southern NY State. Being tech, TV monitors were hanging everywhere, including across from my desk. I was on FR and saw the beginning of the the first thread and turned on the TV. We watched all the events of the day, as employees gathered in groups around every monitor.
This company was proud of the “diversified workforce”, with employees from all over the world. Funny thing ... the next day many employees of a “certain persuasion” didn’t show up, for the remainder of the week. Guess they figured it was best to keep a low profile under the circumstances.
It was good to have the community of FR to communicate with during the tragedy.
The days following 9-11 had a special poignancy for me. I was “the kid at the airport fence” who still looks up (to this day!) at the sound of an aircraft.
After the attack, the skies went dead. There was nothing in the air, for the first time in my life. All flights were grounded ... everywhere ... except for top-cover F-15s.
All my life, there was always SOMEBODY in the sky. I was never truly alone. Off in the distance I would see a blinking anti-collision light low on the horizon, or a set of red and green points high in the night sky bound for who-knows-where. It’s doubtful I could signal them if I needed help, but at least there was a chance. Somebody was always up there.
As a reporter for my weekly newspaper, I covered the funeral of Captain John Ogonowski, the pilot of Flight 11. But the sky was dead. Not one of his beloved jetliners was aloft. I was deeply saddened.
I was in the USAF at the time. I was in Maintenace Control at the time. There was TV on in the office, and the feed cut to images of the WTC after the first impact. While my Chief and I were watching, the second plane hit. The the phones started ringing. We immediately went into a contigency posture, which meant I went to the Command Post, with the battle staff, as the maintenance liason. I don’t know how much more I can say, but I experinced things that day that I never expereinced before or since.
The FW I was assigned to sent the aircraft which escorted AF1 from Florida to Barksdale and on to Offut
I was working in the USPS in Sept 2001. I had been in Huntingdon PA to help them with something, and was almost back to the plant when the first plane hit. I was carrying things in to the dock, and the dock guy called out ‘Hey, did you hear what happened, the tower?”. I said no, and he said a plane flew into one of the World Trade towers, it was just on the radio, it just happened.
I walked up to my office, and asked the clerk down the hall if she heard (no). We went into the conference room and turned on the TV there. We heard a plane just hit the towers again, but they switched images back and forth so we were trying to figure out if it was one or both. When they finally were clear, we just looked at each other in shock, because of course it had to be intentional.
We went back to get on with our work, because of course, we were being paid and needed to work.
After I heard on the radio that the first, then second, building collapsed, I called a friend in the Johnstown plant. He’s a former marine, and we both loved our country. He told me that they were on lockdown, but it wasn’t clear exactly what was going on.! The carriers, he said, had been told to park their trucks, wherever they were. and get home.
My friend said the Air National Guard, at the local airport, had aircraft in the air, and the USPS was told there was reason to believe that there was another plane heading towards the Johnstown airspace, and maybe DC and EVERYONE needed to stay inside.
He got off the phone to ask around what anyone else heard. Meanwhile I finished my workday and drove home, where I found my husband watching the coverage. He asked if I knew where Shanksville was... That’s when I heard about Hero flight 93.
What a day. I will never forget. For years I watched the video Never Forget with Enye, the 11 minute version. I wish I could find that again.
I will Never Forget, and no matter what the media has tried to do (shutting down all the coverage so we wouldn’t be angry), I am still angry, and I don’t believe we did everything we could to shut down Al Qaeda and kill Bin Laden and all his followers that were involved. I don’t trust what Obama told us.
Had the week off so I went to the gym. Just as I got on the stairmaster to loosen up the news was showing the first tower burning. I asked the woman next to me what's going on? She said they think some suicidal nutjob decided to kill himself by flying his plane into one of the twin towers. As she finished that sentence the second tower was hit as we watched......I looked at her and said this is Osama bin Laden who did this. The woman gave me a quizzical look them I explained you know the guy behind the first attack with the blind Sheik and the bomb in the basement?
I went straight home to watch the TV like everybody else with one special exception. While I was taking the dog out to do her business I remembering looking up in the sky and thinking why is that plane exhaust shaped in a hairpin turn in the sky? I'd never seen anything like it in all my years living in northeast Ohio....to this day I still wonder if that was the exhaust trail of flight 93 that went down in Shanksville.
That night at dinner we prayed for all those lost and their loved ones with tears in our eyes.