What were you doing on 9/11?

[shesulsa]

I renewed a memorial thread for this year.

It has become tradition on MartialTalk.com to commemorate and honor fallen warriors with a semblance of silence. Since we cannot effectuate "silence" on a discussion board and since we cannot post an empty post, traditionally we lay a mark of honor by removing the signature option for the post and typing a single dot - a period - for the body of the post. Some people post a bow smiley.

I started this thread thinking it would be an interesting read to know what others were doing and where they were when they heard/saw the news.

This was one of the most significant acts of terrorism (and arguably war) on this nation in most of our lifetimes.

Please feel free to describe your whereabouts and reaction when you heard the news, how you found out, etcetera.

 

[shesulsa]

I was getting my two oldest children ready for school and feeding my youngest when my mother called, frantic and from 1,000 miles away, to know if we were all right. Of course we were. "Turn on the news, the United States has been attacked!"

She was beside herself, wanting to know if we had a shelter and emergency stores. My mother was 12 years old when Pearl Harbor was attacked, her brother on one of the ships. She was scared.

I turned on the television and could not believe my eyes. The second tower was burning and clearly leaning a bit. The live coverage was interrupted constantly with replays of the footage of the planes actually impacting with the towers and the collapse of the first tower. Then news that the pentagon had also been struck. My heart was pounding.

The first thing I did was look outside for bedlam or panic; none. Then I called my husband who ... didn't answer. Then I thought of my friend who was a flight attendant at the time - her husband was a pilot and was flying that day. I called her to see if he was all right and like me she had not turned the television on yet in preparing the children for school. She was in utter shock.

I stuffed backpacks with clothing, diapers, food, water, ponchos, flashlights, etcetera, while listening/watching ... and then the second tower fell. Four planes, or was it five? The children and I got in the car and gassed up. Everyone was so calm.

And then ... no phone service. If you had a cell phone, you weren't going to call anyone. Then the long distance phone service was restricted.

Once as many preparations I could reasonably make were done, I kept my children home from school and we played games and watched the news. The baby napped near me or on me.

I had to turn the television off several times when they aired footage of people jumping and discussing it, but my children found out at school the next day. It had already become an inescapable reality for every living person with some reason and memory.

 

[kaizasosei]

i was at the market buying some things when i got a call from a friend telling me of the news. It was not untill i got home to see it for myself on tv that i began to realize what had occured.
the name obl pops up again three years later. i mean, obl made official warnings in 98 that even made the news back then(just that it got swept under the rug and most everyone forgot and didnt take it seriously)
still i wouldn't have thought that the threats of terror would be made real in such a way.
it was shocking for me as i believe for probably anyone to experience it second hand,through the television from afar, yet for those that live closer it must be even more harsh.

 

[theletch1]

I was driving north on I-81 at mile marker 210 in Virginia when the radio show I was listening to was pre-empted. I began hearing other truckers on the CB talk about it and several of us pulled into a truck stop to check out the news. After about an hour we got back onto the road to continue our runs. My personal thoughts were that we be looking to strike back and wishing I was still in the Corps.

 

[ghlong]

I was 8+ months pregnant, sitting on my front porch, blowing bubbles with my 2-1/2 year old son when my mother-in-law called and asked if I was watching TV. She told me what happened and I remember calmly staying on the front porch because I couldn't let myself "freak out" in front of my son. We went inside a little while later and I turned on the TV. It seemed like I was watching a movie, not real life. I guess maybe I had the TV on too much after that because I asked my son one day what he had dreamt about and he said, "Big plane hit houses." My second son was born 5 days after the attack and we wondered what kind of world were we bringing him into.

 

[tshadowchaser]

I was working at the local newspaper getting ready to go to press. We heard what was going on and knew there would be a delay in printing as the front page would be changed. I ran down the street to a store that sold televisions and stood there and watched the 2nd plane go into the towers and stayed to watch the towers fall . I then returned to the paper and we printed about an hour later.

 

[MJS]

I was at work. I was working in a shipping/receiving dept. at the time, so obviously we didn't have a TV, but we did have a radio, which was off at the time. I remember my boss coming up to me and telling me that a plane had hit one of the towers. Never dreaming that it was an attack, we had assumed at the time that it was an accident. Turning on the radio, we soon learned that it wasn't.

Later on that night, every station on TV was broadcasting this, so I got to see exactly what had happened. After watching repeated broadcasts of the buildings falling, people jumping, the people on the street running as huge clouds of smoke and dust filled the streets, I couldn't watch anymore. I shut the TV off and had a moment of silence for all of the people involved in that.

 

[jkembry]

I was working in Room 2D279 at the Pentagon installing software on a computer. that is a very surreal day in my life...know what I was watching and feeling to be true, but not wanting to believe it.

BTW...I never thought the Pentagon could ever shake...but was proven wrong that day.

Sorry to be a bit short here...but this day every year since make me fell a bit off-balance. Emotions are all over the scale.

 

[harlan]

Was in my office when it happened. The radio was on when the announcement was made. We all went to the conference room where there is a tv, and saw the first one in 'replay', and the rest as it happened.

Selfishly, as realization dawned on me, my first thought was,

'We are at war now (even though it was unclear who the enemy was)...

...and my son turned 17 today.'

A clear sense of a defining moment, of an unwritten future, of a nation in-between breaths.

A lot has happened in the world, and in my life since then. Tonight we will gather as a family, light candles on my son's cake, and celebrate his birthday. We will take the moment as it is, being mindful to be grateful for what we have, inhale....breathe out...and blow out the candles.

 

[Ninjamom]

I had just gotten all three children to school and was at my post working in the book store. My husband called me from northern VA where he worked to tell me that a plane had crashed into one of the towers in NYC. We were taling about what a terrible accident this was when the news broke where he was that a second plane had hit a second tower. "No way!" I thought. Then it donned on me that our nation was under attack. My first thought was that more of my countrymen had just died than were killed on Dec 7, 1941 at Pearl Harbor. It also hit me that there would probably be more to come, and that we would respond militarily as a nation. My knees hit the floor and I began to pray.

My husband called to give me an update since I had no radio or TV reception at work. While we were on the phone, he called out that he had just felt an explosion somewhere downtown - his building in Crystal City was close enough to the Pentagon that his building shook when the third plane hit. He told me to get the kids, and that he was packing up to come home. Before I could leave the store, I got a call from the school that they were closing for the day and asking all parents to come pick the children up early, so we could explain to them what was going on (Our town is home to a large Navy base, so matters like this hit close to home, as many of us had served in the Pentagon, knew people there at the time, and/or knew to whom would fall the responsiblity of responding to the attack.)

I went to the school and saw teachers holding back tears as they tried to comfort frightened children, while parents scurried everywhere. While I had immediately felt immense grief at the incident, this was the first time that I sensed any fear. I gathered my three children from their separate classrooms, intending to calm them with a special trip to McDonalds. We went home instead, at their request.

I grieved for those who had been lost, for our nation, for my children's lost innocence, for their world which I knew would never be the same. I also felt the resolute certainty (not anger or hate, or desire for vengeance) that we had the duty to respond.

 

[kidswarrior]

Was on my way to jury duty when I first began to figure out it wasn't that my radio was broken that caused all the stations to be broadcasting news instead of my favorite oldies. None of the announcers ever really came out and said what it was they were so somber about, so I only got small pieces of the picture (Was it an airport? Midair collision?). When I finally made it into the waiting room for jurors, the TV sets were on and those indelible images were being played. 75 people sat in dead silence, watching.

 

[arnisador]

I was walking across the quad after having taught two morning classes. A much older colleague on his way to teach his class told me a large plane or planes had flown into the WTC and that they were on fire. I thought he was trying to pull my leg. I walked into the lounge area near the mailboxes and saw it happening on TV and stopped in my tracks.

We were chatting about this at lunch yesterday. One person remembered the announcement of Pearl Harbor very clearly...two people remembered the assassination of JFK being announced (though one was a child in England at the time)...my big event had always been the 1981 attempt on Ronald Reagan's life, which was a big shock...and 9/11 will be that event for many people.

 

[shesulsa]

I was walking across the quad after having taught two morning classes. A much older colleague on his way to teach his class told me a large plane or planes had flown into the WTC and that they were on fire. I thought he was trying to pull my leg. I walked into the lounge area near the mailboxes and saw it happening on TV and stopped in my tracks.

We were chatting about this at lunch yesterday. One person remembered the announcement of Pearl Harbor very clearly...two people remembered the assassination of JFK being announced (though one was a child in England at the time)...my big event had always been the 1981 attempt on Ronald Reagan's life, which was a big shock...and 9/11 will be that event for many people.

I remember the assassination attempt on Reagan and it is right up there with the Oklahoma City bombing.

 

[SFC JeffJ]

I was driving home after taking my wife to work. I heard about the first plane on the Bob&Tom show. By the time I got home they new it was an attack and not an accident like first thought.

I really wished I could have re-enlisted then.

 

[Cryozombie]

I was sleeping. I had worked until 2 am the night before and was dead asleep on my couch in my rec room when my roommate came and woke me up and told me both towers were down.

I was hazy and didn't know what he meant so I turned on the TV... watched a few minutes and asked him if it was an attack or an accident and he said he didn't know... so I grabbed my "bail out bag" and checked my ammo, and then sat and watched it for a couple hours trying to make sense of what happened...

 

[Nolerama]

I was eating cereal, right before heading out to go to my first class that day. I was listening to Howard Stern on the radio as I got my things together and all of a sudden, I hear him start dropping the F-Bomb, and talking about the first Tower. I thought it was a really bad joke, so I turned on the TV to a burning WTC. And then the second plane hit.

My professor canceled the class that day. Another didn't, saying that if he did cancel the class, the terrorists win; but he wouldn't hold anything against students who felt like they couldn't make it through the class. I stayed for more info and updates on the situation. We were all scared... I was thinking Red Dawn stuff.

I kept trying to call my family on the East Coast, but all the cell lines were busy. When I finally reached them, I was reassured that they were safe, and hung out on a buddy's farm, since I couldn't go to work that night since all special events were canceled, too.

 

[Xue Sheng]

I was at work watching it all on the TVs they brought in.

 

[morph4me]

I was sitting at my desk working when one of the maintenance men ran through the office to the shop where we had a TV saying a plane had just hit the WTC. My first thought was that it was an accident with a small plane and that it had happened to the Empire State building years before I was born. I, and everyone esle, went to the back room and watched, and saw the second plane hit. The images are still burned into my memory. I live about 20 miles north of NYC and have a number of friends and acquaintences who commute, so I prayed that they were safe. On my way home I stopped at the hospital to give blood, figuring it would be needed, but they weren't taking donations anymore because they didn't have anyplace left to store it, seems I was a bit too late.

 

[Jade Tigress]

I getting ready to bring my son to speech therapy. I had the news on and heard it from the other room when the first plane hit. I ran to the living room and witnessed the second plane hit the second tower. I was in utter shock. The whole day was unreal. I remember it all so clearly.

 

[Rich Parsons]

I had left one meeting and was walking back to my desk/cube.

Co-worker:"I guess it wasn't Rich as he is here." Rich walking up to area.
Me: What are you talking about?
Other Co-Worker: There is a report of a plane hitting the Twin Towers.
Me: A small plane with wind trouble or a large plane?
Other C-W: Not sure.


Later that day, on my way home I stopped to get gas. The lot was full everyone was on edge. I went in to pre-pay. As I opened the door a guy inside who was yelling, "Get out my country. Go home back to your country.: He was yelling at the store owner. He is from Israel and a citizen here now.
He walked out the door I was holding open. He then began to yell at me to go home as well.

(* I understand his anger. It was misplaced though *)
The guy was about 160 lb and about 5'7"

I just stood in front of him, and replied, "Why don't you go home white man. Give me and my fellow Native Americans our land back."

His wife who was filling their tank, yelled at him to "get in the truck and shut the **** up."


But the real scary thing for me was in the early afternoon I had to drive from one location to another for work, and there were no plane trails in the air. And the only thing flying were the big bombers. It kind of made me wonder if anything really mattered.