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September 11, 2001 What do you remember

I was at work with no media access. Heard about it and thought WTF? Tom Clancy had written a book a few years before that in which Japanese crazies had flown an airliner into the Capitol building and killed the President and a lot of others and I figured that was the inspiration for the 9/11 attacks.
Lost any faith I might have had in the FBI in the aftermath of 9/11.
 
I was at home (parent's home) running out by time before leaving for basic training the following week.
I had enlisted in February.

Wasn't really talk about it during basic that I recall. Hell I was stoked to find out we even got paid for being there. First check was maybe $300 and I felt like Daddy Warbucks.
 
Driving to work in the 1990 reg cab toyota. Just about to cross Hennepin bridge. Hear "oh shit" on the radio... first time I've ever heard a "swear word" on public radio...

VP sent us all home since the interwebs were basically saturated. Got home to turn on the news to find that the contractor pulling electric to the shop cut my coax line.... no TV/no intertoobs.
 
I watched the second plane hit live, watching the live coverage of the first tower burning from my rayon cathode TV that sat on the floor. I still remember the quietness of the skies the day after, as no planes were allowed to fly.
 
The 1st period teacher bringing in the tv cart and thinking this was odd. Don't remember any of the rest of the school day. Then watching everything on repeat that night.

This is one of the things on a sticky note on my desktop all the time. Even when I switch jobs. I make a new sticky and add it.
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I was in college. The school I went to was transitioning from a military base to a university, so there was still a decent sized military presence (Military housing, a PX, one of those gas stations that I wasn't allowed to use but looked longingly at the low gas prices, etc.). I didn't have class that morning, so I was doing my best to sleep in, but my buddy in a downstairs apartment was always up early watching the news. I woke up to him running through our apartment(we left doors unlocked back then) yelling "Wake up fuckers! We're under attack! We're under attack!" while pounding on each of our doors. The he turned on the TV as we all stumbled out to the living room. I saw the second plane hit and thought it was replay footage someone else had gotten of the first hit until I realized there were now two towers smoking. One of my roommates had just enlisted in the national guard a few months prior. My friend turned to him and said "You're fucked." He got called in a short time later.

No one went to class that day, and I remember driving past the entrance to our school/army base and the little sign that normally said "Threat Level: Alpha" for the last three years I had been there said "Threat Level: Delta". During that time I was pissed off anyone would dare attack us and I briefly considered chucking my college career away and joining the military, but my parents talked me out of it.
 
I'm sitting at the same desk.

I remember how bad communications were. The internet was pretty much useless trying to watch video. We didnt have any kind of TV service. Someone found a FM radio and we listened to the local station's news.

The next day the guy in charge told me to get a sat TV subscription and a TV. I don't think we ever used it and didn't renew at the end of the contract.
 
zlathim said:
At that time it was being reported as a small plane, so I didn't think too much about it.
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I remember that as well. In AZ (3hrs behind ET), my alarm/radio clock went off at 6am, but instead of waking to music (tuned to one of the local rock stations), I woke to the DJ / Co-Host talking about a plane that had flew into the first tower. I can't remember if they were speculating, or if the "official" news at the time was reporting it as a small commuter plane.

Then a few minutes later they stopped mid-song to report that a 2nd plane had hit the 2nd tower. I went out to the living room and turned on the TV at that point. Spend the next hour watching TV and getting ready for work. I was just about to turn off the TV and walk out the door when the 1st tower collapsed. I watched a bit longer, then drove in to work.

When I got to work, everyone was watching the news and talking about the collapse of the 2nd tower, it took me a moment to catch on that the 2nd tower had collapsed as well (I thought initially, they were still talking about the 1st one). Nobody was very productive that day; early in the afternoon, the boss dismissed everyone and told them to go home and hug their loved ones.
 
The whole day.
Happend while I was in Thermodynamics class, first plane hit ad was reported, I heard a girl talking on her phone that a plane hit the world trade, paid no mind to it. Got home and watched the tower fall at 9:59

Rest of the day was in disbelief watching the news as friends trickled in and rushed around to fuel everything up and get beer for the onslaught of crazy we thought we might deal with. Guns were cleaned, bugout plans were established, a base was chosen. Wild stuff.

I was supposed to start a job at the Langley Air Force Base Full Scale Wind tunnel and had to delay the start until they got all of the security in place.
 
I was cleaning swimming pools in Scottsdale, listening to Howard Stern. I can remember the exact backyard I was in when they started talking about it. Looking back, it was probably his best show ever.
 
Sitting on a roof inside the DC beltway. Debated going home ended up just working the day. Watching f16s just circling. My ex worked in Georgetown it took her almost 5 hours to get home in Gaithersburg. Crazy days
 
we had moved "home" in 99 and I had been with ups for two years. on the way to dropping our oldest off at first grade I heard the first plane hit on the radio. Rushed home and turned on the tv, watched until I had to leave for work. It was an odd day for sure on the ups route. Everyone in our small community was watching/listening/sitting around the entire day.

I commented to my wife while watching it live that morning that i wanted to re-enlist. in no uncertain terms she said no. in a way im kind of glad I didnt. knowing what we know now about all of it. 20 years of americas best gone. and for what.

reading all of these comments, from my imaginary friends around the county, put a tear in my eye. you're all a good group of ff's and Im proud to be a part of it with you.

bad zuki said:
I remembered the horrors of watching it live on tv at a young age.
I remembered the stories of people who didn't go to work that day.
I remembered the stories of people who lost family, friends, and coworkers.
I remembered the lasting legacy of spying that was implemented.
I remembered the Wars fought in it's name.
I remembered the people who died in those wars and those left with PTSD who go about their lives as normal as possible.

Yes, I remember.
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we all do. how many of us question everything now because of it. everything is different now. :frown:
 
I was in the 5th grade, and I remember my teacher coming into the room all frazzled saying a plane flew into the pentagon. I didnt know what that was so it didnt really mean anything to me. I dont know if that was somehow the first plane she heard about, or if she was freaked out because she heard about all 3 but only mentioned that one. We spent the whole day watching it unfold on TVs in the library
 
I was on the USS Eisenhower dry docked in Newport News shipbuilding. I was wiring up cable TV drops on the berthing barge next to the ship. Coincidentally I used CNN which was channel 8 as my signal tester. I randomly watched the whole thing unfold on a tiny little 3 inch TV screen as I moved around checking TV drops.

Shortly after the 2nd plane hit the Captain got on the general announcement system and set the ship in security alert. All the shipyard bubbas got kicked off the ship and everyone with security training had to report to the armory and secure the ship. That took about 4 hours and then we were told to either go home, or wait in the parking lot for a bus to take us to NYC to help with the rescue efforts.

Everyone on the ship was waiting in the parking lot for the bus to NYC. They only had about 5 busses and 3000 sailors. I didn't get selected.
 
I was woken up by my girlfriend after the 2nd tower was hit. Watched the news for a bit, didn't really understand the gravity of it. I was a sophmore in school, so I went to class shortly after. There was a girl on the bus crying. I asked what was wrong, and she told me her dad worked in one of the towers. Got to campus, which was deserted, and found all classes canceled.

A few days later, I'm somewhere in the red:
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I was 30, working full time and going to a JC part time to get my 2-year degree. Got to class, teacher came in: "There's been a terrorist attack in NYC, all classes are canceled, everyone should go home". Went home & watched TV coverage in shock; most of the day is just a burned-in blur of the coverage.

I do recall that (in between outrage and intense nationalism) it occurred to me the attack was an efficient use of resources given a group willing to trade their lives for a cause. Having read Tom Clancy's Debt of Honor, the attack mode wasn't surprising; just that someone actually did it and in a coordinated manner. I only mentioned that to my best friend, who completely understood the logical side-note among the mostly emotional overload.

Years later, learning that "we" trained the group that attacked us jaded me toward CIA fuckery :frown:
 
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Was in the middle of state mandated standardized testing in high school.
Lady teacher barged in and told our proctor what was happenin. Tv got turned on during one of the breaks, then turned off so we could finish up.

Spent all shop class glued to the TV. Went outside to get fresh air, and saw one of those mysterious white jets flying that were scooting around after the faa grounding was put in effect. Football practice got cancelled. Some of the more dull students were scared that our school was going to be attacked by airplanes.
 
I remember going to a blink-182 concert on the 10th at some Pennsylvania fairground, before the show US flag was raised, angsty teens being bored started chanting burn it.

Very next day no one would dare say that in public.

Banged my fiancé that night, six weeks later, she calls me at work to tell me she’s pregnant. She was all hung up on her being conceived that day.
 
I was making the last welding pass on a new floor plate for an in bed sander/spreader when a coworker came and got me, just in time to see the second plane hit. Heard the news people talking about there being 30K people in the buildings, I spent the next couple days trying to imagine everyone in my town just vanishing.
 
I was living on Long Island at the time. My dad worked in NYC every day. He took the train in like any other day. I went school (in 4th grade)

The principal comes into my classroom and asks us to raise our hand if we have a parent that works in the city. I raised my hand. He then said keep your hand up if both parents work in the city. I put my down. They pull the kids out of the classroom with 2 parents in the city. Now I’m sitting here wondering wtf is going on.

Luckily my mom pulled us out of school and explained what happened. My mom couldn’t get a hold of my dad, he was out of the office that day going to meetings. Phones were down and not working.

In the end he made it home, he was in the subway when he ran into a co worker going to another meeting in the World Trade Center. That guy was running late and my dad convinced him to go to the meeting he was going to. If he didn’t his co worker probably wouldn’t be here today.

My dad saw it happen live. He said it was the weirdest feeling in his life. The aftermath had everything shut down. He had to walk across the queensboro bridge because he couldn’t get a ride via train or taxi out of the city. After he crossed the bridge our neighbor who found a taxi luckily saw him and told him to hop in and drove him all the way home.

Unfortunately, my good friend from school had his 2 uncle firefighters die going in to help. One of his uncles lived down the street from me.

I know it’s like 5 stories in 1 but that’s my story. I’ll never forget it
 
My girlfriend and I were in a hotel room in Sedona, Az, both in A+P school at the time, traveled there to check out a college. It was a small shitty hotel, all we could afford at the time but the hotel manager called and woke us up with "turn on the TV, we're at war. Click." We just watched the TV for a while after that and high tailed it for our flight out of Phoenix, only to find out all flights were cancelled.

Thankfully I had family friends with a house in Peoria we could crash at until the airport opened back up. The most eerie part was sitting in a pool at my friends house, not a plane in the sky except for F-16's loitering around phoenix.

When we got home, our A+P instructors said it may be hard to find a job in aviation at this point.
 
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