9/11, what were you doing?

4xharley

4xharley

Barefooters
Feb 6, 2012
33
24
8
45
Athol, MA
#1
I know there is controversy in many people's minds surrounding this tragedy, but I think today is a day to remember those that lost their lives and those that gave up their lives trying to keep that from happening.
I was working as a roofer when I heard the coverage on the radio. First thought was "wow! how does a huge airplane accidentally crash into a huge building?" When the second one hit, everything changed. Within 3 days I had enlisted in the Air Force.
September 11th changed my life and I for one will never forget that feeling of my country coming together as one. I only regret that it took such a disaster to make it happen...
 
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#2
I was planning my birthday shindig for the next day (9/12) while at my desk at work. I remember the 'what a weird accident' feeling as the report of the first plane came in, then the abject horror as the second struck while I watched the news feed. I get emotional to this day thinking about it.

I also remember the rallying together and watching in the following days as an armada of rescue workers left Atlanta in a convoy for NYC to render aid. I think having my birthday right after it gives me a very contemplative feeling. I still feel a little guilty celebrating and making a big birthday deal when so many are thinking of far more important things.
 
#4
I was at my girlfriends house getting ready for the day when she started yelling at me to come and watch the tv. We sat there for a long while in shocked amazement that anything like this could happen to the US. We flew our flag at half mast for the next couple weeks until I went into basic training as I was already on the Delayed Entry Program for the Army. I was supposed to be an MP but that day changed my life forever as well as my job in the Army. The Army said I was at the Army's needs and they now needed me as an Infantryman as well as changing my duty station. It feels like a lot of people have forgotten about 9/11 and why we are even in the war in Afghanistan in the first place. Maybe it's just here in Oregon, but I hear comments all the time that we never should have gone over there and we don't do any good over there. It really grinds on me (mostly because the news/media only shows people the bad and never the good that we do over there, yes I do know from firsthand experience), but maybe that's also because I was raised in a small patriotic country town.
 
#5
I was sitting at my desk on a beautiful morning when a co-worker walked in and said he'd heard a small plane had hit a tower of the WTC. I walked outside and saw a lot of smoke coming from a tower, watched it for a few minutes and went in before the second tower was hit. Began getting e-mails from a friend in Australia who was wondering what was going on but ended up getting better information from him than I could get off the local radio stations. When I next walked outside both towers were down.
We never opened for business that day and I spent the rest of the morning riding a very circuitous route to fetch my then 8 year old son from school.
The rest of the day was divided between watching the exodus from downtown on TV and talking with neighbours who had been part of the exodus.
A friend, working as a photographer for the AP, was scheduled to cover Wall Street that day and got re-directed outside. He has some pretty harrowing stories!
 
#6
I was eating lunch in my car in the parking lot of our community college. I heard the coverage on the radio and went inside just in time to see the 2nd plane crash into the other tower on TV. They canceled classes for the rest of the day. I remember the feeling of disbelief and the overwhelming curiosity as I wondered "why?"
 
#7
I was getting ready for work. I came out of the shower and my Nextel was beeping - it was one of my employees telling me that the "Sh!t had hit the fan" and said that a plane hit one of the WTC towers. I was trying to figure out whether it was a mechanical/navigational error as I was driving in to work when on the radio they announced the second plane. Reality checked in hard, right about then. All I wanted to do was stay home, but at that time I was working at a semiconductor R and D facility with all sorts of hazardous materials that I was responsible for - including 9,000 gallons of Liquid Hydrogen. Thus, my presence was sort of required. They did ask me "What would happen if - say - someone shot that hydrogen tank with a rocket launcher?" My response - "Two words: Pink Mist" (I later found that I was incorrect - there'd be a fire, but no explosion). On the drive home I picked up case of Sierra Nevada and holed up on the couch drinking and re-reading my old Bloom County books.
 
#11
I had been out of the Army for 5 years already, and started watching/listening after the first plane/tower strike, so I also saw the second. I remember this event bringing us together as nothing else had in my lifetime, and I remember it as the eye-opener for those who had not (as many of us soldiers and other world travelers had) seen radical religious hatred up close and personal before. I worry that too many people have forgotten the strength and violence of that hatred as we've avoided more attacks here at home.
 
#13
late to this thread but I was at work, doing pre-press stuff for a large printing outfit. My boss came into the office, told me what was happening, and sent me home (for the record, I'm from NY, but live in Germany and this was around 4pm for me).

Got home, flipped on CNN and stayed glued to it.

Tried to phone home, took about three hours to get through. Got my (crazy) father on the line: "Dad! OMG! What's going on over there!?! Is everyone ok!?!... "

Him: "What? What? What are talking about, Willie Boy?"

Me: "The WTC ... it got blown up!"

Him: "What? Really? Well, someone must of pissed someone ese off ... that's what you get"

Me: "um... ok, Dad.... uh.... when's Mom gonna be home?"
 
#15
I was doing a postdoc at PNNL in Washington state. So I'd just gotten up when the planes first hit. It was also three days after my first date with DH. He called my house, my cell, and my work trying to make sure I wasn't wigged out. I figured a guy that concerned about me after one date was a keeper. I mean, my folks only called once.
 
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