# Where were you 6 years ago September 11th



## Karatedrifter7 (Sep 11, 2007)

I have a simple question that doesnt push any kind of political adgenda.
Back in September 11th of 2001 I went to a computer class that got cancled,I first heard the attack on the radio. I was taking Mantis boxing back then the Sifu went on with class as usual but it seemed he wasnt convinced the news had the right information about who did it.
Now what happened to you back then?


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## Carol (Sep 11, 2007)

I was within 20 miles of ground zero, in a computer lab at a customer location. We emerged from the lab in to a war zone of fearful, crying people. The worst was a man that thought he lost his wife when the first tower was hit. He was trying to pick up his kids at a daycare near the WTC so he could hold them and tell them their mom might be lost. But, manhattan was sealed off...he couldn't get in. 

One of my colleagues saw the attack, he was on the steps of our battery park office when the first tower was hit. Another lost her home and everything in it.

We stayed the night there...prepared to stay in one room if we had to. Fortunately, we didn't. The smell and the sight from the Amtrak train the next day was something I will never forget.

After returning safely to Boston around midday, my boss told me to go home. I did...and did what a lot of other folks did...turned on the TV and stared in shock.

My shock deepened when I heard that there was an arrest on the Amtrak train in Providence, RI. The person arrested wasn't a terrorist, or even a Muslim, he was a friend of mine...a young Sikh high tech entrepreneur profiled for his beard and turban. He was leaving Boston to help those suffering in his native Washington. All charges against him were dropped. 

I lost touch with my boss, our company fell apart post 9-11. But I heard my profiled friend is now a motivational speaker that talks about resiliency, bouncing back from trouble, and courage.


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## BrandiJo (Sep 11, 2007)

I was in class, Child development, and the teacher announced that whatever was going on outside her classroom was none of our concern, but that bad things where happening. Twenty mins later my mom called and got my out of school for the day, I was 15.


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## shesulsa (Sep 11, 2007)

My mother called me from So. Cal. saying to turn the news on.  I tripled up on the weaponry, bought supplies for 30 days and packed emergency backpacks.

I called my friend whose husband is a Delta pilot - neither of them knew anything at the time I called them.  I picked my kids up early from school and asked for the school and district major emergency plan.

Then, we sat and watched what was happening on the other side of the continent from our safe living rooms on the west coast.  I watched the second tower fall on TV and cried - the kids couldn't understand why.


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## 14 Kempo (Sep 11, 2007)

I was at work out here on the West Coast, someone saw me and asked if I had heard a plane hit the towers, I said no and really thought nothing much of it at the moment. I while later, someone told me that a second plane hit the second tower. About 15 minutes later I was being paged and locked up. I work for a major communications company and we went on high alert. I was locked up cause I was the person, onsite, with the most knowledge in computer systems. It was my job to keep them functioning so that communications could exist between the outside world and all the suits I was locked up with ... oh boy. We sat for hours watching closed circuit TV and various other network news broadcast. Some phone lines were kept open as others were in constant contact with various agencies throughout the contry. Same with the computer systems. It was pretty crazy at times, such as when the third plane hit, information was coming in faster than it could be read or than phones could be answered. I was finally taken off high alert sometime around 20:00 or so. Long, long day ... 04:00 - 20:00 ... and pretty scary at times. Yes, I know, the planes hadn't hit at 0400 on Westt Coast, that was my normal starting time in those days.


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## Tez3 (Sep 11, 2007)

I was nights on the Monday night so didn't get up till the afternoon. I went to the kitchen made a cup of tea, turned the tv on then phoned my instructor who was at work. We were going to visit another martial arts club that night.
I saw New York on the screen with smoke coming up but took little notice as I assumed it was a film then British reporters coming up so I turned the sound up and was appalled.I sat in my dressing gown watching stunned.

On the Garrison the alert state went up and we had more than usual armed guards everywhere, we searched cars and people. We checked everywhere a bomb could be hidden. We had to check hundreds of civilians who unfailingly expressed their horror and sympathy for the people lost and their families.


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## stone_dragone (Sep 11, 2007)

I was sitting in the Darkhorse classroom of Delta Company, 1-145th Aviation Regiment during my pre-Battle Skills Course portion of US Army Flight School learning how to "Australian Fold" our maps.  Rumors were coming in from the Staff Duty desk about a plane hitting the towers.  Most of us figured it was a cessna or something and that it was the result of a pissed off tower worker...

Eventually we got the rest of the updates, enough so that we were sent home to catch the news.  Since my house was the only one with cable among my friends, we congregated there and watched the news.  None of us knew what was in store for us, but we knew that it would be something far different than we had known before.


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## Drac (Sep 11, 2007)

At home getting ready to mow the lawn...Wife called me in and I saw the 2nd plane strike the Tower..


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## terryl965 (Sep 11, 2007)

Getting my kids to school, after being told what happened waiting for another three months to find out that I lost my cousin after all and today is a day to remember those that there life was taken.

I hope that people will one day heal and remember those that have given so much for this country.


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## Drac (Sep 11, 2007)

terryl965 said:


> I hope that people will one day heal and remember those that have given so much for this country.


 
Amen Brother....


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## benj13bowlin (Sep 11, 2007)

I was at Ft Sill in the middle of a 10 day Field Training Exercise, two weeks before graduation from Basic Training.  The Drill Sergeants came in and told everyone we were going to be sent straight from basic to war.  Then they pulled out everyone that might have had relatives in danger so they could go back to the rear and call their families. Fortunately everyone in my platoons families ended up being safe. We didnt even believe our Drill Sergeants at first, not until people started getting back from calling their families.  It took almost two years for most of us to get deployed and even then we were sent to Iraq, but the last couple weeks of basic were crazy once everyone realized they might have to actually use their training.


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## Kacey (Sep 11, 2007)

I was driving to work when the first reports reached the radio - the DJs on the station I listen to replayed a couple of minutes of their initial report this morning.  I have a cousin who lives in NYC - I called my uncle at work to see how she was; luckily, she was fine.  That's the only day I recall that we had TVs on in the classrooms even when the kids were there - it was about 7:48 am here when the first plane hit, and the kids heard about it on the way to school, so it's not like they didn't already know about it.


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## Ping898 (Sep 11, 2007)

I was in my dorm room getting ready for class when a friend told me over IM that a plane crashed into the towers.  Not realizing it was not just a single engine type plane, I didn't comprehend the significance of it until later wen I saw it on the news.  I have been told that if you went to the top of the parking deck on campus, you could see the smoke rising from the towers (I went to school in Newark, NJ)


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## jks9199 (Sep 11, 2007)

It was one of my days off...  I woke up, and turned on the tv in time to catch the aftermath of the first hit.  When the second plane hit, I knew it wasn't an accident...  After the Pentagon got hit, I was waiting for the phone to ring, and listening to my police radio, since I was able to monitor regional emergency commo at the Pentagon, as well as my home agency.


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## Ceicei (Sep 11, 2007)

My one year old daughter was sick, so I stayed home from work that day.  I was in the family room putting clothes on my daughter.  I turned on the TV planning to go to a kids show for us to watch together.  While channel surfing, I got to CNN channel and saw there were some breaking news going on.  I realized a passenger plane had already hit the first tower and thought it was a really tragic accident.  

While watching, I saw another plane hit the second tower.  It was a really weird feeling knowing I was watching this on live broadcast and it actually was happening that very moment.   This was definitely no freak accident.  Two planes hitting two towers... then breaking news about other planes.   

I stayed glued to the TV all day...  The hardest part of watching was not just the shock of this all happening, but seeing trapped people who were so desperate jumping from the towers.  There was a "close up" of some people prior to their jump, you could almost feel their resignation in making that choice.

My daughter couldn't understand why I cried.  When I went to pick up my sons from school, they already knew about it and all of us felt somber all day.  The boys asked some questions trying to comprehend why the adults at school (and home) were so shaken.  They knew something really bad happened, but were having a difficult time trying to understand why people would do these things.  At that time, we didn't know who would purposely do something like this.  I had a very difficult time explaining as I didn't really want to understand either.

-- Ceicei


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## Nomad (Sep 11, 2007)

I was driving to work in So Cal, and initially thought that it was a joke as I tend to listen to a radio program that is not above tasteless humor.  After a few minutes, realized with a "holy crap" feeling that it wasn't, then heard the reports of the second tower getting hit.  Went in to work, hung out for a couple of hours, then went home and stayed glued to the TV for a long while.


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## MJS (Sep 11, 2007)

Back then, I had a shipping/receiving job.  My wife worked at the same place.  I remember my boss coming up to me, telling me that he just heard on the radio that a plane hit the WTC.  Obviously all we had access to at the time was radio, so I called my Mom, who was home at the time to see if she had heard anything.  She in fact, confirmed what my boss had told me.

Everyone was pretty much glued to the radio for the rest of the day.  Nobody really knew what to expect, but it certainly was a very sad day.


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## Touch Of Death (Sep 11, 2007)

I was laying in bed with the Baby Momma, when her mother called. She said to her, "Happy Birthday! Turn on your television..."
Sean


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## rmclain (Sep 11, 2007)

I was just leaving to teach at UT-Arlington.  At that time, I was adjunct faculty and directed the Self-defense for Women program in the kinesiology department.  We cancelled classes that day.

R. McLain


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## Ronin Moose (Sep 11, 2007)

I was on a week of leave, and my daughter was visiting from Northern California.  Oddly enough, it was the very week I was scheduled to start my Kenpo lessons.  My daughter woke me to watch the catastrophe on CNN, and minutes later I was being called back to work to help run our command center while awaiting our assignments.  And yes, I did start Kenpo that week, so it is a bittersweet memory that will always be with me.  God bless those who were lost and their families, and God bless America.

-Garry


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## donna (Sep 11, 2007)

We were about to go to bed when the newsflash came across the screen. I rang my mum to see if they had seen it as we were in a state of disbeleif. We sat up most of the night watching as events unfolded.
It was like the world had suddenly got smaller, colder and scarier, as we wept in shared greif.
Watching those images, that were happening on the other side of the world, and feeling the emotion that was so raw it was as if it was happening to us all.


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## Gordon Nore (Sep 11, 2007)

I was working at a new school, teaching a grade five-six class. The principal called us into the staff room during morning recess and turned on the television. Within minutes we were receiving bulletins from the school board via email instructing us how to handle this issue in our classrooms. Many of the kids went home for lunch and came back to school full of stories of what they had seen on television. It was a surreal day for us at work, between coping with our own shock and trying to help children deal with this calmly.


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## grydth (Sep 11, 2007)

I was on an AMTRAK train to Albany, and so was completely oblivious to what was going on. 

When I got to the meeting I was going to, I couldn't understand why everyone was crying and shocked looking - until I looked at the TV in the room and saw a Tower fall.

I found another guy who had a car and we decided to take off for home - it was easy to see nothing was going to get done there. On the way we saw government/police/military vehicles of every type going the other way on the Thruway, towards NYC.

When we arrived back at the office, just about everyone had left. I was told to send the rest home, some of whom did not want to go. I eventually got everyone to leave except one - who had been my commanding general in the Army years before. There was no way I was going to budge him.

Then I went home... no heroics, no nothing. I just went home.


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## crushing (Sep 11, 2007)

I was at work when my wife called me crying that morning about what was on the news.  I think the second plane was hitting in NY when she was on the phone with me.  At work we had a department conference room with a large screen television and cable, so I turned that on.


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## tshadowchaser (Sep 11, 2007)

I was at work in the press room of our local news paper when I heard what was happening.  We did not have a tv in the building at the time so I went down to the one of the local stores to watch a tv and see what was happening


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## exile (Sep 11, 2007)

We were in Vancouver, at my wife's parents' home. It was early morning, and we got a phone call from my sister-in-law, in the British Columbia interior, who'd seen the news stories. We couldn't get our minds around it at first, no matter how many times we watched that horrifying footage.


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## Rich Parsons (Sep 11, 2007)

Karatedrifter7 said:


> I have a simple question that doesnt push any kind of political adgenda.
> Back in September 11th of 2001 I went to a computer class that got cancled,I first heard the attack on the radio. I was taking Mantis boxing back then the Sifu went on with class as usual but it seemed he wasnt convinced the news had the right information about who did it.
> Now what happened to you back then?


 

It was a very sad day for me.

1) I walked out of a meeting to have people make comments about "Well it wasn't Rich Who flew the plane into the tower." Made after the first crash and before the second. 

2) I had to travel to another company site and there were no air con trails. But there was a nice large 4 prop plane flying over head in a large circle. (* B-52 scrambled from local sites *)

3) I usually get gas on Tuesday's, and when I pulled in everyone was racing to get gas. I waited to get to a pump and then went inside to pay. This guy walking out was yelling at the Lebonese Store owner about going home. I opened the door and he walked through like I had opened it for him. I was shocked from earlier in the day. I was shocked by his anger to someone who was not involved. He looked at me as he walked to his truck that his wife was filling up and said, "Go home! Go back to your country. We do not want your kind around here!". I was very tired and upset and more than willing to kick this guys butt. I replied, "Go Home White man. We US indians want our land back" His wife told him to shut up and get into the truck. I was mad. I said hi the the Owner and paid. Others just looked at me, like WOW I cannot believe he said that. 

4) I tried to pull out but even more people were pulling in. To get out in my lowre clearance Firebird all I needed was for this woman to move her car 4 inches. I asked her. She ignored me. Others started to scream at me to move, in which case I got out and told them that I would be glad to get out of there way but this woman will not move her car 4 inches so I can clear. I then grabbed the phone and keyed up 911. The three guys were upset at me yelling back, "like who is this foreigner telling them what to do." and asked me what I was doing. I told them I was calling 911, so the ambulance for them would be on its' way, because I was going to kill them if they got near me or my car. The lady in the car then moved her's and I was able to leave. 

It was a day of anguish and hate and fear and anger. It makes me cry to think of it all. But, most times I just laugh so I can get through the story.


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## Steel Tiger (Sep 11, 2007)

I was up late that night just flicking through the TV channels when I came across areport of the first crash.  I just sat there shocked and became more and more shocked as events continued to unfold.

I remember thinking, "That's bad but at least the building's not going to collapse because a plane crashed into the Empire state Building in the forties and didn't have much affect."  Then it collapsed.  I was speechless.  The events rolled around in my head for the whole of the next day.  It was difficult to sleep or do anything.


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## MBuzzy (Sep 11, 2007)

I was a Senior in College at Virginia Tech (Corps of Cadets, uniforms and all).  I was walking into my dorm when one of my classmates was coming out and said "We're under attack!  Someone blew up the WTC!!!"  

So I went inside and found a TV.  After that, the Regimental Chaplain and I (Retention Officer) started tracking down Cadets whose family was at the Pentagon or WTC and trying to counsel them.  Once we'd found them, we started helping with accounting for every Cadet at Tech.  Then started organizing the memorial ceremony.


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## blacklightmike (Sep 12, 2007)

I was home, taking the week off to watch our kids while my wife went to New Orleans on business. She called me early on the 11th to say goodbye, as she was getting ready to board a flight to Dallas to meet up with her co-workers. My daughter was getting ready for her first day of ballet class when the TV started showing the images of the first tower, then the second. I checked my watch... my wife's plane was in the air, and they were talking about shooting down any planes still flying; so, for a chilling moment, I was dumbstruck by the notion of becoming a single father to a toddler and an infant, and losing the woman I love.

A call came through from Missouri from her cousin, as all circuits direct to the NJ/NY area were down... my wife hadn't boarded the plane and all flights were canceled...  and I was to take my daughter to ballet as if nothing happened. As I drove to the studio, there were reports of mushroom clouds over Jersey City, about 20 miles from us. I waited outside the studio, my infant son on my lap, watching for smoke in the clear blue sky. As there was no telling what was about to transpire, I packed a few vital goods by the back door when we got home and waited for... whatever.

My wife was stuck in New Orleans for a week, and spent her time arranging bus charters for her fellow conference attendees to get them home, but ironically, couldn't rally enough support to get one back to NJ, She spent the week being wined and dined well, but also spent a good deal of it crying on her bed and listening to fighter jets flying over the hotel. A last chance van rental, a drive to Dallas to pick up her comrades, and a non-stop drive brought her home the following Sunday.


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## Karatedrifter7 (Sep 12, 2007)

Well thanks to all, interesting feedback.

Dave


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