What do you remember about Sept 11, 2001?

[xotoxi]

You all experienced the 'surrealness' of it all?

Surreal is the best word to describe that day.

 

[chanel]

My hometown lost 32 people. No one that I was close to, but my family members lost several friends. I went to my high school reunion last fall and it seemed nearly every conversation was prefaced with "pre 9/11" or "since 9/11". That's a benchmark for when everything changed.

 

[Paulie]

I was just fresh out of the Air Force, and working a landscaping job. Mostly cutting lawns. We had just finished up a lawn and were bringing equipment back to the trailer when my co-worker comes over and says something about a bomber being flown into the WTC. A couple jokes were told because it kind of sounded like bullshit, and then we got into the truck to head to the next house and heard about it on Howard Stern which is what we usually listened to in the morning.

We finished the few lawns we had offshore, and then when we got onshore we went to my buddy's aunt's house and just sat there the rest of the day watching it on TV and getting stoned. We pretty much left most of our lawns un-mowed that day. I don't think anyone really cared, either.

 

[WillowTree]

My mother and I had stayed up all night watching a documentary about a town where a factory had been it's big employer. The documentary followed I believe three or four families for over ten years.
Also we had been having small earthquakes all summer, and my mom had woke me up a few times to ask if I had felt them. I never felt one.
Anyways, my mom came down and woke me up at 8, and I remember saying I didn't care if there had been another earthquake. When she told me what happened I got right up.

I watched the news for awhile, then tried to reach my best friend from childhood who I knew worked near the towers, to make sure she was alright. I was actually able to get hold of her, even though phones in New York even though phones were not working well due to heavy traffic or something.
She told me that she had been class in Brooklyn when it happened, and that I should call her mom to tell her she was alright.
Later on, I went to work, and I remember everyone was pretty quiet. I think everyone was just in shock.

I just realized that shiny object in your Avatar. Was a cross. Magnificant.

 

[SFC Ollie]

I had just finished an estimate and was driving back toward the office when I heard about the first plane on the Bob & Tom show. I made it to the office in time to see the second plane. I remember the first reports about the Pentagon said they could see smoke from the Arlington area but no one knew what it was.

I called the Recruiter and left instructions to return my call if they found any way for me to go back on active duty. But since I had already had 2 stents in the ticker and one heart attack, there really wasn't much hope......

 

[Middleman]

I live in the West. I got up in the morning and turned on my computer, checking my email. Got a strange email saying that we would probably be at war. Looked on a news site that had a video clip of the twin towers collapsing. I actually thought it was a hoax.

We don't have cable, so I went down to the neighbors to watch the TV, we were all in a state of shock and grief. It was horrifying, and we started feeling very angry as the story unfolded.

 

[blu]

I remember feeling completely stupid that day. I was only a week or two into my freshmen year of high school, but I had no idea of afghanistna, iraq, al qaeda, muslim terrorist groups, our FP related to the middle east, etc. I had no idea why someone would attack us, why those people even cared about us, or who they even were. I feel completely useless.

Starting that day I started reading and learning as much as I could about those things and I still do.

 

[Si modo]

I know that 9/11 changed a lot of us. Some profoundly. If you care to share how, go for it.

I was in grad school at the time and my goal was to get heavily involved in treating disease. When that day happened, my goal changed.

I ended up going that career path for a while, but I always wanted to apply my knowledge and skills to any effort to prevent that sort of crap from ever happening again - here or anywhere.

Now, I am on my desired path and that has done quite a bit for my career satisfaction and my overall serenity.

 

[Meister]

I was listening to the radio on my way to work when the newscaster stated that a plane had hit the WTC causing major damage. I called my wife on the cell and told her to turn on the television, something major was going on. When I got to work I turned on the TV and watched what came next. I was just numb after that, and for the rest of the day.
I had a strong dose of empathy that day.

 

[Si modo]

You all experienced the 'surrealness' of it all?

Surreal is the best word to describe that day.

Yes. I profoundly changed that day.

 

[editec]

I spent much of the morning trying to figure out what flight my wife was on since she'd flown to NYC that morning. Typical of me I had no idea what flight she was on, and some of your probably remember that what flights went down wasn't entirely clear for quite a while.

After hearing from her in the late afternoon, all I could think was this"

"How could this nation's air defences be so lame that our precious bloated military not only failed to have defended our greatest city, but the Pentagon itself?"

If there was one thing I thought we could depend on, it was our military defending our airspace over places like NYC and Washington.

After having studied the various systems that failed us, of course, I'm somewhat more sympathetic to how they let this SNAFU occur.

But one would have thought after DECADES of air hijackings in air security would have been tighter and certainly one would think that our military at least could defend our major cities.

What this event really shows us, I think, were two things

1. The amazing lack of creativity of our military to imagine how dedicated fanatics can conduct a non conventional war, and

2. How terribly difficult it is to prepare for non-conventional attacks even if you DO have that kind of imagination.

There's just too many targets and too many ways to attack them to prepare for them all.

 

[Paulie]

What this event really shows us, I think, were two things

1. The amazing lack of creativity of our military to imagine how dedicated fanatics can conduct a non conventional war, and

2. How terribly difficult it is to prepare for non-conventional attacks even if you DO have that kind of imagination.

There's just too many targets and too many ways to attack them to prepare for them all.

The August 6th, 2001 daily presidential briefing outlined SPECIFICALLY, hi-jacked planes being used as weapons.

The government clearly knew the possibilities.

 

[Charles_Main]

If you care to, please share your thoughts and feelings about that day.

What were you doing? Who were you with? What did you feel? What did you think?

I was working for an inventory service and that day was my first day supervising a Large inventory. I had just became and area manager and for the first time had 112 people under me directly. So it was a big day for me to begin with.

The inventory was at a Kmart and I watched the attacks unfold on their break room TV for the most part. I remember in the time between the first and second plane hitting the WTC. All the speculation that was going on on the TV and in the room I was in. I was arguing with a guy who thought it was just an accident. He kept pointing out that a Military plane once accidentally hit the Empire State Building, and I kept saying yeah but that was in heavy fog, not a bright sunny day and not a modern Commercial Jet with Collision alert systems. Seconds after I said that the second plane hit. I turned to the guy and said. This is war. We are at war, and he said you are right.


When it came time to go home, I was 100 Miles from home so when it was time to leave I had a long drive to get back home to my wife(kids were not born yet).

When Leaving the Job site, me and a couple hundred people witnessed an air National Guard f16. Nearly standing on it's tail to go slow enough to "escort" a single engine Cessna to a landing at a small air field in West Branch Michigan.

I remember That Image really hit me. It realized that for the first time in my life I was witnessing the US military in Action Defending the US. Sure it was just forcing a plane that probably did not have a radio to land because of the grounding of all aircraft, but it was still a very shocking thing to see in the middle of Michigan, I can only imagine what the pilot of that small plane was thinking.

Then as I neared my home I drove past the Cherry capitol Airport in Traverse city Michigan and saw a site I will never see again.

over 25 Large Commercial Jets parked at our small airport. I had never seen more than 1 or 2 at a time there in the past. They were all over the tarmacs and even on the grass in places. it turned out most of them were international Flights which regularly fly over this area but do not land here. Flights that were forced to land there and wait out the Grounding.

I remember suspecting before they said so, that what were seeing happen was Terrorism. The fact that the WTC was a target made that Clear to me. They had tried to knock it down in 93 and it was clear it was still a target to them.

Even Before the attacks I was upset With the Clinton WH for it's responses to the 93 WTC bombing, the Cole Bombing, and the East African Embassy bombings., and I have voted for Clinton twice. So Witnessing those attacks made me very upset with him indeed. To many people Give Clinton a pass for 9/11 but he had plenty of signs and intel that something like that would happen some day, and he treated the attacks that happened under his watch as mere Criminal Acts and not the systematic acts of war they were.

Not that Bush came into office and did anything different, but I do remember clearly that day I took another Big step away from Democrats. I remember seeing the Massive demonstrations covered on TV in places like the West bank and Iran Cheering the Attacks on and thinking the radicalism and hatred for the west was much more wide spread than I had thought in the past.

To many things I remember about that day to list. Suffice to say It will always be a vivid memory to me.

Never forget.

 

[Middleman]

I remember feeling completely stupid that day. I was only a week or two into my freshmen year of high school, but I had no idea of afghanistna, iraq, al qaeda, muslim terrorist groups, our FP related to the middle east, etc. I had no idea why someone would attack us, why those people even cared about us, or who they even were. I feel completely useless.

Starting that day I started reading and learning as much as I could about those things and I still do.

I felt the same way when Martin Luther King was assassinated. My mother was all crying, and I didn't know who he was. I must've been 10 years old. I just pretended I knew what was happening and kept my mouth shut, not wanting to look dumb.

 

[Urbanguerrilla]

If you care to, please share your thoughts and feelings about that day.

What were you doing? Who were you with? What did you feel? What did you think?

I think one of the amazing things about the 9/11 attacks is that it hasn't happened again...

 

[Charles_Main]

"How could this nation's air defences be so lame that our precious bloated military not only failed to have defended our greatest city, but the Pentagon itself?"

If there was one thing I thought we could depend on, it was our military defending our airspace over places like NYC and Washington.

I felt that way at first too, then I realized that what they were dealing with was not a Military attack. It was our own Planes, and I realized that even if they had been prepared to face such an attack. It was doubtful they would have stopped it, as it would have meant shooting down are own planes.

Yes Our Military is tasked with defending our soil, and it was terrible that the Pentagon itself was attacked, but the simple fact is save for some Intel people, the Military was not really of the mid set that a conventional attack of this nature could ever happen. They Defended against fleets of enemy aircraft coming to Bomb us, not something like what happened on 9/11.

The fact that Jets that were scrambled went off on their standard Defense plan heading and out over the Atlantic illustrates that. They just were not ready for something like what happened on 9/11.

So while I do not give them a pass, I tend to think there was not much the guys in our Planes could have done to stop those attacks.

 

[Blagger]

I was sixteen years old when it happened and I was getting my first tattoo. And I remember thinking that'll be the first of many. Sorry for the cynicism. But that was my honest prediction at the time.

So, thank your lucky stars (and stripes) and the security services that I was wrong.

 

[Yukon.]

My Uncle was at the Pentagon. My abiding memory was when my Mom called to say 'he's fine'. I cried.

I was supposed to attend a meeting at Nortel Networks offices in the World Trade Centre. The meeting was at 1:30 pm and I was at the Sheraton Manhatten sleeping when the first palne hit - I didnt go to the meeting. To get home I had to rent a car and drive to Buffalo to cross into my homeland.

 

[Modbert]

There will be no politicizing this thread, simple as that. I don't care what ideology you are, where you come from, or who you are. I will move your post, and if you want to continue politicize it after I asked you not to, expect consequences.

 

[SFC Ollie]