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Location: Blue Ridge Mountains | Six years ago today...where were you and what were you doing when you heard the news?
I was in my office when the phone rang; long distance from a friend at another church...I ran upstairs just in time to see plane 2 hit the south tower...I barely moved for the next 6 hours...opened the church for a prayer service later that day...I can see it as though it were happening right now!
Never Forget! And please remember those who died and who are still giving their all to try to make sure it doesn't repeat...
Freedom was never free!
Semper Fi! |
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Location: CT | In my office, 49th and Broadway, when a co-worker called and said he couldn't get in from Brooklyn because the subway was closed. I had CNN on while I was talking to him, and could simultaneously see the smoke out the window here that looks down Broadway. "a small plane hit...blah blah..." he was saying, and as I looked at the damage to the tower, and realised any light plane would just bounce off the structure. I told him that doesn't look like a light plane strike. At that moment, as I was watching the TV and the smoke out my window talking to my friend, the 2nd plane hit the other tower. I told him 'thats no accident', he said 'nope, its terrorists'. |
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Location: Earth·SolarSystem·LocalInterstellarCloud·Local Bub | I can smell Miles closing this one already.... |
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Location: NJ | I was watching it, first-hand.
I was on my way in to work with my normal view of the Skyline & thought it was unusual t'see "steam" coming off the building (I didn't see the 1st plane hit). As it quickly grew blacker, I knew something was wrong.
You know the rest . . . |
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Location: Vermont USA | Jeff W. Posted
"I can smell Miles closing this one already"
It's OK to remember it's not about politics or religion, it's about people. So play a song to remember those who have gone before us.
Pauly |
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Location: 6 String Ranch | I was in a Board of Directors meeting, working. Glad I don't do that anymore. |
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| I was doing custom stain and varnish refinishing in the old governor's mansion in Blowing Rock, North Carolina when I saw the 'professional demolition' of World Trade Center towers I, II, and VII.(..the media lies, the laws of physics don't.) |
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Location: Munich, Germany | I know exactly what I was doing...
I came home from a walk with my dog when somebody called on the phone and told me there has been an accident: A plane crashed into one of the World Trade Center's. I switched the TV on - and I saw plane 2 crashing in.
I was staring shocked at the news - when my music store called and told me that my guitar has arrived: The first US Ovation I bought factoryfresh.
So I jumped in the car, picked up my "9/11 guitar" while listening to the radio, came home, turned all the news stations we have (CNN for example) on different TV's on - and since I did not have that much work then - watched nearly every minute that was broadcasted in the next hours, days, weeks - while I was sitting in front of the TV, playing my new guitar.
I can't remember anything else hit me that hard - and most of you know that I am sitting in a wheelchair after a motorcycle accident.
I had tears in my eyes when I saw the people applauding the fireworkers, I was full of humility when I saw the hundreds of people giving blood, I remember Bruce Springsteen opened the "concert" with his song "City of Ruins".
I will never forget 9/11 and the following days - the pain and devastation - but also the impressive power and union of people.
Kurt |
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Location: Omaha, NE | I was working at my home office (I was still consulting back then) when my wife called me upstairs with a real sense of urgency in her voice.
As I got to the living room where the TV was she said "A plane just hit the World Trade Center!"
Honestly, my first thought was that somehow something had gone horribly wrong with the air traffic control system and they had accidentally routed a plane right into the building. Then we saw the second strike and we knew.
But it wasn't until the first tower collapsed that I thought this was a very big deal. Angie kept saying "What if the buildings fall over" and I kept saying "No way that happens. They are designed for this sort of thing". Then WHUMP and that was that. Horrible. Shocking. |
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Location: Capital District, NY, USA Minor Outlying Islands | "Never Forget" and "Freedom is never free" are simplistic slogans ... Be that as it may ... I was here, I saw it, smelled the smoke which contained the dust of people, saw the chaos, saw "shapes" falling out the windows which were people, the F-15s, the helicopters, the army running thru the streets, the people streaming out of manhattan like refugees, helped the refugees off the boats underneath the Brooklyn Bridge with my wife ... I too could keep writing, about the gross manipulation of the American people, and the whole thing makes my blood boil and really pisses me off from top to bottom.
I'd rather not talk about it, but since I wrote it what the hell. |
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Location: Texas | I was in my office at home (was still working at the time), did not have the TV on....called a co-worker to ask about a project we were working on. I was talking ninty miles an hour and no response from her. I kept asking if she heard my question....Her first and last words to me were - turn on the TV. I turned the TV on and that is where I sat for the next 3 days.
Today, I don't care about politics, what we were warned about, what signs there were....I just care about the 3,000 plus people who died.
Still seems like yesterday. :( |
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Location: South of most, North of few | My family and I were in S. Carolina somewhere on our way to vacation, kind of isolated from the world news listening to CD's when we stopped at a little town, Blacksburg, to buy something to eat when we found out. It seemed as if we were watching a movie on that TV in the store, so unreal. Welcome to the future. :( |
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Location: Boise, Idaho | I was driving across southern Idaho going to Twin Falls. I must not have been too far, because I heard the news on the radio and thought it was some War of the Worlds spoof. Didn't see anything on TV until I got to Twin Falls, where we watched in the other lawyer's office. |
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Location: Utah | I am an airline captain, and was flying that morning. We were on our first flight of the day, leaving Cody Wyoming for Salt Lake City, which takes about an hour in the turbo-prop I was flying at the time.
We picked up our clearance and departed into a perfect morning, with literally unlimited visibility and smooth air. We checked on with Salt Lake Center as we climbed, and got the usual "radar contact" response. Normally we climb above the nearby ridgeline and then get a direct clearance to Brigham City, which is about 50 miles north of SLC and is the point over which they funnel all the inbound traffic.
That morning though, we were cleared "Direct Salt Lake Airport, max forward airspeed". Wow, we thought it was our lucky day! Never had that before, so maybe we were just the first flight in line that morning and they wanted us to go fast. This is normally a busy time with the inbound rush.
The frequency was totally quiet except for one flight ahead of us that was handed off to the next ATC sector. Twenty minutes later we were handed off to that new sector. Still no other traffic on frequency. He hands us over to Salt Lake Approach, who immediately clears us for the approach, cleared to land, taxi to the gate this frequency.
This is a major WTF moment. We contact company to get our gate assignment and are told to shut down when we get to the gate and come inside. They refuse to tell us why. The First Officer and I decide that either the company has gone out of business or we are at war.
We land and taxi in, with dead quiet on the field. Every gate is full. We unload, shut it down cold, and go inside. We see replays of the second airplane hitting the WTC.
We were told that the FAA was hoping to get us back in the air in a couple of hours and so we had to stay at the airport. I walked around the terminals just watching the people. Some were out at the gate areas away from any televisions and so were completely unaware of what was happening. In front of Dick Clark's Restaurant there was a large group watching the overhead tv, mostly in total silence.
At one point I called my dad, who lives in NYC. Amazingly the call went right through. It turns out that he was supposed to meet a friend at the WTC and then go golfing, but he broke his toe and cancelled. He would have been in the lobby at the time the first airplane hit had he not randomly stubbed his toe. |
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Location: Marlton, NJ | I also work out of a home office. We got a call from my neighbor across the street to turn on the TV right after the first plane hit. My wife and I watched it unfold for a while. As it got progressively worse, we went out and picked up our three kids from school and brought them home.
MSNBC is replaying the whole news cast from the beginning as if it were live. Watching it brings back most of the feelings from that day.
I'm from NYC and spend a good deal of time working in one of the subbasements of the towers where AT&T had a significant presence. I also spent the better part of my 5 years in the phone company working at the 140 West Street building, which is directly across the street from the WTC. That building took significant damage when the towers fell. I still get back there for work alot.
I visited ground zero in december of that year when it was still a large debris pile and I still can't really describe my feelings at that point.
I echo what Vision said:
Today, I don't care about politics, what we were warned about, what signs there were....I just care about the 3,000 plus people who died.
Still seems like yesterday. One last observation - in watching the coverage again, only Matt Lauer really touched on the human aspect - loss of life - while the rest of them focused on the details and technicalities. I don't know why that struck me this time. |
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| I heard it on the radio in the car - and was home in front of the tv when #2 hit. My sister-in-law Jane (wife's sister) worked in the building right next to the first tower and I was almost paralyzed with fear as I sat watching. Then when the first one collapsed.....
I rang my mother-in-law to check whether she was watching, which she was, but was already offering up prayers of thanks as Jane had taken a personal day and was still on a long weekend on Cape Cod.
Nobody was hurt in her building, but it was over a year before they could go back and by then so many of the staff were so freaked at the thought that they just moved to a different building.
I still can't believe that "only" (NOT the right word) 3000 people died when two buildings that size collapsed. Watching it unfold it seemed certain that the death toll would be in 5 figures.
The NYC Emergency Services were fantastic. |
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Location: Rego Park, NY, | As stated earlier this is one of the days that you will always remember. I did not lose any family or friends or family on that day. My mother died the next morning on Sept. 12th. It has been hard for me. I feel bad for the people that died on this day. But it has been hard for me these last six years. As long as there is talk of the events of 9/11 the death of my mother will always be connected,though not directly with it. I am better now.
I will always remeber where I was on Sept. 11th but I will always remember what happened to my family on Sept. 12th too.
Phil |
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Location: Lake Hiawatha, New Jersey | I was at work at the time and got a call from my mother who told me that a plane had hit the Trade Center and she and her co-workers were watching the coverage on TV. My initial reaction was that it was a small plane that had accidentally hit the building. While I was on the phone with my mother, the second plane hit, and I immediately knew what was going on.
The striking thing (one of many) about that day was how absolutely beautiful it was that day. The weather was absolutely perfect. Another thing that struck me was how quiet it was when I arrived home from work that night. No one was on the streets, no planes in the sky, just silence. Living in New Jersey, that is very unusual, especially at was normally was "rush hour".
I, like I'm sure most of you did, went home and stayed glued to the TV all night. In my case, I counted my blessings and was very greatful that I hadn't lost anyone close to me that day. |
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Location: Campbell River, British Columbia | The range of experiences and beliefs shared freely here is one of the many things that make this group so very special, and dear to me.
Thank you all for sharing your true feelings, without reacting to anothers. |
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Location: south east Michigan | Agreed Phil.
Agreed. |
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Location: Cicero, NY | I was in the office starting my everyday mundane accounting duties when a friend walks by my office and tells me that "we're being attacked" and I knew instantly something was terribly wrong. The entire office filtered into the office next to mine to watch everything unfold on tv. Tears were in many eyes and many more were trying to hold them back. Will never forget it. After an hour or so, my boss came in, called me into his office, apologized for the timing and said the company was being sold and I was going to be out of a job. I couldn't help but think "Yeah, whatever."
And let's not forget the efforts of all the men and women, heroes all in my mind, who sifted through the rubble for weeks in search and rescue and, ultimately, search and recover manuevers. A good friend was a fireman who spent two weeks on-site and has never been the same. Severe alcoholic who can't forget, nor hold a job much less be a father to his two kids. Very sad but the toll ranges beyond those who died that day. |
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Location: big island | "when the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace" ~ j. hendrix |
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Location: Texas | lanaki - those are words that should be written in stone!!!!! |
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Location: NJ | . . providing that the species that replaces us is capable of reading 'em. |
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Location: Earth·SolarSystem·LocalInterstellarCloud·Local Bub | .... they'll just use their feelers. |
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Location: big island | i was living on kaua'i and it was around 4am on 9-11. i was startled out of my sleep by the phone ringing so early. could not imagine what my sister-in-law was calling us so early for. it remains a foggy nightmare memory for me as i stumbled to turn the tv on at her instructions. i sat glued to the tube for several hours but beyond my grief for the human tragedy, almost immediately found myself incredulous at the media's spin and "official" government reports and responses. oh, how i want to rant about now but i will spare us all... |
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Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | Helplessness, sorrow, and numbness are the feelings that I recall having that morning. Thanks for sharing the words of J. Hendrix, Lanaki. |
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Location: Vermont USA | Remember Me a song for 9/11 Paul Ciampaglia
Remember me, remember me
Voices whisper remember me
Clear skies covered in thick black smoke
Dear God it still makes us choke
Tears in my eyes deaf to the cries
Fear in our hearts after all these years
Remember me, remember me
Voices whisper remember me
Brave young souls running up the stairs
As we watched with cold blank stares
Crushing sound of those smoke filled halls
As they crumble beneath the fall
Remember me, remember me
Voices whisper remember me
Americas resolve is united we stand
Turn to one another and take their hand
One God, one country, and one true love
What the world needs now is Grace and Love
Remember me, remember me
Voices whisper remember me
As we show our respect and never forget
Those who showed us the power of love
Never forget no never forget
Show one another the power of Love
Remember me, remember me
Voices whisper remember me
Still under construction Pauly |
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Location: Simpsonville, SC | I was in a client's home. She had gone out for a run, after a few minutes she about broke down the back door and ran to turn the TV on. Shortly after that the second plane hit.
I was speechless, confused, pissed off, worried, etc.
Trying to explain what had happened to my children (11 and 16 at the time) was extremely difficult. Still is. |
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Location: closely held secret | Very nice, Pauly. Well done.
Let us know when the 'construction' is finished! |
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Location: Central Massachusetts | I was just waking up, my wife was in the shower. The phone rang and a friend from California asked if any of my wife's relatives were "on those airplanes" .. (My wife's family are centered around Boston/Cape Cod.) "Terrorists are flying airplanes into buildings!" The computer was closer than the tv so I tried to bring up cnn.com and nothing happened. I knew then that it was true. Got my wife out of the shower and we turned on the tv. The first tower had already collapsed.
I will always remember this part, in the midst of the endless reruns of the first tower collapsing, they showed the 2nd collapse live. The anchor (Peter Jennings?) kept on referring to it as a replay and all I could think was, Oh my God, he's so terribly wrong.
After a while I had to go in to work. Very somber. I work in a support center and we received almost no calls that day.
We had friends that were "trapped" in Florida for a conference. Three of them ended up renting a moving van and driving straight through from Florida to Oregon to get home.
They arrived in time for us all to go see James Taylor, who somehow managed to get to Portland in for his scheduled show on the 15th.... the first, and probably only time I'll ever see JT.. can't imagine him ever topping the emotional power of that set.
Randy, great quote, thanks for that. |
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Location: Atlanta GA | I was at an Industry show in Los Vegas. My wife called and woke me up and I watched it unfold on TV. All flights were cancelled, all rental cars were booked and we wanted to get back to Atlanta. Myself and five other guys from Atlanta rented a U-Haul truck, swung by WalMart and bought some lawn chairs and coolers then we headed back cross country non stop. The truck had a door connecting the cab to the back and we listened to the radio coverage. I remenber how glad I was to get home and the feeling of uncertainty of the future. I guess under different circumstances that trip home would have been a pleasurable memory. |
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Location: Keepin' It Weird in Portland, OR | I was had spent the night in the Kingman, AZ jail for hitch-hiking. The deputies hurried-in and turned on the TV after the first plane hit.
Watching it with the locals, I was explaining to those who had never been to NYC just how big the towers really were. How there were many subway lines and parking structures under them. That there were restaurants, and stores, and a post office and all that stuff in there.
How more people worked in there than the population of Kingman.
We saw the second plane hit, Live.
We also heard about the Pentagon and rumors of another hijacking.
Soon after, I went to court and was released (dumb reason to be in jail).
Only then did I learn of the whole scope of the ordeal.
Used to be that Everyone remembered where they were when they heard that John F. Kennedy was shot.
Marting Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, John Lennon...
Now this! |
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Location: Budd Lake, NJ | I was at work, too, glued to the small radio that could only get one station. Wishing I was home, to be able to find out more. Leaning into the cab of my normally unemotional nineteen-year-old son's pickup as I met him in the driveway, and then crying together. Knowing that I would shortly lose my husband, too, but thankful for the preparation time I still had. So many emotions, so few words.
--Karen |
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Location: Cherry Hill, NJ | I called my son immediately, who worked in the building across the street from the WTC. All circuits were busy. When I got his call, to tell me he was alright, and described the scene in Manhattan, I was relieved, then I was pissed. |
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Location: SoCal | The night before, my daughter was upset that she couldn't get on the Boston flight. She called me to turn on the TV. Only a couple of days later, she traveled to D.C. escorting Jessica Stern. Stern, a terrorism expert had interviewed Bin Laden and was going to testify to the Senate. Concern was security on the train. Secret Service protection. The afternoon of 9/11, standing outside of the Dean's office at Harvard, the administrative assistant gets a call that her boyfriend was on the plane. Although she was a student at the J.F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard put her on the payroll to handle the media during the months following the attack. A few days later, although retired, I was on a Marine T-39 (Saberliner) to Quantico (with a fresh haircut). Until age 60, you might be retired but the Marines still "own" you. |
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Location: Japan | I was walking back home in Shibuya, Japan when my girlfriend called and told me about the plane crashing into the towers, then about the Pentagon too.
Too much of a coincidence and I told her that it was a tv show or a mistake because it was so unlikely for both to have been hit by planes in the same time period.
There's a street near Starbucks where the middle eastern guys always hang out and they try to sell you fake phone cards or whatever, but that night as I walked by they gave me a look that said nothing but contempt; later I found out why when my girlfriend turned out to be right. |
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Location: Nashville TN. | I was woken up by a phone call.
I saw the second plane hit live.
I'm still very angery.
If I was not too old to enlist I would have.
You can see my feeling on my lyrics page.
http://pezmusiccom.nationprotect.net/Lyric.html |
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Location: NJ | On the morning of the 11th, we had two separate shows at the Javits Center that were scheduled to open at 9 a.m. that day.
Even though it was more than 30 blocks away, horrified exhibitors, attendees, and staff watched the whole thing unfold from the glass atrium of the Center known as the Crystal Palace.
(For those who’ve never been to Manhattan, if you looked “up” in the right direction, you could see the Towers from pretty much ANYwhere on the Island).
Needless t’say, the shows didn’t happen. What DID happen was that FEMA came in and took possession of the entire building as their Command Center.
We were told to IMMEDIATELY vacate the building of everyone and everyTHING. Anyone who exhibits in a tradeshow knows that your booth and equipment arrives in massive crates,
which are emptied, the booths set up, and the empty crates are taken away and stored on empty trailers (offsite) to be returned for the “break” of the Show.
Depending on the size show, it generally takes two days to move a Show in (and about the same to move it out).
We had 24hours to move two ENTIRE shows out, a goodly part of the “empties” were in Jersey, and the bridges and tunnels were CLOSED.
We were told that if we didn’t get it out, FEMA would bulldoze-out the entire facility through the back loading dock.
It took every available pair of hands the entire night to cram everything onto trailers (often without crates), back to our office, . . . to be sorted out later.
FEMA’s intent was to use the facility as a morgue.
Being that nowhere NEAR the amount of bodies they anticipated were to be “recovered”, it wasn’t used for that purpose.
It became the storage/distribution center for bottled water, food, workboots, masks, gloves, and the like . . .
It was several months before we ever got back into the building.
The eeriest thing was being on any major Eastbound highway in NewJersey with the overhead digital sign reading “New York City CLOSED”. |
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Location: Tychy, Poland | i was seventeen then. i remember that i came back from school and my mother was watching TV, and i was in time to see plane hitting second tower. My first thoughts were - it's war. But who. To be honest, i wasn't thinking much about people who were in towers. too much people die every day on the world from diseases, wars, local conflicts or aids
But i was thinking about how USA will react. if USA will act calm and find out who is behind this, or there will be sudden reaction which might threaten to peace in the world.
I think 9/11 will be for long remembered as "symbol" of beginning of this century. |
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Location: Blue Ridge Mountains | As the originator of this thread, I want to thank everyone for the most part in controlling emotions, politics, supposition, etc. and just tell your stories...it is fascinating reading: I still remember where I was the day Kennedy was shot and nearly every thing associated with it that next week...this is very much the same...wouldn’t it be great to never again have memories like these...
Thank you all! |
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Location: N.J. | It was today, the 12th, that really hit home for me. I live about a half mile from the bay and on a clear day gives you a beautiful view of Manhattan. I found out they were running supply boats over and people were asked to donate clothes, dog food, etc. My first sense of how overwhelming this was came when I walked out of the store with some stuff and noticed a running Fedex truck parked right out front, and this horrid smell like some type of plastic burning. At first I was annoyed that this guy would leave his truck running so close to the entrance with the exhaust fumes being so bad. I see him get in the truck and drive off as i'm loading my car. I walked back in to the store to get my 2nd load of stuff and as i'm walking back out this smell is even more intense. Then it hits me that it wasnt the truck but the fire from the towers that drifted over here. Later that day when I got down to the docks in the Highlands to drop everything off I found out I just drove into a bomb scare. We were all detained for almost 2 hrs. but nobody searched anything. It was just a chaotic scene. |
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Location: Parrish, FL | I’m not sure I should write this, because in many ways I feel guilty. 9/11 was a very different experience for me and my family. We were on the hard in a little marina in Grenada, repainting the bottom of the boat and performing the annual maintenance on our ‘home’. The guy on the boat next to us (doing the same thing) shouted over that a plane had just hit the WTC. My first reaction was, ‘Ya right’, but he insisted that it was true. Then I asked what kind of plane, a Cessna? When he said no a jet liner, we dropped what we were doing and went to watch on his TV. We didn’t have that luxury on board.
We watched for a while and then went back to work, discussing what had happened and stopping every hour or so to get an update.
At that time, Grenada had a rather large American sailing community, but it still numbered less than 200 people. Over the next several days we got tidbits of information, but nowhere near anything like the saturation I’m told took place back home. As such, I don’t think the whole tragedy impacted us as much as the rest of the country, we were so far removed.
My days went almost immediately back to taking care of my family. That meant washing clothes by hand, grocery shopping several miles inland and carrying everything back on our backs, watching the approach of a new weather systems and soon after an approaching hurricane which could potentially destroy all we owned or even kill one or all of us. The Challenger disaster, I’m sorry to say had a bigger personal effect on me.
I understand the magnitude of the event and feel the offense against my country, but I never bonded with the experience. I guess it’s like hearing about the tsunami in Indonesia, an earth quake in Peru, or the monthly body count of Iraqis due to internal violence. You feel empathy towards those involved, but little attachment to the event. |
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Location: SoCal | BluesSailor,
All of us were affected on different levels as we first heard or watched the intense coverage. My reaction was more composed than if my daughter had been on the plane. Maybe it was also the fact that, other than the enormous amount of casualties and destruction, I had been involved in and shared wanton death and destruction.
Did I expect the level of destruction? No. However, it was not the 1st time that the Trade Center was attacked (1993). It was not the 1st time that we had been attacked by ideology (Oklahoma City bombing in 1995). We have had disasters such as Katrina. Is it different when 100 families lose their loved ones or when 3,000. To that individual family, the loss is overwhelming.
As told by Sir. John Hackett in his "Third World War August 1985", in the 1980's, we were resolved that the initial onslaught would be mass casualties for civilians and our military forces (battlefield nuc's) by the Soviets. Our commanders on the front line had to determine how they would react to losing 75-80% of their combat forces (personel, equipment) and possibly all communication.
Callous?
My heart went out to those injured and the families of those killed.
Resolve? Yes.
I was reminded that the North American Saberliner is actually Sabreliner. My apologies to any and all affiliated with North American or flight crews. :eek: |
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9/11