Memories of 9/11.....Please Share

A good thread, but may be hard for some people I hope it won't be to hard for them specially if they have lost someone, if they have my prayers go out to them.

I'm in Toledo, Ohio
I remember the day of being at school and to be perfectly honest it was a normal school day for me. It wasn't until the end of the day that I heard about it and so we weren't told about it at all that day. Most of the schools had let the children go home as soon as it had happened but for us no information had been given until it was time to go home anyway. Though I do recall some parents coming to take their children out of school. This is middle school as well, I guess they didn't want to scare us or something?

Either way my mom instructed me to go home with a friend and I believe his mom picked us up, but we had walked to his house so many times I could be blurring it. Either way when we got there we started watching it on CNN for a while and I just stayed there for quite sometime watching it and talking with my friend about it. It wasn't until around 7 I believe that I went home to which I talked with another friend who lived close by. We simply talked about the action that happened that day and he had told me that he went home early as well.

The thing I don't get is why weren't we notified about this while in school? Since there was a plain that did crash down in Ohio.

Thank you for encouraging these remembrances! I didn't know anyone in NYC, or have any relatives there, but still the shock and grief of that day will stay with me. My heart goes out to all those who lost loved ones.

I was in maybe my third year of grad school that year. I had a school psych class that morning, so when the first plane hit, I was driving to campus. Nothing had been said about it on the radio station I'd been listening to, but one of my classmates told us about it when we all started arriving to class. At first, we were wondering whether it was an attack, or whether it was a tragic accident. But the uncertainty didn't last long because we very quickly heard about the second plane and knew then beyond a doubt that an attack had happened. We didn't have a TV in the classroom, and we still went ahead with class, but that whole morning we kept getting updates as new information and rumors came in. We heard that the Capitol had been hit, and maybe a few other rumors that I can't remember offhand. People were speculating that the White House had been a target. I don't think I found out that it was actually the Pentagon that got hit until later, when class was over.

After class, we all went over to the student center to watch the news. Stepping outside the building, it really hit me for the first time that we had no idea what other horrors might be unleashed that day. This could have just been the beginning. What if there were a nuclear attack, or who knows what else could happen? That fear is something that I still remember, and I'll also remember how eerie it was to look up at the beautiful, nearly cloudless blue sky and see not a single plane.

I spent the rest of the afteroon until next class watching the news, learning about the attack at the Pentagon and the flight that crashed in PA, and seeing the towers fall and watching it happen over and over again. I remember trying and trying to call my mom just to talk to her and hear her voice...everyone was calling everyone...and it took a long time to get through, because all the circuits were busy. I was surprised that we still had our second class of the day, and it was really hard to sit through. Then, when that was done, I went alone to the student center to watch more of the news before heading to my practicum site for a meeting. My practicum was in an elementary school, and the first parent-teacher meeting of the year was scheduled for that night. When I got there, I saw that it was closed because of all that was going on. So, I went straight home and discovered CNN. I was pretty much glued to CNN in the following weeks.

I spent some time writing down my memories of that day in a journal, and may just have to look for it sometime today to read it. It's been a long time since I've done that.

This is proving to be much more difficult than I originally thought it would be. In fact I've tried to write this out four times already and I find myself pushing the "recent posts" button rather than publishing each time I try.

I wish I understood why this is bothering me as much as it seems to be.

At any rate, I'll try a short version and see if that works out any better.

September of 2001 came during a horrible period in my life. A few weeks earlier I'd ended a long term relationship with somebody that I cared very deeply for - one of those situations where two people have a ton of love and all the best intentions but, for some reason or another, it just never clicks the way it should. I'd also just gotten laid off from a very good paying job that I enjoyed and had been at for a few years.

In August, of that year, I'd broken down and moved about sixty miles from the town I had lived in for nearly two decades. I was seeking a fresh start - a place that wasn't filled with memories and reminders.

So when my cell phone woke me, on that September morning and I saw my ex's name on the caller ID, I almost didn't answer. I didn't want to answer. Unfortunately I am one of those people who won't reject a phone call because I worry that I might, one day, reject an emergency call and then would have to live with the guilt of having done so.

So, barely awake and nowhere near coherent, I pushed the little green button on my cell and took the call.

The familiar voice, on the other end of the line, was hysterical. No, beyond hysterical. She was saying that world war three had started. She was begging me to come to her house to protect her. She was out of her mind with worry and, to me, had really lost it. I did my best to calm her down. I spoke in a soothing voice. I told her to breathe. I rode it all out, doing my best to reassure her, and waited for her to get to a point where she could tell me what exactly had her so worried. Finally she calmed enough to tell me "John, TURN ON THE TV!'

So I walked into my living room and did just that.

As the screen lit up and the picture began to clear I looked upon the sight of one of the Twin Towers billowing smoke, from somewhere in the buildings middle, and caught on, somehow - maybe through a reporter, or the scrolling text, or my ex - that a plane had struck the building. That calmed me. Planes had hit buildings before. This was something I could grasp. It was unfortunate, to be sure, but it certainly was not world war three.

My ex always turned to me to feel safe. She respects my judgment and my ability to physically protect her. In fact she still does to this day. She trusts me. So I began to tell her that this wasn't an attack and that it was all OK.

And then I saw, on the television, a second plane hit the towers and I knew it wasn't OK.

In hindsight I honesty don't know if I saw that second plane hit "live" or if the channel I'd been watching had been showing footage from before it happened up until that moment. Either way it doesn't change things.

In that moment, and in that realization, I felt utterly powerless. I felt impotent.

Somebody I loved was crying over the telephone in absolute terror and I couldn't find a single word to make it better. I couldn't even get my own mind around what was happening.

I got dressed as fast as I could, grabbed my guns, jumped into my car, drove those sixty miles, and spent five or six days at my ex's house. For days we could barely speak about anything of substance and we fell into this strange and silent existence. We were closer, and yet more distant, during those days than any words I can muster would or could do justice to.

All these years later I still can't really get my mind around what happened that day. But I do know that I will never, ever feel that lost and impotent again. I can't. That day stole the last of my innocence.

I used to get to the office about 6 am, a medical clinic, to record and code out the surgeries that Doc and I did the previous evening. I always listened to the radio, as I was the only one in the clinic that early. About 7:40, they broke in with the first reports, an it was totally surrellistic. I waited and listened, and continued working as things wratcheted up. I soon put my pens and code books down, and I felt like I was in another world, as I had no reference point for this kind of thing. The incredulation in the voices of the commentators was obvious. People were wondering in around me, and they all had strange looks on their faces. Clinic began, and Doc was even in a daze, as he was from Mahattan. We had tvs all over the place and couldn't get it away from it. We had a big spinal surgery scheduled, and I thought we should cancel it for another day, but the patient wanted to continue, and we did. It went well, but the adrenalin and the distractions were almost too much. It was like I was incredibly sad and angry at the same time. I remember this the same way I remember the Kennedy assassination. Truth was stranger than fiction on both days.

9-11-01 was a strange day. I was driving a semi back then. Picking up loads of meat at the local slaughterhouse and delivering them to cold storages and other packing plants within 200 miles of home. After delivering to a little place in Northwood IA and taking a nap I started home going south on I35 Between 8 and 9 I heard the initial reports about a plane hitting the WTC. Being curious I stopped at the Broadway truck stop and watched the 2nd tower pancake to the ground.

The following 3 hours as I drove home I had lots to think about. And after getting home I did something stupid. What that was I'm not at liberty to say.

But I'll let you know this however. It makes for a interesting ATS Avatar doesn't it?

But I'll let you know this however. It makes for a interesting ATS Avatar doesn't it?

I can't even tell what that is. Could you enlighten us please?

Never Forget.

Major Necro, but I'll jump in.

I was a youngin at the time, only 10, in fifth grade. I knew something was wrong before I went to school ( I walked ) when the news was on and it sounded serious. I may have not known the ramifications this would have or the history behind it, but I definitely knew something was off. I don't remember much after that, except we weren't doing what we normally did during school, the teachers simply gave us busy work.

My biggest memory was when I was at home. My step-father was born and raised in New York ( Long Island, but still ). That is one of the most distinctive memories I have of him. All I remember is him bawling on his knees and smashing the floor.

Very Powerful Memory.

I had a doctors appointment that morning I rode the subway to 6th ave and 57 st when I got out to street level I saw people lined up at the telephone booth and thought it was strange as I got to the doctors office the nurse said we are closed and not knowing what was happening I said why and she responded you don't know I said no she told me a plane had hit the world trade center so I didn't know what to do and she said come in and I always had some radios with me and I turned them on and we listened to all the activity on the air all the citywide channels and were blown away at the activity. And the NYC Transit said they were closing down the subway so I left and walked to the Queens Borough bridge and there were Thousands upon Thousands walking across I saw mid span the smoke from the damage of the destruction when I got to the Queens side the subways were closed and I walked to my home in Queens that took me 4 hours and after getting home and watching TV that was was the first time I saw what really happened .

When I heard the news that day I must say I wasn't all that surprised that it happened considering the decades of meddling in the politics and economics of nations that openly resented western interference in their affairs, something I always thought of as 'economic terrorism'. That made the WTC an obvious target for retaliation and it wasn't the first attack either.

Don't get me wrong, I was deeply shocked at the number of lives lost and some of my own countrymen were among them.

I was sitting at home in NC, talking to a childhood buddy of mine, who happens to be a NYC transit cop. We were talking about star wars stuff, he gets quiet for a few minutes, comes back and says turn on the TV and logs off. Both planes have already both buildings, and reports about the other crashes were coming in.
I remember watching both towers falling and being speechless.