9/11 - where were you guys when 9/11 went down?

mrbiron

Senior year drafting class. The teacher always played the TV during class on mute so we started right after the first plane hit. I stayed in that classroom for the entire day and watched everything.

We saw unmentionable things on that tv that will scar us for life.....people did whatever they could to get out of those buildings..............whatever they could!!

vmaxer

I remember that day well, I walked into a quote meeting at work that morning and all that was known at that time was a plane had hit the first tower....

We were glued to the computers the rest of the day trying to keep up with what was happening.

A terrible day for the USA!!!

WLDock

I just got off a 10 Hour midnight shift at MGM Grand casino in Detroit, I was a Slot Technician back then. My wife called me from work just a I was about to take our seven month old son to daycare. She told me the news and said turn on the TV. I did and I could not believe what I was seeing.

I could not move. No way was I going to take my son to the daycare center nor was I going to fall asleep... after working all night. I just held my son close to me as I sat there all day watching in disbelief. I remember a strange eerie feeling of uncertainty falling over me of what was actually going on....or what was next to come.

My wife worked in a tall building downtown back then and they let them leave not too long after. When she got home we just held each other. It was a very quiet rest of the day and evening....not much noise at all outside. Very weird given that we lived in the city. Well, not until the distinctive sound of F18's from the nearby Selfridge Air base flying by caused us to rush to the door to go out and take a look. They (Military) were the only planes in the sky as all had been grounded by then. CRAZY!

I just can't imagine what being there on the ground felt like...

NotaSuv

Spent the next 6 days helping and comforting my brother cope with the loss of at least 50 friends, 2 of which he had known for over 25 years. Probably another 75 or so acquaintances of his. His financial firm had recently relocated from Tower 2 to Charlotte NC. My entire family was born and raised in NYC and between us all it took more than a tragic toll. Mom went to 12 memorials today and was invited to another 30 or so.....the tears flow quite easily while typing this post..and I know until the day I die I shall never forget...........

Simplyrandom

I was working on a tenant up fit at an OB GYN office in Johnston-Willis Hospital. I remember walking through the waiting room and noticed everyone staring at the tv. I looked over at it just in time to see the second plane hit. I was speechless and we all just stared quietly. I remember how eery it was in the following days with no planes in the sky. I also had to listen to cd's in my truck because I could not handle the songs they were playing on the radio filled with excerpts from 911 calls in them.

OleBoot

I was working in my home office when my boss called and told me to turn on the TV. Watching the TV, I thought it was some small private plane that had hit - there was no way to judge the scale of those towers. Then the second plane hit, and I realized what was really happening. I remember that it was only then that I realized that I had been giving a sales pitch to Merrill Lynch in one of the towers (can't remember which one now) on the day before (Monday). Two people from my company died that day.

My thoughts then turned to my wife, who was working on a customer site (Chase) on the Meadowlands, just across the river. I had no reason to think that she had been hurt, but became obsessed by trying to contact her, which of course was impossible given the cell phone gridlock. I did get in touch with her in the afternoon, and of course she was OK. I think that my obsession with trying to contact her was was in some way a mathod to block out what I had just seen. She had seen more , however. She saw both towers fall. I'm no doctor and don't know how to define shock, but she said about three words in the following two days. The kicker is, she had been in a meeting in the Oklahoma Municipal Building the day before the nutcase blew that up a few years earlier.

In the weeks that followed when I traveled to big cities my mood was reminiscent of how I felt when I was in my native England and worked in central London at the time when the IRA were blowing up buildings pretty much every other week. No comparison to 9/11 in terms of scale or motivation, of course, but the same in terms of feeling endangered doing familiar things in familiar surroundings. I worked in a civil service job at the time, and they blew up the lobby of another government department building next door.

In parting, let's give a thought to other parts of the world where violence, insecurity and death are a daily occurrence, and hope that we can find ways to help them out while we continue to chase the bad guys, who I am enough of an optimist at 60 years of age to think are a minority.

westmassguy

I was on my way home from running an errand and heard the news flash on the radio.
Put the TV on as soon as I walked in, and was literally shaking. I had previously lived and worked in NYC for 18 years. I was a Project Manager for an HVAC Company, and had worked in 1, 2, 4 & 5 WTC. One of my dearest friends worked for Oppenheimer on the 48th floor. He saw the 1st plane hit, packed his stuff and ran out of the building. I tried reaching him all day, but got nowhere. Finally, about 8 PM he sent out an email. Said he saw everything that happened, but couldn't talk about yet.
Terrible day which we must never forget.

headrott

I was living in California at the time. I woke up at about 5:00 A.M. (PST) for some reason and was flipping through channels on the T.V. All of a sudden a majority of channels had the footage of of one of the towers with smoke pouring out of it. I thought, what is happening here?

After a few minutes of watching, the second plane hit the second tower. It was within minutes that it was determined this was a terrorist act. Within the next hour and a half, the first tower hit collapsed and you could hear the shock in Pter Jennings' voice. What a nightmare, I thought. Good Lord, how can this get any worse. You could literally see on live T.V. people jumping out of the towers to their deaths and after the first tower collapesed the "dust" covered people running up the street.

Then the second tower collapsed and things got even worse. I watched until I had to leave for my doctors appointment later that morning. This was one of the worst days in American history! The terrorists then and now should be aboslutely obliterated so nothing like this can happen in the future.

One of the worst days for America, and yet Americans' rose up to help each other in monumantal ways.

God Bless America!

cnh

I'm pretty sure we've had several threads on this in the past. So I'm probably repeating myself here.

It was the beginning of the new semester and I was getting my "obligatory" end of the summer haircut when the stylist asked me if I'd heard about the plane that had crashed into the WTC building. I, of course, thought she was nuts, or kidding. Went home turned on the set and WOAH! I lived in Manhattan from '77-'90 with a year or two absence, most of which was spent in East Asia and had given more than a few tours of the city to friends and family that included taking them to the top of those towers. So it was way too familiar to me. Heck, for a while I worked part-time Beta-testing on Madison Ave. and you could see the towers from there. Spent a year as a night-school ESL teacher in Chinatown, saw the towers all the time from there as well--what we won't do to survive a Grad School education.

And I have to admit, that I had wondered what would happen if something went "wrong" while I had everyone standing on top of those towers. It even occurred to a number of us in the '80s that a plane accident was not impossible. But NONE of us EVER thought about people plotting an "intentional" act. That was UNTHINKABLE in the '80s. Impossible, even.

And that's what made it more bizarre, surreal and depressing.

I've since made it to the new structures that have been erected near ground zero. But it's just NOT the same. Good, but not the same!

That was a sad day, full of great loss, and great courage. A day we should live by instead of "bickering" about less or more gov't and all that BS we seem to love to babble about and gridlock ourselves with these days. Really, grow up already, we "almost" did back then! And then just as in Kurosawa's film, Ikiru, we all went back to being the conformists and whiners we were before all that happened! And perhaps that is the real lesson we forgot to "learn"!

cnh

BlueFox

My story is quite mundane compared to others. I was asleep. My clock radio is tuned to the local rock station, and the DJs then were always doing pranks. So when the alarm went off I was laying there trying to make sense of what they were saying. After a bit I realized, for once, they weren't fracking around. Turned on the TV, and was just floored. This is one of the few things that always agitates me whenever I think about it.

boston1450

I was just pulling into the warehouse with 18wheeler getting back from Mass & listening to radio & thought it was some kind of joke. I went inside & everyone was watching it on tv. Oh my i said. Still cant believe it. Sad day-God bless

WastelandWand'r

Moose Hunting in the middle of BFE. Didn't hear about it until the next day until someone coming up river in a boat flagged us down.

obieone

The one thing I remember about that day, was a press conference from the leadership in DC. I distinctly remember Gen. Shelton(Chairman JCS), with a murderous look on face, responding to a reporter question, through clenched teeth, that "America's military was ready to respond."

Coltsfan#1

I was home in Fort Wayne, IN, on leave, having just finished a year being stationed in South Korea. My next assignment was going to be in the UK (RAF Mildenhall), and I was scheduled to fly out Saturday, Sep 15. I was in bed, asleep, when my mother woke me up, telling me that a plane had hit the WTC. I figured it was a small plane, accidental, so I was like "OK", and laid back down. A few minutes later, my mother came running in again, screaming that another plane had hit. I jumped out of bed and ran downstairs, where my dad and my brother (also home on leave) were watching the TV, looking stunned. I sat down, and all of us spent the rest of the day watching events unfold. I don't even remember showering or eating anything that day, I was just so pissed off at what I was seeing.

Due to 9/11, my flight got pushed back to Sep 20.

scottyboy76

On my way for a second knee surgery on a perfect crisp blue sky fall day in georgia with deb.

Heard about the first one and thought what a terrible accident.

By the time we got to the private surgery clinic, that was just being finished, everyone was talking about, "They are gone?" the towers are gone.

the clinic had cable ran and mounts for tvs, but the installer was a day late mounting

the actual tvs so we were still listening to radio in the clinic.

jflail2

I actually just got back from NYC for a work trip last night, and my hotel was literally right next to the reflecting pools and memorial. I thought I'd share a couple of pics here, as they were both incredibly moving.

Seeing the size of the reflecting pool, and realizing that it's the footprint of just one of the towers, was shocking. I left gobsmacked, and honestly a bit teary eyed.