Where were you on 9/11? Recount your tale and reaction.

My Squash ^ | 9/21/01 | Burkeman1

[Burkeman1]

Where were you when you first learned of the attack on our Country?

My Father and Mother remember where they were for the JFK assissination, the moon walk, and the Simpson Verdict.

I share the last. I will always remember where I was during the Simpson verdict. But I also remember the Challenger explosion- I was in the library of my high school. But the events of 9/11 will always be on my mind.

My company lost a man in the first tower and my brother had flown out the day before on 9/10 to LA and I wasn't sure until his call. That day was horrible.

The personal death toll for me is one co- worker and two from my home town- of Wellesely MASS- but I can't say if there are more yet.

Recount where you were when you first heard of this evil crime.

[OldFriend]

I remember coming home from school and seeing my mama and my grandpa crying because FDR died. Remember people coming into our community with numbers tatooed on their arms....and I remember all the horrors since then. But this has shaken the world. I was right here on FR and listening to the radio out of New York. Sat here in shock then ran in to put the TV on...............truly I believed the world was coming to an end. I wasn't afraid, just sad. I feel now that we hve to do something for all those poor souls who never even got to say goodbye.

[TheOtherOne]

I was on FR, in fact, when a couple of posts came up in Breaking News about a plane hitting the WTC. I turned on FOX. The anchor was interviewing an expert in something-or-other, and mentioned the bomber that hit the Empire State Building in heavy fog in WWII. This, the anchor said, happened in broad daylight, and must have been intentional. I thought that this sort of speculation was incredibly irresponsible. The expert also pointed out that it could well have been an accident. I switched over to MSNBC to se if they knew any more than FOX, watched for a short while, and then turned back to the computer just in time to hear the anchor say that there had been another explosion. I turned around, saw the fireball, switched back to FOX, and the anchor was saying that another plane had hit the WTC. The expert said (in answer to a question, I think) that if another plane had hit the towers, it was almost certain to be an intentional act. I honestly don't remember what I was thinking at the time.

That is EXACTLY what I did.

[poweqi]

I was on Freerepublic and it was posted on a thread I was on. I immedialety got off and called family members. Woke my sister up in Vegas, got her going and was talking to brother in florida when the pentagon was hit. I was near hysterical,did'nt know where it would stop.I hope Dubya listens to Netenyahu. I saw him on the hill and he knows HOW to fight them and he said they DID NOT have nukes or bio. but was only this far__ from getting them. We better act NOW!!!!!

[blam]

I was on FR when I saw an alert in the breaking news section, we were discussing what kind of plane. I turned on the TV to Fox News and watched the second plane crash live. I was watching the shuttle launch when the Challenger exploded also.

[Mother Nature]

It was my day off from work. I was having my coffee, reading my mail and had Fox and Friends on Tv. They cut away to the World Tower when the first plane hit. Anchors were speculating how that could happen, and low and behold, the second plane came around and hit the second tower. Yes, I watched as it was happening and I still have chills. Minutes later it was announced the Pentagon had been hit. My day was a total haze. Just went through the motions, and pretty much stayed with the news all day.

[xkaydet65]

I was in my class with a group of eighth graders introducing the idea of Geography as a major factor in culture when the principal asked,over the PA, for any staff member who had family working in WTC to contact the office. I knew that it was another attack. He then asked all guidance counselors to come to the office. I shanghaied another teacher to watch my class and I went to an office down the hall to see what was happening. I saw the huge plumes of black smoke pouring from both buildings. I returned to class and tried to calm the kids.I told them the radio had been playing commercials and if something serious had happened they certainly would not be doing so. The bell ended class and I ran to the office window to see what was happening now. A teacher with me asked "What was that?" as a column of grey smoke spread across Manhattan. I turned to he and said "Flora, It's gone. It's collapsed." The reality that I had just seen the moment of death of thousands of people has not yet hit me fully. I fear the day it does.

[andysandmikesmom]

I remember where I was when Pres. Kennedy was shot...I was sick with the flu, and had stayed home from school...I was in my PJs resting on the front room couch...my aunt, who lived downstairs, came running up, and ran in the house, and she was so flustered, she could barely talk...she kept saying, 'they shot him', they shot him' but she could not spit out who got shot...she ran around the dining room table and then ran out the door and downstairs again...mom and dad had to turn on the television to see what had happened...

Now on 9/11, I was just waking up...I flipped on FoxNews, and in my sleepy fog, thought I must be imagining things..they had just announced the first tower being hit...so I sat down, rubbed my eyes, and yes, it was true...I sat there watching as the second tower was hit...I just could not believe it...and sat there almost paralyzed, when the two towers crumbled...its a day and time that will be forever engrained in my mind...

[mitch5501]

I live in Australia...so it was about 10 at night that it broke here.

I was out in my garage and had talkback radio on.

The announcer had sky channel news going in the studio on a tv.

He broke into a caller's conversation with something like..."a small aircraft has hit one of the world trade centre towers and apparently 6 have been killed"....he then said....."and a thousand injured"

I tried imagining how a thousand could be injured by a "small aircraft" when he burst out with..."bloody hell!!! a jet liner has just flown into the other tower!"....my immediate thought was terrorist attack.

Moments later he said a plane has also reportedly hit the pentagon.... I ran inside to turn on the tv...it was on every station.I watched till about 330 in the morning before wandering back out to turn off the shed lights and get some sleep...not easy...I was back in front of the tv after about 3 hrs sleep....dazed...not by lack of sleep...but by what I was witnessing!

God bless...grace and peace to you.

May God bless America.

[humblegunner]

I was at work at my desk when another FReeper emailed
me, "a plane has hit the WTC".. I was composing my smart-
assed response regarding bad navigation when he emailed
me with a link about a second plane.. and I knew
we had been hit and it was on.. spent the rest of
the day at the computer.. watching the horror.
On a brighter note, both my Plant Manager and Q.C. Director
had their news services overrun, so I linked
them to FR and they loved it..they may wind up FReepers!

[dware]

My wife and I had spent the prior Monday evening/early Tuesday morning in the hospital with our son, who has severe asthma problems complicated by another sickness. We got home at about 3:30 Tuesday morning, and were in bed by 4:00 am.

At about 7:30 am, a friend & coworker called me and filled me in. At that point, he said that hijackers had run two planes into the WTC. I woke pretty fast, considering I had been up all night the night before, and ran into the livingroom. I turned on the television just in time to see a picture of both towers engulfed in flames, and then a reporter at the Pentagon broke in to say that there was an explosion there. My wife was getting ready for work (I honestly don't know how she made it through the day) and stopped to watch the events unfold.

Between the WTC and my son's asthma problems, I feel like I have had about 5 hours of sleep since that Tuesday, which I will never forget where I was.

[WWTraveler]

I was standing in the bar at the Holiday Inn Lido,Beijing.The T. V. was suddenly changed to CNN and the whole bar watched in stunned silence. It was very weird. I just returned home yesterday and I could not believe the emptiness of the airports.

[fellowpatriot]

I was on I-94, driving to work when I heard about the first plane. I called my husband (who works from home) and told him to turn on TV. As I hung up from that call, it was announced that another plane hit the second tower. That was when it struck me that this was no accident. The reporter said that he couldn't confirm that we were under attack, but he also couldn't call it an accident because what are the odds of two planes hitting the WTC at nearly the same time? From then on he referred to it as an 'incident'. The traffic slowed to a crawl. I think everyone heard it at the same time.

When I got to work, people were already huddling around radios trying to find out what was going on. About 45 minutes later, I heard about the Pentagon being hit. We were all sent home after that. I called my husband back and he said that he turned on the TV just in time to see the second plane hit.

[Darth Sidious]

That night the whole staff of TheForce.net had worked on a massive report about the Episode I DVD: two of our staff had gone to Skywalker Ranch a few days earlier for a press conference. We were really looking forward to posting all this good info.

I was taking a nap when Mom called at 9 a.m. "Are you watching television?"

"No, why?"

"A plane crashed into the World Trade Center" and I thought it must be an accident, after all a bomber once crashed into the Empire State Building. Then she said a few minutes later another plane crashed into the other tower.

Knew right then, nothing was going to ever be the same again.

[SauronOfMordor]

I work from out of my house. I have a lady who works with me here(occasionally posts as WageSlaveOfMordor). When she arrived for work, she said to turn on the TV, her husband said a plane just hit the WTC.

We watched as the second plane hit, and the report of the Pentagon being hit, along with (later found false) reports of car bombs going off outside the State Deptartment. At about 11am EST, she decided she wanted to pick up her kids and get home. I told her to go.

[Hildy]

My phone rang at 6:15 (I live in California), waking me up. My cousin said, "ARE YOU WATCHING THIS? I put on the TV and he filled me in. I woke my husband up and asked him what the date was. He told me, September 11th. I said, "Remember that date, baby, it's the date our lives have changed."

[austingirl]

I was in the car on the way to work out and heard about the first plane. When I heard WTC, my heart sank. I thought "terrorists". I walked in and the guy at the desk asked if I heard about the excitement. I asked if it was an accident or terrorists. He looked at me funny and said, "Accident". Everyone was staring at the TVs. I sked them to turn on the volume since everyone plugs in to headphones. We all watched the second plane hit. I heard the CNN moron say, "Do you think it's some sort of navigational problem?". I was yelling, "Say the "T" word, it's terrorists, you chickenshit." I wondered if the airforce was scrambling any jets and if there were more planes on the way.

A woman came in in tears. Her son was working in the WTC. Someone said she should be at home. She said she was and couldn't be alone.

Then the Pentagon got hit. And I wondered how many planes were out there, where they got them, no details were available yet.

I was crying off and on and I drove home. I saw the towers come down. I got on my knees and asked for God's mercy. My sixteen year old called me from school. He was scared. Then my eighteen year old called me on his way from his early morning job to school. I told him to stay away from government buildings and to watch the sky, asked if he was sure he wanted to go. I remained glued to the TV and FR all day. I prayed and cried.

[Burkeman1]

Terrible- I am sorry- How can you ever celebrate agian without remebering? My prayers are with you.

[Irene Adler]

I was in a computer classroom at the university where I teach, taking my class through an exercise on the WEB. There weren't enough computers so we were going to have to do the exercise in two shifts. The first group of students all got done, and the second group sat down. It turned out later that this was right at the time that the first tower was getting hit. Every computer that the second group was using gave out the same, indecipherable error message and refused to let them do the exercise.

We gave up, and all went back to the regular classroom across the hall. I went through some more material and asked the students who were unable to finish to try to do the exercise on their own over the next couple of days.

When class was over, I was shutting down the overhead projector equipment when a student from the next class came in to tell me about the attack. I didn't realize it till later, but I guess the first attack put a lot of traffic on the internet and sent some servers down which was why my second group of students couldn't get the WEB exercise to work.

I went into an office and watched CNN and saw the second building get hit. I didn't have any more classes that day, thank goodness. I went home because I was too rattled to do much at work. At home, I saw the buildings collapse on television.

[habs4ever]

I logged in about 9:05, and on NRO was a tiny news item saying the tower was hit, but didn't elaborate.I immediately came over here,, and clicked on the breaking news segment, and a few NYC Freepers were describing the scene from their office buildings.It was chilling reading, and I could feel the vomit starting to rise, when someone said he could see people leaping from the tower.

It was then that the second plane hit, and the Freepers were going nuts.I rushed to the TV and saw images of the second plane hitting.Afte watching CBS, CNN and CBC going to bulletin, the fires began to rage and, coming back here was reading how some were describing the fitrst tower fall.

Free Republic was my source for news that day, and it was the place to feel part of a community when all hell was breaking loose.I am grateful beyond words for that alone.

[Trust but Verify]

Knew right then, nothing was going to ever be the same again.

Exactly.

I was in the shower when the phone rang. it was my husband saying that a plane had hit one of the twin towers, turn on the tv.

At that point, it was still uncertain what kind of plane it was or why it would've run into the building. I then took a call from my sister who was calling to say the same thing. It was then the second plane hit. I said, " Holy S@#$! This is no accident!" After that, the day went from one horror to the next. When I saw my sister last weekend she said, "Did you know you were screaming on the phone?" I had no idea.