Today is September 11th,,, I remember exactly where I was

[Gear Jammer]

It won't allow me to insert hyperlinks for some reason...  But here they are to open links

http://tinyurl.com/2ebd66q

http://www.zombietime.com/wtc_9-13-2001/

http://www.legacy.com/Sept11/Home.aspx

[R J]

I had just pulled a car over to the junk yard for my son's buddy.

The guy didn't have a license to drive a F900 flatbed.     

I drove it about 20 miles and it paid well for my time.

We were just going over the scales when the guy hollered out of his little booth about it.

We didn't have a radio in the flatbed so we pulled over and went into the office to watch it on TV.


It made the hair on my neck of this salty old Marine stand up.

[solo1]

I had just walked into the dispatcher radio room in the New Haven police dept.  We all watched it , including the officers and the Chief of Police and couldn't believe it until the second plane hit.
Then we knew it was an act of war.

[valkmc]

I was in of all places Hostage Negotiator school for the Fl Dept of Corrections, The school was at a Coast Guard training facility and some instructor came running down the hallway saying turn on the news. We watched the news for the rest of the day. The classroom was very solemn.

[Oss]

I was at Hudson Valley Motorcycle picking up my 750 from its 1st service and was just pulling out when
Bonnie screamed at me to come listen to the radio the newschannel She said a plane hit WTC we should go home before I leave for work and see what is happening so we drove home and saw the 2nd plane hit
The war had come to America

As I drove to work  ( I am maybe 40 miles from WTC as the crow flies)there were dozens of firemen and police racing toward downtown with their lights on and some without lights. I let them pass me.


I have often thought about those brave people racing toward their destiny that day and those who fell to their deaths because of the searing heat of the inferno.

If you live here you know some who didnt make it, some who escaped, some who have breathing problems and some who helped sift thru the rubble.

Could not make the ground zero ride today as I was in Church for the funeral of a good friends mom.
and listening to the soulful sound of the bagpiper for Mrs Koester.

Yeah I know a jew in church on the holiest Sabbath of the year but what can you do? We have to be there for our friends in need.  Its one of the many reasons why they will never win and we will prevail.

[fuzzy2bucks]

Was at the computer and watching TV at the same time when Ms. Curic of the NBC Today Show
announced that a small plane had hit one of the Twin Towers. Then a minute later it was on Yahoo news on the net.

Worst day in American History, except for Pearl Harbor.

[Joe Hummer]

I was in Montreal for training that week.  They set up a TV so we could see what was happening.  It was truly a disturbing sight.  Our flights back on Friday were canceled as they hadn't opened international flights yet.  So we kept the rental car and drove to the states.  Ended up in Cincinnati for the night and caught the red eye the next morning for St. Louis.  My problems were nothing compared to the troubles in NYC. 

Joe

[Cliff]

I will ALWAYS remember this one.  I was at the Church Street Station Post office.  Was outside when the second plane hit,,, many sights and smells  I will never be able to forget.

[Stanley Steamer]

I was driving a dump truck full of mulch when I heard what had happened over the radio....I kept my Crew, and 2 others I was supervising that day, informed of new developments after each load I hauled.....sad, sad day......our Downtown Business Assoc. had flag banners made, and my Groundskeeper and I installed them on the light poles in Downtown Athens.....where they stayed up for the next few years......

[big d]

i was in the parking lot of the union carbide complex taking a break as breakfast was just finished being served. i was about a half mile from the river and heard what sounded like some fighter planes following the river(in those days they used that air space for training purposes on a somewhat regular basis). well break was over with and a half hour later a driver came in and said that a plane had flown into the world trade towers. i of course thinking he was joking(he was a practical joker) said just shut the f up. its not funny. he then said he wasn't joking and we all ran for the kitchen office to turn the radio on. well, at that time my heart sunk cause my brother in law worked in the lehman bro's building which is next to and connected to. he also parked under the towers. i also realized that friends from previous jobs would be headed down there to help as they are police officers and paramedics. later i found out once my brother in law made his way out of manhatten and home that he was on the 40'th floor of the building and watched the planes hit the towers. he also said a planes wing had sliced through several floors of his building but luckily it was above where he was. what truly made me shiver was what he told us next. that he could see the people jumping from the towers and could clearly see their faces as they went by. how that could not change a person i dont know. MY THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS GO OUT TO ALL THOSE WHO LOST THEIR LIFE AND ALSO THE  FAMILY MEMBERS. MAY WE NEVER FORGET THOSE BRAVE PEOPLE WHO UNSELFISHLY RISKED THEIR LIVES TO SAVE OTHERS....ALL THERE ARE MY HERO.

[..]

I was sitting at my work desk when one of my print suppliers, Brian Adams, called me to ask if I had heard a plane flew into the WTC.

No TV in our office so I tried connecting to any American news web site. They were so overloaded I had to use the British newspaper "The Sun" website to get first hand information. They had video that was only a few minutes old. We then went into the office next to us and watched the WTC towers collapse.

I cried and it still makes me.

[Reb]

I was in my freshman year of High School, we sat in class and watched the news the entire day. Still remember it like it was yesterday.

[musclehead]

wow not one story of "i was on vacation in hawaii, or cancun and couldn't get home for a whole week"  those stories piss me off, not that I think it was hard on them or anything but think of the people that were dying and sacraficing, we don't care if you were in some tropical paradise. I'm sure it affected those on vacation too.

I was walking down the terminal in the portland OR airport trying to catch a plane to my mothers funeral. I walked past closed bars and coffee shops (it was REAL early on the west coast) they all had thier TVs on but the sound was turned down, i saw close up of a building on fire with a huge hole in the side, couldn't tell it was the WTC. speculating to myself I wondered if a plane hit it.

we got checked into the gate where the tvs had sound and found out the sad truth. when the second plane hit I was watching live with about a dozen or so people. i turned to the businessman next to me and our eyes locked he saw in mine what I saw in his, shock, disbelief, then the realization we were at war, anger then something like resolve.

those dirty rotten so and so terrorists kept me from my mothers funeral. this is why KSM must die in my opinion, he planned it and sent young men to carry it out but I guess he didn't have the guts to do it himself.

[Sludge]

I was working in my office that morning.  My men were washing tractor trailers and tankers outside.  For some reason I actually had the TV on.  Unusual to tell the truth.  I dont know that its been on since in the morning.   At any rate, I walked through and saw that the first building had been hit and as I watched, the second building was hit.  The "flyer" in me knew, dispite the TV comentators that we were under attack.  Until that moment my belief was in suspension.  I was actually wondering how, with a clear blue sky, someone could fly into the WTC.  Seeing the second plane brought an immediate and powerful reaction.  I knew we were under attack.  I knew it was no accident, ... I wanted blood. 

To this day my blood lust is unquenched.  Right or wrong, that is the case.  I remain unfulfilled in that regard.  The blood spilled in two wars isnt enough for me.  I dont know why.  I guess it is because I havent drawn any of it personally.  Still I remain unsatisfied. 

[MAD6Gun]

 I was at work at the dealership. The guy across from me in the shop had a TV in his bay. It was on and he yelled for everyone to come and look at this. I thought like most "how can a jetliner hit a building that big on a clear day". We watched the second plane hit. At the point we knew that it was no accident. We watched off and on as the day unfolded.  We should NEVER forget that day.........

[98 T]

I remember I was in the shower with the local radio station on when they mentioned a "small plane' has hit the WTC... while getting ready to head into the office I turned on the TV to see what was going on... saw the second plane hit and suddenly everything changed!  I really don't know why I even went to the office, but kept going through the motions I guess- still couldn't get my head around what was going on.  I had the news on in the car and as I was backing into my parking space...just at that moment, the first tower was falling.  I don't remember what network feed was on the radio, but you could hear the panic in the broadcaster's voice explaining the un-thinkable just happened. I guessed maybe 10 or 15 thousand Americans maybe still in that building might have just died at that moment.

 I sat in my car for a few minutes... called my wife at work.  I walked into my office and our secretary had a TV on and a few other fellow Realtors were all sitting around in total silence.  They looked up at me but I don't think they even saw me.  I remember that silence... no one had to say anything... everyone just looked at each other then down at the floor... then back at the TV again...

Another powerful memory:    fast forward later that day ( I went home early)... heading home I saw a big old  beat up, rusty 4x4  pickup truck  with two HUGE American flags flying in from the tailgate drive past... I think I lost it at that moment.   Everything had changed.

there were many other memories too

[Serk]

I was riding my Valkyrie to work on a stretch of freeway that you can pretty much walk on due to the bad traffic...

I had a AM radio clipped to my tank bib that I listened to for the news and traffic reports...

Once it became clear, I started yelling at people to put on a news radio station, we're under attack.

I think most of them thought I was insane, but I saw the looks in the eyes of some of them when they did and realized what was happening.

When I got to work, we didn't do much that day other than find conference rooms with TV's and try to get what news we could from the internet. As many others do, I will always remember where I was when I heard the news. This was my generation's "JFK Assassination" moment in that regard. (That, and the Challenger disaster, I'll always remember where I was when I heard that one too)

[BradValk48237]

I was on a motorcycle trip with my Dad and some others in the New England states ( Had a Wing at the time.). Got up that morning in Burlington VT and turned on the TV to se the Towers on fire and didn't really pay attention because we wanted to get on the road. Found out later in Stowe VT what had happened and listened to the radio the rest of the day. We actually got to the VT /Canadian border and the 2 guards at the border gate didn't even know about it!!! We ended up in Lake George NY that night and spent the evening up with a group of others staying at the motel on the lake around a camp fire talking about it and what else might happen. Had to detour souththrough Ohio because of the border closing. We normally go through Canada to get back to Michigan from New England area

B

[Cliff]

………..what truly made me shiver was what he told us next. that he could see the people jumping from the towers and could clearly see their faces as they went by. how that could not change a person i dont know.

It does without fail change a person …including the sounds

[Serk]

sorry to bore you folks but this is something I rarely talk about and this year seemed more intense than others for some unexplainable reason.

No need to apologize, and it's FAR from boring! Please, talk about it all you want... Seriously...

[RP#62]

I was at work, we were just wrapping up our morning meeting where we run through all the previous day's maintenance delays and review each station's morning launch.  The Ops Control Center manager interrupted the meeting to tell us that an airplane had just hit one of the World Trade Center towers but he didn't have any further info.  He did say though that all our aircraft were accounted for. We were thinking it must have been a general aviation aircraft or a helicopter or something like that.  After the meeting I went back down to my office, which was a window office at that time.  Right as I got there my wife called and said a plane had hit the WTC and its on all of the channels.  I had asked her to describe what she's seeing as I was trying to figure out what could have hit it.  Just then she said another plane just hit the towers.  I told her then that that wasn't an accident - not that close together.

Sometime after she hung up, I was looking out the window, kind of reflecting on what I had heard.  I remember seeing a 757 flying over the field (my office then was on the approach path to PIT, so I was used to seeing airplane on final all day long), but it was flying opposite to the direction traffic had been flying all morning, and I remember thinking that was odd, but didn't think much else about it.  I got a call from one of my buddies over in the hangar and he said that they had evacuated the hangar - something to do with a highjacked airplane heading for the field.  I can't be 100% sure but everything points to the airplane I saw being Flt 93 about 15 min before it went in. 

What I remember was the most striking the next several days after the attack was that the only thing in the sky were the birds.

We attended the first anniversary observance at Shanksville.  We participated in the flag holding ceremony.  It was a very moving experience.
-RP