Remembering September 11

Do you remember where you were when you got the news, or were you there?

I was still asleep when it happened. It wsa 7:30 my time. My buddy Jason called me and told me 2 planes were hijacked and crashed into the WTC and that a 3rd had just hit the Pentagon. I thought it was a sick joke to get me out of bed. He said "I'm dead serious! Turn on the news." I did so. The first tower had already collapsed. The second one was smoking. He was talking to me then he stopped in mid-sentence. The 2nd tower went down. It happened so quickly and it took me moments to register what was going on. By this time it was about 7:40ish, and I hadn't showered yet. I was supposed to be at work by 8:00. Needless to say I was late that day. I spent the whole day on CNN.com or in the office lounge watching it on TV. A group of us gathered to pray for the victims, the people still trying to get out, and for our country's leaders.

As for my buddy Jason, he is a networker for a major credit card company owned by Morgan Stanley Dean Whittier, whose headquarters occupied a decent amount of space at the WTC. Fortunately their company, who had thousands of employees there only lost 14 or so people. I think Cantor Fitzgerald was the one that lost most of theirs since they were right where the impact was.

This was truly the first news event that made me cry. When everything is OK where you are at, and something happens in another state or somewhere decently far from you, you take in the news at the time, then go about your business. It doesn't affect you. This however, affected ALL of us, all over the world. To think that someone would take planes full of innocent people and crash them into buildings full of more innocent people is beyond my understanding. And where would the next hit be, and was there gonna be another one?

So where were you and what went thru your mind at the time? And have those emotions or thoughts continued to affect you today?

In remembrance, I have torn down my personal website for this week and made it a memorial for Sept.11. I also re-posted the artwork I created during that week, including a firefighter pic a buddy from Modern Mopars.org had requested. Click on the Kat's Page link in my sig. For some werid reason the pic of my car shows up try hitting refresh...I just updated it early this a.m. so it may try to still keep the old page up.

I just woke up and watched it on the news. I was so worried about the people in those buildings and planes that I was getting sick to my stomach. I called into work to say I was going to stay home and watch what was going on. They had heard something about a plane hitting the building, but they had no idea what was really going on (how big the planes were etc.) I told them to get on the news immediately.

I then called my wife (fiance at the time) to tell her to wake her up and turn on the news. She was still tired and wanted didn't want to. I told her at the time that this was a world altering event and to turn on the TV. After that I spent a long time saying "Oh my god" and such. Then I started to get pissed. I am still pissed off about it. But thats a continueing story for the philosopy forum.













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I was at work when this whole thing unfolded. The crazy thing was that I was on CNN.com, which I always keep open because they update very often and keep me up to date, when the front page refreshed and showed a pic of the first tower after it was hit. Then I was like holy shit, a plane hit the tower. At first I wasn't sure, and it seemed like a small plane did it. I thought to myself that this was weird since there are no airways that close to the towers. But then we turned on the radio and heard that it was an airliner that hit it. Now I knew something was up because for an airliner to hit it, it must have had something wrong with it. Then literally minutes after announced that another plane just hit the other tower. At this point is when I was like we're under attack.:(

Then, as if the first two weren't bad enough, they say that another airplane slammed into the Pentagon. Everyone at my job crowded around our office as we had the radio up loud. Then the news of a fourth plane crashing in PA really got everyone in the office shook.

But through all this I wasn't really bothered, till it hit me. My father was down there. My girlfriends sister was taking her baby to the doctor that day and it was right next to the towers. That is when the panicking kicked in and I tried to get in touch with my father. When the call wasn't going through, I told my boss that I was gone. I left work and flew downtown as fast as my car could manage. When I got down to the city, the towers had already collapsed, it was a real mess. People were running and screaming. I was just looking for my father which was my first and only concern. I found him around 34th street. I was very relieved.

Then my girl called me and told me about her sister, but where she was I was not able to drive as the police had sectioned that area off. We spent the rest of the day just watching the news and waiting to hear something. At this point my girl was crying cuz it was 6pm and we have yet to hear from her sister. Then, when we go to the front of our house, we see a cab pull up and it is her sister and the baby. She was very happy to see them unharmed. Her sister told us everything that happened. She saw when the second plane hit the tower. She said she never seen anything like it.

One year later, I still think about it, but I'm not as affected by it as most people still are. I was just glad that I had not lost anyone.

I was in Driver's ED class. Some teacher just came in and said, "The news says that three plane have been hijacked. Two crashed into the Twin Towers and one into the Pentagon."

Then, he left. We never turned on the news and no one reacted to it anyway. I think since we never saw anything and the guy that came in and told us acted like he didn't know what was going on. No one cared because no one actually knew.

I didn't find out till I got home and then finally saw it on the news.

I was sick at home with the flu. I remember turning on the TV in the morning and there was coverage of it on every channel. I had absolutely no idea what had happened, just that something really bad had happened in the US. I kept the TV on all day and just watched it. It just seemed so unbelievable. So very, very sad. It still brings goosebumps whenever I see footage of it. :(

I don't think I will ever forget it. Moon was right this morning when he said that something terrible happens in each generation that you never forget. This is the one for me.

In School. We didn't have a TV in our room so we went to the class next door and watched it happen on TV in there.

I woke up at 8:00 on Wedneday the 12th- I went down flicked on the telly- I saw the WTC as a pile of rubble- I was like wtf :confused: I watched until my exam at 12- I worried so much during my exam that I failed it :(

Since I was working a 4:30p.m. to 2:00a.m. shift, I was just waking up at 3:00p.m., and while I was eating breakfast I was watching Comedy Central. That, TLC, the Discovery channel are nearly the only things I watch and incidentally, the only channels who didn't have something about the attacks on them. At about 3:30, my dad called and asked if I had turned on the TV that day. I said yeah, I'm watching SNL now. He told me to change the channel...he said terrorists had attacked the twin towers and the Pentagon, but I didn't hear him right, and I thought he said Paris. I was confused, and was thinking "but Paris likes us, they gave us the Statue of Liberty" but then I started watching the news and figured out what was going on - I was watching all the recaps because I didn't even hear of the attacks until about 8 hours after they had actually occured. It still doesn't really seem like reality.

It was 5am in Auckland. I was lying on the floor in the lounge of a friend's place staring at the ceiling unable to sleep. About two hours before, I had returned from another night long vigil at the bedside of my father. He had suffered a terrible accident and I had committed to the vigil as it wasn't clear then if he would survive the night. I wanted him to be in the company of his family rather than of strangers if that fateful moment should come.

After spending most of the night and the early hours of the morning in the critical care ward I had wandered in a daze back to a close friend's place, let myself in and crashed out on the couch.

I remember the phone ringing and about twenty minutes later, Sarah and Rich had come down the stairs, checked I was awake and turned the TV on. After sitting in stunned silence, then a moment thinking this was a terrible hoax, the true horror of the events began to sink home. We sat in silence as the minutes and hours passed by - I remember then feeling numb as the emotional toll of the events before me and the sleepless days and nights of the past week hit home.

I then remember getting up and walking out of the house. I walked in solitude for a while pausing only to continue chain smoking my way thru a pack of cigarettes. I returned back, showered, dressed and returned to the hospital to discuss my father's progress with the doctors finishing their shifts, pausing only to contact the office and organising to check on the well-being of colleagues and friends travelling that day.

Remembering how horrified I was still brings tears to my eyes...

The first plane hit while I was driving to school. The initial report was that a plane had hit the Empire State Building. I scoffed the news, presuming it was some moron who could not fly a plane, and I preceded to class. Upon my professor's entrance, we learned that it was a sizable plane, and that it had hit into the World Trade Center. Surely he was wrong, but who was I to say? I hadn't any clue what was going on just miles away from me. Oddly enough, my professor said something during that lecture to the tune of "What if terrorists were to attack Pittsburgh?" and was using this as some example to help everyone understand the subject matter in the book. Little did I know how much those words would mean in only 45 minutes.

Class was dismissed, and I hear people chiming down the hallway about how "We're at war!" and "We're under attack!!" Meanwhile, still believing that something had gone horribly wrong with some airliner, I looked at everyone with raised eyebrows. Then I kept hearing people tell their friends that all classes were cancelled... I started to walk a little bit faster to my car to find out what in God's name was going on.

I tuned in to the radio and hung on every word. Initial reports were hazy at best, and everyone was fighting back their shock as they reported things on the radio. Not one, but two planes had hit both WTC buildings, but wait! Now there was a report of a plane down in D.C.!!! Oh my god! My friends!!! Their families!!! I know all sorts of people from D.C.!!! I got out my cell and couldn't contact anyone!!! What now??? A plane down in Johnstown, PA??? Oh god, Megan! Dave!!! Please pick up... please!!! Will someone please tell me they're okay?? Oh, no!!! What if Steph is in NY for the day??? I remember slamming on the brakes (very nearly causing an accident) when I finally made contact from my cell to my b/f's land line only to have his roommate tell me he was out. Thank God he told me that Pete's mom was fine, and she'd already checked in.

I came home damn near crying because of everything. My dad and brother were on their way into the city, and I didn't want them going anywhere near where someone might attack them. I called into work and asked to call-off, but I had to go in anyway. I spent my shift talking with those who found this scene far too familiar from their days when Pearl Harbor was attacked. I sat in a daze watching the big screen TV trying to make sense of anything.

To remember today, I've changed my sig and avatar accordingly as well as creating a Memorial "sheet" to place on my dorm room door, and I made a small banner to show from my window. I won't forgive, I won't forget, but I will remember and I will make certain I don't take my life quite so much for granted.

Well being a Kiwi I was asleep through it, and I had study break for exams. At about 8:30 one of my friends rang me, and started saying something about America going to war! This kind of phased me, but this friend is a little mad so I wasn't sure if he was in reality.

He started saying about some plane hit the pentagon, but since he had satellite tv I wasn't sure if it was on free to air telly.

So i just switched on my tv, and got a huge shock. They were showing the WTC Towers falling down.

For the rest of the day I left the tv on, used the internet a bit and brought a paper.

The next day it was all anyone talked about before ours exams. I then ended up getting my highest exam mark ever.

sarujin

Originally posted by J SPEC SilEighty
In School. We didn't have a TV in our room so we went to the class next door and watched it happen on TV in there.

I was @ home going to school.. ended up not going to school that day...

:o

i was at work.. it was 9ish in the morning and i went to the vending machines to get something to snack on (probably milk & a bagel).

there was a guy at the vending machine who said that a plane just crashed into the WTC.

i was like "WTF?"

i went back to the office and tried to grab a news site (by this point news sites and ibm's own bandwidth were backlogged.

i had no access to a tv so all i had to go on was what people posted in forums (due to the bandwidth problem and lack of tv, i was incapable of seeing everything happen as it unfolds).

i was so much in shock & disbelief that i couldnt even concentrate on work that day.

I came across this link from another board about Flight 93. It's long, but worth the read. The crash in PA was overshadowed by the WTC and Pentagon because there was so much footage airing, we saw it all live. As for Flight 93, the only footage we saw was a charred field. But to me, this is when our first "soldiers" began to fight the war that had only just begun:

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/columnists/dave_barry/397257/3972571.htm

i remember hearing about the crash in PA.. i wasnt 100% sure where it was at the time (see my prev post)... but the first thing i thought of was Anna (VideoNasty) and her family in the Pittsburgh area.

Anna was already here in FL.. but i called her immediately just to be sure all her family was ok.

I was laying in bed with a friend of mine, late for work, missing my first class, when my room mate comes and banges on the door and says, "Get up you two, we're going to war!" I didn't have a clue what the hell he was talking about so I got up in a few minuts and found like three people I didn't know in my living room watching TV. We watched it for like an hour before I even found out their names. It turns out they were joggers who had heard the news on their walkmen and had asked my room mate if they could come in and see if it was for real.

I do have one thing to say to the American people. Being sad is one thing, remembering is one thing, these are all good things to do when a travisty like this happens. But Mr. Bush was right when he said the best thing we can do is go back to life as usual, and ladies and gentlemen, this is not what we are doing. For three or four months afterwards there were still shots of candlelight vigels inbetween all major programming on TV. Today I've seen everyone under the sun acting like it just happened yesterday. For god's sake Cita on BET was talking about it, Leo LePort on Tech TV was talking about it. On every commercial break on every station I turn to there is a 2min long segment on it. I hate to sound calous or insensitive, but this is a fact of life. Shit happens, we can't do anything about it, we must move on! What happened in high school when you were walking down the hall and your buddy punched you in the shoulder? You hit him back and kept walking. We've already kicked Osama in the nuts, now keep walking America, this is a bad cycle we are in right now. Every one is effected not by the actual attack, but by all this crap surrounding it! If we had gone after Osama a week later, two weeks later said ok, we've rataliated, don't fuck with us. Then I would almost bet money that our economy wouldn't be as bad as it is right now.


Ok, enough ranting, god bless, if you know some one who was lost my deepest condolences.

i was in drivers ED class and it came over the PA..and well...i think every one pretty much knows what happened. turned on the TV, and there was horor in its purest form. i like star trek..here are some fitting quotes i tink

"He gave his life in an attempt to save others. Not the wrost way to go.
Kirk

"We are assembled here today to pay final respects to our honored dead. And yet, it should be noted, that in the mist of our sorrow, this death takes place in the shadow of new life, the sunrise of a new world, a world that our beloved comrade gave his life to protech and nourish. He did not fear this sacrifice a vain or empty one." Kirk on Spock.

"I am very Happy for Commander La Forge. He has crossed over to..that which is beyond. For a Klingon, this is a joyful time...a friend has died in the line of duty...and he has earned a place among the honored dead. This is not a time to mourn." Worf

In bed asleep, around 10AM, cause I work later and go to bed when teh sun rises. My mother had called me and asked me if was up, and I thought she never calls me to ask me if I am up this early. I asked her what was wrong, she said EVERYTHING (literally it soon turned out to me). She said the WTC had been hit and the Pentagaon, and I was still sort of out of it, so I turned on the TV and I was watching as large, dark clouds of smoke filled my screen emanating form the WTC, other scenes filled with panic in the streets and just total chaos, and I said to myself, WTF is going on here!? My mother hung up and said she was leaving work early (as was many other people).

I watched in disbelief for what must have been about 5 to 10 minutes, anger building up, thinking about those helpless people in the buildings. I cried out loud "F*cking Terrorists!" - eyes watering up. I knew who it was, this was no accident in my mind. I could not move from that TV for almost the whole day. I did not even bother to go to work, or even call in. Of course working at a major bank, I found out the next day we were all told to stay home.

I had trouble thinking that day and sleepign that night, and this whole event only reinforced my feeling regarding my disbelief in God. Sorry if that offends anyone here, but that is me. Whatever is after death, and I am not going to speculate and say that I know cause I don't, I hope it is good and I hope each and every one of those poor souls lost that day got there OK. Except those dirty, cowardly, no good for nothing, religious twisting fanatic, terrorist bastards. I hope their souls are burning in some kind of hell somewhere..maybe the sun. Never to leave, there for eternity.

No one should have to witness death and destruction on this level (or any level). I thought I never would and wished I never saw this myself.
I know I will never forget 911.

:(

Moderators, can we make a seperate area for all of the 911 discussions? That would be a good way to keep track of everything.

There used to be a forum just for this but I think it was removed after activity in it died off.

Originally posted by KatWoman
There used to be a forum just for this but I think it was removed after activity in it died off.

Actually it ws converted to the politics/Current affairs forum we see today:)

I had just got home from work at logged on to AF and saw a post in here from DVS....I then sat in front of the TV for around 12 hours and watched the horror of the whole thing unfold