Do you remember where you were on 9/11?

[THoney269]

I remember being on the gun range at Basic training when I heard the announcement re: the first tower being hit by a plane. It didn't register in my mind how significant the location was in relation to where my younger sister was *supposed to be* until news of the second tower being hit & beginning to collapse was announced over the PA system.

I say where my sister was supposed to be because I thought she was working a catering/concessions job with our mother a block away from Ground Zero that day.

I don't think I've ever been so happy to have my gut reaction be proven wrong as I was on 13 September, when the sister i had joined the military to provide for and protect answered the phone with a sophomoric joke

 

[bobb_sledd]

We had the day off. I was playing golf on an Air Force Base just outside Washington D.C., one of the gentlemen in our group received a phone call informing him of the first aircraft striking the WTC. It was assumed to be an accident. Not long after he received another call informing him that the second plane had struck the second tower. He and I both left the course – him to his job at the pentagon, me to home to track the story before going into work. I spent the remainder of the day supervising the preparation of fighter aircraft soon to be flown on combat air patrols over the D.C. area. I stood on the flightline the evening of 9-11 and watched Air Force One returning President Bush to the capital.

 

[HordHolm]

I was at home in London, with a Canadian visitor (and very experienced Middle East traveller) who had just arrived in country - by only a couple of hours: a later flight and he'd likely have been grounded. I got a phone call to tell me to stick the BBC on and we saw the second plane hit. We just looked at each other and said Al Qaeda. It was just so obvious: the idea that anyone else could or would pull that off wasn't realistic. Being a Brit it wasn't quite so shocking to me as we'd had thirty years of bombs and shootings - essentially my whole life by that point, looking out for unaccompanied bags, massive truck bombs in the centre of London and mortar attacks on Downing Street. The scale of it was something else, though.

 

[MrPixel]

I was at home in our basement office, working on files for a consulting client. Wife calls from work telling me I need to turn on the TV, "We're at war," she said. It was after the second tower and before the Pentagon, and the news flash was that Flight 93 was MIA.

 

[Smuttyandfun]

We were living in Beijing. I was watching a program in our living room, and the rest of the family were flipping channels in the family room. They called out to me and told me to put on CNN. When I saw what happened, I went in and I watched it unfold with them. At first we thought it was just a small plane that accidentally hit, till the second plane hit the tower.
At the time, our was oldest was across the world going to school. He sounded scared when he called and said the subways were shut down, and all the tall buildings had been evacuated.
I also got a call at 4:00am letting me know that the International school, where my younger two went was closed, because they didn't know if Westerners were under attack. We also had to start showing ID to get into our compound after that.

 

[Dearelliot]

At work and I said, "That can't be an accident." I remember when it happened in the early 40s but I couldn't believe it would happen now.

 

[Duleigh]

I was actually writing a fanfiction for Farscape and chatting with friends on the SciFi channel fan forum when someone said "TURN ON YOUR TV" I turned it on in time to see the second plane hit. I was at the recruiter's office within the hour but I was too old and there was no plan to recall retired veterans.