Where Were You?
Being a 3rd shifter I had just woke up and was reading the morning paper and enjoying a cup of coffee when my sister called and told me to turn on the TV.I pretty much spent the rest of my day in shock watching the news,oddly enough it seemed the best coverage was on the BBC America channel???????
I had delivered a patient for cancer treatment, and was sitting in the car listening to the radio. I heard the radio news flash, and ran in to the cancer center in time to see the second plane impact on the tv. I then prayed that I’d be called back to active duty. As I had retired 7 years before I knew it wouldn’t happen, but GOD I wanted it.
I was up and going through my pre-work “What’s On The ‘Net Today” routine when one of the TV channels cut to the first tower burning. It wasn’t too much later that the second hit. My first thought was “Which terrorist group is going to lay claim for this one?” I stayed home until the towers fell, chatting on mIRC with some friends about it. Went to work and, being in IT, was able set up a spare TV in our backroom to keep an eye on the news the rest of the day.
I was at work (and had been for a hour or so) when my friend Ed came around and told me that he had just heard about the first tower being hit. We were pretty sure it was an accident. Then he came back and told me about the second plane. Right then we knew what was going on. A few minutes later, there he was again: “The bastards just hit the pentagon.” The plant manager announced that we had work to do, but he had a TV set up so we could see what was going on if we wanted to.
Then we heard about flight 93 crashing. There wasn’t any panic, but there were a lot of angry people in that building. It was one of those surreal moments where confusion and clarity in one’s mind are trying to battle it out.
I also remember it being very strange over the next couple of days with no aircraft buzzing around. You don’t realize how used to airplane noise you get until there isn’t any.Driving in to work at about 8:40 I was making great time. Usually the NJ highways are a bumper to bumper crawl in the morning but that day there seemed to be a lot of cars pulled off to the side of the road. I had some CD playing so I was oblivious. I got into work and saw people just standing around. It took me a minute or two to realize a strangeness in the air. As I walked over to a co-workers cubicle I heard him tell someone that the 2nd tower had just been hit. I asked him what the * was going on and he said “We’re at war.” The rest of the morning passed in a blur. We got some TVs working to watch the news. It was hard getting anything on the net or even using the phones. Bandwidth was just sucked dry. They sent us home around 11.
I too had been at work when the first report of the plane hitting the WTC. We were amazed that something could hit that on such a clear day. Then my wife called and told me about the second plane and then I knew it was something big.
Working in downtown Cleveland, my office building is the tallest in the city and just so happens to be on the flight path for landings at the Cleveland Airport. So there was the added concern of the missing plane over Cleveland, which later would be Flight 93 and then the rumor of bomb on a Delta flight that landed at the airport.
The Mayor of the City orderd an evacuation of the downtown area, our building cleared out by walking down the fire escapes, for me that was 43 stories. When I left my office, the towers will still burning, but by the time I got to my wife’s office nearly an hour later the buildings were gone.Before I left my office, I took the time to shoot my brother in law an email, who was an officer on the USS Carl Vinson at the time in the Persian Gulf. I said, “ I know you will be busy soon, Good Luck and Good Hunting and tell everyone we are behind you!”
Some of things I remember about that day, is how beautiful the sky was and how quiet everyone walking around were. I also remember the gridlock with everyone trying to get out of downtown. I also remember thinking about if this was what it was like during Pearl Harbor.
I leave you with an excerpt of email from a colleague that worked at the time in our NY office:
“This is surreal - For years I have looked south out of my apartment window to see the Statue of Liberty and the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center - now the Twin Towers are gone. Symbols of US might and power, our open society, has been challenged. Thank God, they did not get the Statue of Liberty. It’s hard to explain the emotion I now feel as to what that represents.” ...“The whole southern skyline of Manhattan, as it existed two hours ago, no longer exists.
My God, what is man capable of doing to man, and in the name of what?”My we never forget!
On 9/10/2001 I had checked into the local VA hospital for treatment. So early on 9/11 a hospital staffer called me and some other patients into the staff lounge to see the WTC smoking. They said a plane had hit it. As we watched the live feed, I witnessed the second plane hit. Yikes! One plane could have been an accident. But two?
Comments as it happened on Free Republic.
At the time, we were living in VA Beach. I was having a meeting with the teacher of my now 10 1/2 yr old high functioning autistic son regarding his program for the school year. I got a call from my husband’s mom in Jeffersonville IN, telling me to turn the TV on as a plane had flown into the World Trade Center. Stunned, the teacher and I turned on the TV just in time to watch the second plane hit the Towers. After she left, it was a maze of phone calls from family and watching the TV as the events unfolded. To watch a building that I had once stood in during my HS senior trip crumble and fall before my eyes…
My dad was absolutely beside himself, as my mother had left just 3 days prior for a tour of London, Paris and Rome. He wanted us to come home, but I was staying put as I didn’t feel at the time my childhood home was that safe either (I grew up roughly an hours drive from Fort Knox) At the time my husband was a sonar technician on a US Navy fast attack submarine and we were preparing ourself for the possibility that he was going to be sent off to war. He didn’t get home that night until well after dinnertime.
As it stood, he did leave for his first 6 month deployment later that year. Being that it was his first deployment it was naturally stressful but it was even worse considering the threat of war and not being able to talk to him much during said deployment (phone calls during port calls was IT. Emails were to say the least out of the question and familygrams, which are limited to so many words, don’t really cut it)
I was in college at the time. I didn’t have class until 11 that day, so I slept until about 8:30. I had fallen asleep with the TV on the night before, and I woke up to the Today Show and Katie Couric babbling about something or other.
I was checking my e-mail when I heard her say something about a plane hitting the WTC. I turned to watch, and was pretty amazed. I kept thinking it was some bad accident. I took special interest, being that it was in New York, and kept my eyes glued to the tube ... long enough to watch the second plane hit live ...
Both my jaw and my stomach dropped. I listened as the reporters had their collective moment of “uhhhh ....”, and then it kind of hit everyone that it was no accident. The first thing I did was call one of my best friends. She was an NYU student at the time, and volunteered at a hospital in lower Manhattan. Fortunately, she was home, but she had just gotten called and asked to come in. She didn’t go home for about 3 days after that.
The next few hours were spent watching TV and listening to the radio ... at least, the stations that stayed on air ...
Watching the towers come down was heartbreaking, especially to my father. He worked in heavy construction in New York City for many years, and there was no image he loved more than the skyline of lower Manhattan. We must’ve had dozens of pictures of it up in our house over the years. And just like that ... it was changed forever.
I woke up at 8am at my house 43 miles from Manhattan in CT. and started to read some blogs until I got a call from my wife before 9 AM. She told me to turn the TV on quickly and I was shocked but not surprised as events during the summer was like watching a kettle boiling when it came to terrorism worldwide. I could not believe as I was switching channels that on a PBS call-in show within the first hour there were people already blaming the events on Bush but not those who perpetrated it. After 6 years the tragedy still burns in me but yet it seems those farther away from the epicentre have forgotten. I hope not
Posted by earth56
09/11/2007 at 03:27 PM
I had a routine down, we were living at Ft. Hood, kids out the door 7:30ish - dog and I go for a walk. Then I wait for my hubby to come home from PT (some days we meet at the door), to shower, eat and then go back for formation. He was upstairs when (I actually did watch the Today Show back then) the first plane hit. I ran upstairs to turn the tv in our bedroom on for him just as the second plane hit. I (sort of) apologize - but this was my very next thought - nuke ‘em till they glow - as I sat down on the bed. My husband debated calling in and decided to just double time (and no breakfast) it to get back to the unit. I thought of calling him the few minutes after he left to tell him about the Pentagon - but decided that of all people in America - the Army would be gearing up and on top of things.
The next day is what I remember most. I have been around the Army for a long time (1975) and remember the first ‘big’ thing became a running joke for my family as I went in and volunteered my husband for duty (he is my ex now). And everything in between I always seemed to be in the midst of a PCS - we were at Ft. Knox for Desert Storm but arrived after my husband’s asign unit had it’s mission (and was already gone, he became part of Rear D). I remember it was all Patriotic songs, yellow ribbons and a hushed ‘I’ll pray for your husband’ for the few women whose husbands had gone - and then it was over.
On Sept 12th 2001, I started my day as usual getting up, throwing on some shorts and a tee to walk the dog, coming down the stairs to open the blinds in the kitchen (it is how I monitor busses for bus stop time) - to see a deuce and a half right across the street (we were the corner house) with the back deck full of soldiers in full gear with their rifles. I knew that this was a whole different war. And while the majority of America did not get it until October 7, 2001 when we went into Afghanistan - those of us in the Armed Forces got it at 9AM on September 11, 2001.
Excerpted from my memorial: Remembering 9/11...
I was at work on that fateful day for about a half-hour when word of the attack came down by way of word of mouth. The net was frozen, and no one was able to access it and no one could get any work done for the entire day. Most of us were just sitting around trying to make sense of it all. After noon our bosses just told everyone to go home, and so I did.
When I got home I turned it onto CBS and watched Dan Rather warning everyone about the graphic footage and language. Yes, I heard the lady screaming “Jesus F***ing Christ!” and it was NOT censored. The first and only words out of my mouth were YOU SONS OF BITCHES! After that I didn’t say much for the next couple of days or so, I was as stunned as everyone else.
