9/11, Where were you, what were you thinking?

It was a groggy morning.. Half asleep and not quite there, I popped on the TV while getting dressed for work. I heard the talking heads speaking in a distraught manner, went into the living room, lit up my first cig of the morning only to find a replay of an airplane crashing into the WTC. I thought to myself that was the craziest accident I had ever seen. Then as I poured my coffee and sat down, I noticed on the replay actual bodies falling to the ground. After shaking the chills off of my skin, I went about my business and was out the door. I was walking to work and on the way noticed it was eerily quiet. Not a single car to be seen on the main road.

I arrived at the photolab only to find the entire staff plus the boss staring blankly at the TV in the lab itself. A coworker told me that another airplane had hit the WTC. 2 in a row! jeez. We went back our stations and resumed work, leaving the TV on so we can find out more about those crashes. As I turned around to pass some freshly developed film over to the printer, I saw a slice of the pentagon crushed. My jaw hit the ground before the film did. Picking up the dropped film I told the printer that this is the pushed domino that will start WW3. Our boss found out what had happened at that moment, decided it would be wise to close up shop for the day and wait things out until tommorow and to be ready in case people start dropping footage of other places being hit. I came home to find my wife was being called in early to work as paniced people were buying gasolene in unreal quantities.

I was in sixth grade in gym class (yes gym first thing in the morning). Then the band teacher came in and made a brief announcement that the first world trade towers were hit.

During my passing period about half the kids were talking about it and the other half of the kids hadn't even heard of the WTC. My first reaction was that it was an accident. That is until I heard it was both towers, then I knew it was terrorists. When I heard the pentagon was hit I figured that it must have been a strike to disrupt our military while terrorists attacked from all over. I thought we were under attack by somebody.

Then in my history class (with one of the most boring teachers ever) our teacher mentioned something about them collapsing like candles and being on fire and said nothing more.

It just so happened it was picture day, we went to the school libary to get our pics. taken. Luckily there was a TV there. I then saw the full extent of the damage.

Finally I went to math class were I had a pretty good math teacher. He was nice and allowed us to listen to a news report on his radio (our school has limited TV's, much less antenne or cable for the most part) while other students got there pictures taken. That was when I learned of a fourth plane crashing in Pennsylvania. By the end of the day I was angry and never felt so nationalistic, I was ready for war even though I was only in sixth grade.

Now that I am in high school I am glad that I have read the 9/11 commision report, it allowed me to peace together that frantic and terrible day in history. To this day I remember it like it was yesterday but I have come to understand it much more than I had in four years. I think that ATS was intrumental in helping me understand the scope of the war on terror. It was a tragic day that I will never forget.

I was at work in my Government Agency. Just outside my office is a TV monitor which has CNN on low volume. I had learned over the years to ignore the sound except to be keyed when I would hear the words "Breaking news..." or similar. I went out to watch CNN and my first reaction was that it was a horrible pilot or air traffic control error. I watching and saw the second plane hit live. My next thought that it was a terrorist attack. I called some friends in Washington who were also watching and had word that the plane had hit the Pentagon almost before the news had it. My best friend's wife was over at the Army/Navy Annex across from the Pentagon and was walking toward the Pentagon and saw the plane hit.

There is a picture of 21 collegues and I standing just outside the Pentagon about 75 feet from where the plane hit that was taken two weeks before 9/11. We were celebrating the completion of a project. I had walked through the area several times and had met in a conference room many times near the area. Three of my collegues in that picture died at their desks.

I also have a friend who is a Flight Attendant for American. The "Pentagon flight" was her normal scheduled run, but 9/11 was one of her days off.

It's still hits very close to home after almost 3 years.

It's amazing to read how many people tuned in just in time to see the second plane hit. From the nurse who got out of a meeting at 6:20 am Pacific time to the college student who strolled into the kitchen only to realize later what happened.

If you left your meeting at 6:20 am Pacific time, you did not see the second plane. The second plane hit at 6:03 Pacific time.

While I feel the pain all of you do regarding these events, please do not exagerate your claims to "sound" important. If you have times wrong, it is completely understandable. Just don't make statements to feel important.

Also, please do not feel like you can state for a fact you were correct in saying this was an internal attack. While there has not been overwhelming proof of foreign attack, their certainly has not been enough proof to say "I was right. The US government was behind this."

Originally posted by jaeger
I was at work in my Government Agency. Just outside my office is a TV monitor which has CNN on low volume. I had learned over the years to ignore the sound except to be keyed when I would hear the words "Breaking news..." or similar. I went out to watch CNN and my first reaction was that it was a horrible pilot or air traffic control error. I watching and saw the second plane hit live. My next thought that it was a terrorist attack. I called some friends in Washington who were also watching and had word that the plane had hit the Pentagon almost before the news had it. My best friend's wife was over at the Army/Navy Annex across from the Pentagon and was walking toward the Pentagon and saw the plane hit.

There is a picture of 21 collegues and I standing just outside the Pentagon about 75 feet from where the plane hit that was taken two weeks before 9/11. We were celebrating the completion of a project. I had walked through the area several times and had met in a conference room many times near the area. Three of my collegues in that picture died at their desks.

I also have a friend who is a Flight Attendant for American. The "Pentagon flight" was her normal scheduled run, but 9/11 was one of her days off.

It's still hits very close to home after almost 3 years.

Wow that realy saddens me, i cant belive that, i was in florida, and had on one in NY or DC, you losing so many close ones realy saddens me, the scariest thing i had was that my dad worked overseas in Angola, so i was worried that he might run into some trouble, thankfuly nothing happen.

Sept. 11 2001. I remember it was a very sunny and warm, almost a summer day. Uncommon up here in Quebec. I was starting my last semester in University and did'nt have any classes that day. I was living in the uni's dorms and woke up early that morning, and turned the TV on as I was preparing coffee. The TV was on the Global channel, which was showing some US channel's news feed.

I sat at my cpu sipping coffee, watching the TV just beside my cpu screen. All I remember was the image of Twin Towers from afar, with smoke coming out of one tower, and the anchor's voice-over talking about an accident or something.

Then a plane comes out of nowhere on the right side of the screen, in the shadows, and dissapears behind the Towers. Next thing you see is a huge explosion. Right there, live.

Instinctively I knew something incredibly wrong was going on, but my brain was just trying to come up with some explanation. As I learned that the Pentagone had been hit too, and that other planes had been hi-jacked, I began to imagine attacks all over the US, and possibly also up here in Canada.

I spent the entire day watching TV and digging the Net for whatever little piece of info I could find. Lot of people were gathered in common rooms watching the news on the wide screen TV's.

Our campus is very cosmopolite, with foreign students from all over the globe. There's a lot of Arab students from Northern Africa and the Middle East here, and some of them were cheering and celebrating, which outraged some others. Fights broke out, death threats were made. By the end of the day, there was police and security all over the campus to make sure nothing bad would happen. The ambiance on campus was incredibly tensed and surreal for weeks afterwards.

On that day, I was about six months pregnant with my son, who just turned 3 a couple of days ago.

That morning I got up, logged on to Yahoo, and saw a headline, plane crashes into WTC. I figured it was a) a private plane and b) a drunken pilot, and went back to bed.

About an hour or so later, I got up, and went to a message board I used to post on a lot. There were all these posts urging people to turn on the TV and when I did I got quite a shock. I think I was in time for the towers to collapse.

I had friends in Austria and UK and they were IMing with me, and I told them that I was okay, I don't live in NY or DC. I IMed with my mother and she said she had been on the phone with friends in Australia, and she told me that Detroit was on lockdown (they'd evacuated the Renaissance Center) and that the Sears Tower in Chicago had been evacuated.

It seemed like people on listservs that I was on were taking a headcount so to speak, wondering if a member was in one of the towers.

Here's the discussion thread from Fark.com

I can remember the day quite well, i was speaking to a friend on icq when he sent me a message saying 'terrorists had slammed a plane into the WTC, i didnt even know what the WTC was... so i rushed to the tv and put it on, and i sat there for 5 hours watching it, then i went to the pub with my mates and everyone was talking about it! it was just soooooo wierd watching stuff like that on live tv, but im glad i saw it all.

On that particular day I was taking HILTI chiesels to the smith for sharpening here in Hungary. On the way back home, I heard people talking about some massive attack in the US, airplanes crashing into buildings.

When I went excercising, friends told me the exact attack on the World Trade Center, and the entire media was filled with it.

It wasn't interesting, until I swa those spectecular videos showing the moment of the attack. After on, I was following up the events through the radio and TV.

Needless to say that I couldn't sleep for days, it was such a horrific event.

These are all good guys, keep it coming!

JUst a bump...

Because i read thru the posts, and you forget... we all have tried to forget...

That was a day i NEVER want to forget.

when the 2nd plane hit, like a lot of people, i thought it was an act of something.

i remember sitting with some friends that afternoon, in my livingroom, nobody was speaking, we all just sat there, mouths open in disbelief.

to this day, i firmly believe the american government did this, or had a part in it

Well, I was sleeping in that morning when the phone rang when someone (rudely) called and woke me up to tell me to turn on the idiot box to see what was going on. I remember my first thought was something like "damn, I bet this will mess up my vacation plans next week." And my second thought was "damn, now I probably won't be able to fall back to sleep for another hour or two of needed slumber."

Originally posted by Divinorumus
Well, I was sleeping in that morning when the phone rang when someone (rudely) called and woke me up to tell me to turn on the idiot box to see what was going on. I remember my first thought was something like "damn, I bet this will mess up my vacation plans next week." And my second thought was "damn, now I probably won't be able to fall back to sleep for another hour or two of needed slumber."

So sorry 911 interrupted you sleeping/vacation plans. What a nightmare that must have been...

We were watching tv when the program was interupted to bring the news of the first plane.
I quickly zapped to CNN to get the live feed and see the second plane hit as it happend.

What i was thinking ? I was worried !
Thinking of how many lives were lost and how many more would follow.
What would be the next target when even the pentagon took a hit.
And what would be US response to this attack.

I was at home in Northern Cal sleeping. My wife was getting the kids up for school when I got a call from office. My publisher told me turn on the news. I switched on CNN and was watching for about 5 mins when the second plane hit. I was back on the phone with my Pub. discussing what was going on and trying to get dressed. While I was diriving into the office the 3rd plane hit the Pentagon. The day was very busy and about 7pm that evening my wife came to the office to tell me I had an urgent call from Army PERSCOM ( I was/am reservist). I was told that orders were being cut and I was to report to Ft Bragg and travel arraingements were being made. I packed my office up and 3 days later was at Bragg. The next time I saw my home was almost 18 months later.

I live in North England and had finished work at 5 p.m. Got in car and set off home, when I turned car radio on they were talking about a plane crashing into a tower.
I thought it was a film preview.... like 'towering inferno'..... so just had it on in background.

Then the 2nd plane hit... I then realised and felt terrified, it was unreal. I got home as fast as I could to get tv on.
Seemed to spend next few days in front of tv...thoughts...why? what now? where next?

To be honest I have felt an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach ever since.