9-11, Where were you when you heard

[126coupe]

I was in bed, the wife came in to wake me, she said you need to come downstairs and watch the news. She then said, We are going to war.

[rammstein]

I was driving to my internship that morning. Howard Stern was on the radio, and they were saying that they had gotten reports of a small plane hitting the WTC. It was very early, so they didn't know how bad it was. Right before I got out of the car, they were suggesting it might have been a much larger plane and their tone was getting oddly serious.

Sat down at my cube and started my work. Decided to check the news online. None of the news sites would load, but other sites worked fine. That was my clue that the news sites were jammed due to big news. I got up and walked by an office with a tv in it, and about 20 people crammed in there. The second plane had hit by then, and it was simply surreal. The news was still not willing to call it an attack. I remember getting pissed, because for both towers to be hit it seemed fairly obvious it was not a freak thing. Then they got word about the pentagon, and the screen went to a split of NYC and the pentagon. I called my father to see if my cousin had gotten out- he was in one of the towers. He left and was in the lobby of the 2nd tower when it got hit. He also witnessed bodies hitting the ground. But he had made it out my father said. When the 4th plane went down, it was only 90 miles from downtown Pittsburgh, which is where we were. We were ordered to evacuate.

Went back to my fraternity house. All of us sat and watched the tv that day and night. I remember trying to hypothesize what Bush would say on his speech that night, and all I could come up with was war.

[BReif61]

I was in 10th grade World Cultures when a vice principle pulled our teacher into the hallway for a minute. She then came back in, and turned the news on without saying a word. We all just watched it, dumbfounded. We went to two more classes that morning, and each time we were moving, the hallways were almost dead silent. We were all inside classrooms to see the second tower get hit and the first fall.

By noon, the superintendant had decided to send us home, citing the fact that we were smack dab in the middle of the triangle formed by three nuclear power stations (TMI, Peach Bottom, and Limerick). By the time we got home, my mother was home and my father was just waking up (worked 3rd shift) and he had no idea what had happened.

[RANDY P]

on my way to the garage to go to the gym - my buddy called me and said WWIII started. Turn on the TV!

Got there and sure enough it was going down.. Didn't get leave the house for a week.


rjp

[HardDrive]

I had the day off, so I got up and poured some cereal. Turned on the TV after the first plane had hit. I thought it was terrorism. It didn't jive that a commercial jet could hit a building on a bright clear morning. But I didn't know what to think. Then the second hit. Then it was clear. I can remember thinking at some point, "Our world has just changed. Nothing is going to be the same."

I got called into work because one of our technical instructors was Jewish, and he wanted to go to his kids school (a religous school) and get his son. His students and I streamed the news all day. No one said much. It was a somber day.

[Zeke]

Originally Posted by KaptKaos

I had just woken up, and turned on the TV. My wife and oldest daughter were asleep. I saw the smoke from the 1st tower and heard the talking heads chatting about what the cause was when the 2nd plane hit.

Horrible day.

Pretty much the same here. Man, things got quiet all of a sudden ( I live in a flight path) and stayed that way for days. I think that was more graphic to me than the TV.

This country really felt the hit. We should be so reminded each and every 9/11. In fact, I'd vote for a day of designation not to be called or used as a holiday. Like Memorial and Veterans Day. What a sham.

[RPKESQ]

Working in NY on an IT project for Morgan Stanley and Lehman Bros. I was at 745 Seventh Avenue and had just stepped into the loading dock when I heard all the sirens for the first hit. I watched the rest unfold from the roof there. Went down to Ground Zero next day to help, stayed there for the next 3 weeks. Working and living in NY for the next 9 months were very interesting.

[Hard-Deck]

I was teaching ROTC at San Diego State. We had just finished physical training with our Cadets. Every one of us on that staff and every Cadet who graduated and has been commissioned has been to Afghanistan, Iraq, Philippines, or HOA on multiple deployments since.

It has changed our lives for the rest of our lives.

Man-up, move out.

[Tim Hancock]

Originally Posted by Snapper33

I was teaching ROTC at San Diego State. We had just finished physical training with our Cadets. Every one of us on that staff and every Cadet who graduated and has been commissioned has been to Afghanistan, Iraq, Philippines, or HOA on multiple deployments since.

It has changed our lives for the rest of our lives.

Man-up, move out.

Thank you...

[Mr_Wizard]

Was a Sergeant in the Marine Corps stationed in Camp Pendleton CA. I was having my morning mug of coffee watching the news when the second plane hit the tower. My phone rang, my boss telling me to call everyone that instant and get them into the office. I woke up my wife, (ex now) told her what happened, she was in disbelief until I turned on the bedroom TV. I told her I had to go to work and was not sure when I would be home. We worked for the next 3 days straight on ............... Luckly I lived in base housing at the time so I was able to get to work that day. I

[craigster59]

I was driving to Ojai to drop our German Shepard pup off at the Vet to be spayed. I heard about it on the radio and when I got to the clinic the Dr. and Vet Techs had it on their small television. We just sat there dumbfounded, not saying much.

I headed home and watched the rest on T.V. til I saw the footage of the plane hitting the tower for about the hundredth time and went for a long hike.

[kwm]

I was new to my job at Bank of America in Charlotte NC. I had started Aug 1st. I moved to this new job and new location from Indianapolis but I quickly made friends with a girl who had just very recently left her career as a stewardess for AA to work at the Bank. She still had many friends working as stewardesses for various airlines especially AA.
She actually got a call on her cell just minutes before the first plane went in. It was very unusual for her to take a personal call at work so I took notice. Her face turned pale white during the call. She came to my cube speechless (which was also very unusual for her) and said that a plane was just hijacked in the NYC airspace. She then got another call from a friend saying that some air-traffic controllers will be losing their jobs today. She asked why and the caller told her that a controller just let a plane hit WTC. She then told him that she just had a call from a mutual friend that a plane in NYC area was hijacked.
1+1 equaling 2 we ran downstairs to the bank of TVs and CNN already had it on. She is the first person who whispered the word Terrorists in my ear. It was like the first time I had ever heard the word it seemed. I actually remembered pausing to decipher it. Then we saw that 2nd plane sweeping around hard to take a bead on WTC #2...... There were at least 200 people standing around and there had been a buzz of "what's going on", then the 2nd plane, and the 2nd time I heard the T-word....
The whole place was so incredibly quite after that... No one said a word or even moved it seemed for at least 30 minutes. I saw some people tearing up; I also saw anger and utter amazement on people's faces. About 45 minutes latter I realized my jaw was sore from clinching my muscles. We quietly went back up stairs and sat in our cubes staring at CNN. Then our manger came around and quietly said that everyone was being sent home due to today's events and the obvious threat of us being in a building named the Independence Center owned by a Bank named after America..... I still get pissed to this day when I think about it and probably always will.

[widgeon13]

We should all still be pissed, I know I am. Thanks for making that point!

[Seric]

Drinking coffee, about to surf the news sites and I noticed alot of people chatting in IRC, so I asked what was up. Then I turned on the T.V...

[jjone20]

At work in the FAA building on Independence Ave. in DC. Had CNN on the desktop and saw the report of plane 1. Since I'm Air Traffic I thought we might have a problem, so I slipped a note to the boss who was in a meeting. After plane 2, there was a fair amount of concern how many others were en route to target. There were lots of rumors like a bomb had gone of at State. They evacuated us pretty quick. I had to hitchhike home to F-burg since the trains weren't running anymore. Right by the Pentagon - debris everywhere. Pretty sobering. Got home and watched the rest of it unfold.

[M.D. Holloway]

I was in a zinc mine in Tenn

[Mule]

But NEVER FORGET, islam is a religion of peace! (and a big pile of dead bodies)

[Jagshund]

At work in Mobile, AL . . . and then on a long bike ride to Mississippi . . . we cannot point blame at Islam, only the zealots that it spawns in countries whose citizens wear virtual blinders. The Christian Bible is "just as bad" as the Koran, if you'll excuse the term.

[TGTIW]

I was a couple of blocks north of the Trade Center, I took the PATH train in just a couple of minutes earlier, so I guess it's not so much where was I when I heard, but where was I when I saw. At this time no one thought it was intentinal, so I ran up to work and tried to find out what was going on. I was inside when the second plane hit, so I ran outside and watched the rest from W. Broadway.

[BReif61]

Originally Posted by Mule

But NEVER FORGET, islam is a religion of peace! (and a big pile of dead bodies)

Yeah, and it was a white guy behind the OKC bombing. Can't you ever leave a thread alone?