Anyone remember where you were on 9/11/2001?

[Borg warner]

There are some things you never forget. I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when JFK was assassinated on Friday, November 22, 1963, and on September 11th 2001 it was about 8 AM Pacific time and I was getting ready for an appointment at the VA hospital and my girlfriend called me on the phone and yelled, ":Are you watching TV???" and I said no, and she yelled, Turn on your TV!!! and hung up. I turned on the TV and saw what was happening and then called the VA hospital and there was a recording that said all appointments were cancelled but would be re-scheduled the next day.

After I had watched the news for a couple of hours I decided to get  late breakfast and went to a local pancake house and talked to several people there. Everyone was shook up by what happened and it seemed like everyone felt the same way. The next day at the VA hospital everyone I talked to wished that they could put on the uniform again and go fight against whoever was responsible for the attacks. And many who were of age at that time joined the military.

It was an amazing time when there were hand-written signs everywhere saying "United we stand" and everywhere you looked people we displaying our flag. The nation was truly united for a time but that couldn't last and slowly began to change as event changed but then in 2008 we elected a president who did everything in his power in the next 8 years to divide us by race, creed, color, gender, religion, and political affiliation until we've reached the point where we are today where people won't even stand and face the flag when the national anthem is played at a football game because they think this country is no longer worthy of respect.

 

Edited September 12, 2018 by Borg warner

[holyjohnson]

i was living in MN i had moved here in `99 and my (now) SIL woke me up and said my (now) wife was calling from UMD and told me to get up now.

i went out to the TV and saw the WTC on fire and then the second plane hit the tower,i hung up and called my Mom in Boston who worked in a Hospital and we talked for a few minutes.

 

i will never forget her asking what that was falling and telling her it was people or her asking if i thought there were people still in those buildings just then the Tower fell.

 

May God Bless them.

[bigchuck83]

I remember where i was and what i was doing when i heard about the attacks.  I was in the Sunoco refinery in Tulsa,  when the handheld radios went crazy about going on lockdown and my boss telling us to get back to the office trailer,  we spent the next hour or so listening to the radio unable to believe what we heard and being both deeply saddened and angry.  I remember having to show my ID and being searched before leaving the refinery and driving home seeing the long lines at the gas stations from people panicking and just being angry and heartbroken for the next several days.

[John]

I was asleep. My mom woke me up. I went to school later and it’s all we watched. I signed up summer 2002 and shipped out 5/30/2003

[refugeepj]

rode into work at Sommers Graphics in South bend.

got off the bike and walked in, boss had the TV on and was watching what we thought was a horrible accident, until the second plane hit.

 when JFK was murdered, was in art class, James Monroe school, sitting next to a kid who became my lawyer later in life. we exited the school side by side, and there was an unusual quiet, even among the younger students. everyone seemed to know this was very bad.

[Borg warner]

7 minutes ago, refugeepj said:

rode into work at Sommers Graphics in South bend.

got off the bike and walked in, boss had the TV on and was watching what we thought was a horrible accident, until the second plane hit.

 when JFK was murdered, was in art class, James Monroe school, sitting next to a kid who became my lawyer later in life. we exited the school side by side, and there was an unusual quiet, even among the younger students. everyone seemed to know this was very bad.

I was also in James Monroe High School when Kennedy was shot. But the James Monroe High school I went to was in Southern California. I was in the 10th grade in my homeroom class.

[G26S239]

Tosco Avon Refinery in Martinez California. I got in and was dressing in my FRC coveralls when a Canadian, he has since been naturalized, on the crew came in and said "We are under attack" and someone else turned on KCBS Newsradio. It was quite a bit later that the Pearl Harbor comparison came to mind.

[JTMac]

I was working tech support in a room with no TVs or windows when it happened.  I first knew something was wrong because the internet went down.  I don't mean our connection to the internet.  I meant the internet.

I told my boss, who snidely told me that was impossible.  I was fairly bothered by his tone, because he knew that my job frequently involved telling customers that the entire internet was not down.  He tested my claim, and then headed to find a TV. 

The most amazing thing to me at the time was how shaken people around me were, despite being in the middle of the country and not knowing those affected.  My heart ached for the death and destruction, but to me terrorism and violence were regular occurrences and America was never immune.  To many others, though, terrorism happening at home--rather, foreign terrorism coming home--brought to mind a reality they had not actually considered before, like a killer coming to a town that had never locked its doors before. 

Unfortunately, some people took my lack of shock as a lack of empathy or patriotism.  That was not the case at all, but I certainly couldn't explain it to those who felt that way.  The only person who understood my feelings also happened to be the only person I knew who saw it personally.  He was in the New York Army National Guard, and his unit did relief work at the site.  As terrible as it was, I am thankful that in the aftermath the world got to see good people like him and all of the other first responders and volunteers demonstrating heroism real-time.  I believe that many people were inspired to carry that forward.

[Valmet]

Beginning of sophomore year of college at Ole Miss. Was en route to class and a buddy of mine stopped and said, “hey did you hear a plane just flew into the World Trade Center?” I hadn’t and immediately thought of that loon who flew a biplane into a tree on the WH lawn back in the 90s (I didn’t realize an airliner was what he was talking about). 

Went into class and my professor came in sobbing and she said, “if you haven’t already heard, a plane has flown into one of the World Trade Center towers, class is cancelled for today.” Immediately went to library to check e-mail, etc (pre-smartphone days) and has lots of TVs on in there and saw the second plane fly into the other tower live on TV. 

[FullClip]

I was in a meeting at a power plant in Lakeland FLA...suddenly everybody's cell phones strted ringing and buzzing...

[Maccabeus]

I was in a meeting with a group of mostly pastors. We were starting the meeting with prayer when one guy who came in late interrupted to tell us that there were reports of a plane hitting the WTC.  We added that to our prayers and then went straight to the church office to check the TV.  As soon as the pastors in the room saw what was happening, they all excused themselves from the meeting and left to be available to comfort and be with their church members during that emotional time.

[deputy tom]

I was in the bathroom when my son yelled through the door that someone had blown up the world trade center. I yelled back that that was old news. It happened long ago. He told me it's happening again, right now. I got to the TV asap and they were showing the pentagon. I was confused but then figured out that they had hit more than one area. Sad day for sure. tom.

[tadbart]

I was working as an EMT/FF/Security guard at a retirement community. Somebody drove up to the gatehouse and told me a plane just struck the WTC. I turned on the television, and saw the second plane hit. Looking back, that nationwide feeling in that very moment of "What the HELL is going on?" is the most eerie emotion I've ever experienced. That whole thing went from horrible accident to bewilderment to a realization we were at war, in very short succession, which built into a unifying nationwide anger for being suckerpunched.

That was my part time job, and we all were trying to figure out a way to get up there and help, for the rest of the day. Not that we knew anything about heavy rescue and recovery from collapsed buidlings, or would have been allowed near the site. Most of us who worked there had some hand in the aftermath of hurricane Andrew in south Florida.

[Pistolay]

I was in work at a large financial services company, walking through a lounge area with a friend on the way to get coffee. There was a TV mounted up close to the ceiling, and the first plane had just hit. We stood there watching for about a half hour, and standing there with my head tilted way up for that long caused a compressed nerve in my neck. I ended up losing the use of my left arm. It took months of MRIs, physical therapy, etc. to get back to relatively normal, and to this day, I have residual nerve damage in my arm, which manifests itself mainly in difficulty using a fingernail clipper. I still have the machine that I had to use at home every day to stretch my neck.

[PeterG7]

I was doing a dwelling inspection for insurance, the lady had her TV on and invited in to watch it. I had one more to do then hurried home to watch it unfold.


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[EricB]

Patrick AFB

[crockett]

I got home and a neighbor came over right away asking me if I knew what was going on. I had no clue so he filled me in, I turned on the TV, just in time to see the 2nd plane crash into the 2nd tower. We just starred at the TV and didn't say a word. I couldn't compute what my eyes just got to see. Was a totally fucked up day, stayed up all night long trying to understand, totally surreal.

[G26S239]

7 hours ago, Maccabeus said:

I was in a meeting with a group of mostly pastors. We were starting the meeting with prayer when one guy who came in late interrupted to tell us that there were reports of a plane hitting the WTC.  We added that to our prayers and then went straight to the church office to check the TV.  As soon as the pastors in the room saw what was happening, they all excused themselves from the meeting and left to be available to comfort and be with their church members during that emotional time.

Are you a Pastor? Or do you otherwise work in an official capacity for a church?

[Andyd]

I was on my way to Big Al's Gun Range in Pembroke Park with both my sons to arrive there at 10 a.m. I overheard the news but thought that it was about the previous attack on the World Trade Center. When I checked into the gun range, the employees who knew me well asked if I had heard about it and filled me in. They had the TV on and we only stayed shortly at the range and went back home. I got out the nice embroidered flag and hung in on Poinciana Island on the dockside.

 

[huevos]

I was at work at a fairly large technology company. Walked through the break room and saw the 1st tower on fire. The report was that a small plane had accidently crashed into it. While I was watching the report live the second plane hit the other tower, obviously intentional. I called my wife and told her I thought we'd be at war soon.

[C_Hallbert]

Arrived at work, pulling into the Parking Lot at McAlester Regional Hospital and listening to the radio. I am still angry enough to sanction enough nuclear weapons to turn the Middle East into a shining glass wasteland.....

When JFK was assassinated, I was Deer Hunting near the Beaver Kill River in Up State New York. We were informed by a Korean War Veteran that had been wounded and worked in a Machine Shop.....he kept wiping the tears from his eyes.


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[Maccabeus]

52 minutes ago, G26S239 said:

Are you a Pastor? Or do you otherwise work in an official capacity for a church?

Yes, but at that time I wasn't. I was on an internship that was the culmination of my seminary training.

It was impressive to me to see the seasoned guys who cared so much for the emotional well-being of their congregational members.  To a man, their first thought was not to just watch it all unfold and try to wrap their minds around it (which, as we all know, was a very natural & understandable reaction on that day); but, rather, they knew their flock would be emotionally hurting, reacting against the evil of the attackers actions, and struggling with fear, so they all left to go be alongside their people.  It was an equally memorable dynamic of that day.

[jmohme]

I was on a service call replacing the alternator on a Kenworth.

I had the radio on and heard the announcement that a plane had hit the first tower. I did not see how it could have been accidental and when the second hit all doubt was removed, but one of the dumbass announcers on the radio, did not seem to think so, making some comment like what are the odds of that?

[ARP]

JFK, I was 3?4? y/o. I sort of knew something bad had happened but had no concept of how big. Then a few days later Oswald got shot and recall watching that on tv with Walter Cronkite on the news.

Reagan (no one mentioned that), was a junior in college,(Indiana, PA) came in to the apartment from lunch, roommate had tv on, and told me excitedly what happened.

9.11.2001, was home and watched it unfold on tv, think I was watching cbs morning show.

[gwalchmai]

On 9/11/01 I was at the TVPPA office in Chattanooga

https://www.google.com/maps/place/1206+Broad+St,+Chattanooga,+TN+37402/@35.0406427,-85.3113235,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x88605e7eb9052b73:0x8fa371b0e081f57a!8m2!3d35.0406383!4d-85.3091348?hl=en

 

On 11/22/63 I was in Mrs. Norris' second grade class at Northside Elementary School in Cedartown

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Northside+Elementary+School/@34.0169433,-85.2556034,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x888ac3c7bdddf2d5:0x8bcdc314bd6043d6!8m2!3d34.0169389!4d-85.2534147?hl=en

 

Edited September 13, 2018 by gwalchmai