Posted on 09/10/2007 6:41:30 PM PDT by Milwaukee_Guy
Might be a good time to revisit how we all heard about the the attack on 9/11 and how we reacted to the darkest day in American history.
What emotions were strongest for you on that day?
How did you find out? Did you stay at work? Did you go Home? Who did you call?
No Shi#
It is hard to believe that we are all Americans at times.
Sad.
I was in the doctor’s office listening to the sound of my oldest son’s heartbeat for the first time (and rejoicing as it took 13 years to be blessed with that pregnancy) when the first plane hit the towers.
What started out as one of the best days of my life, turned into an absolute nightmare come true. I will never forget that day for as long as I live.
My husband and I were working on a project in Knoxville, TN having flown in the day before. We called our college aged kids to let them know we were safe, as we live close to Somerset, PA.
Our big reaction came the next day. Our oldest child was scheduled to do a study abroad during the winter semester and her university immediately issued a request for a new consent form. She called to ask would we sign.
Took us only a heartbeat to say yes. If we changed the way we were living, the terrorists would win. The most defiant thing we could think of was to keep going. The first day the stock market re-opened, we dumped some of our cash reserve. And a week later, we did it again.
It was all we could to do fight back.
Here’s a link to the e-mail that Frank Culbertson sent down from the ISS on THAT DAY. He was the ONLY American that was off the planet when IT happened. Klik the link and read:
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/crew/exp3/culbertsonletter.html
It’s as moving six years on as it was then.
Just advised my 11 year old what colors she should wear tomorrow.
A very tough day for you.
My thoughts are with you on this 9/11.
Worked at Ft Rucker,,Al.,Was in the supervisors office,he got a phone call and said let’s go to the shop,just in time to see the 2nd plane hit,,we just looked at each other,,knowing,,,I’ve since retired,but I’m sure I’ve met some of the aviaters,,Rucker changed that day..Pray for our Troops,,
While everything was happening, I was walking a video on what it means to be a good juror. When we got a chance to go into the waiting room, I looked out the window facing the opposite way of the towers. Traffic was at a standstill on Adams street -- the road to the onramp to the Brooklyn Bridge. Must've been some accident. Some emergency vehicles zoomed by. People were standing in front of the Marriot Hotel, just waiting there. Must be some tour group, I thought, waiting for a bus.
Finally they made an announcement that the U.S. had been attacked and that the Twin Towers and the Pentagon had been destroyed. They were trying to get information. A woman who had brought her walkman allowed me to listen on one of the detachable earpieces (thankfully, it wasn't a "bud"). I even joined her in the smoking room because she was stressed and needed a cigarette. So did a lot of people apparently.
I managed to call my mother-in-law. She was the natural choice that everyone would check in with. My wife was already home. She got one of the last trains out of lower Manhattan before the system shut down. They released us soon after, as it was obvious that not much would be happening in the court house that day ... or that week. We were dismissed.
People lingered, trying to console the distraught. I remember one woman who didn't even know anyone in the towers, but kept saying "My God, all those people!" Outside, I spoke with jurors and lawyers and whoever. One female lawyer I wanted to smack for a thoughtless question, but she's a lawyer -- that's her way. I saw some people from earlier and I made sure that they had someone to walk with. The bus stop had hundreds of people at it, and no one even knew if they were running.
I joined a group and started the long walk home -- some were longer than mine -- they had to go to Staten Island. Not as far for me. Dust was falling from the sky. "Scalpers" (or whatever you want to call them) were selling dust masks for a buck a piece. Someone later bought a half-dozen of them at a hardware store for a buck-fifty. He took one and passed out the rest. I got the last one.
We stopped at Third Avenue on the Gowanus Canal. It was our first real good view. It didn't seem real. But it was. And then we went back to walking. I said good-bye to them when I reached my mother's house. I watched the news on CBS -- the only station with an antenna on the Empire State Building instead of the Towers -- and had some tea. A little while later, some of the trains were running, so I was able to get a little closer.
Another walk to find a pay phone. I found St. A's first. Then I found the phone. I was the next-to-last one to make it there. And then we watched, and waited.
My cousins were on a cruise in Alaska too. They were probably with you.
That's funny. I remember hearing Brokaw on the radio(must have been a simulcast). He was ranting about how George Tenet and the CIA were at fault, and I remember thinking how in the face of such a tragedy could someone be looking to pin the blame on someone else even before the fires go out and the bodies are cold. Just tasteless, eventhough he was at least partly right in his statement.
Both my husband and I had taken the morning off from work to go to a funeral. My husband was watching the Today Show while he was putting on his shoes. I was checking my work email and he said “Oh my God...A plane just hit the World Trade Center”. I said “Oh, must have been some idiot pilot who took a wrong turn.”...he replied “No, GET IN HERE...we’ve been attacked, you have to come in here and see this!”. I’ll never forgot that moment of realizing we had been attacked.
I called my father to see if he was aware of this and he was watching the television too. I said “I remember being told about Pearl Harbor, and reading about it, but I never thought I would see something like this in my lifetime.” My Dad replied “Well, you have. It’s happened.”
God Bless you, your wife and your children.
Happy Birthday little JellyJam.
Just a premonition, a sense, like walking point and just knowing someone is in those reeds a few yards ahead. That was what it felt like when I saw Massoud's assassination second page news.
I woke to the news at around 0-dark-thirty, around 5:30 am before getting ready for my job and on every channel the news was reporting a plane either crashed or deliberately hit the Twin Towers. I thought someone was suicidal. Maybe just a small Cessna until I counted the charred windows and found to my horror it must have been a very big plane, much bigger than a Cessna.
But, being a good American I finished dressing for work and then hear the announcer yell,something like another plane was coming and I watched it slam ino the other tower. My thought then was someone has declared war. Which militia was it? Which terror group and from which country? Afghanistan came to mind...don't know why.
I worked with the criminally insane teens on a locked ward( now retired) and upon driving to work there was hints another plane had crashed into the Pentagon. Fortunately some nurses had the common sense to lock the televisions. There is enough pain on the wards without creating more anxiety and fear. Then I walk into the break room, people crying and someone actually reading the article on Massoud. " You knew about this?" He asked.
"No," I said," but I felt something was up is all which is why I brought in the article. I've been trying to connect the dots since the USS Cole."
"Anymore thoughts?"
"Just one. We're going to war and it's may be a very very long one with no end in sight." And then I thought of Israel, as I'm partly Jewish and wondered if now America will get a taste of what terrorism is all about. That is partially what I remember.
I guess because I was in New York City, by the time I got to a TV, there was no more NBC on the air, so I couldn't see replays of the tape. I only had Dan Rather -- who at that particular moment wasn't doing too bad a job.
In fact, I had a lot of respect for a lot of reporters that day, especially down in the field, standing there covered in dirt, having just witnessed untold death, all vanity lost. I thought that the news media had grown up that day.
Sadly, it wasn't that simple.
I was waking up for work.
My television is my alarm clock and turned on shortly before the Today show reported that apparently an airplane had crashed into the World Trade Center. I didn’t have cable so Today was the only morning news I got ick. I was still pretty groggy so I didn’t think anything of it. I laid in bed for a while longer getting over my sleepiness.
I had my eyes barely open when I saw the second plane hit on live TV. It woke me up and woke me up fast. I that moment was one of the moments that divide time into two parts...before this and after this, and after this nothing would ever be the same.
I jumped out of bed and went out to the living room and turned on the TV there, then I went to the other side of the house and pounded on my roommates door. “James get up and get dressed...we’re under attack”. The news STILL had not said it was an attack. James is normally a heavy sleeper when off duty, but today he woke up enough to say “what? who?”
I said I don’t know but two planes just kamakazied the world trade centers.
James got up and instead of putting on his civilian clothes he put on his fatigues. After watching the TV for about 10 minutes he called base. He was told to stand down, but be available at all times. Eventually he did serve in Iraq for a tour, but today he was a civilian just like me, hands tied and unable to do a damned thing about it, even though both of us wanted to. He had no orders, I had no means. Both of us a thousand miles away from anything.
I called my boss and woke him up, told him to turn on the TV, “any channel, it doesn’t matter, you’ll see.” After a few minutes of talking to him on the phone he said to go down to the store and put a sign on the door that said “closed for a day of prayer”.
That’s all we could do that day was pray that it wouldn’t get any worse.
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