September 11, 2001

[Guest Mary Major]

Five years ago, I had a terrible flu and I remember that Bob woke me up in the morning. I must have thought it was for medicine because I told him I didnt want any, or something of the sort. He said, "No, let me help you into the living room." We sat on the davenport in our living room all covered up together and just stared at the television all afternoon, running ourselves out of kleenex. When we finally went to bed later in the evening, I remember Bob saying something like, "maybe, when we awaken, this will all have been a bad dream ."

 

It really made us appreciate what we had, who we had in our lives, and people who help us in our community. From then on, we've taken our local fire department flowers and cookies and we thank them for doing such a hard job. Its not easy to run in a building most are trying to escape. We got to enjoy seeing their faces, get to know how they got along the past year. They really became a part of our family. This year, I had to do it alone. And again, I was humbled remembering what Bob meant to me. You can hear about it, read about it, or watch it on tv, but you dont really know loss until you've experienced it first hand. My hearts go out to all those who lost someone dear to them on September 11, 2001. I only wish there was more I could do.

 

God bless you all, friends.

[knlwtchr 0]

I was sitting at work when I heard about it. I was working as a secretary at the time and I remember rushing home to get my hand held TV so I could see what was going on. Then, that evening I remember just the incredible sorrow and silence all over town. Even if you didnt lose someone close to you, it just felt like a chunk of America broke off and burned up.

[Merina 0]

I was sitting in my current events class in high school. We had just started looking through the USA Today paper, then the announcment came over the intercome about what had happend.

[Dumbass 0]

My dad called my cell phone as soon as he heard. At the time he was the night clerk at a hotel so he was already up. It was about 5-6 AMish my time so I didn't answer the phone. I got up at my usual time, showered, shaved, dressed, etc as normal. I left for work and realised there weren't nerely as many cars on the road as there should have been. I turned on Howard Stern's radio show and that's how I learned what had happened. At first I thought it was a hoax, then pilot error, and gradually I came to understand we were under attack.

 

Our internet had gone down at work the day before, and since the Governor of the state our server is located in asked everyone in the state to stay home for the day we were not going to get it back. We only had one small radio for the whole office, which is how we learned of the attack on the Pentagon and Flight 93, so we decided to let people go home for the day.

Edited September 12, 2006 by Dumbass

[Kansas_Jones 0]

I was working at my previous job at the time. The office managers daughter called us when the first plane hit. One of our off site workers called when the second tower was hit, and had actually seen the impact live. Then, we heard about the Pentagon hit at some point over the radio, as well as the plane going down in Shankesville, Pennsylvania. Everone in the office did finish out the work day, taking brief breaks to watch a little black and white TV. I then heard that the towers fell, but did not see this footage until after twelve. This one image, more so then most, shocked me - I could not believe it - both towers just disintegrated straight down.

 

I live a short distance from an airport. The flight path of the planes take them frequently over my house. Do I pause a bit everytime I hear the planes overhead? Yes. Do I wonder if they are going to slam into an occupied building? Yes. Will I stop this wondering fear someday? Sad to say, probably not.

 

I Remember and We All Remember.

 

09/11/01 - Never Forget.

[will_marx 0]

I was at work, when one of my coworkers came in, saying a plane had hit one of the towers. Then a little while later, the report of another plane hit. Then the Pentagon. Then the towers coming down. All through out this, I was on the phone with my unit, seeing if they needed me. Unfortunately, it wasn't one of our usual NCOs on the phone, so I wasn't ordered to report in.

 

Teaneck Armory is located under the approach of Runway 24 at Teterboro Airport. There's always some biz-jet landing, or other air traffic. That night though, it was quiet. Too quiet for living in northern New Jersey. Every so often, we'd see the glow of afterburners high in the sky of a fighter on combat air patrol, or the beat of rotors of a Huey, Blackhawk or Coast Guard Dolphin. When I went to sleep that night, it was one of the worst night's sleeps I had ever had since basic training (Nine years prior).

 

The next morning, my section sergeant and I went to Teterboro, as a backup plan for 400 units of whole blood that came in from Denver. The smoke clouds were visible from the airport to the east. We stayed there all day, waiting for anything else that might have been flown in under FEMA request.

 

About a week and a half later, we got an assignment to Bayonne, NJ, to the old Military Ocean Terminal there, to provide warehouse support for the Red Cross for all the supplies pouring in. If you're not familiar with the NYC/NJ area, Bayonne is right across from Lower Manhattan, maybe just a little further south. We were running 24 hour operations there for a full week. I saw truck drivers break down and cry at the sight of where the Towers stood. A volunteer fire department from Virginia had brought up four loaded tractor trailers-- three full of supplies, one of much needed pallets. I had the opportunity to go to Ground Zero, a few days after we started our operations. This was about a week after recovery operations began. The pile of rubble was still awful.

 

These, unfortunately, are memories seared into my mind; indelible images that will not go away. And, because of the proximity I had to Ground Zero, NY, I cannot watch anything dealing with today without breaking down. That's just the way I am.

 

5 years later

 

Kansas, we, the citizens of the United States, may never forget, but our political leadership, unfortunately, has.

 

And if anyone has any questions about my rights to say what I can-- read the first part of my signature. I was, to paraphrase LTG Hal Moore and Joe Galloway's book title, a soldier once-- and young.

 

::gets off his soapbox, and trudges away::

Edited September 12, 2006 by will_marx

[mtporter 0]

During that time in my life I was living right next to LAX going to school. Also I was working at Disneyland at the time. I was scheduled to work a very early shift so I had arrived at about 5 in the morning west coast time. I remember comming in and everyone was watching tv in our main break room. Needless to say they shut down the park for the day. It is one of the few times since the opening that the park has been closed. I landed up staying for a while to help out but I remember walking down a deserted main street. It was the oddest feeling being in the happies place on earth and yet feeling somewhat afraid. I will never forget that. Then when I went home all the planes had stopped running. I had become so use to the sound that without them I was really creeped out.

[Nicolas Lepage 0]

I was at school at that time...it was round 3 pm and I was in my English class. I remember at one point our janitor came in and told us what had happened. We didn't believe him. We thought he had finally gone mad. We could see across a small yard into another classroom and some people were watching TV there. That usually never happened so our teacher let us go watch TV, too. Only one tower had been hit at that time. We watched the news and I remember seeing the plane approaching the second tower. When it hit the tower I really couldn't believe what I was seeing. We went on watching the news and then the towers collapsed. I remember there were about 30 or 40 people in the room but it was completely silent. Our teacher sent us home after that. Even over here, streets were less crowded...everyone was watching TV, trying to find out what had really happened.

[Rhean t'Valae 0]

What I find interesting, reading rememberances here and elsewhere across the 'net, is how hard 9/11 seems to have hit people outside of New York, relative to those in it.

 

I work in Manhattan. As a friend of mine put it, "'Normal' is a tough word to apply to New Yorkers, but we're as normal as we get." Not to say that there aren't still people dealing with the lingering effects of the day -- there are PTSD suffers, people with health problems, and of course those who lost loved ones will be dealing with it forever. But the average person on the street is, at the risk of putting it lightly, "over it."

 

A horrible thing happened on September 11, 2001. But you go forward. You pick up what pieces you can and you move on to the next thing. If you spend your life watching the skies or flinching at every noise, if you wonder who on the street around you might be carrying a bomb, or whether the mail is laced with anthrax... You're not living. You can't live your life in fear.

 

New Yorkers 'grok' that. The Towers were destroyed; the City wasn't. We go on. We rebuild. Tragedy happens, and we remember it, but we don't dwell on it. We survived. Next.

 

I don't know if it's an urban thing, or peculiar to certain places... It's not a purely American thing, I know; I've seen it in Belfast and London. Life goes on.

 

One of my friends had a good idea this morning, I think. She called for this day to be one that celebrates life, rather than dwelling on death. To create, rather than destroy. So write a poem, tell a story, sing, dance, kiss someone you love. But stop staring at those pictures of the burning towers, and reading the news retrospectives about the attack. Get out and start living.

 

New Yorkers have. Next.

[STSF Seiben 0]

Eh, I was at home and watched it on TV on CNN as it unfolded. Had the day off of school that day (was in college at the time. September 11 was on a Wednesday that year and I didn't have classes on that day) and watched the news alone and later with my family. Like the rest of you, I sat there in shock. But I agree with Rhean, in that we should move on and continue to live our lives as normal. I've been to New York this past April, and though my cousins who lived there still say it's emotional everytime they pass by the 59th Street Bridge (I think), and not see the Twin Towers there, they've moved on with their lives and so should we.

[Cptn Neptune 0]

I actually have a fairly unique perspective to 9/11. Unlike most Americans and indeed the world, I didn't get to watch the entire affair unfold on television.

 

At the time, my school was in the proccess of replacing the entire wiring system in the school and had not gotten to replacement of tv cables. In fact only a handfull of rooms even had internet.

 

So because of that, no one knew anything was wrong untill the towers had started to fall. I remember when I first found out. A friend of mine who has a lot of family in NYC passed me in the hall ways, I was late to my next class, and she was just crying her eyes out. I asked her what was wrong, and she just said that "there's something really wrong happening, someone's crashed planes into the WTC."

 

At first I didn't believe it. I thought it was a hoax. So her and I went into the nearest room that had internet and asked to use the computers. I brought up CNN.com.

 

My heart fell to the bottom of my stomach as the picture that has been etched in my mind since that fateful day materialized on screen--the plane crashing into the WTC.

 

The rest of the day was a wash. Unable to watch live, we resorted to listening on the radio, gathered in various class rooms. There was of course great concern among everyone because a lot of people in my area have friends and family who work in the DC area, as well as a few kids who's parents and family are from the NYC region.

 

To this day I've seen very little of the actual 9/11 footage. And I don't think I want too. The image I saw, that fatefull morning on CNN left enough of an impression on me.

 

With that said, as we reach this somber occasion, I think it is best that we not dwell on those events that we can no longer change, but instead look to the future with hope.

 

9/11 is a day that has forever altered the course of history and the world that my Generation, and my children's generation will live in. And though nothing can bring back those who died, they can live forever in our hearts and in our minds.

 

So I will close with the same sentiment that Valae shared earlier, let us celebrate life, not death. May we all walk foreward towards future filled with hope.

[Avery Tynte 0]

I remember waking up to my mother coming into my room. "We are being bombed." she said. "By who?" was my reply.

 

She said she didn't know.

 

The realitly of what was happnening became clear as I wandered into the living room.

 

My most vivid memory is that of sitting on my couch, wrapped in a blanket and clutching a tissue, tears streaking my face as I watched the towers fall.

 

I will never forget that morning.

Edited September 12, 2006 by Avery Tynte

[Travis Kroells 0]

I remember, I was in Central Time (a stupid half hour homeroom class they stuck us in before starting normal classes) when it happened. We were just about to leave when the librarian (thats where we had class) told us about the first plane.

 

We turned on the news to watch for a few minutes before we had to leave. At the time, most of us really weren't paying attention, because we simply thought it had been some sort of accident. I'll never forget lazily half watching the TV as I saw the second plane hit. I knew then and there that something was wrong. The rest of the class did too upon hearing my "Holy @!#$ another one just hit!"

 

By the time class had ended, me and another friend were running through the halls, telling everyone what had happened. A teacher picked us up in the commons, and had obviously not heard a word yet and sent us to the principals office for saying such things.

 

By the time we had gotten out, the school was chaos. While I was in middle school, we were also connected to the high school, which was a mad house. Peoples parents were calling in, taking their kids out. Others were calling their 'rents, trying to use it as an excuse, and others just left on their own accord. It was sickening.

 

By lunch, I had heard of the towers, the pentagon and a bunch of others. Rumors were flying, since it had been ordered not to let any of us watch TV. I remember sitting around listening to everyone say what they "knew"

 

The White House, Camp David, The Sears Tower, The Golden Gate Bridge.

 

By the time I had lost my appetite, my mom had called in, and I went home. I remember walking out of school, not knowing what was happening, who was attacking us, or why.

 

I went home thinking the world was comming to an end. I guess in a way it did.

[Atragon9 0]

I work in Washington, DC, so there was a great deal of uncertainty and panic, especially with the assumption of the 4th plane headed for downtown DC. There was a great deal of confusion with reports of the White House being hit turning out to be a steam vent in the area, etc. One of my sons was about to go on a field trip at school from VA to DC and we had to call the school and "suggest" that it was a really bad idea for the morning.

My office closed and I struggled to drive out of DC - but the weirdest part was once I got onto the bridge heading into VA, there was no traffic and I drove right by the Pentagon (the main highway is about 1000 feet from it) and there was a crowd stnading by the side of the highway, looking at it and I saw flames and huge plumes of black smoke - an image I won't forget.

 

Beyond that, it was confusion everywhere as I went to check on my kids at school and the school just brought them to me and said, "go home." they hadn't been told, so the biggest problem was that they hadn't been allowed to eat lunch. Points of view can be so very different.

[Chell Reno 0]

I was 10 years old during the events of 9/11. Being the kid I was I didnt understand what was going on. All I knew was that some people flew some planes into some building I had never heard of before way up north. It wasnt until I saw the video coverage of the events that I realized what had happened and it really wasnt all that far off.

 

As Im bit older now I know that those people who died went down for their country and we as American citizens will never forget. Even though Im just 15, I have a huge amount of respect for those who served and died yesterday, 5 years ago.

 

God Bless America, and the families that suffered because of a few confused people with upset minds.

Edited September 12, 2006 by Chell Reno

[Aaron_Westler 0]

I was in 8th grade in 2001. I remember being outside the annex of my school just reading a book, when my best friend at the time came running up to me and said a plane had hit one of the World Trade Centers. With him being such a prankster, I was just laughing him off and stuff. When the bell rang and our teacher led us in, I remember him asking her if she had heard about the planes, and she turned around, and gave us the most grave nod I have ever seen. You could see it in her eyes she meant business and was afraid.

 

Naturally, we didn't get much done that day at school. 15 minutes into class the principal came on the PA and announced what had happened up to that point. I think this was before the Pentagon was hit. She told us that they had enabled the cable tv running to the school to each room, and allowed the older students to watch. I remember being the one to figure out how to connect to the cable tv, and seeing FOX news show the clip of the second plane hitting the WTC right in my face. I almost fell off the chair.

 

The rest of the day was a real blur. I remembered tuning all the TV's in our annex so they would work, and sitting there watching with almost every class. Rumors were going around like wildfire that the Sears Tower was almost hit by a plane, and kids were being pulled out of classes left and right.

 

By the time 3pm rolled about, it was just me and 8 other people in my class, and we hadn't gotten any work done. Everyone was so grave. We even forgot about going outside for our 20 minutes of reccess after lunch. That whole day will be etched in my memory forever.

[Spitfire 0]

I was home, just waking up. I went down stairs, and their, right in the middle of the TV screen was the images of WTCs. I was so shocked. I just sat there looking into the TV as the second plane hitting the second tower and the towers collapsing.

[Kansas_Jones 0]

If you spend your life watching the skies or flinching at every noise, if you wonder who on the street around you might be carrying a bomb, or whether the mail is laced with anthrax... You're not living. You can't live your life in fear.

 

I as well agree with Rhean. I know I used the term "fear" in my posting, but meant that in a wondering "could it happen again?" sense, rather then a non living sense. No matter that I move on; I can't imagine what it is like to live with losing someone on Sept 11 like others. One day at at a time?

 

I know one thing I do not want to see - a work or school day off and store sales in "remembrance" of September 11th. A monument at the site(s), yes - if only to have a grave marker for family lost. A co worker (who's daughter lost a husband at the Towers) said something to the effect of "we have no where to go" for a final resting place...and I never even thought in those terms before.

 

Then again, I also have doubts about the monument process - ever present red tape, finding the right design, permissions, and mainly time (it does always seem to slip away doesn't it? ).

 

Would the commemorative symbol outweigh the risk? If the monuments(s) are completed - would they be a tempting target for terrorists?

Edited September 13, 2006 by Kansas_Jones

[Col. C.E. Harper 0]

Construction on both the memorial and the Towers' replacement has already begun. The memorial uses water cascading into pools over the footprints of the old towers, and includes a below-ground gallery where the names of victims will be inscribed. The Freedom Tower (I hate that name...) is taller than either of the Twin Towers by over 400 feet. That's not usable space, btw, but a spire that rises from the Towers' height (1368 ft) to the new height (1776 feet). It's something of a "so there!"

 

As for being an attack target -- probably. They've incorporated all sorts of things into the design to allow for better evacuation and rescue in the event of an emergency, and to limit the environment effects (chemicals, dust, and so forth) on the surrounding area should it come down. But I doubt they'll have trouble filling the space. When the various designs were being debated (and oh, were they debated) the one thing that most people seemed to like was the idea of making the new structure taller. This is a town that's very good at saying 'up yours!' :P

[Dumbass 0]

When the various designs were being debated (and oh, were they debated) the one thing that most people seemed to like was the idea of making the new structure taller. This is a town that's very good at saying 'up yours!' :P

 

Here is the design that should have won:

 

[Chell Reno 0]

Here is the design that should have won:

 

 

LOL! :P

[Guest Mary Major]

Here is the design that should have won:

 

 

Mr. Dumbass, you are a rather ornery fellow, aren't you?

[Dumbass 0]

You just now realised that?

[Images 0]

I dunno. I think that memoriam is fine. I respect the dead. But I find some of the flag waving and the hero roles forced on the victims a bit crude. You know, turning the whole thing into a victory of the spirit as such instead of just acepting it as a tragedy.

[Chell Reno 0]

I dunno. I think that memoriam is fine. I respect the dead. But I find some of the flag waving and the hero roles forced on the victims a bit crude. You know, turning the whole thing into a victory of the spirit as such instead of just acepting it as a tragedy.

 

We Americans like to think of ourselves as optomists, besides would you rather fight for fallen heroes, or just someone who died because he or she was at the wrong place at the wrong time?