IGX

I was in London, finishing my graduate work -- my dissertation was due on 9/13. I logged into one of the school's computers to check my email, and happened to look at the news. This was after the second tower had come down; I hadn't heard anything about it before that.

I grew up in NYC, and my parents and many of my friends were still living there. Also, my brother's family lived in DC, and my sister-in-law worked very close to the Pentagon, so the next ~8 hours were pretty much a blur of trying to make sure everyone I knew was alive and safe. To add to that, at the time I was living in Rotherhithe, across the Thames from Canary Wharf, where a lot of London's finance companies are. Since they had hit the WTC, a lot of people figured that Canary Wharf might be on the target list. So add that to the general atmosphere of grief and paranoia and 'WTF just happened?????' So I really don't remember a lot of details; mostly I just remember feeling scared.

At about 9pm that night I finally collapsed, got very drunk, and landed a nice sympathy fuck, so that part of it was OK.

That morning was our weekly educational conference for the emergency medicine residents at Ohio State. Our medical director came in and announced that the towers had been attacked, and that we were all to stand by on campus to prepare to receive casualties. The hospital turned on CNN on one of the auditoriums, and hospital staff and visitors kept wandering in and out throughout the day. The trauma and ER personnel stayed for hours, awaiting an influx of transported casualties to be transferred in. It was a terrible feeling when we realized no survivors were going to be coming.

Apart from a few things on FB, and the news at lunchtime, it's been the first year since it happened that people didn't really speak about it here in Italy. I found it quite odd TBH.

Grandpa's Spells wrote:Seeing the first plane coming into O'Hare after the no-fly period was spooky.

I was on a flight into O'Hare within a few days of flights were resuming, and it was spooky being in an airport.

I moved to northern VA, within a mile of the Pentagon, from Chicago less than a week before 9/11. I had a ticket to fly back to Chicago on 9/13 to defend my dissertation. My dad woke me up the morning of 9/11 as soon as he saw the Pentagon had been hit. (I was up late the night before preparing for my defense, formatting documents, etc.) After the towers collapsed, I hung up and called to check on some friends in NYC.

Then I went outside. I could see the smoke from Pentagon, and was soon able to smell it. The people around my apartment were freaking out. Every time a jet flew overhead I could hear someone crying out, as though our attackers might also be flying around in F16s strafing apartment buildings.

The most unsettling thing I saw that day was the military and civilian DOD employees who had to walk home (or at least walk some place where family could pick them up). They formed a bizarre, eery parade of people who had been stunned speechless. I've never seen so many people look so shocked.

Sleeping on the couch. Son calls."Dad! They"re Komikazing the world trade center!" Knowing him, I say oh bullshit! Switch on the TV and sure enough. A disaster in the happening! Wife #4's birthday is 9/11 and that date was burned into memory from that moment on. But yes indeed, the ragheads in E. Dearborn, MI were dancing and cheering in the streets. All muslims must die!

Was just back from first deployment. Watched it on a 12" black and white TV with about fifty other Marines. Spent the next 18 months training and then participated in the Iraq invasion in 2003. I would have left the Corps with no guilt years ago if not for today.

Hard to forget some of the images

I was listening to Howard Stern in San Francisco so I was getting the news 3 hours behind as I was getting ready for work becuase he was on tape delay. He mentioned something about something happening at the World Trade Center so I turned on the news. Everything had already happened by then. It was just a crazy very surreal day. I remember everyone being very confused and I do remember thinking that the world was really going to change from that point.

Here we are all these years later and as far as general relations both within this country and internationally, I can't say that I think it's changed for the better.

Visible from space, a smoke plume rises from the Manhattan area after two planes crashed into the towers of the World Trade Center. This photo was taken of metropolitan New York City (and other parts of New York as well as New Jersey) the morning of September 11, 2001. “Our prayers and thoughts go out to all the people there, and everywhere else,” said Station Commander Frank Culbertson of Expedition 3, after the terrorists’ attacks.

Upon further reflection, Culbertson said, “It’s horrible to see smoke pouring from wounds in your own country from such a fantastic vantage point. The dichotomy of being on a spacecraft dedicated to improving life on the earth and watching life being destroyed by such willful, terrible acts is jolting to the psyche, no matter who you are.”

Woke up like it was any other day. Back then I was working at the Corcoran College of Art and Design. I didn't turn on the TV, and I wasn't due at work until later that afternoon but I used to drive into DC early and hang out. I was on Braddock Rd, heading toward 495 when my Nokia chimed-up. It was my girlfriend at the time. She was frantic- a plane had just hit the Pentagon, and there was "all kinds of other crazy shit happening in New York."

I turned around, drove back home, and turned on the TV, and watched in what I can only describe as sheer horror.

That Fall was weird after that, for a lot of reasons.

Was driving to work and heard a different tone from the morning radio show. Sat in the office all day and watched CNBC on the computer in a state of shock.

I was working and living in a small town near Mt. Hood at the time. I was talking to the city manager a few months later who said that some investors were interested in starting a flying school for a primarily foreign clientele at one of the local airports. I asked him if they would be learning landing too. Not sure if I was the only one who made that comment to him or not, or if a government agency got involved, but the school never got started.

I was getting ready for work, when the wife said I should come down stairs and see the news. I walked downstairs in time to see the second plane hit. I went into the office which was near the San Diego FBI. There had to be about a dozen armed men on top of the roof. Helicopters were landing in the FBI parking lot, loading up with agents and flying off. It looked like the pictures of the US embasy evacuation in Vietnam in 1975. Cops were also out in force stopping anyone in a rental truck. My guess is that it was bad day to rent a box truck.

I only went into the office to grab my laptop. My idiot boss was aghast that I had no plans to work that day. I told him to fuck off and flipped him the middle finger as I walked out; never to return. I took the rest of September off and went to work for another company October 1.

I was out on Long Island at a Marriott for a rah-rah "motivational" meeting. On the first break, everyone goes out into the lobby and all the TVs in the lounge are tuned in and the first tower is burning. At that point, it still looked like it may have been an accident, so they called us back in to the meeting. A pretty stupid move as everyone in the place had friends or relatives working in the towers.
Moments later, we got word that the second tower was hit and that was it, they let everyone bolt for phones or home. I worked for an international insurance carrier and figured that there must be some kind of emergency plan taking effect and went into our Long Island office to see if there was anything I could do......ghost town. I was baffled that we weren't gearing up for some kind of response as we had a heavy presence downtown.

My youngest brother was being treated for cancer at the time and was on the top floor of the Nassau County Medical Center. Trying to get into the hospital was like entering a giant para-military clusterfuck. Tons of security but no one knowing exactly what to do or expect. Everyone was just...waiting. I'm sure they were pulled in different directions, trying to stay calm on duty yet frantically trying to find out the fate of family and friends. We got in and spent the next few days with him just watching the smoke billowing out of the hole in the distance.

I lost 2 friends and more than several acquaintances. A guy I coached youth soccer with was out of work for a long time and had just gotten a new job. He was in one of the towers above the strike. It was his second day back to work. Another was a fireman who I trained with occasionally at the gym. Both had kids in the same grade and school as mine.

I had the day off from work. I couldn't sleep the night before so I was awake all night and all that day.

I drove to my alma mater to use their computer lab for some reason that escapes me now.

I was listening to Stern on the way over when the first plane hit. I went in to use the computers and when I came out I turned Stern back on and the second plane hit. I drove around Philadelphia for the next few hours just listening to the rest of his show.

I had a 9:00 AM meeting scheduled at the Marriott down there with a potential vendor but decided that it didn't make sense so I cancelled it. I wonder if I'm alive because of that decision. I never spent much time in the WTC area and it was years later before I realized the proximity of the hotel to the horror.

I flew home from La Guardia the day after they started flying again. The plane was almost empty and it was spooky quiet.

I took the train back and forth to NYC multiple times after 9/11 and I'd see cars parked in the train station lots that would get dirtier and dirtier and dirtier with each trip because the owner was never coming back to pick it up. Sadly surreal.

The firehouses with pictures of their lost brothers out front was also heartbreakingly surreal.

Was forward deployed near Crete. I was training a particular dive and when we surfaced we were immediately pulled into a briefing to watch tv and stand there in stunned silence. I remember more than anything a lot of very hard, experienced men crying.

CharlieBob wrote:

Terry B. wrote:I was in Beijing.

Rarely have I heard such loud cheering.

Seriously?!?

I was in Beijing in a guesthouse for foreign diplomats and academics owned by the foreign ministry. It was evening when it happened.

The cheering happened when the towers crashed - if I remember correctly, it was around 10 or 11pm and a deafening roar came from student dorms that were located in the same compound. It was so loud, in fact, that my next door neighbor, an older professor on Fulbright, knocked on my door and asked if there was a football game or something happening. The only time that I heard anything close to that level of jubilation was when the city was awarded the 2008 Summer Games and when they were in the World Cup (2002?).

A day or so later, I needed to attend some official function and the Foreign Minister came over to shake hands and said all the right things. The gov't later bused students from two schools to the US Embassy to leave flowers for a nice photo op.

Initially, it was reported as chickens coming home to roost but soon the narrative changed to stamping out terror.

China's a big country and not everybody felt the same way, obviously, which is not what should be inferred by this.

I was on my days off. I woke up to take care of my kids and caught the first plane hitting the tower. Then I thought I was watching a replay when the second plane hit. All I could think was "FUCK! The economy is going to take a shit and the railroad isn't going to hire me."