Remembrance

[Padma]

Two years ago, a group of terrorists, trained to hate everything and everyone American, carried out a plan years in the making. They hijacked 4 jet airliners, and crashed them into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The fourth crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, when the outraged passengers fought back. Thousands of innocents, from 80 different nations, died that day, not deserving the terrible death these madmen gave them.

Many people remember with painful clarity where they were, and what they were doing, that fateful day. Please post your own memories, and honor the memory of those who were taken from us.

 

[Padma]

I was at work, HQ US Strategic Command, when a coworker called over the partition "a plane just hit the WTC!" We turned the radio to a news staion, and several of us started checking out the internet news sites. It was obviously just a terrible accident: a commuter plane with a navigation error, or maybe even a single-seater caught by the updrafts and strange air currents that occur over big cities.

Then I found my first piece of video, on msnbc.com. That was no puddle-jumping commuter! That was a full-sized 757! That couldn't have been a mistake! I started to feel uneasy. It was getting hard to connect to internet news sites, now, as people worldwide were trying to find out what was happening. We heard on the radio that another plane hit the second tower. No one was working anymore; we were all standing around, trying to hear the radio, trying to catch a glimpse of video. Then they said the Pentagon had been hit, and I started feeling sick to my stomach.

I started logging off and shutting down my systems - I knew we wouldn't get any work done that day. Almost immediately, the building PA came on, directing all but mission-essential personnel to leave. And for operational security reasons, don't tell anyone that we were leaving. My wife was out with the car, so I called and left a voice-mail that I wouldn't be available for lunch like we planned, and that I wouldn't be near the phone for the rest of the morning.

I hitched a ride home with a coworker, and saw the Security Police erecting roadblocks at the base entrances, and changing the threat condition signs to the highest level - terrorist activity currently occurring. I turned the TV on as soon as I got inside the house. My wife arrived a few minutes later, knowing something was up by my relatively cryptic message. We sat in front of the TV the rest of the day, holding each other, and crying for the thousands of victims of this senseless act.

I remember.

 

[Mr. Dictator]

you bring back memories

and more

:soldier: and more

 

[cgannon64]

I was in my 7th grade classroom. They brought the entire school (90 kids, not that much) into the auditorium and told us there was a small fire at the top of one of the buildings.

Then we went back to our classrooms and finished the day, although it wasn't the same. The teachers played silly games with us. Rumors spread that one kid heard over the radio that the towers collapsed. We said he must have misheard, that's impossible. One kid made a joke about it and we laughed - it seemed like a ridiculous statement to make. One of our teachers strongly reprimanded us for the joke, because she knew it was true.

We are dismissed later that day. My best friend and I walk down to the pier in Bay Ridge, when I lived there, and we see a huge streak of black across the sky. There is a cloud around Lower Manhattan - all we can see is a cloud on the ground and then the streak across the sky.

And then I realize that my father's entire past just came crashing down with that tower. His first job, his first boss, his first work related friends, everyone. Later he finds out that about 30 people he knew were lost that day. He has never been the same since.

I go back to my friends house, then get a ride home later. My mom is stuck in Staten Island - she used to work there - and she sees the streak from there. She is stuck on the bridge. The scene is so surreal, she later relates to me, that one guy asks a police officer for a light. The officer gives him one, and he lights up a joint.

My brother and father are stuck in Manhattan (don't worry, my dad didn't work in the towers then) but they later come home. We gather around the TV and I hear the name Osama bin Laden for the first time. I find out that my brother's best friend's brother is dead. He was a fireman.

I find out they hit the Pentagon, there are rumors that there are more flying around out of control. Bush is hurried off to a secret location, we here another one crashed in Pennslyvania.

It doesn't feel real on the TV but then I remember that sickening black streak across the sky, like a gigantic arrow.

 

[Shadylookin]

I was just coming out of gym class, and i heard someone say that a helicopter crashed at the pentagon. I figured it was just some dumbass pilot that screwed up. Then i heard by my teacher in the next class that 2 planes hit the world trade centers, and the pentagon and another one was still around. We soon went in search of a TV, and found that the other plane went down in a field. Then i soon found out that they suspected a guy named osama bin laden in some god forsaken land called afghanistan(i heard of afghanistan before this but didn't know anything about it) and for the rest of that day i did nothing. I then walked home as I usualy do and saw like 20 cars waiting to get gas at this small 4 pump gas station because they heard of some places raising gas prices to 5 dollars a gallon(luckly they got fined for all their greed) then i walked into my house and turned on the TV and like all but 5 channels had switched to some news program. All i heard was about the terrorists and the world trade center.

 

[Johann MacLeod]

I was a freshman, social studies in first hour, and at first no one really knew what was going on. When I was in gym 2nd hour, is when one of the towers collapsed, then in 4th hour we didn't have the TV on, which was good, i felt, because people needed a break from it all, but the entire time it was kind of surreal and difficult to comprehend, but my first reaction was concern for what would happen to Arab Americans.

 

[Inter4]

I was in 10th grade...I remember like if it was yesterday.
Some friends od mine came running towards me and told me that NY was being attacked. I immediatly thought that they were just kidding..(I wish). Then I went to the teachers and they told me it was true, I couldn't believe. So after school I got home and turned on the TV. It was like I was seeing a movie..just as soon I turned on the TV the second tower collapsed...
I'll never forget that day..so many lives....in such a few seconds...

 

[cameramano]

cgannon64... you write very well. I'm sorry about your father's loss.

I was a sophmore at Michigan State University. The President (of the university) told us to continue with class, but most cancelled. I still had to work, though. I directed a video record of an advertising professor who went ahead and lecutred for an hour anyway. I remember the surreal experience of watching him on one monitor lecture about how to sell glitz to the masses while watching the towers smoke on another. I lost all respect for the prof that day.

 

[da_greatest]

I was in 8th grade. In the hall, before third hour I heard someone say the WTC was hit by a helicopter. In third hour the teacher said there was a terrorist attack in which an airplane hit the WTC. I didn't find out exactly what happenned until 6th hour. I had social studies that hour and the teacher told us what happenned, then we watched it on tv.

At first no one was really sure if it was true, but nobody made any jokes about it. It felt really weird. I'd heard old people say they remember exactly where they were when JFK was shot and I knew I would remember 9/11 forever.

I got goosebumps when I read this thread.

 

[Hygro]

I had dreamed the night before that a cloud of asbestoes was traveling through a city and everyone was trying to get out. I also dreamed about having to espace my home because aliens were attacking with meteors from the skies.

I woke up to what I thought was my mom laughing, but soon I realized she was crying--like she would if someone close had died. I worried about my little brother who was hiking near cliffs, my father who was back home, my older brother who was at college. My sister and my mom were home.

Soon I found out what really happened and was mortified: that terrorists used planes full of people and attacked our biggest business and military centers. I feared for my relatives, 3 of whom worked in the toweres (one took the last elavator out and survived, the other two survived on business trips). One great thing I feared would be how our government would react. I felt really sickened. I mean, not only suicide bombing and killing people but having bombs with people forced on them

I still feel especially bad for those rarely mentioned who got chronicly sick from the dust (filled with asbestoes) clouds floating through the city.

 

[ipris]

i was actually in something near paradise. i was set to leave from st. thomas in the carribean the afternoon of the 11th. i didnt board the plane that day. it took 4 or 5 days until i could catch a plane back to the states.
being stuck there most would say is a good thing, i mean its lovely, but the whole experience was so surreal. i can recall running out to the bar on the beach and telling the local tender to check out the tv. even after seeing it himself it didnt register for him. everything seemed so distant. we had a 14in tv in our hotel from which i watched cnn. it was hard to go to the beach.

 

[amadeus]

The day started out like any other. Talk to a few friends in the hallways and the off to class for the usual business. Today was the day to have an essay done for our history class. I had completed mine and gave it in a timely manner.

A few minutes later, there was a telephone call to the classroom. Mr. Clough (the teacher) seemed to appear a bit uneased after being on the telephone. I didn't know what until he had turned on the television.

A fiery hole lie in the World Trade Center's second building. Within moments of the television's light invading the room, a second plane struck the towers. Absolute horror filled the room, with one exception, an either idiotic or truly hateful student thought the explosion was "sweet." I never found out who it was, and quite frankly, I'm glad I didn't, because I would have personally liked to teach him a history lesson he wouldn't soon forget.

Being the political junkie that I am (and was at the time two years ago) Mr. Clough had asked the class on who they thought had done this. I was the only person in the room to respond that didn't say "Saddam Hussein" simply because that was the first Arab terrorist/sponsor that had come to their minds.

The name I gave was "Osama bin Laden." Most of the class had been unfamiliar with that name, but they'd come to know it eventually. By the time this was done, reports were in about another plane that struck the Pentagon.

Class ended and I left the room with a great swiftness, hoping to get to the next class to immediately pick up where the news had left off. The history class I was in was watching FOX News, the one I had entered (a keyboarding class, which I only took for the credits toward graduation) had been watching CBS.

The rest of the class, interestingly, continued on their work with seemingly little care about what was going on. I and the other teachers in the upstairs area gathered around the television set to watch the next 90 minutes unfold. The towers collapsed.

90 minutes passed and I was dismissed to my third class, Cisco Networking. The television was back on FOX News and pretty much all of the class (there was about 10 of us) kept an eye on the news and tried to get news from the Internet. 90 minutes passed again and I was off to lunch.

My mother works at the high school, and I was able to fill her in with all of the details that she didn't get (as the lunch office has no television.) Three crashes, as I understand, had only been heard of so far. After quickly scarfing down a hamburger, it was off to my fourth and final class - English.

The English teacher, who was generally nice, said she couldn't get the cable to work in the room. I suggested that I could hook it up, and did...but, perhaps what she intended to say was to politely decline keeping up on the events of that day. 90 minutes of intellectual hell soon followed, as one could not help but wonder, what in God's name was going on?

2:50 struck and I was free to get on board the bus for home. Within 20 minutes I was back at home, news on, and watched the news for about 24 straight hours from then on.

And, in short, that was my September 11th, 2001.

 

[The Yankee]

I was heading to high school. It wasn't far away from the East River that separates Brooklyn from Manhattan. The towers looked so tall and close, it was as if I could have been able to toss rings onto the antenna.
It was just before my first class, I was getting into the building. Then I saw something...looked almost like a missile going through the sky. I turned around and...the hell is that? Is that a missile or a commerical jet? Few seconds later...BOOM! Loud noise from the building, everyone who saw it stopped dead in their tracks. The nearby hospital started coming alive with ambulances and doctors shouting orders quickly.

I was thinking...my God...that has to be a substantial loss of life. I continued watching the flames come out and the smoke start to move out. I was wondering how people on the floors above the crash were going to get out....maybe there were some stairwells at the corners of the building they can use, go around the crash.

I'm watching there...hoping that I did NOT just see that. Some time passes...and then there's another object in the sky. Is that another missile? BOOM! The other tower is hit. Now there is panic in the streets. I thought....we're at war. Someone managed to strike at us here and the military couldn't even pick it up! What the hell is going on here? It wasn't until a little later that I learned those were planes, not missiles...although, thinking back, they did look too big to be any missiles I ever heard about.

More time passes....the first tower fell. It just fell as if it were falling on its knees....as if America was coming to its knees. Smoke quickly engulfs the place where the building once stood. I see little pieces of debris that were launched upward and were carried for a bit of time....going quickly before it fell. I went...holy..!#)$*!#$ That could be 10,000 people...just dead.

Second tower falls...although it was much harder to see. By then, I heard about the strike on the Pentagon. This was definately war, definately some kind of infiltration by the enemy that carried out the attacks. There must have been so many people there, cops and ambulances still needed for the rest of the city. I made a decision. I started running down Flatbush Avenue...towards the Manhattan Bridge.

By then, I was completely recovered from a respiratory infection that knocked me out of the football season a year before. I ran a few blocks...then had to slow down because of all the foot traffic. That's when I felt the hand on my chest. It was a cop, telling me not to go any further. I was going...come on! They need all the hands they can get! I looked in his eyes....there was some deep sadness in his eyes and for an instant, it was as if we were both on the same page. He probably would have done the same thing...but he had to do what he had to do, protect people as they were coming into Brooklyn. I tried to make a break for it, but another two cops and the first cop restrained me. I was going....damn....

I punched the air weakly, feeling a lot of energy had drained from me.

From there..I lent my inhaler to those who needed a puff or two...I got the okay from medics and cops. I also relayed information about buses and their routes once buses were added and rerouted to get people away from downtown Brooklyn. I tried to give up some blood, but I was still under age, so that didn't work.

I will never forget that day. I would love to torture those responsible the way they torture their prisoners and they way they tortured hundreds of thousands, millions, in America that day.


Edit: Like to add that I'll try to do something for the memorial tomorrow, though I have classes. My college is only a few blocks away from the site.

Also....somewhere late that morning, I started remembering things about Osama bin Laden that I learned after the embassy bombings in 1998....he was my first choice/guess. The second was a nation that would manage to do that, militarily....which led into a fear by some people in downtown Brooklyn that an actual invasion force would be on the way. That afternoon, I made a pact with a few people to defend the streets, any way possible, even if it were against armed enemies that landed via boat or were already in country. Nowhere in my mind did I think Iraq...never thought Hussein would be that dumb.

 

[Archer 007]

I was in 9th grade in computer class when it happened/ We flipped on CNN about 5 minutes after the first plane hit.

 

[Inter4]

Originally posted by rmsharpe
Absolute horror filled the room, with one exception, an either idiotic or truly hateful student thought the explosion was "sweet." I never found out who it was, and quite frankly, I'm glad I didn't, because I would have personally liked to teach him a history lesson he wouldn't soon forget.

I would've done something even more terrible...I'm getting angry just thinking about it.

 

[bombshoo]

I was in 8th grade....In French class....I got pissed off....We watched it until 1st tower collapased then a message on the P.A. told all the teachers to turn it off because it was disturbing....which it was, but I thought we were old enough to handle it, and it wasn't like turning it off stopped it from happening.

 

[Plexus]

I was asleep. I remember being restless that night; it was odd; I am usually a very peaceful sleeper. Aroused by my mom, she had turned my TV on to the news. I see two buildings, easily recognizable as the Twin Towers of the WTC, despite the massive amounts of smoke rising from two deep gashes. The TV explained that a plane had struck each of the towers. Video played the video we all know. I sat up in my bed, awestruck. Things like this don't happen. They just don't.

7:00 AM PST, I say a quick prayer and leave for school. Rumors fly around the area of the locker room, as I had PE first. One of my friends just got here, it being about 7:15 now, he said one of the towers fell. I told him to shut up, that does not happen.

The PA system soon proved me wrong. The school day was eerily normal. After school, I learned of the horrible, horrible things that happened, I think that that day has changed me forever.

 

[Perfection]

We were all at school, but they kept classes going anyways, rumors were rampant and noone knew what was going on. There were rumors flying that the white house, the statue of liberty, the IDS center (The tallest building in Minneapolis) and many other places were also being hit. The staff didn't know how to handle the sitution, and so they caused much more panic and anxiety then needed. I finally figured out what actually happened hours later at work and was actually relieved that it was "only" the WTC and the pentagon.

Edit: Kilroy, delete that now!

 

[Boris Badinov]

It was just before six in San Diego and I was on my way to work, when the first report came over the radio that an airplane had crashed in New York, no other details at that point. By the time I made it to work, the reports had clarified and it was being reported that the WTC had been struck. Tried to log onto the internet but servers were jammed by that time. Those of us in the repair depot all tuned the radios to the same news station, and we broke out the forbidden TV and rigged an antenna to get some video. No work was accomplished for the next four hours while we watched with horror the first tower and then the second tower collapse. Thankfully we didn't get to see the people fall, but we did get to see the second jet fly into the second tower. I was filled with an impotent rage, and the first thought was it was the PLO, but that was later proved to be incorrect... The end result was it was the same terrorist, just going by a different name.

 

[Wyrmshadow]

Junior Year. College.
I was in my morning AFROTC class. The captain that taught us was called outside of the classroom by our colonel. The O-6 came in and told us that 2 planes had crashed into the WTC and another plane into the Pentagon. We all thought they were B.S.ing us because it seemed too unreal. So after class a number of us went to the student lounge to see for ourselves on the tv in there. There was already a crowd. The univeristy flag poles went to half-mast quickly. Classes tried to carry on as usual. Many of my freshman were crying. We were all glued to the TV's for days on end. Rumor's were rampant. WW3 seemed just around the corner. I walked in a daze for most of the day. In times of tragedy past, my emotions seem to just shut down like when the Aggie Bonfire collapsed 4 years ago.