A sophomore in college with airline and game ticket to see Tennessee v. Florida that weekend. Was meeting Dad down there and a friend who was a Florida fan. It was going to be a great weekend. And then.
Lived in my fraternity house at them time. Had Management 301 in McClung at 11:10. Had woken up early (8ish) to read my Bible and just get ready for the day. Was probably one of the only days in college I didn't hop online that morning to see what was going on. Decided to leave about 10:30 to swing by and grab a coffee before class. Walked down the steps, walked into the main room and the TV was on CNN showing a split screen of smoke bellowing from New York and what appeared to be the Pentagon. Confused, but realized something was up. Within 10 seconds I realized what had happened. Sat there stunned. Somehow went to my class, but after 10 minutes he just told us class was dismissed. Had to work that afternoon, and I didn't know any better, so I drove there, and they had closed for the day. So I ended up going back and sitting in front of the TV for the next however long. We all met at the church I was going to at the time that night, and I went there and after it ended up driving around Knoxville all by myself for who knows how long. Remember driving around 640 and seeing the planes patrolling the skies to my west and just freaked out. Another thing I remember was Basillio stayed on the air all day long. All day. Just talking, taking calls. He didn't have to, he just did. To this day, I still remember the lady looking for her husband, a window washer (a quick google search reveals his name to be Roke Kamja). I have no idea how many times CNN showed that video that week, but I'm pretty certain I saw it every time. And 13 years later thinking about it I am sitting here in my office tearing up picturing her.
Was eating a cinnamon and raisin bagel from the cafeteria in the building I worked. Was living in Hartford, CT at the time, so we were geographically really close to what was going on. Didn't have access to a TV so was on AOL's chat program with some friends when we heard a second plane hit and that a bomb (turned out to be another plane) blew up at the Pentagon. Knew we were under attack then and just sat there. The thing that stuck out to me the most was later that morning, when we finally got a TV on in the conference room, I remember seeing two guys in there laughing and carrying on. I got so mad. I wanted to go over and shake them and scream at them. Looking back, I now realize it was just their way of coping. It doesn't hurt as much now as it did, but when I see footage of the planes hitting the towers, I will get emotional and sometimes even cry. Was a tragedy all the way around, for us, for the civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq. May we soon grow up out of our terrible-twos and stop doing stupid shit like this to each other.
Algebra 2 class freshman year in high school. Our principle came over the loud speaker saying that America was under attack. Our boring ass teacher then keep sitting at the projector doing math problems like nothing had happen.
I was working as a teller at a community bank. It was a small operation as there was just myself, the head teller, the drive thru teller, a secretary, and branch manager. A customer came in and said did you hear that a plane hit the WTC? We hadn't heard as it had just happened where the first plane hit. I went upstairs and brought down one of those old style 27" TV's and we hooked it up on the counter right behind the teller line and watched it all day. I was 21 years old and had never experienced anything like this. I mean I caught the end of the Cold War with Russia but by the mid 80s it was winding down and I was too young to understand the fear that gripped American's. I understood this completely and was scared, really scared because I didn't know what might be next. And in shock watching people jumping out of 100 story windows. I remember after I got the TV downstairs just glued to it watching what unfolded. I think besides the merchants that had to make transactions that day at the bank that we maybe had 1-2 customers even walk through the door all day. Probably like 25 transactions between 3 tellers the entire day because it was like everything just stopped and everyone just stayed glued to the television. When that second plane hit the head teller just burst into tears and I couldn't process it. I thought it was somehow a replay of the first plane except that they were saying a second plane. Then when that first tower fell and the two other girls just grabbed onto me crying and we all just sat there in complete shock. Besides the whimpering and crying I don't think anyone said a single word for 20-30 minutes. It was like a bad dream. It's something that none of us that lived through it could ever forget. It was our generations D-Day or JFK and I hope to God we don't have to live through another one for ages. I feel for my wife because today is her birthday and it's now forever shrouded by sadness. We always try to do a little something but it's always a delicate subject with her now. How can you celebrate when your birthday is the day of one of the biggest tragedies in American history? She always has a hard time with her birthday because of the terrorist attacks from 9/11/01.
I was in a greenhouse tending to a winter crop of tomatoes. Granny walked across the field to tell me what was going on. She opened the door to the greenhouse and said "they bumed us, they bumed us"! Not having the slightest clue as to what she was talking about I walked back to the house with her. 10 seconds after I walked through the front door the second plane hit the 2nd tower. I remember my first thought. "This is not real" The horror that followed brought it to reality very quick. I found out later that day that my cousin had been in one of the towers not 2 weeks before and she eventually found out that she lost several friends. I had another cousin (in the 82nd Airborne) that watched the after math from across the river. His description of the smoke and sounds where that of a war zone. I remember the look on the presidents face when given the news at an elementary school. I remember an interview with an army general (paraphrasing) The son of a ******* knew exactly what they were doing, they hijacked a plane that was loaded with fuel. I remember Ws remarks at ground zero. I remember the hair standing up on my neck. Sadness, fury, and pride at the same time.
Woke up to Howard stern playing on my radio saying "some idiot" crashed his plane into the World Trade Center. Showered, went to work, noticed everyone huddled around a small tv and learned another plane hit. Bush throwing out that first pitch still gives me chills. Perfect strike too.
Yes and both major sports featured New York teams in their respective championship games that year (even though the Giants didn't play the Super Bowl until 2002).
Getting ready to board a flight to Newark. Not my favorite day to fly but whatcha gonna do? A few extra security precautions this morning.
No plane in the world will ever be hijacked in that manner again. Ever. Everyone will rise up and beat the shit out of them. That said, be safe. I am sure everything will be just fine.
I'm not stressed about it but I will say having children completely changes my perspective on such things. I would've been hard pressed to give it more than a second's thought a few years ago.
I was in the office at work. We had a foreman bust in and say something unintelligible about it, but he was gone as soon as he opened the door and closed his mouth. I think he closed his mouth anyway, but then again the guy needed to breath. My boss and I went back to work having no clue what this guy had been going on about. One of our wives called in the next few minutes, and we started scouring the internet for news. We were in the middle of a shutdown at the plant and stayed until five. That was an early day for us then, but not much was getting done by anyone anyway. My wife got pretty upset when news of the attacks on the Pentagon came out. Her sister worked there at the time as well as brother in law. Both were out of the office that day, but with phone lines going crazy, it took hours to confirm they were okay.
But no doubt about your point. The plotters read our psyche well and understood how we'd respond to a hijacking. That is why you see other types of attempts (one hear in Detroit several years ago) today rather than planes as weapons.
Was driving to work, I was undergrad then, working in the lab I work in now, listening to Tony Bruno. They were talking about Michael Jordan, and I remember because as the first plane hit, like droski said, the first thought was "some idiot crashed a small plane into the WTC" and I remember Tony Bruno joked that "maybe Michael Jordan's ego crashed into the WTC". When I got to work I got a radio out for us to listen to. I remember Tony Basilio being on the radio and taking calls for hours and hours. I had 1 class that night, the American History survey course, and we carried on, even though nobody was into it, including the teacher. It was just a completely bizarre thing. We always feel so safe, here, even with some things that have happened in the past, like OKC and the WTC in 93.
I was on my ship as we were making our way through the San Diego Bay after being out for a couple of weeks. We were getting ready to go underneath the Coronado Bridge when we were told to turn around and make our way North up the coast to monitor the LA air space. While monitoring I decided to link our air picture with WADS (Western Air Defense Sector) which provided us with the entire West Coast air picture. My Chief asked me to reach out to NORAD to see if they wanted the picture and they did so we forwarded it over to them. Following all that I was asked to write up procedures on how I did it and the Navy decided to make it everyday practice that one ship would provide this picture at all times. I ended up getting a NAM for it actually. Oddly enough, my wife's Mom and Dad were flying into San Diego that day. Her father has never flown and was scared so it was a huge victory to get him to agree to fly out. That had literally just boarded their flight in Nashville when that went down and needless to say that put the nail in the coffin as far as him ever flying. The hardest part about all of that was knowing what happened but not being able to call my wife and notify her that I wasn't coming home that day and I had no idea when I would be. We had email but as you can imagine everyone and their brother was trying to use the 10 computers for everyone on the ship.
