~~~WHY I HATE~~~ 
~~~TILL THE DAY I DIE~~~.
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?
I was lecturing in a math class at a university in Canada. I was told afterwards that passenger planes had hit the WTC and the White House (someone later added the capitol building, and an additional building I now forget), that the Pentagon was bombed, and that there were other hijacked planes. A lot of people were confused, some were sad, and some were angry (myself included in the latter). Enraged is more like it.
I’ll stop now.
BCM
NYFD Battalion Chief Moran.
NYFD Battalion Chief John Moran (Freeper BCM) Perishes In World Trade Center
rip...
Mine, too, Twink!!!
Thanks.
My radio alarm went off and I heard that the towers were attacked. I ran into the living room and turned on the TV. My mom called me about 5 min later. We watched as the 1st tower fell. I could not comprehend it. Then the 2nd tower fell and we cried together over the phone.
I arrived at work about 10am. My boss was a total A hole and yelled at all of us telling us there was work to be done. We were all devastated and crying.
A co-worker and I went into the bathroom and I said "doesn't he know we are at war!!! Turns out he was listening from the mens room and threatened us when we came back in.
I left at about 1pm. I could not take it any more. As I was walking down the stairs, I was so shaky I fell and to this day I still have scar on my right leg from hitting the stair. The next couple of days are a blurr. I quit working for the jerk 30 days later.
A guy I was training came over to the lab shack (he had been watching the news in the living quarters) and told me a plane had hit one of the twin towers.
I figured it was a small plane, details were sketchy, and told him that it had happened before with a B-25 and the Empire State Building back in the '40s.
I figured it would be pretty unusual, especially nowadays, but not impossible, a freak accident...
He came back over to the lab a little later and informed that the first plane was a big one, and that another big plane had hit the other tower.
I got a strange chill, looked at him and said, "That's no accident, it's an attack."
Bits of news kept trickling in all day, but it was pretty obvious that in the past few hours the world had changed.
AP, see #382...
Went into work to make sure folks on my development team who were at customer sites were in comms and OK. When I get to the office the office manager is standing out front with his luggage. He was a Norwegian citizen, and apparently was not in teh habit of listening to the news, as he told me he was waiting for the cab to take him to the airport. I got to be the one to tell him the US had been attacked. The look on his face was unforgettable - terror, disbelief and confusion all at once.
All my team was fine, though it turned out one of our better customers was among the dead in the PA crash. I spent some time on the phone talking to some of my friends still in the Army, and got a little more info, but basically all anyone knew on 9/11 was we were at war, but not really who or why.
My neighbor is a retired USAF officer; worked for years in SAC back when that existed. He and his wife were coming home on a flight from France when the captain came on and said the flight was returning to France as US airspace had been closed. It turns out this guy had worked with planners for the FAA, and he recognized that as the contingency plan to react to a nuclear attack on the US. I think the poor guy nearly had a heart attack!
Thanks for the opportunity to remember.
I was working midnights at JFK airport. Me and my co-worker drove from the IAT to the AA terminal to do some pickups.
As we drove on the ramp at about 3 or 4 am, I looked out across ramp — it was a clear beautiful night, and the bridge looked like strung pearls, and the towers were twinkling out in the distance to our left. I said to Kevin, look, look how beautiful they look. The IAT was under construction, the back of the building, ramp side, was ripped off. As we hauled our bodies from the van towards the bldg, under the control tower, one of the Jamaican ladies looked at the bldg and asked, what happened? I looked at the tower, and I’ll never know why, I replied to her, “a plane hit the building”. No, I’m just kidding, I told her, it’s just construction.
I didn’t know that night, that it would be the last time forever. That my towers would be gone in a few hours.
I thank god I had that last look. Growing up in NY, you sorta take it all for granted.
343 Firefighters/Never Forget
Vinny Giammona-NYFD, always in our hearts...
You are a jerk!!!
Freeze (Part IV of “Fear”)
From the rock group RUSH, Vapor Trails Album, 2002
The city crouches, steaming
In the early morning half-light
The sun is still a rumor
And the night is still a threat
Slipping through the dark streets
And the echoes and the shadows
Something stirs behind me
And my palms begin to sweat
Sometimes I freeze - until the light comes
Sometimes I fly - into the night
Sometimes I fight - against the darkness
Sometimes I’m wrong - sometimes I’m right
Coiled for the spring
Or caught like a creature in the headlights
Into a desperate panic
Or a tempest of blind fury
Like a cornered beast
Or a conquering hero
The menace threatens, closing
And I’m frozen in the shadows
I’m not prepared to run away
And I’m not prepared to fight
I can’t stand to reason
Or surrender to a reflex
I will trust my instincts
Or surrender to my fright
Sometimes we freeze - until the light comes
Sometimes we’re wrong - and sometimes we’re right
Sometimes we fight - against the darkness
Sometimes we fly - into the night
Blood running cold
Mind going down into a dark night
Of a desperate panic
Or a tempest of blind fury
Like a cornered beast
Or a conquering hero
Sometimes I freeze
Sometimes I fight
Sometimes I fly
Into the night
Thanks AP, I missed it the first time but not this time. God Bless
I’ve considered that, or possibly a military flight carrying specialist rescue teams, like the K-9’s, to New York.
Thank you for starting this thread. God bless those who lost loved ones on 9/11, and those who serve to keep America free.
My husband and I were in Bar Harbor on vacation; we had been in NYC on the 8th/9th for a visit with my brother, and were planning to stop back through on our drive home to Pennsylvania for a visit with other friends. By the time I woke up, both buildings had already been hit; my husband was silently watching it on TV.
We went down for breakfast and the whole cafe full of vacationers was somber and quiet. After going back and watching TV for a while, we didn’t know what to do with ourselves, so we just went out to walk around Bar Harbor.
The VA of that tiny town had quickly organized and was handing out small American flags.
The town was filled with those flags, and with senior citizens from a cruise ship that had stopped that day. I remember clutching my little flag and just watching all the older folks walking soberly around town, thinking that I needed to follow the lead of people who had lived through and fought in WWII.
Later when we went hiking (me with a radio so I could try to follow every minute of news), it was disorienting that there were absolutely no planes in that autumn new england sky.
On the long drive back home several days later, all we could see for hours as we detoured around NYC was that giant column of smoke.
I was at my desk in the school administration building when my son called from his office in Connecticut with news that a “small plane” hit the WTC. As I was telling him about the plane that once hit the Empire State Building, I heard gasps and shrieks in the background. That was his office mates watching the second plane hit on live TV.
We mobilized down at the superintendent’s office to tend to any related needs of our students and staff. A few had relatives at the WTC or the Pentagon. Everyone was distraught, of course. The younger children were not told until late in the day.
We planned for families of dozens of burn victims who were expected to be airlifted into our central NY town. We thought the families would need places to stay, day care and education for their kids, food and supplies, etc. After a long day at work I tuned in the TV to find rows and rows of medical staff at emergency centers forlornly waiting for patients to arrive. Of course, they never did. Nobody arrived in our town, either.
My son called me twice a day for about two weeks, just to stay close. I called my Mom twice a day, too. She unexpectedly died a year later, but she left behind a treasure trove of videotapes from that time, particularly President Bush’s magnificent speeches.
Some other things I remember:
Glancing at the wall-sized satellite TV screen in the district conference room, and watching the South tower come down. Worse was watching the large antenna from the North tower as it fell straight down with every collapsing floor.
Waiting for news of the off-course plane flying over Pennsylvania toward Washington, DC. May those heroes never be forgotten.
National airspace being cleared so quickly. We actually had some cropdusters forced to land by military planes.
Canada being so hospitable to thousands of Americans grounded in Gander, Newf. and other cities. Thank you Canada!
Dozens of cars at the Connecticut train stops, whose owners never returned.
Absolutely incredible threads on FreeRepublic. God bless all of you who witnessed the atrocities and transmitted the news to the rest of us.
President Bush’s eloquent and openly religious remarks at the National Day of Prayer and Remembrance.
The chilling martial tones of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, as sung by the Navy Choir.
The unity of the Congress, as they sang on the steps of the Capitol, a memory that has now turned twisted and bitter.
During that time I bought the New York Times daily for months to do the dead the honor of reading their obituaries. All of them. May we honor their memories with our actions. Never forget.
So was I, a rather unusual one, a 3d head. I stayed up all night working on it, once I heard the news.
~~~WHY I HATE~~~ ~~~TILL THE DAY I DIE~~~.
I was in Chandler and could not believe they killed her.
My birthday is September 10, and my 65th was in 2001. My wife booked us in at our favorite place in San Simeon, CA, on the coast for a long weekend.
She took pictures the whole weekend, and all weekend long I was ticked off. First, because I was now 65. Second, because I got a call on Saturday, telling me that one of my favorite employees had quit.
I wanted to go back Sunday night, but my wife convinced me to stay. But I had a tough time sleeping Monday night and woke up at about 3:30 or 4 Tuesday AM and told my wife that we were heading back home to the Sacramento area.
I started the drive over to I-5, but got sleepy and turned the wheel over to my wife. Dozing off on 5, I heard the news of a plane crash in New York...a plane had flown into a building.
At that I sat up and my wife said, “that’ll wake you up.”
Together we listened to the whole scenario unfold. As we drove they were saying that I-5 around Kettleman may be shut down at points north toward San Francisco, so they could bring all airborne planes to the ground.
For the rest of my life I will associate my birthday with the second “most infamous day in history”. And I’ve got all those crappy pictures to remind me of it.
Funny, but now and then I read an absolutely fantastic piece in the Wall Street Journal and make a point of finding out who the author was. It’s always been Debra Burlingame.
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