Bonneville America Forums Forums Off Topic Discussion Forums Lounge 9/11

This Monday will be five years. CNN will be running a flashback program on the air in real time and CNN Pipeline will be doing the same on-line. This was obviously a seminal event for most people around the world and takes its place in my own memories among other events such as John Glenn orbiting the earth, the Kennedy assasinations, the shuttle disasters, and the list goes on. I remember what I was doing when each of these things happened, and they mark the march of time in my own life. I do NOT mean to make this a political commentary or light the fuses of opinion for debate. I'd just like to know what you were doing, where you were when 9/11 happened, and how it touched your lives.

My story:

I was at work in my office here in Little Rock at the airport preparing for our weekly sales meeting, when a co-worker walked by and mentioned that a '747' had 'accidently' hit one of the towers of the WTC. This immediately struck me as too weird to be true, since how would one 'accidently' fly an airliner into the WTC in broad daylight? We have a crew lounge downstairs here for visitors, so I went down to watch the rest of what happened unfold throughout the morning on the TV there. It was a very crowded room. The events which happened that day were so enormous that they seemed surreal, and the reality didn't impact me emotionally until the lonely drive home when I saw all the airliners parked along the runway and I passed the churches with their signs that said, 'God Bless The USA", and 'Pray For Our Nation.' The tears started a few blocks from home as it hit me that we would never again be the same, and that the events of that day made ALL Americans New Yorkers and the nations of the world ALL one people. How quickly this passed, and how soon we seem to have forgotten the lessons of that day.

I too was in my office. My wife called me to tell me some plan had flown into the WTC. At first i thought it must have been some little cesna type plane who was lost in fog or something. Never dawned on me that it would be what it turned out to be.

We brought a tv into the office and watched the news unfold on tv. A truly dreadful day. Seeing that planes fly into the building was bad enough, but what really got me was seeing the twin towers fall down. It was at that point that the sheer scale of this act of terror sank in.

Saw just about the whole thing at work in the break room. I spent a lot of time in that break room that day. I was just numb, all day long in a daze. Sometimes I still can't believe it happened to us.

Same story, here. My wife called to tell me about a "plane" hitting the WTC, and I was thinking a Cessna or something like that! Not a big jet! Well, I kind of shrugged it off, checked out CNN Online, and saw that it was a big jet, and so went to the cantine to check it out on the tv in their. Was watching when the 2nd tower was hit, and even though terrorism was already swirling around in the back of my mind, at that moment it was like flipping a 440V circuit breaker! And after that, the work day was shot, I went back to my desk, and tried to pretend to work, but keeping tabs on it (but CNN online was so overwelmed by the story that it was lagging badly), and so continued to watch it unfold from time to time on the tv. At the time, my new boss had just gotten married and was due to return from Hawaii from honeymoon, and so was grounded there for an extra week until the air traffic situation got back to "Normal". Everytime I see the footage and documentaries, it's like watching it the first time again! I have to say that one positive thing came out of this. After watching all of this (and having flown out of Boston Logan on Sept 9!!!), I did some really deep soul searching and got much better about keeping in touch with my family, and it even inspired me to get in touch with an old special friend from High School, who I am now in constant contact with now, and have visited several times!

For some reason, I was at home that day. I watched it live on the Today show. I thought to myself "this isn't happening". Then I just felt very vulnerable. Hopefully we will be watchful and prepared so that a tragedy like that will never happen again. I think it changed America forever.

I think everybody knows where they were that day. I was home watching it live. Seemed unreal.

I was in my car on 495 going north near Marlboro MA.

I watched it live, at work. America got it's ****** kicked. It was Pearl Harbor all over again...but with no Geneva Convention.
We were sucker punched by a bunch of a-holes.
The U.S will never show their cards again. I do this for a living.
Things are different. Forever. Negotiation is laughable.
Political opinions are one thing.
But what you don't know is another. It's being handled. Regardless of who occupies the White House.
America...Peace Out

I had just arrived at work and was walking to the shop when one of the teamsters came out of the building looking shaken, and said "all Hell's breaking loose". I went inside where we have a TV in the break room and saw the first tower burning, and the reporters speculating on what happened, when the second plane hit.
All of us figured it was terrorists. Not much work got done for the first few hours, as we watched the story unfold.
I had just flown back from a training seminar the previous Saturday, so it felt a little extra eerie.

Thank God for the pilot at Newark who refused to take off, and upon going back to the terminal, a group of Middle Eastern guys ran off the plane. When the unchecked luggage was gone through, it was filled with al-Qaeda literature and instructions. Many heros stepped up that day. Now, lets stay vigilant, lest we end up with a nuke or other WMD in a many city. With Iran and its craziness, North Korea and its lust for power and money, and the instability of Pakistan and the the fact it HAS nukes, the reality of attack is very, very real.

I was at a sales meeting in Missoula, Montana. We were bowling of all things, and somebody came in to tell us what was going on in New York. We spent the rest of the morning in shock along with the rest of the country. I kept flashing back to a trip I had taken to New York with my oldest daughter when she was in High School. Future Business Leaders of America. I chaperoned a group of teenagers to New York for the absolute time of their lives. One of our stops was to the World Trade Center. We spent a couple of hours at the top of one of those magnificent towers. I still find it hard to believe that those incredible structures are gone. I also can't help but think about all the completely innocent people who were in those buildings that day, just going about their daily lives. It could have been my daughter, me, or any of the hundreds of thousands of people who travel to New York for a myriad of different reasons. I truly feel the loss of all those innocent souls.

I got up that morning, let the dog out, fed the cat, poured a cup of coffee, checked my e-mail and started surfing around the net. Naturally I saw just absolute chaos everywhere I looked and immediately turned on the TV, just in time to see footage of the second plane's impact. I got to work an hour late, but none of us got any work done; we all spent the day scouring the net for news. I remember walking around in a daze but couldn't even imagine what people in New York were feeling.

I had a staff meeting at 9 am. Someone told me as I was on my way about the first impact just before I went to the meeting, and I looked at a picture of the 1st tower on CNN. I remember drawing a picture of it on a white board at the beginning of the meeting. One person said terrorism immediately and the rest of us were not sure. This meeting normally went 2 hrs, but around 10am a secretary opened the door and asked "Do you know whats going on?" She told us what had happened in the last hour, and the director broke the meeting so we could see what was going on.
We all went to the fitness center where they had TVs and @ 100 other people where there watching coverage. Was there @ 10-15 minutes and the 1st tower fell. I just remember what a sickening feeling I had in my stomach. At my desk, the search for information of any sort on the web was impossible, because every site was overloaded. I had a ticker on my desktop, and that was the only information I was getting regularly. The strongest emotion I remember that day was helplessness mixed with frustration at not being able to do anything.
I will say one thing to close though, we can not let our lives change to the point where we are watching over our shoulders every day. If that happens, the terrorists have won.

A part of me died that rainy day.

I woke up in my barracks room, clicked on the TV, and saw the results of the firts hit and thought "too bad." I went to take a shower and when I got out there was a hole in the second tower. I went to work, and stayed there for a couple of weeks. I was "volunteered" to stand guard at our radar compound with a shotgun and I ended up sleeping on a cot in our conference room for a couple of weeks. But I was honored to serve my country at such a time through it all.

My story is very similar to everybody else's, in the office, heard about the first plane, watched the second plane hit, and I believe I saw flight 93 as it circled over cleveland, cause I was out having a smoke break about that time. We all heard about a grounded plane at Cleveland Hopkins too.

So, I get to fly, American Airlines, Monday 9/11/06 to chicago. Probably the safest day to fly out of the year anymore, but it still gives me the willies.

My story is like most everyone else's, but with a little bit of a twist.

I was in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia a city about 8 hours train ride east of Moscow. I was sitting outside in the afternoon sun (8 hours difference between Moscow and New York) with a Military Doctor friend's mother in law when a Russian man came out from the "Flat" speaking about something and all I could catch was, something bad in America and to come inside.

I went inside and saw on Russian CNN the first tower smoking and within five minutes the second plane crashed into the other tower. Everything was in Russian and I couldn't keep up with it, but I knew what it was. I knew as the towers came down, my heart wrenched as I knew my compatriatriates in EMS were dying as well as others.

I was scheduled to leave in a week and it was clear that we were not going to be going anywhere soon. Word had already gone out that there were no flights going from Moscow to anywhere.

I called my wife and she had not even heard about the news.

For the next week we waited and it wasn't until we got to the airport did we know that we would be able to fly into Amsterdam. The news filtering through was still sketchy as to the extent of things in terms of the long term affects. We expected a war would break out somewhere. At times I wondered if we were going to be able to get home, surely there would be a back log of travelers so I was not sure what would happen.

Got to Amsterdam, and security was as tight as I had ever seen it anywhere, even in Rome after the Terrorist attack in the Rome Airport the security wasn't this tight. I thanked them for frisking us three times! We were going to be the first plane from Amsterdam to be let back into the States. They asked if anyone wanted to sell their tickets and they airline would pay for them to stay in a hotel and give them another ticket at another date. I just wanted to go home.

It was the most interesting flight I had ever been on. Everyone, was friendly to one another, everyone! Somber, yet conversing quietly as if old friends. When a plane lands, Europeans cheer. For the most part, Americans don't do that. This flight we all did. We were glad, no, so very grateful to be home. Everyone got up at the appropriate time to gather their luggage from the overheads, calmly, with overt courtesy. Saying good-by and good luck to one another in a quiet, heart felt manor. It was incredible.

Looking back the waiting doesn't seem like such a big deal. But then, it was the longest week, waiting and wondering when I would get to see my family. Grieving for what we saw and what we did not know. In the end of things, if something ever happens again, no matter what it is. I want to be near home where I can be with my family.

You know there is certain events that stick with you
JFK, Moon landing, The Challanger, OJ verdict, and 9/11
Life was never the same after each event.
I was a very young child for one,almost a teen the next,
a cocky young adult. And a man with a family the last.
9/11 The world stopped a very busy street that my job was got empty. I dont ever remember that road not having cars on it except that day. Erie quiet all are employees crowding into the customer lounge to watch badly reported news, reporting rumors. And the owner of our company refusing to let us leave when all of us wanted to do was get home to our familes, The idiot saying its not as bad a it looks guys lets get some work done.One of those days you never forget and I dont think you ever want to