Three Years Ago...

Where were you when you first heard about the attacks on September 11, 2001? Please don't turn this into a political argument... This thread is just here to remember the day.

As for me, I was in 8th grade at the time. Back then I was in a Catholic Junior High School, so at about 10 AM I was heading to my religion class. I remember chatting with my friends before the bell rang to start the period, and as we talked we noticed my art teacher in the room. She was literally crying, as she talked quietly to my religion teacher. No one really liked the art teacher, so we were all thinking 'What the hell is that old hag blubbering about?' Then as class began, the teacher explained to us that two planes hit the WTC in New York. I thought nothing of it at first. The day dragged on, and we were updated every once in a while with what was going on. It wasn't until I got home later that day that I realized how big this thing was, as everyone was talking about it and the absolute only thing on TV was news.

Welp, that's my story, and I'm stickin' to it.

I was in 7th or 8th grade at the time. I think I was on holidays. I was in Australia at the time and I think it was around 11 pm there. I was about to go to bed when I went to a news website for a quick update on the general state of things, and the headline was about a plane crashing into the WTC. I turned on the tv and in a matter of seconds it was on all the channels. I didn't really know what the buildings were and how big the situation was. I too distinctly remember not understanding what the big deal was about. It took place during a very difficult period for Israel in terms of terrorism and I remember being more relieved that nothing happened in Israel than anything else.
I remember that the next days it was the only thing on TV and the death toll kept rising. I heard numbers as high as the tens of thousands but I don't know where that came from. I'm not sure when exactly it was that it dawned on me that this was, in fact, a very big deal.
One other thing I remember is being uncomfortable with the way they showed the explosion from the second airplane's crash, with dramatic music and voiceover. Seemed to kinda cheapen the event and made it seem like a Die Hard movie, when at the time the people in the airline were all probably being instantly killed. I've never liked that footage.
I can't believe it was three years ago...

Since NY was 3 hours ahead of us here in LA, we got News coverage exactly when the thing hit, as the morning news was on on most stations. I remember watching the local station air the live footage from CNN, but then I had to go to school. I was in the 10th grade at the time, and it was like the second week of school. Then I got to school and a friend came up to me and told me another plane hit the second tower. I was like 'holy shit!'. Then I went home, and felt really indifferent about it, but my parents gave me a rude awakening, and after that I felt really bad about feeling indifferent.

And about the footage FYM, I just watched 'Bowling For Columbine' on I think Thursday, and they showed that footage. My heart literally dropped to my stomach. It was extremely saddening. In retrospect, that wa a horrible day, but I would like to look on the brightside of today, as it's my dad's birthday. So happy thoughts.

3 years ago, I was sitting in my aunts house watching tv we were on vacation at the time and ironically enough we were about to get on a plane in an hour or two to go back home. I was just flipping by and I saw I stopped on CNN thats when it came on. I watched it for like the next 3 hours straight and I remember they kept showing the plane hit the building over and over.

It wasnt till later I found out the pentagon was hit too which was worrying for a while, later in the day he was ok.

Wow, your dad must have had a rotten birthday on 2001... which reminds me, a girl I know had a batmizva on the very day of the attacks... I wasn't there at the time, she was in Israel and I was in Australia like I said, but it must have been a bizzare experience for her...

Happy thoughts indeed. Send your dad my wishes for a happy birthday.

I just dropped my daughter at Daycare, n was heading to school myself, with my hubby. When I heard over the radio that a plane crashed in the Towers, I was damn near in going crazy. My sister worked on the 97th flr of Tower 1, once I got to school, I called home to see if my sister was at work or for some reason was elsewhere.
At first my mother had no clue where my sister was. So I hysterical, then about 1/2 hour we found out that my sister had a meeting in school with her daughter, so she was running late....Thankgod for that.
After picking up my daughter from daycare. We went to top of my buliding n saw the Twin Towers collapse, as they collapsed so did my sister. I have pictures of it, but for some reason it hard for me to post them up. Her company lost over 80 percent of there co-workers.
Then seeing everybody walking from downtown to our neighborhood to get to there homes. They were all covered in dust, some looked dazed, as other's men n woman had tears streaming down there faces.
I watched as my neighbors ran out to give them cups of water n words of encouragement.
That whole day I was crying, for the lose of our city, n being grateful that my sister is still with us. It being hard on her, its hard for her to do things as she usto. But she's a fighter.
On 9/11 not only was I grateful to find out that not only my sister was safe but also my sister in law.

I had woken up in Year 8 and was listening to the 6am news from my alarm clock. My first though was holy shit and I remember getting up to watch the news, the first time I had ever watched the news in the morning before and mum and I just sat there dazed watching the replays of the hits and the collapse.
School was weird that day, everyone was quieter than normal even though what had happened was half a world away, a friend of mine had her radio on her all day listening for updates and none of the teachers minded, they even asked her what was happening.

Let's see. I was being driven home from somewhere by my mother who than made some cryptical remark about the United States being under attack. I did not at all comprehend, and I went on with my usual business. When I finally sat down for some quality tv, I saw the planes crashing into the towers.

My first responses were apathetic, I had no idea what to make of it, and tried to distantiate from it. Perhaps that is why I found no condolence or anything in the like in Bush' speech afterwards. An emotional attack was followed by the cold rationality of Bush, and that, I remember, I did not like at all. But let's not turn this into a political debate...

I remember though, which only confirms Stalin's famous quote, that there was a whole lot bigger a fuss when Pim Fortuyn was shot, a dutch politician with strong ideas of political reformation. I guess people feel more threatened when the event takes place closer to home.

Mr U

I was on the way to school in 6th grade with my dad in the car, because I had had an ortho meeting that morning. My dad went to turn on the radio and the first thing they said was that a plane had crashed into Tower 1. A moment later, someone was yelling and they had said a plane had crashed into the other tower.

"Why do people do that?" I asked my dad. I was very upset and scared.

"I don't know." My dad mumbled. He seemed more upset than I.

That's when the towers collasped. Someone was screaming, "OH GOD, NO! NO, OH MY GOD!" I freaked and started crying, because of all the screams and yells and I knew people were dieing by the second.

My school refused to tell us anything. So I told everybody, with the help of a few other late kids. You could of spotted us, the late ones, because we were the only ones who were crying.

We later learned our family friend, Bill, had narrowly escaped the tower. He had just walked into the lobby and heard an explosion. He walked all the way to the ferry and managed to get home by the means that we do not know. One other family friend drove a rental car all the way from Canada, and left it in another rental car lot, just so he could be with his family.

It's very hard for me to think about 9/11 without getting upset. I'm not sure why, but it really affected me. Although, I do think the way Bush went about trying "comfort" us was idiotic and in the long run, screwed everything up. I don't know, I just don't know anymore.

It's only natural that we're affected by things closer to us. Added to the fact that we get tragedies on the news 24/7, its getting harder and harder to symphasize.
As for me, its been a story I can remember any time: I was in my bunk, trying to sleep in a hot night. Suddenly my buddy who was listening in on a reciever turned over and told me rather agitatedly that the Twin Towers were hit or something. I was beginning to worry until he said that one of them might even have collapsed. I dunno: the sheer impossibility of something like that at the time just didn't click. I stared at him for a sec, my face blank...then I laughed at him and said 'Go to sleep'...I figured it must've been a prank or something.
That's till I woke up the next day to a year of increased military security measures....

wow.. heh.

I was sitting in my Physics class, waiting for it all to wrap up, as the bell was only minutes away from ringing. It was my Senior year of High School. One of the teachers came in and pulled my teacher aside, whispering something in her ear.

Quickly, my teacher's face grew ashy pale and she looked as though she was going to cry or something. By then the other mini-conversations around the room had begun to stop, noticing something was amiss. The first thing that popped into my mind was that another student had been in an alcohol-related accident (those happen rather frequently). Then the teacher said something, but her voice was too soft for me to hear on my side of the room. OTher students heard, though, and all began talking and asking questions. She then turned on the TV in our room (every classroom had a TV) and we watched the footage of the second plane flying in. When it all connected in my mind that this was real, I immeadiately began to think it was 100% internal. Too bad I was wrong.

The bell rang, we went on to Chemistry (well, I did. Other students went their separate ways) and for the entire morning that was the main topic. We watched the news in every class but one and discussed what we all thought and what it meant.

Just before noon I heard about the Pentagon. My heart sank, as I had both and aunt and uncle working there. Both are now safe.

I heard about it when I was at my bus stop, waiting to go to school. This was back when I was in the 9th grade. I heard it from a guy a know, named Mike Holmgren (not the Seattle Seahawks head coach.) He said that the Pentagon and the World Trade Centers had been hit. I didn't really believe him about it, since Mike is a jokester. I soon found out it was no joke as all day in the classroom's we just watched the coverage of the event, and we even got to see good ole George Bush give his speech.
None of my family members were near either the World Center's, nor the Pentagon.


The fact that it happened in my country and not somewhere else made me think of a few things in a different perspective.

One. Terrorism can happen anywhere and will happen whenever it see's fit. As long as unified governments exist, terrorism will as well.

Two. America isn't invicible. I have known this for many years, and had been telling people that. These people looked at me with the wierdest faces that day. It was like I had been psychically knowing of what was going to happen. I was just telling them the truth, but I guess they didn't want to hear it.

Three. I didn't hate the terrorist's for what they had done. I didn't hate the opressive governments of the world for causing the terrorist's to be created. I hated the fact that people that didn't deserve to die, did.


Well, that's all I remember.

I was late getting to work. So I was driving to work and I heard something on the radio about a second plane hitting the world trade center. I was more concerned with getting to work on time, and I think it just didn't hit me until I got to my office and saw that everyone there was gathered around the radio. Eventually the V.P. showed up (he was usually never around) and brought a tv, which someone hooked up in the kitchen and everyone in the building watched on what was on the local channel. I immediately called my husband and told him to get out of bed and watch the news, because I knew he would want to see it. I also told him to record it on the VCR, because things would be edited later and he should get anything he can. But of course he didn't record anything until later that night when everything was edited. No cussing no nothing.

Really good thread by the way.

Serving breakfast at a very exclusive resort on a little island called Nantucket...The chef told us that the WTC was on fire so we went to the bar to check it out...like most people have said, it looked like some Hollywood disaster flick...then we went back to get an update and watched in disbelief at the live recording of the 2nd plane going in...I was serving a couple breakfast shortly after and mentioned to him about the attacks, as I knew from an earlier conversation that he worked at the Pentagon...he had yet to hear, but as soon as I told him he turned as white as a ghost and left the resort at lunch time...apparently he was part of the anti-terrorism office in the Pentagon...

I remember saying to the chef at the time that I thought either Osama Bin Laden or someone tied to Timothy McVeigh was responsible...I also remember saying that I hoped it was McVeigh because then the revenge attack would be isolated within the US...whereas if it was Bin Laden then there will be a war...

Huh? I dont know what you really said in your thread. But that was totally confusing for me. Sorry about that.

What I did three years ago that was really extreme was that I got hit by a car twice. Not on accident it was on purpose. I am just glad that I am still alive today.

That's a tragedy, but, did you not read the thread, boy? This concerns what you did on September 11th, 2001 - You know, the day two planes crashed into the World Trade Center and whatnot?

I was woken up by my biz partner Ivan calling me. he was like "turn your TV on!" I remember telling myself, uhhh, this is a dream, dude! I guess it was not.

Opps sorry! Well what happened that morning is that my mom woke me up to see the news. And when I watched the t.v. and saw how many people were dieing and jumping out of the building I started to cry. Because it was just so horrible that these people couldn't get out of the building so they just decided to end their life by jumping out of the building.

Also when I went into middle school that day they were showing the 9/11 news throughout the whole entire day. We had to write reports for what we saw and what we would do if we were there to help those people that were right there watching 9/11 and who lost their family members.

I also heard from my dad a week later that one of my cousins that actually worked in that building was not heard from since that day. Even now the family is still unsure if she is alive or not. But I do pray that she is and I pray for all the other innocent people who have died on that tragic day.