9-11 What did you do in the moments of the attack?

[+Gepard 11,289]

There are moments in the history which are burned in the brains of the mankind. And the most people still today know what they had done when they got knowledge about this moment. For the older generation the murder of President Kennedy was such a moment, or the begin of a war. And for our generation such moments are the fall of the Berlin Wall and 9-11.

 

What did you do in the moment when you got knowledge about the attacks of 9-11?

 

Lets begin with myself:

I came home from work, it was a sunny day, i had gone by bicylce to work and back. When i entered my flat i saw my wife sitting in front of the TV set. She looked speechless on the screen where one of the WTC towers was smoking. She looked and looked and does not realized that i was home. I was a little bit angry about this ignorance and so i said:" What for hell do you watching this moviebullsh..... Is there nothing better on TV."

I had not realized that it was live what she saw on TV, for me it was some strange movie.

And then she answered: "Its no movie, its real!"

For the first moment i thought nothing, glanced on the screen and did understand nothing.

And then i thought: "Oh, oh!" and some seconds later "This means war!"

Edited September 2, 2011 by Gepard

[+whiteknight06604 934]

I can home from work and sat with my eyes glued to the TV with tears streaming down my face.....What I did in NYC in the days that followed are between me God and my therapist. :( some stories and pain are ment to be taken to the grave. :(

10 years latter and anything 9-11 related is instantly shut off of my TV. this year will be my first time I will see anything 9-11 related on TV,it will be a long long day.

[Razorback 6]

I needed to go about a mile from my house to see it live.

 

I don't need to revisit those memories beyond that.

[JediMaster 451]

Well, this topic is probably a week early, but I was at work that morning, as I'd been for a couple of months at a new (and lousy) job, that luckily I was out of in another few weeks. My last job before the one I have now that's lasted 9.5 yrs, actually.

We had no TV. We had no radio. We had VERY limited internet. All our info came from people talking to other people on the phone about the attacks. First the call "a plane hit the WTC!" Then a 2nd call "another plane hit the other tower!" That's when people said oh S%*#! Without TV, the first just sounded like an accident to us. The 2nd proved it wasn't. Then came the phone calls about the 3rd plane hitting the Pentagon and the near simultaneous crash of the 4th plane and the groundings. At this point few people had their minds on the job, aside from our stupid managers who couldn't understand why some people were asking to go home and couldn't do their mind-numbing boring job of supporting this lame financial software to used car dealers for loaning money to people with bad credit while the country was under attack for the first time in 60 years (you'll recall I said the job was lousy).

 

My wife was in RI, having just flown there the night before for training at her company's HQ. She and the rest of her class managed to get the last rental car in town, and then she and they drove from RI down to TN, dropping off a couple of people on the way, where she then took an Amtrak down to Orlando (where I picked her up) while the last guy drove on to TX I think. She drove right past Manhattan (the road doesn't pass thru it, that's not the way to go fast up there) and saw the smoke from the south end, but wasn't ever up close.

 

So until she got back, I was nervous those 2 days, despite having to go back to work the next day to Hell Inc., and couldn't rest. No one knew if it was truly over or something would follow soon after.

 

Oh, I'll just add I had a cousin working in the 2nd tower that morning. Despite assurances from her manager and someone from the building that the trouble was next door and they were in no danger, she and many in her office decided to leave. She was down on the ground, leaving the building, when #2 hit. She ran.

Edited September 2, 2011 by JediMaster

[Fubar512 1,350]

In late August of 2001, the agency that I was contracting with, notified me of two projects that were starting in early September. One was with the Port Authority of NY & NJ (working in the WTC), and the other was with a firm in Parsippany, NJ.

 

While the project with the PA was the more convenient of the two (it involved no driving, just a 20 minute train ride from my home), I declined it because it was a just 90-day project, and because I'd be paying taxes to NJ, NY, and NYC at the same time. That decision may have saved my life...

 

I started working in Parsippany on the morning September 10, 2001. My job was to spool printed receipts and invoices from the various hotels and car rental franchises owned by the parent company, to an IBM high-speed printer (which was the size of a small car). One of the franchises was located in the WTC complex, and I was told to expect the print jobs from that location no later than 0900 every morning. My "office" was located in the basement of an office building...and I seldom saw anyone during the course of my day, other than the clerks who came to pick up the boxes of receipts that I printed for their departments.

 

The second day I was there, I noticed that the print job from the WTC had not arrived on time. I tried calling the WTC office, and heard an unexpected message" "All Circuits are currently busy, please try your call again"....what the hell?

 

Just before 0930, I tried calling the office that was expecting those reciepts....no answer. I tried calling my supervisor's office....no answer. I decided to go to the coffee room and make myself a cup of coffee, and try my supervisor again. The coffee room was empty....unusual, as 0930-1000 AM was the normal break time. depending on one's shift (my shift started at 0630). As I was returning to my office, I ran into a co-worker, whom I asked "Where is everyone?" He looked at me as if I'd grown a third-eye on my forehead, and told me that everybody in the building was in the cafetorium, watching CNN on the large projection screen TV...."a plane has hit the World Trade Center!"

 

I walked into the Cafetorium just in time to see the strike on the South Tower....

 

Needless to say, not much work got done that day...and the roads were eerily empty at 1430 when I left for the evening. As I crested a hill on Rt 24 near Florham Park, NJ...I saw the pillar of smoke from the WTC for the first time. It was clearly visible from 25 miles/40 KM away.

Edited September 2, 2011 by Fubar512

[Derk 265]

With my daughters (then aged 9,8 and 4) in the car on the way to the hospital in the Hague, where my wife had undergone surgery, it was on the radio that "a smalll plane had flown into the WTC in NY" . In the hospital on a tv screen I saw in live the second plane hitting ...... I remember saying that "there must be 50.000 people in those buildings........." The world had changed and would never be the same again. Had to explain a lot to the kids.......

 

 

Derk

 

And for that matter: I remember vividly the history teacher at the end of a highschool party announcing "a black day for the Western world: President Kennedy was shot tonight and is dead" and my American girlfriend at that moment (she was on an exchange program) bursting into tears........

Edited September 2, 2011 by Derk

[+daddyairplanes 10,235]

i was stationed in Germany at the time workin in the kitchen. while i was cutting onions for dinner(for me in Bamberg it was about 3 in the afternoon when it happened) a KP came in and announced that the third plane had hit the Pentagon. i had heard nothing of the Towers yet so i was very confused. after watching TV for about 5 mins and figuring out what happened i shot a call to my wife. see, USAEUR was very well versed about bin Laden at the time with the Cole bombing and other previous acts and we figured the next attack would come in Europe, not the States. my wife was shopping for her birthday meal and cake at the commissary that afternoon, which i was supposed to make after work that night.given my DFAC was in the center of base and on the other side of the commissary wall was the city of Bamberg, i told her to get to my work NOW! spend most every year now tryin to make her birthday cheerful enough to forget its also an anniversary.

[+Gocad 26]

I watched most of on it on CNN.

 

Everything felt pretty unreal.

[+CrazyhorseB34 937]

The morning of SEP 11 I boarded a Kuwait Air 747 at Heathrow, on my way back to Kuwait. Did not know anything until my buddy who was there to pick me up told me.

[+ianh755 196]

I'm an Avionics engineer in the RAF and I was fixing an ESM fault on one of our E-3D AWAC's out on the pan at Waddington when it happened so I didn't realise what had happened until I walked into our tea-bar just minutes after the 1st tower had collapsed and seconds before the 2nd one. Within 1hr we had prep'd the airfield to accept some of the civilian air traffic that had been turned away from US airspace (turned out that the big UK airports were able to cope without us). Within 2hrs we had sent messages to the other AWAC's crews Staged in Thumrait, Oman on exercise Saif Sareea II which was also a huge pre-prepared US airbase (shuttle diversion etc) as the bosses had already guessed we were going to be in a shooting war shortly. Within a month we'd sent every available AWAC's we had and were doing Op Veritas.

 

As 9/11's legacy toward myself, since 9/11 I've been on Op's in Afghanistan until Mar 2003 when I lleft there and flew straight to PSAB in Saudi for Gulf War II. I left AWAC's in 2005 after another Iraq tour and then joined 28SQN (the Merlin helicopter) where we deployed back to Iraq from 2005 to 2009 as a CASEVAC and then in 2010 I left them to join 617SQN (Tornado's) and have just got back a month ago from yet another tour in Afghanistan.

 

In 10 years I've racked up over 1200 days away on Ops and they've been the best and worst times of my life so far.

Edited September 2, 2011 by ianh755

[Nesher 628]

I was 15 years old, came back from school that day a few hours before...

watched the news and reports about the planes hitting the towers

it was about 16:00 hors local time

Edited September 3, 2011 by Nesher

[Ruggbutt 45]

I was working for my brother in law, running a paint crew on a high end tract of homes. Had to turn a home over to it's new owners and was listening to Stern as it all went down. I wanted to go home, but couldn't because I owed the homeowner the courtesy to finish my job. I felt sick, I got mad, I swore revenge. I went thru all the levels of emotion. Towards the end of the day I had to check out a home we had painted that had no power. Had to check the cut in at the ceiling so I took my 4 D-Cell Maglite flashlight w/me. As I was leaving the house two people on my crew (illegal aliens, I didn't hire them nor did I want them, they were forced on me) were laughing and talking in spanish about how great it was America got attacked. They were chatting about how much they hated America. The country that was putting food on their tables and giving them a better life than the s**thole country they came from. I lost it. I attacked them, the male first. Lonnie, the other guy working under me had to take me to the ground to keep me from killing one of the illegals. They took off in a hurry and I called my brother in law right away so that he got the story straight from me before they got a chance to say anything to him. They showed up for work the next day with an American flag sticker on the back window of their truck. Like that was going to make me feel any different about them. I felt it was a shame that doing residential construction wasn't very dangerous cuz it would have been awesome if one of them had got hurt on the job...................About 8 months later my brother in law asked me to lay them off. It's the only time in my life that I enjoyed telling someone they no longer had a job.

 

I don't work on 9/11 to this day. My employees can if they want to, but I make myself incommunicado and I do much of nothing. I make sure that I remember the events of that day, and keep them with me so that I'll never forget the day that my fellow countrymen were murdered in the name of islam.

[Caesar 305]

I was initially in Biology class in high school when I first heard the news, and I couldn't believe it. I figured it was some kind of hoax, especially when I had heard the Pentagon was hit. A few hours later in Math, our teacher had his computer hooked up to the internet where there were pictures of the incident. I didn't see the video until I got back home from school. At first, I hadn't realized it was all over, so when they showed footage of the second plane hitting, that got seared into my memory pretty darn well. Can't believe it has been a decade.

[misterbobleh 0]

I was just watching cartoons, minding my own business..

There was a phone call. my sister answered, rushed to the living room and changed the channel.

At the first few seconds I thought "That's not interesting. I was watching that cartoon!", but then I realized that we are watching the news, and there's a real burning tower.

I was very young, so I wasn't affected by the events, but today I see how significant it is for all of us.

[Viggen 644]

I didn't hear about it until I got home from school, so probably close to 4:00 in the afternoon. I was in third grade and was 8 at the time. We weren't told anything at school, probably because of our tender age. My dad picked me up from the bus stop and looked sad, but didn't tell me what was going on. The TV was on in the living room and probably within ten seconds of walking in, I witnessed a replay of one of the towers collapsing. Confusion, anger, fear, sadness all entered my mind as my family and I watched the news for the rest of the night. As I tried to get to sleep, I heard what was probably an F-15 or F-16 and got scared. If I was nine or ten years older, I would have probably gone to enlist in the Army the next day.

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

I was a delivery driver...and when I heard on the radio an aircraft had hit the WTC...my first reaction (as I suspect was the same for most people) was that there had been a terrible accident.

 

20 mins later, when the second plane hit...I thought "OMG...a War has broken out"

 

A lot of the videos I have seen were watered down for obvious reason's...but as the 10th Anniversary approaches, there are quite a few documentaries on...and I have seen the people falling from the towers....sickening sight indeed.

 

Previuosly, I had seen a documentary filmed in the foyer of tower 2...prior to those incredibly brave firefighters, about to go up the stairs...and you could here the bodies hitting the sidewalk...like a breezeblock impacting.

 

It haunts me to this day

 

even now, all this time later...when you see it on the TV...you almost expect a hollywood actor to emerge from the dust...it just still seems unbelievable

Edited September 4, 2011 by UK_Widowmaker

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

 

 

I don't work on 9/11 to this day. My employees can if they want to, but I make myself incommunicado and I do much of nothing. I make sure that I remember the events of that day, and keep them with me so that I'll never forget the day that my fellow countrymen were murdered in the name of islam.

 

They were killed in the name of lunacy

 

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.

Edited September 4, 2011 by UK_Widowmaker

[+Jug 99]

I work seated next to a Muslim and I have come to respect him as an American and a person of faith. He is an American, just like me and you. We know that bad guys of all walks in life use religion to further their own agenda. Jim Jones used Christianity to encourage his followers to drink the Kool-aid. The Pope endorsed the excesses of the Inquisition. Some Nazi SS belt buckles say "Got mit uns" - God is with us (I have one).

 

Religious zealots exist in every religion and at all levels. My Muslim workmate regrets, remembers, and prays for the souls of the Americans that died that day. Keep in mind that Jews, Christians and Muslims all worship the same God of Abraham. It is the zealots who twist the peace of faith to their particular cultural pursuits that have nothing to do with religion. It is important to apply some plain old common sense when hearing the pleas of anyone to commit acts that are not found in the teachings of any religion and equally important to do the same thing when the 'religious' people of a different faith indict the other religion in question as the cause. The sword cuts both ways.

 

It is against everything our founding fathers created in the America that I defended for 20 years where freedom of choice and faith is cherished to blame a religion that is different from yours for murderous acts.

 

Sorry, I go off on loose comments sometimes. However, loose lips do sink ships!

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

Well said Jug!

[xclusiv8 35]

I was in 9th grade when it happened. I remember a teacher coming in to our classroom and telling us all to go to some big classroom for a "school meeting". Then they showed the news and the teachers talked about it. Then we went back to class and the rest of that day we didnt get anything done. All we did was discuss who could have done it and why. Some girls cried and some pupils went home. It was a very strange day.

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

Typically, I slept through it. Was up studying up all night, woke up late morning and 2 towers were already history. Didn't have class that day, and uni closed the next day (I think everybody closed down a day after that).

 

The one thing that nobody else(**) noticed, and that's never happened before at least here in USA for many decades, is the week after 911 Massacre, the sky was totally absent of contrails. Nothing. I may have seen one or two -- military probably. They shut down all airlines and stuff for a week if I recall.

 

(**) NASA used that post-911 week to do some kind of satellite studies on the lack of contrail formation over USA, so somebody else noticed it seems.

[+Typhoid 231]

I was listening to the radio coverage of the attack while it happened while driving to a meeting. The second plane hit during the coverage along with the initial reports of "an explosion" at the Pentagon. The meeting was cancelled and we were told to not try to go back to our offices on the base - the base was in lockdown.

 

I went back to my company where we all stood around in shock. At home, I watched the replay over and over.

 

The next day went into insane and stayed that way for the next several years.

[+JonathanRL 974]

I was at a friends house. We was switching past the channels and we past CNN - who had live coverage. I told him to keep it on - He did not feel it was warranted - and we where just about in time to see the second plane hit a few minutes later. At first, I could not belive it. I tought it was a replay, and so did my mate. It was only when I heard myself say "The tower burned before the impact" that I understood what had happened. I did not leave the house all evening.

[+Dave 2,322]

Every year at this time I get sick to my stomach. I have so much hatred towards the people and ideology who did this. I hurt just as bad as the day it happen. I just cant describe the feelings I have....

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

Then of course, a few days later...another Airliner went down in Queens...with an horrific loss of life...once Terrorism was ruled out...it was forgotten!....I like to remember those people too

 

My Fishing club is hosting a charity Carp Catch on Sunday September 11th...with proceeds going to the FealGood Foundation.

 

We will also be having a minutes silence before the start...In memory of all who lived and died that day

Edited September 8, 2011 by UK_Widowmaker