What do you remember most about Sep. 11th 2001?

[midnitemoleman]

I as always read a million news sources a day and so on. But it hit me
ust a few moments ago, a flash back kind of thing of seeing the Building's fall, and the plains hit.

I had just gotten home from taking my wife to work in Bloomington, Indiana. It was a nice fall day and she usualy drove herself but things worked out that we (the family) could all have some morning time together. I had gotten home and started my morning fix of news (I have not like or trusted Bush from day #1) so see what Bush & CO were up to messing up. I turned from CNN to the New York News stations we recived on Direct TV (By the way the stop us from getting that, whats up with that NY!) They had just turned to the first plain hitting and you could see the tower out the back window behing the news crew. They stoped in mid sentence to turn and look at the fire when a crew then started filming from the roof top of the fire. When the second plane hit then the smoke, Bush sitting and reading a book liie nothing (unexpected) had happened. Then the tower fell and sorrow, my children asking why I was crying. I will never forget it, ever. I had to call my wife and tell her to turn on a TV or radio. All the women were laughing and talking and I told her, Look you are the facilities department and something has happened, you need to serious up. Then I told her, and then she got real serious on safty for the student's. What a day to never forget!

Sorry if I rambled, just one of those thing that stay's with you, ya' know what I mean!

[geniph]

1. My husband leaning into the shower

where I was taking my morning shower to tell me, "Looks like Bush is going to get his war."

[AntiCoup2K4]

2. My first thought, upon seeing the second plane hit the tower ......

...was "THEY DID IT".

As in the Bush Criminal Empire. It was my first impulse. Then I calmed myself down and reasoned that even these criminal fucks wouldn't go that far, would they?

All the facts on that day, and the events leading up to it, have convinced me that my first impression was right. :grr:

[number9]

3. That's what I thought!

I thought they did it - then no they couldn't stoop this low - then discovered (in a non-tinfoil hat kinda way) that something stunk - a lot stunk - now just waiting for the report.

[Sequoia]

21. Me too

especially when they showed Bush with the kids and he had this gleam in his eye. Then I wondered why weren't the planes stopped? Then I thought I was being crazy and knew it would be blamed on people of Islamic faith. A few months into the presidency Bush was saying how we as a nation had nothing to fear, bla, bla. I remember then thinking, don't jinx us with talk like that. Then along came September 11 and I knew it was the end for happy days in the USA for a long time to come...long time. I watched a lot of footage that day and the scene that sticks in my mind was from a freelancer who had taken shots in the nearby hotel cafe: all the dishes were still on the table with food and the flowers on the lobby desk were intact but covered by ash. Really weired.

[ThirdWheelLegend]

4. My first thought...while at work

Honestly besides the shock, the first thing that went through my mind was, "OH SHIT! Bush is the pResident! We're fucked!"


TWL

[BeHereNow]

5. Bloomington!

I grew up in Terre Haute! "High ground of the low mind..."
Just had to say "Hi Hoosier."

What do I remember most about 911?

I had just dropped my daughter off at her train to her High School,
located on a Cal State campus.
As I turned down the street returning home, I heard the news
on the radio.
My first thought?
"They did this!"
meaning our government.
I went in the house, watched a few minutes of the news,
junped back in the truck and drove to my daughter's school
and brought her back home.

BHN

[EAMcClure]

6. My biggest memory (and question) was...

How come the WTC towers imploded from the bottom up?

[MrPrax]

28. Yeah I had more Questions than shock after awhile

I was thinking why are the buildings falling like they do in controlled explosions and
How the Hell do you manage to hi-jack 4 planes at roughly the same time?
Must be a record...
I was on the west coast at the time, so it was early morning and I got waken by a friend at work (graveyards!!) who asked me to turn on the TV and tell him what happened as they were getting a very vague description of events over the radio...
The rest was history...

[LiberalLibra]

7. For me the most memorable and horrible thing was......

....that all those firefighters, EMT, police, and Port Authority workers were not coming out of those buildings.

Then came the pictures of people jumping to their deaths and I said out loud at the time, "OMG, it has to be pure fucking hell up there for them to jump like that." The tears just didn't quit!

Then, when that **** got on TV and acted like he was all suprised and sad I will get banned quickly if I tell you what I wanted to do to ****.

[dawgman]

8. driving to work listening to sports radio and having the normally crass

guy say "I'm sure I'm just going to be talking to air from now on, but A plane has hit the World Trade Center. This does not look like an accident." ANd driving to work in shock after that.

[proud patriot]

9. The Pain of it all

I've always been hypersensitive to pain and suffering of others..

[maxsolomon]

10. i remember everyone paying attention to one thing.

everyone talking about it & deciding what should be done.

and then our CEO sending an email telling us all to get back to work "to serve our clients".

[Kellanved]

11. I came home for lunch

Saw it in news.
First it was a "plane", then a jet (possibly a "lear") then a jetliner.
Then came #2. I had switched to CNN in the meantime.
I mailed some of my working friends and watched at the screen for hours, stunned, horrified.

Later that day I went to meet with some some fellow Social Democrats to hand out flyers (it was election time) - we stopped after a few minutes and got a hot chocolate, as it was very cold that day and we couldn't get ourselves to smile.
In the cafe we heard, that the campaign was set out for an unknown period of time, so we went home very troubled.

[tpub]

12. Geez guys

I hated Bush being in the WH as much as you guys did, but my thoughts weren't political that day.

My boyfriend was in Manhattan at the time and I didn't know if he was the WTC or not (he wasn't). It took me an hour on the phone to get in touch with anyone in the tri-state area. That's what I remember most--the fear that someone I knew was in there.

And, actually, an acquaintance, Doug Irgang, was. RIP.

It's still hard to think about that day and I don't want to see the images on TV anymore.

sorry to be a bummer...

[LiberalLibra]

16. Please don't think you are being a "bummer" read post #7 because......

....even though I didn't know anyone in NY that day, THANK GOODNESS, my thoughts were with the loss of life. I didn't think anything political for a couple of days, or whenever it was that Bush got his mug on TV the first time after that day.

[hang a left]

13. I've been a "bush watch" junkie

for a few years now. I remember being shocked and really scared for our country, pretty much like most of the country. It took me a while to suscribe to the conspiracy theories that I now do. Just a little older and wiser now I guess

[blackcat77]

14. I sleep late, so I didn't get up until about 11.30 or so.

I got up, let the dogs out, petted the cat, got my coffee, let the dogs back in and then went in and sat down at the computer. As usual -- back then -- the first thing I did was open the mail. Saw a note on my sim racing league mailing list about "the terrible tragedy in NY" and had no idea what that was about so I opened the browser and couldn't get ANY of the news websites to load. At that point I had an indescribable feeling of fear when I finally got CNN to open asd all it had was a tiny picture in the corner of people running from the dust cloud and the words "Twin Towers collapse." Then I went in turned on the tv and learned the whole story.

But the thing that sticks most in my mind, oddly enough, was petting the cat. At that moment, I didn't have a care in the world. Thirty seconds later, everything changed forever.

[nostamj]

15. i didn't think about bush*

I was at my desk (in an office tower in mid-town manhattan) and when the second hit was announce, I knew it was terrorism.

i didn't think about bush* until much later.

i just wanted to go home. i just wanted to be OFF that island and away from office towers asap.

it took hours.

the smoke plume extended over my neighborhood. there was still bits of seared paper drifting down.

it took days to begin putting it into ANY context other that raw terror. utter shock. real fear.

[LiberalLibra]

18. OMG, I am sorry you were nearby, I'll bet it was horrible for you.....

.....and your coworkers. I just hope you are all right.

[ward919]

17. "Where is the President?"

that's what I remember.

[BurtWorm]

19. I was in midtown Manhattan

at Columbus Circle, trying to get a train to Rockefeller Center. It was primary election day--a beautiful, crystal clear late summer day. Underground, there were announcements every minute that there was no E train service or service on any other line below Chambers Street because of an incident at the World Train Center. And of course, my mind raced back to 1993. But there was no news underground. So I proceeded on to do a chore for work on 6th Avenue, searching people's faces for a clue of something big going on and finding people very difficult to read. After finishing my chore, I made my way back up 6th Avenue to the subway and found myself in a throng across the street from the Fox News building, where a zipper running around the outside said something about a "second plane" hitting the second WTC. "Terrorism suspected," it said. No one was saying anything. We all just stood there reading the zipper and looking wordlessly at each other.

I crossed over to Fifth Avenue. It was lined with people all looking south, so I looked too. And there were the towers, billowing out smoke. I should have known then not to continue on to Queens, where I work, but I did. On the train into Queens--which, little did I know was the last train in or out of the borough that day--a man who worked near the towers and who looked utterly shellshocked, told the story of watching the second plane slam into the tower and feeling the whole building shake under him. I asked where it hit--near the top? And he mimicked the event with his arm and hand. "I can't stop thinking about all those people," he said. Everyone in the car was listening to his story. A slightly deranged man tried to start a rumor that the Empire State Buidling and St. Patrick's cathedral had also been hit. I had just walked past the latter, so I knew he was making it up.

In my cab ride to work from the station, the driver, who was listening to the news, said the Pentagon and maybe the capital had also just been hit. I said, "This is war. We're at war."

Most of the rest of my morning and the first part of the afternoon were spent at work with the few people who'd managed to make it in alternately crowded around a TV and trying to figure out--those of us who lived in Manhattan anyway--how we were going to get home. I took note, with some annoyance while watching the news, that Bush was scooting around the country on a plane, the hell away from Washington.


There's more to the story, but I have to interrupt myself.

[tpub]

23. I can't imagine what it was like to be there that day

but my boyfriend told me he had to walk from his office uptown all the way to his apt. on upper east side, then told me about the constant flyovers they heard and how could you tell if they were the good guys or more bad guys?

And, thanks, LiberalLibra!

[BurtWorm]

74. The city felt like Berlin 1945

I felt like I was in a Graham Greene novel, especially when I was waiting, with hundreds of tired, worried people, to be allowed to cross the 59th Street Bridge. No one was crossing any bridges at all, by car, train, bicycle or foot, and I wasn't sure I was even going to be allowed into Manhattan. There was a rumor that Manhattan was being evacuated--I swear to the gods! I had images of my wife and daughter being taken to a tent city in Westchester or New Jersey, and I was wondering how the hell I was going to find them. Huge lines were waiting to use the pay phones--cell phones were not working, all circuits were busy. I didn't get through to my wife, whom I hadn't spoken to since I'd left work about two hours before. One woman waiting on line with me told me she had been able to account for everyone she knew who worked in the Towers, except her sister. (I knew a few people who worked there, not well enough to need to check in with them that morning. I later found out they were all okay. I was mainly worried--sick--about a friend who was flying from DC to California that morning. We found out a day or two later that he was safe in California, too.)

Finally, sometime around five, the word went out that we were allowed to cross. I ran, with dozens of others, onto the bridge to try to get as far across it as I could before they changed their minds. And of course, as I'm walking across the bridge, I and everyone else had their eyes riveted to the hole with smoke pouring out of it that used to be the WTC. And there was an eery feeling in the middle of the bridge, a realization that we were all kind of vulnerable there if someone decided to do something terrible to bridge. But of course we made it. And I called my wife at the first payphone I could find. The streets were utterly, utterly empty. No cars, no cabs, very, very few people. I had to walk all the way across town to Columbus Circle again, and luckily, just as I got there, the trains started running again. I just remember quiet, exhausted, haunted looking people. Finally home, my wife and I hugged and spent the evening shielding our then five-year-old daughter from the news. (The next morning, when she saw WTC in flames on the cover of the Times, she was enraged. She loved the Towers.)

And I was up late that night, like most of America, watching the news. I have almost no memory of Bush's address. I didn't think much about him over the next few days, but every time I did I was annoyed with what looked like cowardice to me. I never liked Rudy Giuliani or George Pataki, either, but I was completely impressed with the way both of those guys handled themselves during those awful couple of weeks. And the Bush boy suffered by comparison.

[notadmblnd]

20. I awoke to a call from my employer on my day off

Telling me that our client in NY computers were down and could I come in and help them recover? My husband then told me that planes had flown into the WTC. As I drove to work that afternoon (I worked Midnights)I heard on the radio that WTC7 had just collapsed. Our clients were in that building. When I spoke to my counterpart later that evening at their DRA center in NJ I was just amazed that they had watched from their office windows the horror of that day, and still had the courage to continue working that day.

[madmax]

22. I was watching the news and saw the first plane hit

and it looked to me like it was an attack. When the second plane hit my first words out loud were, 'bush did this'. I still believe they knew something was going to happen but they thought maybe only a hijacking or something like that so they lihop.

Condoleeza so much as said that when she gave her first press conference after 9/11. She was NOT credible imho. She said, we heard chatter and thought perhaps a plane hijacking blah, blah. Then why didn't they notify the FAA. And why were all four planes off course and no planes scrambled. Hell, we can all speculate and never really know - not in our lifetime.

[nostamj]

50. "saw the first plane hit "

uh.. NO, you didn't.

you may have seen the first tower burning BUT... no film of the first strike was shown until 9/13. it just didn't exist.

[LWolf]

24. My son on the phone

demanding, "Why aren't you watching tv??" (I don't watch much, and never watch tv news). "Turn it on now!!!"

So I turned it on. I watched for about 5 minutes in a strange, detached sort of way, and turned it off, wondering what the big deal was about.

I should mention here that I'd been released from a week in ICU the day before, with a broken skull and a severe frontal lobe concussion. Memory loss and severed olfactory nerves. It just never connected. The skull injury was the final blow in a year that made my life look like a holocaust; I remember wondering why I was supposed to be upset about everyone else's tragedies but just suck it up and keep going when it came to mine. I also remember that I wondered why everyone was so surprised; I considered it a response to the election of *. And I wondered what sort of tragedy killed the most people in America that year. 9-11? Murder? Vehicular accidents? Disease?

As I recovered and my brain reorganized itself and healed, I felt compassion for the victims and their families. I never felt rage; I never felt the need to wave red white and blue over the mess, and I never felt the need for vengeance. I was sickened from the beginning by what I viewed as unforgivable political manipulation of people's tragedy by Bush Inc.

I know this sounds like a cold response. I'm not a cold person; I'm generally too empathetic for my own good. I think all the short circuits going on with my wiring at the time just missed that connection.

[Eloriel]

34. Nope, not a cold response at all

Sounds like one part of you was protecting you at a time when you needed all your strength for your own healing.

Eloriel

[jmm]

25. I found out about it in a class.

Usually I watch the news in the morning but I slept in that day and skipped the TV. When I got to class the professor announced that the first plane hit and someone who came in late told us about the second plane. For about 15 minutes we all talked then the professor dismissed us saying that at a time like that our class was not important.

My other classes for the day were cancelled so I spent most of the day on DU while watching TV and talking on the phone. Everyone who knows me knows I'm a political junkie so I tend to get a lot of calls when major events happen.

My first thought was that I hoped no Arabs were involved. At least if it had been a McVeigh like situation, there wouldn’t be a backlash against anyone who remotely looked like him. I was also afraid the tragedy would be used to push Patriot Act like laws.

[OKNancy]

26. I was worried about my sister who has a studio

or I should say had a studio at 65 W. Broadway. I finally was able to reach her. She lives in Greenwich Village and her street was being set up for triage. Of course we all know now that there were no bodies or people to help since most everyone died.

[sam sarrha]

27. my mother called...

the previous weekend i had called my 80 year old mother in calif. she always wants to talk about politics, we dont always agree...but that weekend i was telling her about our plane trip and the lack of security... i went into all the past info about the dozens of terrorists that had been caught around the world and the information they had about crashing planes into buildings and destroying monuments. i had said NY has the biggest buildings and they have already tried the WTC once, it is just a matter of time... she called me and asked me if i had told anyone else what i had told her. she was afraid someone would pick me up and i'd disappear. the other thing was the people on cnn saying the president was safe, that they had sent him out of the DC area because of heightened security alerts.

[Hamlette]

29. shock, fascination, a bit of fear (of them, not Bush)

then a feeling of community. Odd but I felt closer to my fellow Americans than I usually do, in an emotional, patriotic way. I didn't even think about politics until Bush went to ground zero and did the photo op with the bull horn and the workers. Gag.

[Eloriel]

30. I really regret that I wasn't home that morning

I was doing some volunteer work, filling it at the County Extension Office. I got a call from my family, and several calls thereafter til I could leave at 12:30. I REALLY wish I'd seen the 2nd plane hit myself because even now, it still seems so surreal -- like movie special effects. I don't know if it would have seemed more real to me if I'd seen it myself, but I'd still have rather been there. (Hah! Esp. when every single other day of my life I'm glued to the computer and TV.)

While it was going on, including the Pentagon and one false early claim of yet another attack that turned out to be not true, great relief and a sense of safety to be living in rural Georgia, which isn't much of a target for anything.

The horror that 10s of thousands of people were trapped and dying/dead. I still think it's a miracle more didn't perish.

Curiosity and puzzlement about the strange behvior of Bush that morning, disgust at Karen Hughes assuring us Bush was all right (as one columnist put it: we needed to be reassured that WE were all right), and curiosity, puzzlement and distrust at how he slinked across the White House lawn when he finally did return to Washington.

Deep sorrow, grief, shock and awe -- not just the events of the day but the implications for the rest of our national and collective futures as well as my own personal future. "This isn't how I wanted to spend my later years." It wasn't supposed to be like this.

Eloriel

[finn]

31. thinking what chicken shit stole the white house

and soon all the sheeple will follow the ratshit eater bush

[Sterling]

32. The smell, not being able to breath.

Wondering what was next.

[Dimsdale]

33. Clouds of dust still blocked out the sun..

in Lower Manhattan, when they put Curt Weldon, our thoroughly repuke rep. here in SE Pa., on the air on KYW Newsradio where he proceeded to blame the whole thing on Clinton. If Clinton hadn't weakened the military, the intelligence apparatus...Those of you who voted for him I hope you're satisfied now...Absolutely fucking unbelievable and unforgetable. Along with the shock of watching the towers come down, I'll never forget that asshole launching into Clinton like that.

[MattNC]

35. didn't notice at first

My morning routine usually involves cutting CNN on as I start to get ready for the day. I remember cutting it on as usual (with the volume sort of low), then taking a shower, getting dressed, checking e-mail, etc. It wasn't until I was about to head out the door for class that I noticed what was going on.

[shatoga]

36. that day I was watching Bush live at a local school

I was also taping two networks.

Just had a bad feeling that morning.
As did two thirds of the WTC employees, I suppose,
because they didn't show up for work that day.

Pictures of a smoking hole in one tower, on one TV and Bush sitting on stage, waiting for kids to finish reading on another TV.

I called up an old buddy who was a missile launch tech during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
"Turn on the news." I told him.

He got CNN onscreen.

We watched from different states as the second plane hit the WTC.

I saw Andrew Card whisper into Bush's ear.
Bush just sat there and did nothing.

My old buddy screamed into the phone:
"Where's the air cover?"
"What do you mean?" I asked him.

"NYC is a no fly zone.
Besides the military is set up to track radar jamming missiles." he continued.
"They couldn't possibly be unable to track hijacked jumbo jets.
It's just impossible." He finished.

We watched in different states as the Pentagon attack was broadcast.
On another TV Bush still sat there and did nothing.

"Where's the air cover?" My old buddy cried into the phone.
"There is none." I replied; watching Bush stand to give a brief speech in which he claimed to have already contacted the NY governor, military leaders etc.
While he had sat there and done nothing!
(He either contacted them before the events or he just imagined contacting them/ either way-unfit for office!)

I mentioned to my buddy that Bush claimed to have acted decisively, and all the while he was on screen just sitting there, doing nothing.

"Where were the Air Marshalls when those airliners were hijacked?"
he asked me.
"Liddy Dole ended Jimmy Carter's Air Marshall program back when she was Sec Trans for Reagan." I informed him.
(I never fogave Liddy Dole for
forcing us all to wear seatbelts
and forcing all motorcyclists to wear helmets.
Now I also blamed her
for making the hijackings of 911 possible by ending Carter's Air Marshall program.)

We watched the buildings almost magically collapse,
exactly like the controlled demolitions I'd watched and videotaped in the past.
Seeing buildings fall straight down in an implosion instead of falling over like normally happens:



"Oh my God! It's Operation Northwoods!" my buddy said.
"What do you mean?" I asked him.
The first time I'd ever heard that mentioned was as Bush walked offstage on 911.

"
1. Ending the Air Marshall programs so planes could be hijacked,
2. Stand down of air defense so they could fly unnopposed into buildings.
3. Lies about taking decisive action when he had done nothing.
4. Finally controlled demolitions, with the second and less damaged building collapsing first." My buddy summarized.

He'd made a convincing case over the phone, as I watched Bush, on live TV, babble lies, and then strut offstage.

Since then I have researched,
called in all favors from my former military buddies,
had a Navy buddy refuse to even discuss it, except to mention he was ashamed to be an American.
Read about the warnings ignored by the Bush administration.
Read about the 2 FBI agents indicted for stock trading with prior knowledge of 911.
Read about Bush ordering the investigation of Bin Laden ended in summer of 01.

Read about the stand down that happened on 911.

Read about an Air Force officer who wrote editorials accusing Bush of Op Northwoods.
and have become absolutely convinced that:

Operation Northwoods was implemented in the faked attack
by non-existent North Vietnamese torpedo boats,
(Gulf of Tonkin) that was Johnson's excuse
for sending tens of thousands of American soldiers to die in Vietnam.
and:
Operation Northwoods was implemented on 911 in a faked attack
and buildings were collapsed in seconds
obviously by controlled demolitions;
in a "Wag the Dog" diversion from the release of the actual Florida vote count scheduled for 911.
(which showed Gore had won by a significant margin)
And Operation Northwoods events on 911
have since been used as bogus justification
to attack two countries which weren't even involved in the supposed hijacking of airliners by Saudi nationals on 911.

That was the day I realized that when Newt Gingrich said "Rule or Ruin." in a closed door Republican caucus.

That NWO Republicans would ruin America, in order to rule!

[waywest]

39. The creepy thing that * said the day before.

The Daily Show showed w in Florida mumbling to reporters. Could anybody find a tape of rerun of that? I laughed along with the viewers, but was quite disturbed when thinking back, the next day.

[tpub]

37. I'm going to post in DU Lounge about Doug Irgang (see #12)

I've always thought it's more important to talk about the people we lost instead of the f*ckers who caused this mess. People need to remember their names and stories.

I don't mean to take away from this thread, but if anyone knows a story about anyone else who was lost that day, please follow me...

[madrchsod]

38. the thing i remember

and always will is watching chicken man`s airforce one flying over my soccer practice that day...i was standing there watching a single jet flying then a few seconds later a big ole jet airliner flying east.....

[GregW]

40. Standing in line in a Chicago hotel lobby ...

Watching the coverage of the first strike on a TV in the bar. Saw the second plane go in and thought it was a CNN recreation of the strike. "Cool graphics" I think then notice people all around me are shouting "Fuck!" and turning away and calling on their cell phones and crying and screaming ... and I realized it wasn't a recreation, and that we were at war.

[tico]

41. I was on my way to work...

I was living in Atlanta at the time and I was listening to the radio as usual and then a breaking news story came on and it said that a plane had crashed into the WTC. Since I couldn't see any video, I thought it was a small plane. I then started wondering how could a pilot miss a building like that, but then dismissed it as a freak accident. Once I heard about a second plane, then I thought that this was no accident.

I really wanted to shit in my pants that day. After striking the Pentagon and the other plane going down in PA, I was starting to think what next. I really had no idea who could've done it, though I must admit I did think about Saddam Hussein. He was also the first person who came to mind in Oklahoma City after the bombing there in 1995.

I've begun to think now that our government may've had something to do with 9/11. Why else did the PNAC group needed a terrorist attack to go to war in the Middle East? Why is the Bush misadministration so adamant about not wanting an investigation? I feel they have something to hide.

[Crowdance]

42. The sky was a crystal clear blue

and I recall planning to have lunch in Bryant Park after a meeting. I work in a news organization, and recall someone reading the wires shouting "a plane just hit the WTC." I started searching the wires myself, and found, minutes later, that a second plane had hit the towers. Then I knew that this couldn't possibly be an accident. We were all frantically searching for information, reading that a plane had just hit the pentagon and was headed for the white house. Then, my boss arrived, and I said to him, "look what's going on." He said, "my daughter works in the towers." I spent the rest of the day trying to find out what happened to the floors on which his daughter worked, tried to find her, calling hospitals, calling everybody. At about 2 we arranged for someone to drive him home. We knew he needed to be with his family, to mourn with them.

Later that day, when the trains started running again, I was lucky enough to catch one home to Long Island to be with my own family. I remember looking back, into the setting sun, and watch the smoke columns rise from the island.

I still cry on a clear morning, taking the train from Long Island to Manhattan, when we approach the city and the skyline, and see that gap. And I remember Nancy Morgenstern, and the day we lost her.

[HootieMcBoob]

43. I had just voted

It was primary day in NYC and my girlfriend and I were in the school voting, in Brooklyn where we live. Nothing strange, nothing unusual. We voted and walked outside and as we were walking home we noticed this giant black curved cloud of smoke like a mushroom cloud. I said that there must have been an explosion at one of the plants along the east river. That's where it looked like it was coming from. Somebody said "that was a really big plane!" Then we saw all of the people on the other side of the street and when we walked over there, we had a clear view of both towers in flames. My first thought was about all the people, I just knew that anybody above the holes weren't gonna make it. We had just missed seeing the second plane hit. We ran home and turned on the news to see what the hell was going on. We watched the second tower collapse from our kitchen window. It was so weird then. We always had a great view from our kitchen of the WTC. The next day we had to close our windows because the wind had shifted and the smell was so strong. It smelled for a long long time afterward, I'll never forget the smell. Plus I was working downtown in Soho and it took till the end of the week before we were allowed back in the area. That first weekend it was like a ghost town down there.

[Marymarg]

44. my memories

I remember quite vividly how utterly and completely disgusted and exasperated Peter Jennings was at the incredible behavior of Bush, flying from one safe haven to another. All the while, my 23 year old daughter was walking home from her job at Public Citizen in D.C. to her apartment. She phoned me at intervals to tell me of her progress and of the emergency vehicles she was seeing. Meanwhile, our "fearless leader" was flying around the country having no clue what to do. I really thought someone would have to take over as President.

[leftyandproud]

45. for me..

I was glued to the TV all morning...my mother called me and woke me up...I flipped it on, started going through the channels...2, 4, 5, 9, 12, 14, 28, 31, 34, 39, 45...same horrible images on every channel. I stopped on Faux news for a moment (before I knew they were pukes)...and David Asmond was talking...in mid sentence, he stopped and the 2nd ball of flame blew up into the sky...I remember the exact words over the next few minutes--after about 20 seconds...he said "We just....We just saw another one...We just saw another one hit.) 20 seconds of dead air...
"Say a prayer folks"

I will never forget that day...The worst part was that night...I had a business class at community college...I remember getting out of my car--The parking lot was full, and people were walking back and forth in complete silence...The sun was setting and the flag out front was at half mast...I just remember walking that 1/4 mile to class in complete silence...no conversations could be heard...got in class--silence. The teacher came in and said "Well, I was going to talk about Karl Marx today but I know we all have other things on our mind...or something to that effect. We had a 2 hour discussion on 9-11, trying to make sense of everything. When I left that night, gasoline was $7.00 at te corner with cars backed up for almost a half mile. It was insane...

[robbedvoter]

46. Voting and W's broken video from bunker on CNN

The first tower fell as I was voting. The second, I saw from my roof. I turned on CNN - they kept trying to put on the bafoon speech from his bunker - only little suares appeared. It broadcasted clearer than anything that the weasel was hiding. I was sure that would finish him! I still think it should!

[Nottingham]

47. My Remebrance of 9/11 was of Shock and how the Internet helped others

I was home talking on my messageboard when a friend called look at the TV and I watched the first plane go into the WTC. I can't tell you the FRUSTRATION felt at the News Media. The Bullshit put out.
I saw Network announcers stunned and clueless. I waited for more info and they still were clueless and then the other plane hit. A group of 7 people on the Messageboard started watching all the channels
relaying information to people in their offices all over America who had not seen or known what happened. It truly was the best way to get news through to the office people in New York who requested info on the tunnel access and highways. The Panic had set in. New york phones down and yet the Internet ploddded along. People were wanting to know about the Pennsylvania crash what town what town they begged us to let them know. They had family near there. Gas Prices shot up crazy that day and people were running out getting their cars filled up and the lines were long. I just saw people helping others trying to get them news of which the News Media didn't do. I can tell ya Americans in crisis are fantastic. We went through many posts in a couple of hours. I can't believe the incompetence of the AirForce and the News Media that day It was Horrible. But I remembered the fantastic people who worked together to get information to those who needed it!

[Circe_Invidiosa]

48. i was teaching my 8th graders at school

Another teacher came in and said, have you heard about the planes hitting the World Trade Center? I said no, how would I hear about that? He said its all over the internet. All the kids just looked at me. They all started asking what was going on? I took a deep breath and told them I was not sure. I told them we would all find out together.

I got on my computer and went to CNN.com. It was around 9:15 a.m. CST. There were already pictures there on the web site. We watched together. Some cried. Some got scared. I told them that something must have happened to the planes. At first we were not sure if it was an act of terror but pretty soon we were sure of it. I told them it would be alright. We were a big country and could defend ourselves. I told them to pray for the families of the people in New York. I told them it would all be alright. When in my heart I wondered if things would ever be the same again.

They went on to their next class. Another class came in. All day long we talked, watched and helped each other. Kids have this wonderful thing about them. They never give up hope.

[azrak]

I had to teach that day too

I live on the West coast,my husband woke me up and said a plane has hit the world trade centers. He always gets up early and watches the news. I said, "what is it?" and he said "maybe an accident." I walked out in the front room, just in time to see the second plane make this long circling arch and hit building two. At about the same time reports were coming from all over that two other planes were "out there." I had to get to school. When I got there everyone was in the library watching TV's. The kids (middle school age) were somewhere between shock and hysteria. Some were very quiet and crying, some were upset asking things like "Are we all going to die?" We spent the day discussing school safety, personal safety and what everyone was feeling. I didn't really have time to think about how I felt until later in the day. Then I went home and we watched the news for 2 days. I just remember thinking later "What does it ALL mean?" Still don't think we know the answer to it.

[azrak]

I had to teach that day too

I live on the West coast,my husband woke me up and said a plane has hit the world trade centers. He always gets up early and watches the news. I said, "what is it?" and he said "maybe an accident." I walked out in the front room, just in time to see the second plane make this long circling arch and hit building two. At about the same time reports were coming from all over that two other planes were "out there." I had to get to school. When I got there everyone was in the library watching TV's. The kids (middle school age) were somewhere between shock and hysteria. Some were very quiet and crying, some were upset asking things like "Are we all going to die?" We spent the day discussing school safety, personal safety and what everyone was feeling. I didn't really have time to think about how I felt until later in the day. Then I went home and we watched the news for 2 days. I just remember thinking later "What does it ALL mean?" Still don't think we know the answer to it.

[azrak]

69. I had to teach that day too

I live on the West coast,my husband woke me up and said a plane has hit the world trade centers. He always gets up early and watches the news. I said, "what is it?" and he said "maybe an accident." I walked out in the front room, just in time to see the second plane make this long circling arch and hit building two. At about the same time reports were coming from all over that two other planes were "out there." I had to get to school. When I got there everyone was in the library watching TV's. The kids (middle school age) were somewhere between shock and hysteria. Some were very quiet and crying, some were upset asking things like "Are we all going to die?" We spent the day discussing school safety, personal safety and what everyone was feeling. I didn't really have time to think about how I felt until later in the day. Then I went home and we watched the news for 2 days. I just remember thinking later "What does it ALL mean?" Still don't think we know the answer to it.

[plurality]

49. I thought it was the end of the world

As if the event itself wasn't scary enough, my experiences before gave me a feeling I was seeing the beginning of the apocalypse. Let me explain.

The night before (9/10) I was doing some reading online and came across an article on Salon with an interview with a former CIA head honcho. More or less the gist of the interview was this CIA guy talking about how utterly defenseless this country was against a major terrorist attack and how Osama could hit us just about whenever we wanted. (Foresight anyone?)

Then before waking up I had an odd nightmare. Didn't think much of it at first, but later in the day I remebered it and, maybe I was just grasping at things but it seemed like it could fit. The dream was that I got a ride in a cab and it was being driven by an Arab man. During the course of the ride I noticed that he wasn't going where I wanted and right when I noticed he got onto a freeway overpass, one of the really high ones. I began to get more and more distressed as I noticed that this overpass was under construction and led to a drop off. The driver drove over the edge and we fell, I woke up before we hit.

The time is approx. 7am (CST) and I ready for my 8am class, fittingly it's a class on Revolution, and Political Violence, today's lesson (I kid you not) TERRORISM!. Heading out the door some of my roommates are watching TV in the living room. They tell me a plane has just hit the WTC (the first). I ask what happened and they say it's believed a small plane (Cesna) hit the building. Seeing the gaping hole and billowing smoke I say that it must have been a terrorist attack as a small plane would have had to have been laden with explosives to produce that sort of damage (TV News didn't know it was commercial jet yet). Went to class and began lecture. One of our assignments is to read papers every day and report instances of political violence that occured in the world. I report the incident, which everyone was unaware of, as a probable terrorist attack from what I've recounted above. Professor dismisses it as probable accident. Class goes on. Walking home from class at 9:20 I walk into a hysterical friend who informs me another plane has hit the WTC levelling a tower,and third has hit the Pentagon. I get home in time to see the 2nd tower collapse. Right about now I begin freaking out.

See, I've always been kind of a doomsayer, I predicted war within 6 months of a GWB election before he took office, and just 3 months earlier had said that it would take something akin to the Apocalypse before the idea of Human Rights became universally accepted. (In my Human Rights class) Knowing what an incompetant tool Bush was I expected a certain escalation into human annihilation. Needless to say eventual Anthrax attacks didn't help much. For about six months I expected to be seeing the four horsemen make there appearance at a moments notice. To some extent I still believe this is a possibility, but with much less certainty, well, that's my 9-11.

[bbernardini]

51. I was about to teach a kindergarten class...

I've been teaching for a while, but I had been at my current position for just a week. When I have breaks from teaching, I compulsively check news sites just to see what's going on in the world (the private school I teach at has no cable). A kindergarten class was coming to the door just as I pulled up the breaking story on Drudge. I thought something similar to what Bush claims to have thought: "That person must have been an awful pilot." 30 minutes later, I checked again and realized what had happened. I remember standing in the office of the head of the middle school listening to the radio with a few other teachers. The two middle school classes I had that day were spent listening to news radio.

My wife works at QVC, and her department is full of TVs. I was relying on her for e-mail updates, as I couldn't get to any news websites. A few hours after everything had gone down, however, they closed down QVC, so I was out of luck until I got home from work.

The up side to my situation was that I didn't have all the images on TV burned into my brain like everybody else. The down side is that I've been unusually interested in seeing the coverage, as I felt like I was only half-living the day. (This is why the general non-workingness of the 9/11 TV archive website drives me insane.)

[qanda]

52. I remember...

That it was only our second week of homeschooling. I had gone upstairs to our classroom to prepare for our lesson. On our dry erase board was a special note that my husband had left to the children about how well he thought they were doing in school. I was so touched by it that I took a picture to keep in their portfolios. I went back downstairs to do a couple of other things when I heard some serious discussion coming from the Today Show-- normally about that time they're getting pretty silly. Anyway, I decided to check out what they were talking about and it just so happened that it was right after the first reports started coming in about a plane hitting the WTC.

My sister, who was visiting with us, was asleep on my Living Room couch and I went in to tell her that she would not believe what just happened. We turned on the TV and watched in horror as the second plane hit the other tower while Katie Couric was interviewing an eyewitness. Needless to say, school was cancelled that day.

The most horrific part for me is that my husband was headed to Arlington, VA for work that morning and I could not contact him for hours-- the phone lines were so jammed. The thoughts about the note that he left that morning tortured me the entire time. Thankfully my husband was safe and the note he left that morning only serves as a reminder of how grateful I should be to have such a wonderful man in my life.

Also on that day had MANY questions about the events taking place that really didn't seem to add up until I started searching for the answers.

[Nikia]

53. I was afraid for my sister

She was a flight attendant for United and I was concerned that she might have been on one of the planes. Then I realized that a plane that she would be on would never be taken by terrorists. She wasn't in the air that day after all. When I talked to her later, she said "If I had been on one of those planes, things would have gone differently." She went on to describe all the possible weapons (ordinary things) that could have been used to resist the terrorists.
Oh, and I thought that the world was going to end soon, but I like to keep that further back in my mind.

[bleedingheart]

54. I was home on my day off and

I had just put my buddyboy on the bus for kindergarten...sat down with the youngest to start a lazy day at home and was watching when the whole thing started to unfold...
my mom called me and we worried about a cousin who worked in the WTC for a consulting firm...(she was in NJ for the day so was not there...she was actually heading back to the WTC for a meeting).

I cried and then called a coworker who had no clue what was happening... it was burned into my memory and I can honestly say that we have not done right by those victims...

[jmags]

55. Just reading this thread makes me so incredibly angry

I didn't even think of such things as LIHOP until I found this site a few months ago...and rereading everyone's account of 9.11 just brings back how much human suffering went on that day - and how much we have unleashed since. I am convinced, that at best the administration purposefully ignored all those warnings, all that intelligence, to get their Pearl Harbor. At worst, it's still something hard to imagine...but the more they stonewall 9.11 commissions, the more I think about Bush claiming he thought it was "a horrible accident" after the plane hit, and all his other reactions throughout the day.

It makes my blood boil. We have to get them out of the white house. To think I went from someone who didn't even vote in the 2000 election to someone who loses sleep thinking about how much this administration has ruined our country in such a short span of time.

[enough]

56. Hearing "America has lost it's innocence" over and over,

and thinking with that hideous dread that a terrible lie was settling over us all like a huge cloud of radioactive, bio-infective crud.

That mantra "we have lost our innocence," when all I could thing was, Innocence? Innocence?

Total hopelessness.

[latebloomer]

It was my husband's 45th birthday

a gorgeous blue-sky late summer day, and we joked that he should play hooky that day. I dropped the kids at school, got back in the car, and turned on the radio-- the attack had happened 5 minutes before. I drove to a nearby lookout at the edge of a park, where you can see the whole skyline. The park was crowded with people, radios blasting, everyone staring at the smoking towers 12 miles east. I wandered around the park, in a daze of shock and adrenaline, trying to call people on my cellphone. Then the word spread that the Pentagon had been hit-- a strange woman started screaming and crying, "What's going on? Why? Why?" and we embraced, filled with fear and confusion. I turned back to stare at the towers and one of them was gone.

Met up with the husband-- he had gotten his day off, after all- and snatched the kids from school. The kids had not been informed of the events, but when my fourth grader looked at my face, he asked, "Did Daddy die?" We brought them home-- my thought was that we would all be together in case the next attack was nuclear.

Shopping that afternoon for flowers for my husband, everyone in the supermarket seemed so kind and there was a sense of unity. The horror of what had happened gave me a sense of how precious every moment was with the ones I love. But coupled with this for me was a sense of dread that we had this horrid little fuhrer at the helm and that the consequences of all this would be much, much graver. And that intense sense that the world had changed forever, and the thought, "What a terrifying world I have brought my innocent children into!"

[AnAmerican]

57. The surreal becoming the real

I was upstairs working on the computer, not online, when my wife called me downstairs. She had just turned on the TV and we sat there and watched as the 2nd plane hit. We both called some family members and then just sat there all day glued to the news reports. With the evacuation of downtown Cleveland the cancelling of her classes we were able to spend the time together, thinking about how much the country had changed in a few moments.

We are since divorced but at that moment, on that day, I was just glad I had her close and that she was safe.

[rhino91063]

58. I work EMS in North Jersey

I remember heading out towards ground zero in a convoy of 4 emergency vehicles. I remember being diverted to Jersey City. I remember the triage station set up on the Hudson River water front across from where the towers stood. I remember the smoldering pile of rubble. The firemen who had lost all there partners. Helping and aiding the people that came by every kind of boat to our side of the river. I remember watching one of the other buildings collapse. The erie scene at night watching the scene lit up by flames and spotlights. I remember forming human chains to help load supplies for ground zero, as sadly we found out the number of wounded was sadly limited. I remember feeling in the dark information wise, as we got very little news. I remember the rumor of anthrax that stopped the evacuation briefly. I rember hearing on the various emergency radios the rumors of explosive laiden trucks. I remember the dam dust that coated everyone of my patients.

[latebloomer]

61. how terrible, rhino!

What a nightmare! How are you doing now?

[rhino91063]

62. I am OK

Most of the patients I saw that day were the walking wounded. I see far worse in my regular job. In a way it was sad that we never saw the number of wounded that you would have expected. More were killed then wounded. I remember through out the day there was always rumors of big influx of causilities, but that never happened. Our squad took about 24 patients to the hospital that day. I think the most impact on me was actually providing emotional support to the firemen that had escaped the collapse their comrades didn't. I remember one just sort of was staring off into space, with a blank expression on his face. The other two were concerned about what was going on, but you could see they were devestated. After an hour or so, they forgot their minor injuries and major emotional trauma, picked up their gear and headed back on a boat to ground zero. Those guys were truely heroic.

[rhino91063]

I am OK

Most of the patients I saw that day were the walking wounded. I see far worse in my regular job. In a way it was sad that we never saw the number of wounded that you would have expected. More were killed then wounded. I remember through out the day there was always rumors of big influx of causilities, but that never happened. Our squad took about 24 patients to the hospital that day. I think the most impact on me was actually providing emotional support to the firemen that had escaped the collapse their comrades didn't. I remember one just sort of was staring off into space, with a blank expression on his face. The other two were concerned about what was going on, but you could see they were devestated. After an hour or so, they forgot their minor injuries and major emotional trauma, picked up their gear and headed back on a boat to ground zero. Those guys were truely heroic.

[rhino91063]

63. I am OK

Most of the patients I saw that day were the walking wounded. I see far worse in my regular job. In a way it was sad that we never saw the number of wounded that you would have expected. More were killed then wounded. I remember through out the day there was always rumors of big influx of causilities, but that never happened. Our squad took about 24 patients to the hospital that day. I think the most impact on me was actually providing emotional support to the firemen that had escaped the collapse their comrades didn't. I remember one just sort of was staring off into space, with a blank expression on his face. The other two were concerned about what was going on, but you could see they were devestated. After an hour or so, they forgot their minor injuries and major emotional trauma, picked up their gear and headed back on a boat to ground zero. Those guys were truely heroic.

[gulliver]

59. "Where's pipsqueak?"

My wife called me at the office and said she had just seen one of the towers fall. The first thing I asked her was "Where's pipsqueak?" She didn't know.

I had a feeling he would be worse than useless in such a situation, and I think that feeling proved to be completely right. He bunny-hopped all over the country acting like we were in some sort of imminent danger of nuclear attack. It would have scared the hell out of me, but I knew what a feckless coward he is, so I knew it was probably not Armageddon.

[Skittles]

60. My biggest feeling - one of denial

I had called in sick that day and watched the whole thing on TV. When the towers fell, I convinced myself that there had been time to evacuate (I didn't realize people were trapped on the upper floors). And for days afterward I told myself THEY'LL FIND HUGE POCKETS OF SURVIVORS IN THE RUBBLE. But it never happened. It was absolutely devastating.

[Mike_from_NoVa]

Sorry - double post

n/t

[Mike_from_NoVa]

64. I was on Metro...

when the plane hit the Pentagon. I think the train I was on had just pulled out of the Pentagon station. But nobody on the train heard anything.

It was such a beautiful day. The weather was crystal clear and gorgeous.

When I got off in Rosslyn, I walked up the hill to the Starbucks. There were a lot of sirens, but nobody knew what was happening.

I got a call from a friend who was watching TV and told me what was going on. I was dumbfounded.

As I walked outside with my coffee, the sound of sirens in the air was even more intense. It was as if every emergency response vehicle in Arlington was mobilized. As I walked home, people started pouring out of the office buildings in Rosslyn. They couldn't get their cars. They did not know what to do.

This is what I remember most: Hundreds of office workers milling about on the streets. Confused. Scared. Not knowing how to get home or what to do.

Once home, I went up to the roof and looked toward the Pentagon a mile away. There was a huge plume of smoke billowing into the sky.

This is what I remember second most: I finally had a thought. "F**kers attacked my city." My city.

Since I was virtually under the building they attacked, I suppose they almost got me too.

I am still pissed. I think our long national entanglement with the Middle East, propping up Saudi Arabia, Israel, and, once upon a time, Iraq and abetting the disenfranchisement of most of the Islamic world, is the root cause of the resentment that fueled these psycho barbarians. As long as we act as a biased dictator of the political order in the Islamic World as opposed to an impartial facilitator of peace and human dignity, we are going to be in for more of the same. Colonialist headbashing doesn't cut it in the Information Age.

This is what I remember third most: The Arlington Virginia emergency response people are the VERY BEST in the whole world. Sorry NYPD and FDNY. But Arlington responded about as perfectly as any jurisdiction could have. I am proud of my city.

(I should admit that Arlington's really a county, not a city, but it doesn't help the exposition to detail esoteric Virginia political technicalities)

Enough for now.

-Mike

[Tracer]

65. I was on my computer ...

... (I work at home).

The phone rang and it was my son calling from his office.

"Turn on CNN" , he said. The tone of his voice was so strange that all I said was "OK", and I hung up.

CNN was showing the towers in flames and I truly can't remember now if I saw the second plane hit, or whether all I saw was the endless replays.

All I can remember thinking at the time was "please let people go UP to the roof! Please let helicopters rescue them!"

Then I heard Aaron Brown say "it looks like the tower is buckling" and no sooner than he said that than the first tower fell.

After that, memories are muddled. I sat and smoked too many cigarettes, and cried.

[Aristus]

66. I was getting into my car on a bright, beautiful Tuesday morning.

I was subbing at one of my company's cross-town offices. I had mixed feelings; the office was one of the better ones to work in, pleasant, usually non-stressful work. Unfortunately, the place was crawling with Bush supporters that I would have to avoid.

I closed the car door and turned on the radio. The first things I heard were screams, a frantic reporter babbling into his microphone, and sirens in the background. I freaked out when I found out what was going on. I didn't get around to wondering to what degree * was involved in the attack until later that day. It was a horrible day.

[Aristus]

67. I was getting into my car on a bright, beautiful Tuesday morning.

I was subbing at one of my company's cross-town offices. I had mixed feelings; the office was one of the better ones to work in, pleasant, usually non-stressful work. Unfortunately, the place was crawling with Bush supporters that I would have to avoid.

I closed the car door and turned on the radio. The first things I heard were screams, a frantic reporter babbling into his microphone, and sirens in the background. I freaked out when I found out what was going on. I didn't get around to wondering to what degree * was involved in the attack until later that day. It was a horrible day.

[slackmaster]

Pinching myself to see if I was awake

Followed by shock, awe, and anger that continues to this day. I hope I live to see the people who were responsible for the attack all either brought to justice or exterminated.

[ProfessorGAC]

68. At The Airport At The Time

I was at the airport awaiting a flight to Atlanta. I heard from someone that a plane had hit the WTC.

Then, a few minutes later someone told me that the lady at the newsstand had a little TV and she was watching the live news of the tower on fire.

So, i went over there to watch for a few minutes. I was there probably not more than 30 seconds when the second plane hit, on national TV! I said to myself "This is not an accident and we're not flying anywhere today!" They then announced the FAA has suspended all air traffic indefinitely.

So, i went back out to my car (i hadn't checked any luggage) and drove to work. But, the plant is a chem plant and they had it on security lock down. So, since my ID badge was at home, i couldn't get in. (I've been working there for MANY years. Seems silly. I think they knew i was no terrorist.) So, i left and went home and watched the news all day.

It was a weird day.
The Professor

[RobinA]

70. What I Remember..

I was vactioning in Yellowstone with a friend at the time, we're from Philadelphia.

Turning on the TV to get the weather and hearing the network guy (Jennings?) announce that a plane had hit the WTC. He was speculating on what kind of plane it was and I said to me friend that it had to be a small plane, because no airline pilot would fly into the WTC because you can see it for miles in the air and you aren't allowed to fly airliners over NYC anyway. We turned off the TV and left for our day sightseeing.

Later that morning...being outside the visitor center at Tower Falls and hearing some guy comment bitterly that "they" had taken down the WTC. I thought, "Jeez, some people sure do exaggerate."

Early afternoon....standing at a turnoff in the Hayden Valley and hearing two women talking about the fact that it was airliners that hit the WTC. This made me really sick because of the innocent people involved and because American airlines had been used for evil purposes like this.

9:00 that evening...getting back to the hotel, turning on the TV to find out exactly what had happened, and finding out for the the first time that both buildings had collapsed into a pile of rubble. I couldn't believe it. No freakin' way. I don't think I fully grasp it to this day. You always hear about stuff happening and it's never as bad as it could have been. This was one time that it was worse than it could have been. It was just unimaginable, except that apparently some people did imagine it, right up to and including pulling it off.

[maveric]

71. I was unemployed so I could drive my son to school...

I'm on the west coast so it was early. On the way to the school I turned on the local classic rock station(clear channel)and the first thing I heard was "the world trade center is all but gone". WTF!! Must be a joke as the morning DJs sometimes do. But then I realized that it was true.
I went home put on CNN and sat there all day watching the horror.
At the time I bought what was being said about Bin Laden being solely responsible, it sounded plausible and I fell for it just like myself and most americans did when JFK was shot. We/I accepted the quick answers to the questions.
Then at one point it all became surreal, like it was all a dream or a bizarre movie. I also wondered where the prez is and how would this idiot handle this. When i heard that he ran like the true coward he is I became suspicious.
It took me a couple of weeks of put the pieces together and that was when I first found DU.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

72. I was with my Mom in Tahoe....

and when we saw that second plane hit live I knew immediately that the world we had had grown up with was gone forever.

That is my most vivid memory.

[sallydallas124]

73. Here in the midwest...

I remember walking home after work, the sky was a clear, deep blue and the temp was perfect, and I felt despair that something so tragic had happened on such a beautiful day. I could hear reporters on the radios of the passing cars; it was amazing to think that nearly everyone was focused on the same thing. When I passed people we either didn't look at each other or gave each other questioning, sympathetic glances. Even though we had televisions set up at work replaying the footage, I refused to watch knowing I would probably see it endless times. When I got home, bf was sitting in the living room, close to the tv on a kitchen chair, watching the coverage. My toddler son was running around, laughing and talking, absolutely clueless.

[linazelle]

75. Bluest skies ever...Fixation with Windows

I will never forget how beautiful that day was. A perfect day when traffic flowed, everything went well--until I got to work. At work I heard the first news which I ignored as a fluke. It became surreal as everyone at work turned to the news and the second plane and the subsequent news about other planes and the shutdown of air traffic as well as potential hits to the Pentagon and the White House were aired.

We stood around talking about what had happened at work--and I kept glancing at the window from our building in downtown Chicago, thinking what it must have been like for people who were doing the same thing in New York when a plane crashed through their offices. I couldn't stop glancing at the window.

We stayed at work but when we left, there were armed officers brandishing rifles on the sidewalks of the square block around our building. Our car trunks were searched when we entered into the building for the next few days.