9/11

[YoursSINSerely]

Please share a story of what you were doing when you heard the news about the World Trade Center Towers being attacked.

It will help me to know that I'm not alone in my feelings. Not having a good day, east of the river, twelve years later.

 

[_Lynn_]

I was at work . . . I was an administrative assistant at an assisted living facility then. The seniors gathered to watch the news. When I went to NYC on a volunteer trip in November, some of those seniors baked cookies for me to take. They also added notes even though writing wasn't easy for some of them. The cookies went to two fire stations, including the one where our group served Thanksgiving dinner.

 

[PennLady]

I was at work and oddly enough, did not hear what was going on until later, probably after both towers had fallen. I didn't have the TV on in the morning (never do), and listened to a Discman (remember those?) while on the Metro to go to my office, which was within a mile of the Pentagon.

When I got to work and went to check a news site -- ABC News, actually -- it wouldn't load and I just shrugged it off. Then a coworker asked if I could help with his computer, which turned out to be a similar problem on a different site, and that was when I first heard of a plane hitting the first tower, but we both thought it was just a horrible accident. I don't know why it didn't occur to me to go to our break area and check the news on the TV there, but I didn't.

So, later, word filtered through about the WTC and we were all a bit weirded out, but the really freaky part, for me and a few others, I'm sure, was standing in our conference room, which had floor-to-ceiling windows and was on the 14th floor of our building, and watching debris rain down -- debris from the plane that had hit the Pentagon.

Various rumors started going around, nearly all false I think, including one of a car bomb at the State Department. I started using a credit card to call family and then thought, that's dumb, and dialed directly. My brother, who was attending Univ of Maryland, offered to come and get me, which was sweet but unnecessary. I was more concerned about Mr Penn, who worked in DC at the time, but he got out on the Metro with no trouble.

A coworker and I walked home to my place and were in fact faster on foot than the cars were on the road. From the Metro station, we could see the smoke from the Pentagon. It was a long walk to the next Metro station down, and we decided at one point to take a bus, which threw me off with my husband, since we only had one cell phone and I was carrying it. He'd gone to meet us at the Metro stop across from our development, but since I was on the bus we were much later than we intended to be. However, we all hooked up without incident.

My coworker's wife picked him up later and it wasn't until close to dinner time that I saw the news. I may have turned on the radio but I just couldn't make myself watch TV at first.

In hindsight, I could have and probably should have stayed at my office, but like I said, I was a little freaked out. I wanted to be home with my husband.

I tend not to read a lot or anything about the various remembrances that come up on the yearly anniversary. But I do remember.

 

[TheeGoatPig]

I was sitting at work listening to Howard Stern while posting on the Gamespy 3d Action Planet forums. The more news I heard pour in the more nauseous I felt. I made it through the day, but I felt ill when I got home, and then amazed at what it looked like from all the news media. It was a weird mix of emotions.

 

[sr71plt]

I'm a late riser. I was awakened by a phone call from a shaken daughter who, at the time, lived on the 12th-floor in a high-rise apartment house in Rosslyn (across the Potomac from Georgetown) to the west of the Pentagon. She'd been getting ready for work--she worked for a defense contractor and had a presentation to give at the Pentagon that morning. A plane had gone by her window on the Potomac at the level of her bedroom window and she'd heard it hit the Pentagon. She alerted me to turn on the TV just at the time to see the second plane hit the WTC in real time.

A crew was working on fencing our backyard and I had to go out and tell them what was happening. One of them had relatives in NYC, so I told them to go ahead and leave. (The fence was done when I eventually got back home from Washington.)

Called my wife at work, where everyone was glued to a TV. Didn't see her again until late that night. She was on the phone nearly full time with our daughter.

A couple of hours later got the call to come back to Washington as soon as I could. My last foreign assignment had been on Mideast terrorism in the Middle East. I'd been forced into retirement four years earlier by having been put on an al-Qaida hit list.

Stayed with my daughter for a week and a half until I no longer was needed in Washington (they actually had too many people trying to work too little information--although we'd been anticipating such acts as this for a decade). During that first several days I had to help my daughter deal with having a close friend on the missing list at the Pentagon. He was found wandering around, incoherent and bloodied in a park in Crystal City (east of the pentagon--at Ronald Reagan airport) two days after the hit at the Pentagon. The police took him for a homeless man. Apparently he had walked out of the rubble and had no idea what was what for more than a week.

My daughter said she was having nightmares, fancying that she could see screaming people in the windows of the plane as it roared past, and couldn't stay in the apartment--or the city--any longer and moved to a mountain top an hour-and-a-half commute west of Washington (where she still lives).

 

[PennLady]

I wasn't far from your daughter, sr71; I worked in Crystal City at the time, and had only moved from a nearby Arlington apartment to Alexandria, VA, a few months before. It was a weird few days in that area after Sept 11.

We were also concerned for our employees. I worked for a newsletter publisher and we had five or six publications on defense policy, so it was common for our reporters to be at the Pentagon. Luckily that day I don't think anyone was.

And you know, I generally can't bring myself to call it "9/11" or "Nine-eleven." I usually refer to the "Sept 11 attacks." For me -- and I don't mind if others do it -- shortening it to some sort of buzzword rubs me the wrong way.

 

[sr71plt]

What rubs me the wrong way are government conspiracy claims. I know for a fact how hard the government worked to prevent just this for more than a decade--and how many attempts we did stop (and continue to stop). The one statement I heard Bush make that I fully agreed with was that the terrorists have to get it right only once and we have to get it right every time.

When I got to the office in Langley the next morning, everyone I saw in the building was still crying--and most of them hadn't been home since the previous morning.

 

[YoursSINSerely]

I wasn't far from your daughter, sr71; I worked in Crystal City at the time, and had only moved from a nearby Arlington apartment to Alexandria, VA, a few months before. It was a weird few days in that area after Sept 11.

We were also concerned for our employees. I worked for a newsletter publisher and we had five or six publications on defense policy, so it was common for our reporters to be at the Pentagon. Luckily that day I don't think anyone was.

And you know, I generally can't bring myself to call it "9/11" or "Nine-eleven." I usually refer to the "Sept 11 attacks." For me -- and I don't mind if others do it -- shortening it to some sort of buzzword rubs me the wrong way.

I call it "September 11th", Penn Lady. I was being a lazy typer. {hugs}

I had heard the news that morning at work from co-workers who all knew my daughter worked in NYC, and on the very same street at the WTC, albeit, 43 blocks away, but they told me about the plane crashing into it.

I called her from the company phone, something I never used for personal calls, even though I didn't own a personsal cell phone back then. I pulled her business card out of my wallet and called her desk. "Amy, a plane just crashed into the WTC!" "Oh, Mom! Don't worry, they've bombed the WTC before. I'll be alright."

Hang up.

Time goes by and watching what little computer time we can grab, going from one desktop to another.

Dial, again!

"Amy, a second plane has just gone into the WTC. Get the FUCK out of that city! You know how hard it is to get out when the President comes to visit. Go now!"

"We are going. I'm meeting Missy and Jenn down at such and such street. We will all be together and figure out how to get home. Tunnels are closed. Buses have been shut down. There ARE not cabs. We will walk. I'll call you later."

Then the cell towers went out!

I called my future SIL. "Have your heard from any of them?" "Yes, they are walking to the ferry. It's the only way out."

They carried their high heels and walked barefoot on the city streets. They hadn't seen the news on the TV. They had no idea of the pictures that were being shown, but the air was full of dust and they knew they had to get home, somehow.

And, this mother was glued to the TV and waited.

Finally, I heard the news that she and all of her friends were home safely. I heard stories about how they were crowded onto the ferry with really no idea of what had just happened, but looking around at people in their business suits covered in a white powder (soot) and asked each other, "What the Hell just happened?"

The next day, the President and CEO's secretary of my Company called me (this isn't a small company) called me to find out how I was doing. It made me feel good to know this company out in the midwest even knew about what was going on east of my river. Little did I know, the whole world was watching.

I NEVER want to go through this again! Horrible, horrible day!

 

[AirRichard101]

Pilot, I don't dispute your recollections about your daughter waking you after the Pentagon has hit and then seeing the second plane hit the WTC on TV but it wasn't in real time (or live); it HAD to be a replay. This is the official timeline:

8:46 - First plane hits WTC
9:03 - Second plane hits WTC
9:37 - Plane hits Pentagon​

Personally, I was preparing to go to work. Per my normal habit, after my morning shower, I was dressing and watching TV. Breaking news of the first plane crash was filtering into morning programs. Early reports suggested it was a small plane. I'll never forget witnessing LIVE as the second plane entered the television news coverage view and hit the second tower. A gut-wrenching feeling dropped me into a chair as I realized that I witness the deaths of hundreds of people. The TV commentators were momentarily speechless. I instantly figured that both crashes were a terrorists attack. I found Sandy talking to a woman outside and informed her.

Instead of going to work, I watched news coverage for another two hours. I finally did go to work because my boss called me. By that time, all commercial airplanes were on the ground. Living within the air patterns of Chicago's O'Hare airport (and working even closer), it was a strange sight to not see or hear any planes.

In the days that followed, there were little blips of disruption in the lives of normal people and the businesses of daily living, even far away from the attacks. In our little town, gasoline shipments were interrupted for a few days. The Shell gas station where normally I bought gas ran out of regular unleaded. The station began selling his mid-grade gas at the lower price of regular. The station owner did that on his own and was not compensated for his losses by corporate Shell. I discovered when I contacted him to extend my appreciation that he was of Middle East ancestry and a muslim.

 

[sr71plt]

I don't doubt that. It was all rather hazy. I had a moment of thought that I should look the time sequence up and decided not to, as this is the way I remembered it.

One of the weird things is that every time I look at our fence in the backyard, I think "9/11"--just because it was being put in that day.

 

[Neonurotic]

Was living in Baton Rouge at the time and just got off late shift, having a beer to get ready for bed. I saw it first on Yahoo front page and thought it was some tasteless joke until I turned on the TV and found it wasn't. I felt the blood drain out of my face and was physically ill. I could not go to sleep for a couple days after since I was glued to the news coverage.

 

[pocketbooklover]

I also live in the Northern VA area. The FAA center that basically controls the eastern seaboard is extremely close to where I worked and I remember looking out the window and seeing National Guard trucks pull up and men in flack jackets and carrying machine guns running around. My first thought was WTF. We had no idea what was going on, since we had no internet access.

The store next to mine did so I went over there to find out what was going on and got there a minute before the second plane hit. I immediately went back to my store and told my employees what was going on and minutes later corporate called and asked how close we were to any government buildings. I told them about seeing the National Guard across the street and their response was "Close down now and go home. Make sure all employees are informed not to come in until further notice." I hung up the phone and put up a sign that we were closing. As I was shutting the door mall security came by and said we would be fined $1,000 for closing.

I called corporate and told them and the President of the company got on the phone and he told me, "Get home, we will deal with anything later. Stay safe."

When I got home, I called my husband who worked in Crystal City and got nothing but voice mail. Their office had been closed and he was on the way home, but cell service was overloaded and neither of us could get through. Six hours later he finally made the 45 mile trip home.

 

[PennLady]

I call it "September 11th", Penn Lady. I was being a lazy typer. {hugs}

LOL It's not a problem. So many people do it, and I get why, and that doesn't other me, but I just can't quite bring myself to do it. Then again, any big news event that gets reduced to a catchy title gets on my nerves, too. Which doesn't mean I don't do it myself, just that it bugs me.

I NEVER want to go through this again! Horrible, horrible day!

I'm sure no one does. My mom, who is an Olympic-caliber worrier, was no doubt beside herself with me in Virginia near DC and my brother in College Park, MD. For phones, like I said, I ended up dialing directly from my office to both my parents and my in-laws. It dawned on me pretty quickly that no one at the office would care, and no one did.

 

[dacoach44]

911

I was in S Korea with the military at the time. I was stunned. Went to local VFW and talked to the old boys, and they didn't act surprised at all. Manager of hotel said, with a grin, " we don't have terrorists here."

Why in hell didn't the feds see this coming? There was the attack in NYC in 1993 or so. This is not Law and Order, this is fuckin' WAR! I was over there in 1991, got to see Saddam's boys in action. Believe me people, they are out to kill us and enslave the women.

 

[Cruel2BKind]

I remember a lot of people being taken out of school, but not knowing why.

The actual day was fuzzy, but I remember the aftermath more. Seeing the replays for the first time the day after, my mom crying when she drove me home.

In our art class we drew cards for the survivors. I remember the art teacher telling us to write nice things, not to draw planes crashing into buildings, explosions, or people getting hurt.

I remember a girl named Shahad switching schools because a bunch of boys threw her in the mud, beat her up, and called her an Iraqi pig.

I remember going outside to stare up at the American Flag every consecutive year on 9/11 to say the pledge of allegiance.

For a year, I became very paranoid about nuclear warfare. Mostly because of misinformation. A boy in my grade told me that Al Quaeda had nuclear weapons, and that nuclear bombs were so powerful that they could destroy an entire country. I constantly talked to my parents and older figures in authority (teachers, school psychiatrist, family) if there was any chance, any possibility that someone would try to bomb Minnesota.

I felt relatively safe until my aunt told me about the munitions plant that was only a mile from my neighborhood.

 

[sr71plt]

I was in S Korea with the military at the time. I was stunned. Went to local VFW and talked to the old boys, and they didn't act surprised at all. Manager of hotel said, with a grin, " we don't have terrorists here."

Why in hell didn't the feds see this coming? There was the attack in NYC in 1993 or so. This is not Law and Order, this is fuckin' WAR! I was over there in 1991, got to see Saddam's boys in action. Believe me people, they are out to kill us and enslave the women.

Oh, shit. And dammit, dammit, dammit, I'm off this thread now. The feds fought this for more than a decade, dummy. This wasn't the first time it happened, dummy. No one was keeping the threats a secret, dummy. The American people didn't want to know, dummy. And it wouldn't have helped them even if they allowed themselves to fully know the threat to their very, very, open style of life--DUMMY.

Geez.

I will add, DUMMY, that this didn't have damn thing to do with Saddam Hussein, DUMMY. If the feds at the time ("feds" is a misnomer. There's the federal government that glumps along no matter what party is in charge and then there is the party in power)--meaning the Republican adminstration--can be blamed for anything, it is in using 9/11 to go for a grudge match with Saddam Hussein that had nothing to do with the people who were behind the 9/11 bombings. The people who were behind the 9/11 bombings were just as pleased as punch to see Saddam go and for us to bog ourselves down in Iraq (and had, as a matter of fact, offered to off him for us--a deal we probably should have taken).

And now I'm gone. Because I just can't take Americans sitting back in their recliners and complaining about the taxes they have to pay as well as about a government that can't protect them from every single attack on the very open, very extensive infrastructure.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I was at a professional conference. I'd flown into & across the USA two days previously, and I was giving my first ever conference presentation about an hour after the WTC strikes. You can imagine how that went.

One of the guys travelling with us was a Saudi national. We made sure he had somebody white with him on the way back... poor guy was just as outraged as any of us, but also had to deal with being a target.

It's odd the way things mix. I remember things being in shock and chaos all that week... but I also remember people doing their usual stuff at the con party. Had to escort one lady who'd had too much to drink because one of our guys was REALLY KEEN to take her home, if you know what I mean. He hung around for quite a while before getting the message we weren't leaving him alone with her.

 

[PennLady]

What rubs me the wrong way are government conspiracy claims. I know for a fact how hard the government worked to prevent just this for more than a decade--and how many attempts we did stop (and continue to stop). The one statement I heard Bush make that I fully agreed with was that the terrorists have to get it right only once and we have to get it right every time.

When I got to the office in Langley the next morning, everyone I saw in the building was still crying--and most of them hadn't been home since the previous morning.

I meant to say before that I agree with you on this. I think most people in the government (and that is a huge, broad term to encompass a lot of people and jobs) simply want to do a good job. It is hard for people to appreciate what gets done when much of it can't be put in the press. And I would agree with Bush's statement as well, and probably wouldn't with anything else he said.

 

[YoursSINSerely]

LOL It's not a problem. So many people do it, and I get why, and that doesn't other me, but I just can't quite bring myself to do it. Then again, any big news event that gets reduced to a catchy title gets on my nerves, too. Which doesn't mean I don't do it myself, just that it bugs me.



I'm sure no one does. My mom, who is an Olympic-caliber worrier, was no doubt beside herself with me in Virginia near DC and my brother in College Park, MD. For phones, like I said, I ended up dialing directly from my office to both my parents and my in-laws. It dawned on me pretty quickly that no one at the office would care, and no one did.

Penn Lady, I do like what the media has done with the 9 and the || columns that represent the twin towers, though.

Someday, I will trek to the the museum . . . and hold my breath, and say a prayer.

 

[YoursSINSerely]

I was in S Korea with the military at the time. I was stunned. Went to local VFW and talked to the old boys, and they didn't act surprised at all. Manager of hotel said, with a grin, " we don't have terrorists here."

Why in hell didn't the feds see this coming? There was the attack in NYC in 1993 or so. This is not Law and Order, this is fuckin' WAR! I was over there in 1991, got to see Saddam's boys in action. Believe me people, they are out to kill us and enslave the women.

That was the bombing that my daughter talked about, 1993. the one in the garage that failed. She was there for that one, too, so she was blowing off this next attacked, too. Thought it was just some little piper jet having some fun with a building.

Thanks for sharing. Thanks for serving!

 

[YoursSINSerely]

I remember a lot of people being taken out of school, but not knowing why.

The actual day was fuzzy, but I remember the aftermath more. Seeing the replays for the first time the day after, my mom crying when she drove me home.

In our art class we drew cards for the survivors. I remember the art teacher telling us to write nice things, not to draw planes crashing into buildings, explosions, or people getting hurt.

I remember a girl named Shahad switching schools because a bunch of boys threw her in the mud, beat her up, and called her an Iraqi pig.

I remember going outside to stare up at the American Flag every consecutive year on 9/11 to say the pledge of allegiance.

For a year, I became very paranoid about nuclear warfare. Mostly because of misinformation. A boy in my grade told me that Al Quaeda had nuclear weapons, and that nuclear bombs were so powerful that they could destroy an entire country. I constantly talked to my parents and older figures in authority (teachers, school psychiatrist, family) if there was any chance, any possibility that someone would try to bomb Minnesota.

I felt relatively safe until my aunt told me about the munitions plant that was only a mile from my neighborhood.

Damn that Aunt! But, hey, ya never know. Minnesota? Cheese? You might have nothing to worry about.

I'm so sorry that kids were traumatized about this. Absolutely no way for innocent children to be brought up with. (I heard recently that New Englanders end sentences with prepositions. Sorry! I'm one of them.)

 

[dearc]

I was at work that day. There was a television in the director's office . We all watched the news unfold through out the day. My family was home planning my birthday party. Birthdays haven't been the same since.

 

[pocketbooklover]

If anybody has the chance, they should go to the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville. To stand there and realize those passengers knew what was happening and still had the courage to try and prevent another building from being hit...it is humbling. Regardless of politics and whatever else you believe in, those people believed in doing what they felt was the right thing. Who knows how many lives they saved that day by sacrificing their own.

 

[YoursSINSerely]

I was at work that day. There was a television in the director's office . We all watched the news unfold through out the day. My family was home planning my birthday party. Birthdays haven't been the same since.

Ah, gees, Dear. That story sucks!

I'll wish you a happy birthday, and really mean it!

 

[dearc]

Ah, gees, Dear. That story sucks!

I'll wish you a happy birthday, and really mean it!

Thank you SIN.