September 11, 2001: Personal Stories 10-Years Later

9/11 Changed my life, I think it changed everyone in some way, nothing like it had ever happened before.
I was sitting at my desk, an engineer for a small machine shop, it was an exceptionally nice moring and it was my birthday so I was in a great mood.
I just started working when the receptionist came in to the engineering office and said she had heard on her small desk top radio that a plane had crashed into a building in NY. Me being the one of only a handful of people with inernet hopped on CNN.com immediately, but the page wouldn't load, and neither would several others, they were being overloaded and crashing. So we went to the owner's office and he turned on a small TV as we watched the breaking news. We all stood horrified and speculating as to what was going on, then the second plane hit and we all knew.
Some people went home early, had kids to pick up from school and such. I stuck around most of the day listening to the radio and trying to find out more info from the internet. I called my fiance' who had the day off and was running errands, she had traveled to her mothers house and was on her way home, about a 30 min drive, she had our first cell phone and was worried she was going to run out of gas. She asked me how far she could make it on 1/8 tank becuase every gas station had a line a mile long.
So I left that afternoon, made it home where my parents were waiting to take me out to dinner to my favorite resteraunt for my birthday, needless to say everything was closed so we ended up just getting pizza and staying home and watching TV all night. In the weeks following I became obsessed just like everyone else with trying to figure out why this happened and wondering if more was going to happen. I was kind of upset that this tragedy had to happen on my birthday and that from now on it would be associated with it.
I just turned 27 and was so niave to the world, I had no idea that there were whole groups of people who we had pissed off and wanted to kill me just for being an american, I have never hurt anyone and yet I was afraid. I became a bit of an internet addict after that and wanted to know everything about the world that I could find out.
2 years ago I became a father for the first time, since then my life has changed a lot, I have un-plugged and moved on with my life, I am only on here because my birthday is coming up soon and it reminded me of all this.

I was in the car with my mum and brothers in Turkey.

I remember my mom flicking through the radio channels and the next thing we know the host was yelling: they hit the World Trade Center towers!!

We got home and turned on the TV only to watch the planes hit the towers over and over in a media frenzy. I hated the media before that but that day just made me feel more hatred for them. How they worked it up over and over till it was dry.

We stayed glued to the TV the whole day and just couldn't get over the shock of it. How could this have happened to the US? Didn't they see these planes coming? Why didn't they shoot them down? So many questions. And to come on this website and read about how American's still feel about it, makes me feel terrible. Because no one is at peace. No one feels like they've had answers even the people who believe this was a terrorists doing, they don't feel at peace. Why?

And to watch the US change so much over 10 years, how things got even more uglier, raises even more questions.

The night before it all went down, I dreamt about a plane crashing into the White House.

The day itself sucked though. I was only 11 and I needed to get stitches pulled out that day. The doctor was being a real dick because he would not pay attention to his job; instead, he kept going off about how 15,000 Americans apparently died in the attacks.

Then in the following days, it was nothing but complete resentment against muslims everywhere. Hell, even I felt that was because back then, I watched way too much TV.

That's my story. Nothing special.

I was sitting in my living room in Palmer, Alaska. I had a computer sitting in front of me on the coffee table and had been up all night working on a publication to meet a deadline for the printer. I had been switching back and forth between CNN and FoxNews all night long to keep myself awake. It was still fairly dark out being about 5 AM, nobody was on the streets and it was quiet other than the TV and me pounding away on my keyboard.

Suddenly the news program was interupted and the words World Trade Center caught my attention and I looked up to see a live feed of the smoke billowing out of the WTC Tower. From that point on I forgot entirely about my deadline and what I was doing and my eyes were glued to the TV and my fingers on the remote kept switching between News channels searching for more information.

When they showed the first footage of people leaping from the tower, I still remember the nauseating feeling it gave me and chill that ran up my spine as I realized this was really happening. Then as I watched the second plane hit the second tower what was really happening struck home.

At some point my Wife woke up and I came out of the trance and realized she was sitting next to me. I looked at her and she was pasty white eyes glued to the television. She walked away and could not watch.

Phone calls started coming as people realized the planes were grounded and that we were going to have to cancel the event and that nearly a thousand people would have to be called. Later in the day I started getting worried calls telling me that various people were stranded in Interior villages because the planes were grounded. Then I get calls from people who could not get to Alaska and it hit home that this would affect the whole country and things were changing fast.

I laid my work aside realizing it did not matter anymore. I turned off my phone and sat all day watching them play the video footage over and over again in kind of a daze, being already exhausted from working all night. The whole day I felt like I was fighting my way through a fog and basically shut down. At some point I turned off the TV as I realized I needed to get away from it. I picked up the list of people and phone numbers my Wife handed me and spent the next two days placing call after call, repeating the same words over and over, blocking it from my mind; immersing myself in work to not have to think about it.

I am over in the UK - and I was at work that day. As it wasnt that busy someone must have had a news page open - and soon the whole office knew what was happening.
Work went out the window as we watched Sky news live onstream.
It felt surreal to be honest. I went home at lunchtime and kept seeing the planes flying in repeated over and over again - but it just didn't seem to sink in how bad it was, watching the towers fall and knowing thousands of people had gone to work and wouldn't be coming home. Felt like it wasn't real - such a strange feeling.
Oddly - you know what sticks in my mind more - was driving back home from Blackpool on the day they started bombing Afghanistan off the back of these attacks when a friend called me to tell me about it starting and I pulled into a Motorway Services to see it on the news - and I honestly felt sick to the core, like it was the start of World War 3 and the whole world was just going to go to hell.

I hope we never see such an atrocity in our lifetimes again...

I was living on Maui, working as a waitress at a local Denny's. I worked the breakfast shift and started at 5am. On Sept 11, 2001, I awoke at 4:15am to a voice inside my head, yelling at me "Get out! Get out!" With urgency.

I listen to my inner voice, but this didn't make sense to me. The apartment was quite and peacefull, why was this voice yelling at me to "Get Out!"

I showered, and brushed my teeth, made coffee, and left for work. I rode a bike to work then. As I was rounding a corner, I saw ghosts were lining the street. I had never seen ghosts like that before or so many of them, and I was dismayed.

When I got to work, the girl I was relieving told me the towers had been hit, and the Pentagon too. She said she was to upset to do her stocking and cleaning. I didn't believe her and told her that unless the president declares "martial law" she needed to do her job. There was no TV in the restaurant.

As the tourist came in, we got slammed busy. They were all upset and cranky and not enjoying their vacations and were trapped because the airports were closed. One customer got testy with me about how long her food was taking and I snapped back, "What's the matter got a plane to crash?" I meant to say "catch" but it came out "crash"......She didn't leave me a tip.

I didn't believe it was happening. I told my boss that "IF" a plane did hit the Pentagon I bet it's in aplace that is under construction. I was right. I said that it was an inside job, before I saw it on TV!

I was in still in High School in Colorado (VERY near Norad) at the time...Homeroom/American History class. Someone actually pulled the fire alarm as a prank that morning, right after class started. Coming back in from the fire alarm, my teacher was no where to be seen. We all waited, wondered what had happened to him, then we hear him coming down the hall yelling in other class rooms "Turn on your God damn TV's!" along the way. I remember so clearly his face,he was scared and was sweating like mad. Everyone had this look of WTF is he doing. We really thought he was joking...it was confusing! We heard in some other class rooms people start screaming, and I swear I almost peed my pants.

Everyone got quiet when he turned on the TV, it was just minutes before they replayed the 2nd plane hitting.With the time difference I guess most everyone had not heard about the happenings untill then. It took time but we started to see what was happening and how serious it really was. He started crying and that started us all crying. At that point it was nothing but confusion and we didn't know what was happening or if it was going to get worse. Of course it did get worse that day. I even remember seeing some of the people jumping from the windows and falling. That was the hardest for me. The entire day was nothing but going from class to class and watching the TV, no lessons that day, even in gym class, we just watched TV. They put TVs in the lunch room too, it was so quiet in there....just hearing people whispering and crying...it was like a nightmare really.

On that day and in the weeks that followed I was glued to the TV. I watched every report or story I could stand. I really do think people were afraid something more was going to happen, like it wasn't over. I had nightmares for awhile, and every time I heard an airplane I froze in place like it was a bomb about to go. I was only 16 at the time, and I really do think it was one of those things in a life time that really hardens your heart a little. I hope my children never feel the pain I felt that day, the heart ach that still haunts me when I see re runs of the news casts. But...it is what started me on my path to finding the truth about all things in life, in a weird way it might have made we who I am today.

I was actually employed as a telecommunications contractor with General Dynamics at the Pentagon on that day. I had just started in August of that year working on the Pentagon Renovation (PENREN) Team, we basically were tasked with running copper and fiber data lines for the renovated areas, we also performed tasks for Temporary Communications team (TEMPCOM). Being new I had not received my access/ID badge, I had all the paperwork but needed to get my Social Security card from my mother's place to finish the process. So in the morning 9/11 I stopped by my mom's place to grab my card. On my way in to work I was listening to everything going on up in New York, pretty amazed as to what was happening. One of my first thoughts was "Bi Laden" and "Al Qaeda". Aside from having my ID card yet I also didn't have my parking pass so I parked at a lot between 395 and Pentagon City Mall. I drove up and parked, listening to the radio for a few extra minutes before making the quarter-mile or so trek to the Pentagon.

As I was sitting there I heard what I assumed was a fighter jet fly over and hit super-sonic, basically a loud speeding aircraft and then a loud boom (that I was able to actually feel). After sitting for another minute I decided it was time to go in and get started on my work day. As I got out I was astonished to see a pretty big plume of black smoke coming from the direction of the Pentagon. Figuring that something pretty bad had just happened I started jogging towards the tunnel that runs under 395 to the south parking lot. As I made my way through I passed a few people who looked dazed and scared. Then I came up on an African American female Army Sgt and asked her what happened. She said, without hesitation that someone just "ran a jetliner in to the Pentagon". At that point I figured we were under a series of coordinated terrorist attacks and the best thing to do was to get the hell out of DC. So I did . The following days for me consisted of working on ground zero installing communication lines for many of the agencies performing investigations of the attack.I was able to walk through debris pretty freely (once everything was stable of course). I do remember seeing pieces of an airplane fuselage.

Regardless of whether you believe in the conspiracies or it was a pretty crappy day for America and a lot has changed since then and not for the better.

I had just got back from a morning's temp work at Leeds University. Out of pure coincidence, I was thinking about Manhattan, picturing it in my head. I phoned my Dad just to say hello and how was he. He said 'I'd be better if I hadn't just heard what I heard'. He told me four jumbo jets had been hijacked and one crashed into the WTC. My mind just recoiled from the numbers. One jet I could understand. Four?? Then Dad told me that my twin sister was on holiday in New York. I thought she was still in Canada. Without even thinking I said 'she's OK'. It took a moment to say it, but in that moment I'd done a sort of 'systems check'. I'd sort of looked around inside myself and hadn't seen any flashing red lights. I didn't feel anything wrong had happened to her.

TV on, just in time to see the second plane fly in, momentarily hidden by the second tower, then a bloom of flame across the corner of the building. It looked quite small from the angle of the helicopter filming it, but when I later saw footage from the ground, the full violence of the impact, debris exploding and raining out the other side, came home to me.

'It's like a movie' became a cliche, but I've never seen a film to this day with CGI that ever looked totally real. Not one. I expect the eye witnesses on the ground, in different parts of the city, would have something to say on that subject too. 'Surreal' was another cliche, but this time it had some currency. It was an unexpected, uncanny conjunction of elements. The clear blue sky, out of a Magritte painting, the monolithic buildings, and at right angles, a plane flying, seemingly small and white like a sea bird lost amongst towering cliff faces. And I'd never liked those buildings. Even the Empire State had more style. To me the WTC towers were try-too-hard show-offs. And something I thought soon after was - when they designed the towers - in fact any skyscrapers - did they even think about how to evacuate people?

Sometimes bad things happen to good people. Sometimes we have no control over events. Sometimes we are just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Everyone wants reasons, but sadly they may not be the reasons you wanted to hear. What took place on 11th September 2001 was bad enough, but the violence which has followed, both physical and mental, has done nothing but scar us all.

The night before 9/11 I was on the phone with my sister. Our mother had died one month ago on 8/11/2001. I remember saying to my sister , and I quote, "Tomorrow is going to be a terrible day." I thought it was going to be bad because it was the month month mark of my Mom's passing, but I think I truly had a sense of doom.

That morning I was in the kitchen preparing my oldest for Kindergarten, which had begun the week before. The TV was on in the kitchen and could not believe what was on the news. Initially, for, the first few minutes I watched, I was unaware the tower had been struck by a plane. I thought it was a fire started in the kitchen of the restaurant, Widows on the World. As I was making coffee I was thinking -"Wow, when they get that fire put out, that is going to be very difficult to repair."

Then when I saw the second plane I went into methodical panic mode. I took my daughter to school (after much debating if I should or not) and went to ask the teacher if she would promise they would keep the doors locked. I now realize that was a really stupid request. Then I went to the gas station, filled up the tank and our extra containers we used for the lawn mower, asap, went straight to the grocery store, stocked up on water and canned goods, then I called my husband and told him to stop whatever he was doing and get to a rental car company asap and start driving home. He was traveling on business. He got the last car at the rental lot...another "customer" stole a car that was reserved for someone else just before he got there-remember air travel was shut down.

Then I spent the next several days watching and praying....and knowing those buildings did not come down the way we were told.

That day marked a new chapter in my life...it ended the mourning period of my mother, it ended my husbands dot-com career, it started my daughters exposure to life and school in the new normal. One month later - unforeseen to us - we would be putting our house for sale- moving away from our home town to Chicago and saying goodbye to our pre 9/11 memories.

Just before she died my mother told me to move to Chicago when I get the chance (after 9/11 my husband had 3 job offers in 3 cities-one being Chicago) , and she said that the world would be going to hell and that bad things were coming to the USA. I thought her cancer riddled brain was crazy-but she was spot on. Living in Chicago was one of the best things that ever happened to me.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


I was 12 years old, and I was sitting in my homeroom class in Middle School. I remember our teacher explaining to us what happened, but I didn't fully comprehend the depth of what was going on. EVERYONE in my school was released early for the day. My dad picked me up and took me home, that's when I saw my mom...she was hysterically crying and just kept saying, "My God...my God...this is the end of the world..."

The moment I saw my mother crying, and my father was clearly very shaken as well, it dawned on me that the world I knew would be changed forever. It was a very somber day, as it was for everyone in the USA.

For some reason, a decade later, hearing/reading about 9-11 is affecting me in a way that it never has before. I was thinking about all the people that died, all the children, women, men, fathers, mothers...and it brought me to tears. Ten years later and the gravity of the situation is just now settling in... Why? I'm not sure.

My heart still goes out to those who perished, and to those who lost a loved one on that tragic day.

MUCH LOVE TO EVERYONE! WE ARE A NATION THAT MUST STAND TOGETHER THROUGH THESE DARK DAYS, AND REMEMBER THE TRIALS WE HAVE FACED IN THE PAST. SPREAD THE LIGHT!

-OnewithAll

I was 14 years old and my dad was driving me to school from Scott AFB, we were in base housing since we just moved there. On the way to school they had reported a plane hit one of the WTC buildings and they believed it to only be a Sesna. It wasn't until I arrived at school when the video(s) hit the news stations showing the commercial jet hitting the tower, then the second and finally the collapse.

The rest of the day we basically watched the tragedy unfold on the television in each class until till being let out early. I clearly remember one of my friends in biology asking the teacher why we weren't doing any classwork, and he said "It's because you all need to see this and understand this, it will be something you will never forget"

My teacher was 100% right, I haven't forgotten and will never forget.

On September 11, 2001 I was living in Indiana, I was working for a major American manufacturing company and I was working the afternoon shift 3 in the afternoon to 3:30 in the morning.

I was still asleep when my Mom called and told me to turn on the TV we're under attack. At first, I was like yea, whatever, but her persistence convinced me to turn it on.

I saw the second plane hit the WTC on live TV, I saw both the towers collapse on live TV, I saw the Pentagon smoking. I couldn't hardly believe what I seeing, it looked like something out of a movie. My first thoughts were that it was Osama Bin Laden and I was very, very angry about it.

I watched up until it was time for me to go to work, I didn't want to stop watching , but I dragged myself from in front of the TV and drove into work. On the way in I saw that every gas station had cars lined up out into the street, I remember thinking, wow if there's any gas left it sure is going to be expensive.

Everyone I worked with felt the same way I did, shock, anger, disbelief. Everyone was saying the same thing that it looked like something out of a movie.

I remember the run up, up to the year 2000, not only the y2k thing, but the whole Nostrodamus thing, didn't he say the world was supposed to end then, and that especially the "new city by the sea" was going to get it? I remember thinking maybe he was right after all, just a year off. I guess he was wrong.

I remember when all the air traffic was grounded and thinking that it would be the perfect time to see a UFO, I never did see one.

It was about a week or so later (?) I'm not sure but I know it was the day that the jet went down in Queens. I was woken up by the roar of jet engines. The sound was steadily building in a crescendo of intensity until it sounded like the windows were going to shake out of the house. I threw on some pants and ran out of the house just in time to see three F-16's roaring overhead, they were so low I could see the faces of the pilots. It was a truly awesome sight to behold, I could only imagine how it would feel to be in the Taliban and have those bad boys coming after you, you wouldn't stand a chance.

It was truly an historic day, that will be remembered and talked about long after we're all gone and forgotten.
My thoughts and prayers go out to everyone who passed that day, their friends and families, and to everyone else who has suffered and sacrificed as a result of what happened that day.

I live in the midwest of the U.S.....went to work that morning and had a meeting to get to in the conference room of my office which was to start at 8:00am. So I'm sitting in the conference room waiting for the meeting to begin and a woman named Karma (yes its true) walked in and said "I have good news and bad news. The good news is we found the projector. The bad news is a plane just flew into the World Trade Center." All of us in the conference room were shocked....and said things like -I wonder what happened? - Was it a big plane? - Gee I hope nobody got hurt.---- A minute later Karma walks back in and says "Guys - another plane hit the WTC". We all at once said "It's a terrorist attack."

We then left and went back to our desks and tuned into the news and info radio station.....they were reporting a plane crashed into the Pentagon, and a plane crashed in Pennsylvania, a carbomb went off in front of the State Dept (which was not true), then both collapses....I was Stunned beyond belief.. It wasnt until lunchtime when I saw the video of the second plane flying into the building. I remember that my stomach turned and I literally felt sick to my stomach for about the next 6 months. Everyday I had a "ball in the pit of my stomach" feeling....it wouldnt go away.

That night at home with my two kids and husband - we all hugged each other and cried.

Edit: I want to add that the one thing I always think of when I think about 9/11/01...is that it was such a beautiful day with a clear blue sky. It just seems to me to be at odds with also being the worst day.

My brother was doing court ordered clean up duty in Battery Park for smoking a harmless flower. He helped people exit the towers. They never made him go back. I got a letter from my stock broker the next day, sent from the twin towers. It just made my heart sink to know he had died an awful death. The terrorists who were on the planes were pawns, told that religion was their motive, while I know money was the motive. Now most Americans are the same type of pawns, with patriotism replacing the fanaticism of religion. We sought our revenge on the innocent, a much worse crime than killing 4000 people.

I guess I will make this my first post. Reading everyone's responses has momentarily made a return of memories and feelings I would very much rather forget. I was a senior in high school sitting in my first period art class waiting for it to start when the teacher turned on the tv and said something about a fire in the World Trade Center. The next thing I remember clearly is the second plane hitting the other tower and someone laughing in the classroom not knowing what had happened. I stayed in the art classroom for my next period, I was a teacher’s assistant across the hall, to keep the p. e. teacher updated and that is when I saw the first tower collapse.

The rest of the day is a blur other than during marching band rehearsal our director and a few students were crying when he spoke to us about the day’s event. Ironically, our show was “Apocalyptic Dreams” by David Gillingham.

My dad became very sick shortly after, with a rare disease which was something he would fight until 2009.

At that time I was unsure of how things would change, but now I am all too aware.

Hello all,

I was not going to post here in this subject for it is painful to remember, but I can remember it like yesterday. I worked for a company located in Fort Washington Pa at the time this happened, what this company did was create custom software to use in financial institutions and also to be used for sales force. It was custom server and client software, well my story is that I was supposed to be in tower two if my memory serves me correctly installing this software at Douche Bank but I had become ill the night prior and a colleague of mine went in my place.
This colleague and good friend of mine never returned home nor were his remains ever recovered; do I feel guilty to this day knowing that I was the one supposed to be there not him? The answer is yes, do I blame myself for him losing his life that day? No I do not.
I am a firm believer that things happen for reasons not for chance or luck, but that does not change the fact that I lost a friend and colleague, nor does that change the fact that I lost others that I had professional relationships with and had many lunch and dinner meetings with.
I remember watching the live broadcast of all the events of that day, and sitting there on an emotional roller coaster cry one second to extreme anger the next, the events on that day impacted my life, I remember my wife holding me and crying repeating “ oh my god you were supposed to be there, I could have lost you.” In closing I would like to add that I never felt right with the “official” story, things I seen that day on live TV did not add up to me and still do not.

Thank you for your time in reading this.

-Matrix

That day was meaningful to me for pretty unique reasons, September 11th was the day I thought I get left behind.

A little context: I was raised in a Fundamentalist household and the idea that Jesus was going to rapture believers away and leave anyone with currently outstanding sins behind to suffer untold horror during a 7 year tribulation. I was in eighth grade on September 11th.

I was sitting in Algebra class in the sub-basement computer labs at my school, I can't recall what we were working on but very few of us worked that hard in the computer labs, we mostly just goofed off. The principal came over the PA system and made a very vague, very cryptic and very chilling announcement that went something to the effect of: "Reports are coming in of something happening in New York, no one is sure what is going on but it may affect the entire East Coast."

After that I had gym class. I can remember the fear that swelled up in me, my whole body felt like it was a thousand degrees warmer as my head ran through the possibilities. The one I kept coming back to was the idea that I'd been left behind, that this was the rapture and the big event was people going missing starting in the East Coast time zone. It was an idea that'd been drilled into my head for years from my Father and from Church every Sunday and Wednesday youth groups. I was absolutely terrified as I changed for gym, it didn't help that most of the other kids were quieter than usual too.

We lined up for gym class and that's when our teacher explained what was ACTUALLY happening. Imagine my surprise. I'd been worried that I was going to end up in Hell, or at least suffer a horrible demise at the hands of the anti-christ. Instead of horror and shock or sadness my reaction was one of RELIEF when the teacher explained that all that was happening were some hijackings. The weight lifted off my shoulders for a while.

The true weight of the real situation didn't hit until all the information about 911 began to come out and the feeling of dread I'd felt completely wore off.

I look back on that day as the day which proves definitively the dangers of religious indoctrination. It was religious indoctrination that drove the terrorists to act and on a personal level the religious indoctrination I'd undergone had so twisted my view of the world as to make these events seem trivial compared to what otherwise might have been. Doesn't matter if its a belief in paradise of a belief in Hell, it's harmful, September 11th proved that to me once and for all.

I don't really have a story, because I was at home when it happened. I just remember everyone was panicking thinking a bomb would go off in the subway, etc. I was a little nervous but after a while I brushed it off.

I will say this though, this country has never recovered from 9/11. We like to sit here and pretend we are strong and we got over. No, this country is forever wounded from that blow.

And TPTB know and understand this. It is their wish to keep us in a state of post 9/11 paranoia because they know when the masses are in this state, they will follow whatever solution the TPTB offers.

This is why you always see these specials on 9/11, every single year. How can any country get over something of this magnitude if every single year there is a special about it. Over and over. I understand pay homage, and respect to the dead, but a special every year is unnecessary and it's only making people re-live the event, bringing the masses back into the post 9/11 state.

How can a country move forward, if every year you are reminding us of the past? Not only reminding us of the past, but reminding us of the past in such a way that will trigger some of the most extreme emotions. And when these extreme emotions are felt, we are transported back to that time. The use of the music, and editing, and effects.. its terrible.

You got to understand, some people are mentally strong. They can watch the special, understand the use of effects, and they are able to come back to reality. But there are people in this country that are so traumatized by that event, that there mentality remains in that time, and they resume their life as if they were back in 2001.

It's like every year TPTB want to rewind us back to 2001... and they know exactly what they are doing too.

I have read all these pages, on this thread, and can't see how people keep saying, oh 9/11 changed my life and the world forever.... Give me a break people! 9/11 has been long overdue and as long as this country is all about greed, and allowing gay marriages, and having sexual interest in everything and on tv and our children have to grow up thinking this is normal! This is not normal people! God is not happy with how we have become, we just think its wrong to think bad about something cause we the people believe in Freedom, Wow This country reminds me of Sodom and Gomorrah in the old testament, read it look it up, study history and u will soon find out the history repeats itself! Allah Akbar! God will never let me down!