9-11

[SectorZ]

It's disappointing how many people (on both sides) made this thread political and even one immature butthead cracks jokes about it.

Sometimes this forum embarrasses me heavily.

I'd tell a poignant story but why bother, I'd probably just get mocked for it...

[jakeroot]

I was (and still am) a Federal employee. I was working out of an office in Westchester, IL, at the time. There were no TVs in the office at that time. My OA's sister called from the Willis (Sears) tower where she worked and said a plane had hit the World Trade Center. We weren't sure what to make of it at that time. She called back a little bit later to tell us that a second plane had hit the second tower and they were evacuating her building because they were worried it would also be a target.

At that point, the 50+ employees in the office that morning huddled around the 3-4 radios we had lying around. Got them turned on right before the towers collapsed and the report of a third plane hitting the Pentagon. Some time around 10-11, we all got sent home.

Our Manhattan office was only a mile or so from the towers on a high floor. The first impact jarred their office, and they were all watching as the second plane hit. Two of their co-workers were on Flight 93.

This was a great anecdote, I appreciate you sharing it.

I was only five (soon to be six) when everything happened, but the resulting events would go onto shape my youth. I often wonder how different my life would have been had I not had family so closely tied to aviation and military (both then and now).

[Max Rockatansky]

It's disappointing how many people (on both sides) made this thread political and even one immature butthead cracks jokes about it.

Sometimes this forum embarrasses me heavily.

I'd tell a poignant story but why bother, I'd probably just get mocked for it...

Who's making it political?  Even the joke in the post before your's is pretty tame. 

[hotdogPi]

It's disappointing how many people (on both sides) made this thread political and even one immature butthead cracks jokes about it.

Sometimes this forum embarrasses me heavily.

I'd tell a poignant story but why bother, I'd probably just get mocked for it...

Who's making it political?  Even the joke in the post before yours is pretty tame.

I think he's referring to the ones before the thread bump.

[Max Rockatansky]

It's disappointing how many people (on both sides) made this thread political and even one immature butthead cracks jokes about it.

Sometimes this forum embarrasses me heavily.

I'd tell a poignant story but why bother, I'd probably just get mocked for it...

Who's making it political?  Even the joke in the post before yours is pretty tame.

I think he's referring to the ones before the thread bump.

Even that didn't descend into a black hole of lock territory commentary. 

[SSOWorld]

At work in Wausau area.  Cube neighbor answered my curiosity with "Trade Center's on fire" and pretty much all production stopped for 2 hours due to the distraction.

[DandyDan]

I worked the night shift, so I slept through it. I was in the Omaha area and drove towards Offutt AFB, but there was a massive police presence there because President Bush was there.

[GaryV]

I was working at Chrysler.  A lot of people went out into the concourses to watch the tv's, which had been switched from typical company promotions to CNN.

I also referee soccer.  I was struck at how there were no airplanes in the sky (we are on the long-range flight path to DTW).  When air traffic was restored, I wanted to stop the game and point out the planes to the kids.

[LM117]

I remember it like it was yesterday. I was 12. I was in 7th grade in middle school and had just came back to homeroom that morning from one of my elective classes, and when I first walked in the classroom, the TV on the wall was on CBS. Less than an hour later, my mom picked me up from school, though I never asked for it. But hey, 12-year-old me was happy to get out of class!

My dad kept the local newspaper from that day, which had the main headline in huge, bolded black letters that said "UNITED STATES UNDER ATTACK". He later gave it to me to keep. I still have it in one of my boxes.

[hotdogPi]

I was too young to remember the actual event. However, I remember that on the 10th anniversary, bells were supposed to ring at a specific time (nationwide), and the church near my house did. I didn't hear anything about bells for the 20th anniversary. (I can't hear bells from inside my apartment, and that church stopped anyway probably because of the several months where it rang up to 10 minutes early in daylight time when it was supposed to ring on the hour in standard time).

[Rothman]

I flew from SLC back to Duluth on September 10th.  Heard about the first plane before heading into work on the 11th; I thought it was a freak accident.  A secretary in our law firm pulled a TV into the center of the office and I caught snippets as I did my work.  I remember confusion over the second plane hitting and then I was highly skeptical initially that it was a terrorist attack (only for a little while).

Then, the skies turned incredibly blue and an F-15 and F-16 patrolled the skies.

[1995hoo]

My mom and I went to a restaurant in Old Town Alexandria for dinner last night and afterwards we drove past the Pentagon to see the light tower. Very moving and I'm glad we went. When I got home, I could see it quite clearly even from 12 miles away.

[D-Dey65]

It's also the anniversary of Benghazi. But what difference, at this point, does it make?

When was Beirut attacked?

That's Benghazi, Libya.

I'll get into where I was another time.

[dlsterner]

Definitely remember the day.  I was working in Greenbelt MD at the time.  Arrived around 9:00 or so and heard that the first tower had been hit.  At the time we kind of assumed that it was just a horrible, once on a lifetime accident.  Then the second tower was hit; then the towers collapsed.  Then when we heard of the strike on the Pentagon, which for us was too close to comfort and put us into the "Holy shit, what the f**k is going on???"

I was wondering if it was going to become necessary to hop into my car and evacuate.  Being the math geek that I am, I figured a path perpendicular to a line between New York and Washington would be best.  Being before the days of Google Maps, I thought about it and figured a good destination could be Somerset PA, remembering that I had stayed there on a ski trip in years past.  There was no way I would have known that later that day, Flight 93 would crash in Shanksville,  less than 10 miles from Somerset.  (As it turned out evacuation was not necessary)

As it turned out we were directed to leave and go home sometime after noon.  Took back roads home thinking that the main arteries could be clogged.

One of the worst parts was, after the 3rd and 4th hits, not knowing if that was it or if more were to come.

[jdb1234]

I was in 8th grade when 9/11 happened.  We were not allowed to watch any coverage of the event because our local school board wanted it to be a normal school day.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

I was in 8th grade when 9/11 happened.  We were not allowed to watch any coverage of the event because our local school board wanted it to be a normal school day.

So did you guys know something had happened, or was this the board basically putting the school on tech lockdown to keep anyone from finding out?

[jdb1234]

I was in 8th grade when 9/11 happened.  We were not allowed to watch any coverage of the event because our local school board wanted it to be a normal school day.

So did you guys know something had happened, or was this the board basically putting the school on tech lockdown to keep anyone from finding out?

We had been told something had happened.  We, for the most part, were not allowed to watch any 9/11 coverage.

[hbelkins]

Unless something got deleted, I didn't see anything overtly political in the thread, which I didn't realize was a bump until I went back and saw the first post (I generally read threads by clicking the "new post" graphic that displays after clicking on the green arrow that indicates new posts on a particular board.

Having said that, though, there's no way you can separate politics from the events of the day -- its cause and the response. Even the anniversary got political because of who attended what commemorative event.

I don't think we as a country are in any danger of forgetting the incident, just like we won't forget Dec. 7, 1941, but I don't really see the need to have the anniversary shoved in our faces every year (especially on anniversary years ending in 0 or 5, as this one is.)

I listened to the events of the day unfold on the radio in the office of the newspaper I was editing at the time. What struck me was the way communities far distant from New York or DC reacted. It's almost as if they believed somehow they would become targets. The local county fair was going on the place where I worked, and the event organizers closed the midway and canceled whatever event was planned for that night. Surely they didn't expect terrorists to attack a talent show (or whatever the nightly event was) in Stanton, Ky., did they?

[TheHighwayMan3561]

What struck me was the way communities far distant from New York or DC reacted. It's almost as if they believed somehow they would become targets. The local county fair was going on the place where I worked, and the event organizers closed the midway and canceled whatever event was planned for that night. Surely they didn't expect terrorists to attack a talent show (or whatever the nightly event was) in Stanton, Ky., did they?

I think it was a side effect of just how unprecedented this event was - it had been 60 years since we were attached on home soil, and possibly not since the War of 1812 for an attack on our mainland.

[GaryV]

More likely, in respect for the dead, they cancelled fun events.

[Scott5114]

I was 11 when it happened. For the most, the school didn't really act like anything was out of the ordinary, still had normal classes and everything. I don't remember if the teachers told us anything about it or not, but we all knew and were gossiping about it at lunch. I remember someone saying they had grounded all the planes in the country, and I remember expressing disbelief that the FAA could even do that. There was never any fear or perception of any direct threat to any of us (nobody I kind of doubt anyone from al-Qaeda could even find Oklahoma on a map).

When I went home I watched the 24-hour coverage on some over-the-air news network, ABC or something like that. By that time it seemed clear enough that no more attacks were coming, but I remember it already feeling like things were going to change from then on, like something like World War II was just around the corner.

[triplemultiplex]

I'll never forget what happened afterward.  This country became a worse place from self-inflicted wounds after 9/11 thanks to blind, nationalistic fervor; mostly by people who generally hate New York.

We put the locks on the cockpit doors; everything else was an overreaction.

I was 18 on 9/11.  I thought I might get drafted into some bullshit war in some godforsaken country.  I was horrified, pissed and saddened, too, but once the complicated nature of confronting a non-state actor became apparent, it was obvious to me that we (the USA) were going to fuck this up.  And boy did we!

[Henry]

I had just gotten up when the first plane hit the World Trade Center; it was like literally waking up to a nightmare, because I heard my wife scream in horror when she saw it on the news. It was 5:46 AM Seattle time (the second plane struck at 6:03), and between 6:59 and 7:28, both towers had come down. I immediately thought of the Sears and John Hancock Towers in Chicago, and feared that the terrorists would target those next. But since New York and Washington had the only bullseyes on their backs, I guess they could care less about the other cities to the west, as long as the two most dominant cities in America were destroyed in one way or another.

[Rothman]

The panic spread so far that Albany thought its Corning Tower would be a target, since it was the tallest building between Boston and Chicago.

Sort of local pride overpowering rationality.  I don't think Corning Tower is on very many people's radars at all.

[1995hoo]

The panic spread so far that Albany thought its Corning Tower would be a target, since it was the tallest building between Boston and Chicago.

Sort of local pride overpowering rationality.  I don't think Corning Tower is on very many people's radars at all.

Heh. My now-wife and I were not yet married back then and she lived in a condo in Alexandria. You can see the complex's guardhouse at the top of the hill in this Street View image from this June (it's above that bus stop in the image). On September 11, 2001, they set up a barrier down at the bottom of the hill where the brick wall just beyond that van is and were checking parking passes there. Somehow I thought, and still think, that there was zero chance of any terrorists going after condo buildings in the Landmark area of Alexandria.