OT: A remembrance - where were you?

On a plane. We made an emergency landing in Charlotte, NC-I had no idea why. When we left the plane the airport PA came on to say we needed to evacuate the airport immediately, the United States was under attack, all planes were grounded.

It wasn't until I got a rental car that I knew what was going on.

3rd grade school just started. We lived near a flight line and the teachers started leaving the room and nobody knew what was going on. About an 30 minutes later our teacher came in and told us that recess was canceled for the day and that the busses would be taking us home shortly. It wasn't until we were on the bus about 930 central time that one of the 5th graders told us what was going on. Walked into my home to my mother crying on the couch while watching the the news. I grew up an army brat and knew what this meant for my family, to an extent. Now 15 years later I'm in the Army.

I was a freshman in high school

This is a tough day, they read the names again for the first time in several years. This is what I posted in this same thread last year: After exiting the subway at Park Place, because my usual John Street stop was closed, I walked down a ways and looked up just after the second plane hit. I was on the plaza near the corner of Church and Dey watching people fall out of the towers, trying in vain to call my office when the first tower fell. There was complete chaos, thousands of people milling about in shock, I'll never forget the cop in his boxers and t-shirt waving his badge stopping people from getting closer, he had obviously just rolled out of bed. All of a sudden there was a sound like a roaring waterfall, I looked up and the tower was crashing down on itself floor by floor and a huge cloud of debris was falling right on top of us. Everyone turned and ran away, except that cop who ran toward the tower. The debris cloud hit really fast and everything was dark. I wound up walking over the Brooklyn Bridge and catching a train at the Atlantic Ave. terminal. 

from the Navy in July. Working in a warehouse listening to Drew n Mike. Most guilt I have ever felt in my life.

I was at work. Someone came out from the office to the warehouse and said a plane hit one of the Twin Towers. My boss goes out and buys a tv when he gets back the second tower is hit. When the first tower goes down, everyone just stood with blank faces. That was the least productive day ever. 

Never Forget

I am going to the Rutgers game. Making a trip to see the memorial.

Watched the horror unfold on tv and out the window. Walked through a silent Times Square on my way to my apt on the Upper West Side. A tough, tough day that I will never, ever forget.

Sitting next to my girlfriend in Huron Highschool's library.

At work, my trading desk at Exchange Place in Jersey City. Had a complete skyline view as everything unfolded. I lived in Manhattan on the UES. I'd take the N R to the Trade Center every morning and then the PATH across the Hudson. Terrifying day. At that point, lived in NYC for over 20 years and never imagined anything like that happening. The fighter jets, flying low, patrolling Manhattan after the attack was like right out of a movie.

Woke up to people calling about tower one being hit.  came down stairs turned on the TV in time to see tower two get struck.  I remember the day vividly.  glued to the television in disbelief.

Physics 241 lab.

On my way to a supplier plant in Indiana. Had radio off as I was talking to the guy I was riding with. Stopped at McDonald's to see that a plane had flown into World Trade Center...thought it was a personal plane accident. Got back in car again with radio off, turned it on an hour later and heard what really happened.

I went downstairs in our office building to the auditorium after the planes had hit.  People were streaming out of the auditorium looking like hell...someone said a tower had collapsed...I went into the auditorium and I watched the second tower collapse.

Watched the second plane hit the WTC and then walked out to my car to go to work.  Right before I get in my car, I hear a loud roaring sound.  I look up and there was an American Airlines jet flying very low.  It was so low that you could see the lights on inside.  It went out of sight and not five seconds later, we heard a loud boom (We lived about a mile from the Pentagon).  We tried to call 911, but the phone lines were jammed.  I took my wife with me to work in Dulles, just in case there was a need to evacuate the DC area.  After a few hours, it seemed all was clear, so we drove back home.  We went to a hill that overlooked the Pentagon and was just amazed at the sight.

I will never forget the sights I saw that day or the smells in the air coming from the Pentagon.

Detroit Catholic Central, back when it was in Redford.  I was walking from pottery into Latin class with Mr. Rossi when a fellow student came running out of the room saying "Two planes hit the world trade center and the Pentagon is on fire!" The absurdity of the statement made it such that my brain couldn't accept it as reality.  I remember thinking it was the punchline to a dark joke.

 

But people were digesting and coming to terms with it in the class.  Eventually I did.  We turned the TV on just in time to watch the first tower fall.  And then the second.  It sucked. 

 

I don't think it does a lot of good to think too much about that day.  I'll let myself reminisce for a couple minutes today, but otherwise it instills the kind of fear that gets very easily taken advantage of.

Etched into my brain forever. When they evacuated everyone thought we were in a full scale war. You could hear the sonic booms of the jets passing over and everyone thought it was more planes coming down. Could see the smoke from the Pentagon. Seems far fetched now, but walking to the subway and taking home was the first time I thought I was going to die.

Sitting in Biochem class wondering where the fuck everyone was.

Student teaching in a kindergarten class.

In lab at the Dental School, practicing for boards. Unreal.

I had just turned 21 a couple of days before and arrived back in the states from spending the summer in Europe a week before. It was my first day at a new job, working in a deli when we heard about the first plane hitting the wtc. someone brought out a small tv and we watched the second plane hit the towers live. we all kind of stopped working and watched the tv from that point on, and it was all everyone wanted to talk about the rest of the day. after work, I went to the bar for the first time and drowned sorrows. A friend bought me a Bells Two Hearted Ale, it was my first time drinking a micro brew, and I still consider it one of the best.

We were watching the smoke billowing from the pentagon.  When we were finally released (and got out of the parking garage which took an hour) there was a huge crowd of people walking towards the bridge to get to Viriginia as every thing was shutdown.  We rolled down the windows and shouted to people who needed a ride and picked up a guy going in our direction.

My friend was just entering the New York Federal Reserve, which is just a couple blocks from the WTC.  He saw the second plane hit the tower.  Walked into the Federal Reserve and was locked in there for the rest of the day.

I heard some news before a 10 am class, but seemed like an aviation accident at the time. When I got out of class, everyone was acting like it was the end of the world. I thought they just wanted to get out of class. How wrong I was.

I had left out of the house to catch the -el to work right before the first plane hit...I was listening to WBBM talking about how a plane had hit the Empire State Building back in the 1930's...

...then news of the second plane that hit the other tower came over the radio...

In my back cubicle, I had a view of the John Hancock Building...a few minutes later there was a threat called in about the Sears Tower (I refuse to acknowledge the other and present name of that building) but since the Hancock Building is closer to the lake, I suspected that would be the building that any plane would go after...I couldn't sto looking outside at the view, terrified as I was...

Strangely, on our last night in Vegas I went down to the casino alone. After gambling for a few hours I went the elevator to ride up and when the door opened there was also a middle eastern couple on it. They got off on the next floor.

 

I had an uneasy feeling about them, not because all people from there are terrorists, but just a bad feeling. After 9/11 they posted pictures of Mohammed Atta. I am 100% certain that is who was on the elevator with the woman. I never told anyone except my wife.

I was in tech school in Biloxi, MS. Remember hearing about it, rigging a TV/VCR with a coat hanger to watch the snowy local broadcast. Scared, sad, mad, all sorts of feelings occurred in that moment.

Someone called my admin and told her. The CEO had a tv in his office, I remember watching the first tower burn - and seeing the second plane hit. 

We were very close to DTW. I got to work in the early am, when planes would be lined up to land with their lights on. I stood in the parking lot the next morning and watched a single F16 flying a pattern over the metro area - positively surreal.

Was a Fire fighter in the Marine Corps. Stationed in California so on west coast time we were just starting the day. Walked into the fire station as the second plane hit. Sat in the TV room all day in amazement.