Where were you 22 Yrs ago Today + Football

In Spanish class my sophomore year of high school. I thought for sure that the rapture was days away.

It was Day 1 of my MSW practicum in which I was working/placed at a detention center for at-risk youth in upstate NY.  Many of the kids were sent there from the NYC area.  My administrator knew that the kids were going to be upset so they setup a tv in a room for all of the downstate kids to be in.  I was asked/chosen to stay in the room all day with the kids trying to help all of them reach their families by phone.  This was before cell phones and phone lines were sketchy at best that day.  It was quite the experience on so many levels.

I was in a meeting, bored and reading the news feed on my text pager.  When I read that "Hijackers crashed airplane into NY building", or something to that effect, it did not register in my mind as a big deal.  Then others started talking about it and we all decided we should go home.  It was weird that no airplanes were flying.

Nowadays my daughter is 24 and she works in one of the new WTC buildings, and lives nearby in Manhattan.  We visited the memorial at Ground Zero together and it was pretty sobering. 

EDIT:  Remember the American flags that just about everyone had flying from their cars?  Those flags that clipped into the top of your windows.  

Never in time have we witnessed so many innocent lives being snuffed out in front of our eyes.  Saddest day ever.  

I'm a retired carpenter and I was listening to the radio when the first tower hit happened. I knew something big was happening and took the rest of the day off and went to the local watering hole just in time to see the second tower get hit.

I was freaking out over that when the news came that the Pentagon got slammed. What a fucking day. I still can't wrap my head around the fact the every single plane was grounded.

Wow XM was about to post something as I’m sitting here watching Smithsonian channel 9/11 programs.  Was at work as a newly promoted manager preparing for some sort of sales pitch. A coworker from Boston was there worried about his family.  He eventually had to drive back-family as OK.  We switched from PowerPoint to watching TV.  Went around to all in my group to check in and tell them to go home if needed.  Heard rumors Air Force One had flown over Cbus at low altitude. I’m always watching the sky; it was so eerie seeing the plane-less skies in the days that followed. So much sadness and pain.  Peace to all, especially those with impacted loved ones.

I was a student at UofM. Woke up, turned on the TV and the first plane had already hit, I saw the 2nd one hit. I remember fear and uncertainty, more so for my Muslim friend I'm sure.

I was at work.  Someone had a small black and white TV and we followed the news from there.  It was very sobering.  I still remember how quiet things seemed in the aftermath.

I was in my law office in midtown Manhattan shortly after 9:00 AM, meeting with a client to prepare for a court appearance downtown that afternoon, when one of my partners interrupted the meeting to tell us that his wife had called him to say that a “small plane had hit the world Trade Center”.

Had my court appearance been scheduled for that morning, I would’ve been a few blocks north of the World Trade Center.

When I finally left my office at around 5:00 PM, I was the last person to leave. The streets were eerily silent after many hours when all I could hear from the streets below were sounds of police and fire sirens and the steady flow of people racing to get out of town or back to their homes in the city. Most commuters like me already had left the city or found places to stay while all the bridges and tunnels had been closed. Other than a few National Guard troops patrolling the area near my office, I saw no other people. The only vehicles I saw were police cars, fire trucks, military vehicles and ambulances.

At that time of day, a commute home would’ve taken me at least two hours in rush-hour traffic. After I got to my car that was parked in a garage near my office, I was home in about 35 minutes. The police had better things to do than to stop motorists for speeding.

I’m old and there are times when I forget what I had for dinner yesterday or when I can’t recall the name of the actor who starred in a TV series that I used to watch several years ago, but just like the details of where I was and what I was doing after what happened in Dallas on November 22, 1963, the events of September 11, 2001 remain etched in my memory.

On North Campus. The first thing I thought to do was go to one of the labs and send an email to my freshman year dorm-mate whom I hadn’t spoken with in almost a year. He grew up in Manhattan and was the first New Yorker I had ever met.

Just imagine if smart phones/social media were around back then...yikes.

On my way to an American history class. Strongest memory was of an old lady at the gas station reaching out and holding my hand when I went in to buy cigarettes. She just started crying and I stood there with her for a few minutes. Oddly enough it didn't seem strange at all.

3 months into my first grown-up job and living in Marina del Rey, CA.  I had an early start that morning, so I popped in a CD and drove to work.  I booted up and began my day.  30 minutes later I asked the lady next to me where the hell everyone was and she pointed to the conference room.  That was the quietest that office had ever been.  We were told we were not allowed to leave unless we had a family member that had been killed.  Many of us walked out in disgust.  No work was done that day.  I remember going home and watching every news report and tribute.  It was surreal.  

I was at our higher NATO headquarters in The Netherlands, at a final coordination conference before an exercise to be held in Poland.  I had just given a presentation at the end of the event, and as I walked to the side of the auditorium to sit back down a British lieutenant colonel motioned me to his office because of the first impact.  I remember thinking the NYC sky was too clear for it to be an accident.  We only watched the coverage for a few minutes before the second plane hit and that was that.  As we broke up, the conference attendees’ expressions of sympathy were sincere and they were from over twenty nations.  Drove back to where I was stationed in Germany and got back at two in the morning.  An awfully long time to think.  I ultimately deployed to Afghanistan from that unit.  It sure doesn’t seem that long ago.

I was in my senior year at EMU. I was arriving at Bruce T. Halle library on campus when I saw a bunch of people crowding around the televisions that were situated at the entrance. I looked at the screen and I saw the towers burning. They moved us to a media room where I sat for the next hour or so looking at the horror unfold before they made us leave.

The rest of the day is a blur.
 
In the months and years  afterwards I would seek out books to understand why it happened. I read left and right wing interpretations of the events and what led up to it. I read the 9/11 Commission Report. I took a religions class in my final semester at EMU. Professor brought an iman in.He talked to us about Islam and how Al Queda was a perversion of it. 

Now none of that matters. Bin Laden and most of his henchmen are dead or in jail. We are out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Foreign terrorism has abated as a threat.
 

What remains now is remembrance. Remembrance of those who lost their lives that day,remembrance of those who continue to suffer from the trauma and health issues related to that day and  remembrance of those they left behind. The parents, spouses, children, and friends of the dead have lived with September 11th ever since that clear blue late summer sky was filled with terror and death.

Welles Crowther, 24, was a month younger than me. On that day, Crowther with a red bandana covering his face  and courage coursing through his veins, risked his future for the present of 18 strangers. The volunteer firefighter and equities trader for Sandler O’Neill and Partners died when the South Tower collapsed at 9:59 am. 

I often wonder if I could do what Welles did that day. The honest answer is no, I could not. Welles was a better man than I. I feel no shame in admitting that. 

The anger and rage from that day has long since left me. All that is left now is sorrow, pain, and remembrance. I have never been to Ground Zero or NYC. I hope someday to be able to. 
 

But that day and especially the victims will forever be in my thoughts. I can’t forget them. I won’t forget them.

I was an active duty Marine. We were in a morning staff meeting. Another Marine busts the door open and says to the Colonel "Sir the tv on".

Base was shut down, couldn't go home at normal time. Finally got home to find my wife and daughter sitting on the front porch crying.

I was in Rostock Germany having driven down from Western Denmark that morning and taken a 3 hour ferry ride.  I was at a Wind Turbine construction site when the land owners son said I should go to my Hotel.  I get to the Hotel and see the 2nd Tower fall on TV.  I ended up staying in Germany until Friday and caught one of the first flights on Saturday to Toronto from Copenhagen. On Sunday I flew to Calgary and caught one of the first flights into 
LAX with 5 passengers on board.  It was a weird week.

Have written about it before, and it's been therapeutic talking about it now after not being able to talk about it for many years.

I lived in NYC at the time and worked at an investment bank that was thankfully not located on Wall Steet. Watching everything that happened in real time literally 15-20 blocks away was scary as hell. We were told to stay in the building as everything was unfolding over the course of the morning, but after the towers fell and the financial markets closed, they told us to evacuate the building and to "go somewhere safe."

What that meant when you lived on an island that has just been attacked, with all bridges and tunnels closed and all subways and buses shut down -- it meant I was walking home to the Upper West Side. There were National Guardsman armed with rifles at every major intersection, and looking downtown, your eyes couldn't help but dart left to right and back again looking for the twin towers. All I could see was billowing plumes of smoke. Times Square was eerily silent, even though there were a lot of people staring at the giant jumbo screens, watching the news in stunned silence.

I couldn't contact my parents, who were desperately trying to reach me to find out if I was okay, until much later into the evening, because the cell lines we absolutely jammed after a lot of land lines were cut when the towers came down. I can only imagine what they were thinking, watching the news, knowing I worked on "Wall Street", but not knowing exactly where. I can also only imagine how the parents of those who never got a call felt. Absolutely heart-breaking.

Also, want to remember Jim Gartenberg - he was the President of the UofM Alumni Club in NYC when I first moved to the city, and they used to host football Saturdays at Blondies (I think it was Blondies) for area alumni. Really nice guy and made me feel welcome from the minute I walked over and introduced myself. He was clearing out his desk on his last day in the North Tower, as he had taken a new job apparently.

RIP, Jim - gone, but not forgotten.

I was at Offutt AFB. Saw AF1 land and park at Echo 2. Saw Bush go down to the underground of STRATCOM. If you've ever seen an 70s/80's movie about the end of the world, STRATCOM looks exactly like what the underground bunkers with the big screen video feeds, red landlines telephone ☎️ looks like. Sad day for all of the victims including the victims several years later from working at ground zero. 

It was my first semester in graduate school. All classes were cancelled and we just sat in the classroom and watched the coverage. 

When I first started teaching, it was still relatively recent and all the students at least had some memory of 9/11. Now most of my students weren't even born and it's difficult to explain to them just how life changing that event was.

RIP to all those lost that day, and may their friends and family find some semblance of peace.

On a family note, my brother finished Army OCS shortly 9/11 (he had already served as an enlisted Marine), then went to Ranger School and a deployment in Iraq. After getting back, he went to SF school. He's now been deployed more times than I care to count. I'm damn proud of him, but shit if I wasn't worried about him all the damn time. 

Nothing personal, but "where were you on 9/11?" seems like a re-hashed topic - people do this every year.  Nobody presently under 30 even has a story - that's ~ 35% of Americans.

I get it, it's personal to people - but I wish there were more discussions about how we are different versus 22 years ago.  More discussions as to "did we, as a society, over-react to the day's events?"  22 years out, I think one could definitely argue "yes."

In the aggregate, I think we live considerably more in fear, we view politics as MUCH more of a blood sport, we enjoy the frivolities and joys of life considerably less.  And I think it all started that day.

Working for Smith Barney 9-11-2001. Office meeting at 8:00 am, meeting ended in time to see the first plane plane. Etched in memory forever the feeling of sadness. Left the office after the second plane. 

I walked through the diag to get to my early AM lecture. Class was cancelled. I didn’t really find out why other than there has “been a plane crash in New York.” Got home to find my housemates around the TV. Then the second plane hit….. and everything went numb

I was living and working in Lubbock, TX. After my mid shift, during my 5 min drive home the local rock station DJ said a small plane had crashed into WTC. So got. Home and turned on the news and one tower was on fire and a few minutes later a second jet crashed into the 2nd tower. Called my office to tell them to turn on the news since a major terrorist attack was underway. Watched the news the rest of the day. I was very tired for my next mid shift.

I was a soph at U of M, in a class that I ended up dropping. But I'll never forget it because at the beginning,  the instructor said something about the events that had just occurred. I was in a different class earlier so I hadn't heard anything about it. I asked someone - a friend of a friend I had recently met - and he said a plane had hit the towers (I saw him sparingly the rest of my time in college but I'll always remember him because of that). The walk home was surreal and my buddies back at the house were freaking out. 

I grew up on LI and approximately 50+ people with ties to my hometown passed away on 9/11, incl the son of our HS football coach. A lot of people couldn't get home until late that night and some walked back, covered in dust. My best friend's mother died that day and the area was so shut down I couldn't get back for the funeral even if I tried ( I thought about trying to hitch a ride but the bridges and tunnels were closed too). My dad's office was right across from the LIRR station and he said you could see the smoke from Ground Zero from the platform for days. And he said it was bizarre to go to the beach and see aircraft carriers and fighter jets just offshore. 

I was still on active duty but on terminal leave. Had started my new job the day before. It really didn't hit me until the pentagon strike "I'm going to get called back."

turns out I missed stop loss by one day.

Twentynine Palms, CA.  Serving as a fire fighter in the Marine Corps.  A tough day for sure.

Was getting up in Oakland, CA to get ready for work, my roommate knocked on my door and told me to turn on the news. We both had TVs in our bedrooms and we sat alone in our respective beds dealing with it in our own ways, checking in on each other all morning and asking what the fuck from time to time

I moved to NYC a year later in August 2002, it was really something to be in the City on the first anniversary. 

I was in my 2nd year at U of M. I was in class from 8-930 then I had another class from 10-1130. They were in the same building so I hangout outside in between classes. I sit down in the 2nd class and the professor walks in and says "It's horrible what happened. There was a plane crash in NY and fires in Washington." That was it. After class I walked back to East Quad to grab lunch and I saw the signs around campus that classes were canceled and counselors were available to talk to. I didn't realize the severity until I got up to my room and turned on the tv.

Unfortunately, I would learn that my father's business partner was related to the captain of American Airlines flight 11. The 1st of the planes hijacked and the first to hit the World Trade Center.