Remembering Sept. 11 2001

[ATannahill]

i was in 3rd grade, first year of schooling in florida, my mom told me on the way home, the teachers didnt say anything.

for you that can laugh about it

[Cory]

I was in my sophomore year of high school.

I go to sleep every night with music on, so I awoke at about 6:00 or so, and instead of hearing music like normal it's some talk show. I'm pretty out of it because I just woke up but I heard something about a plane hitting a building.

The rest of my family was just waking up, so I ran downstairs and turned the news on just in time to see the first collapse and couldn't believe what I was seeing. When I yelled upstairs for my family to turn the TV on because the WTC just collapsed, nobody even believed me for a good 15 seconds.

I went to school, and we pretty much didn't do anything the entire day. We just watched the news the whole time, and discussed what was happening.

I'll never forget the images of those planes crashing into the towers, people jumping from the tower, and then their subsequent collapse. Probably the most horrifying moments of my entire life.

Along with the horror came selfless acts to help others. The passengers of Flight 93 made the ultimate sacrifice to stop the terrorists from striking their final target. The 343 firefighters, 23 police officers, and 37 Port Authority officers who perished in the collapses, ran into the burning buildings to save people when everyone else was running out. These people are all my heroes.

[bigbeezy]

6th grade. i remember i was at my Gifted Student Program class, can still rember where i was when i heard. No one rly know exactly what was going on. I remember pretty clearly that none of us kids were rly even worried or w/e, more like in shock and didnt understand what was happening. i remember that most of the teachers, once they found out didnt tell the kids so they wouldnt freak, but ours told us. we sat and watched CNN for like 3 hours. I dont think it all really set in, to me at least, til that night.

its kinda wierd to think that theres kids out there that are now in elementary school that were born after 9/11/01...they will never no anything different

[Kims Robot]

I was at college in my senior year, and I remember getting back from my first class of the day, and my roommate got a call from her boyfriend saying we had to turn on the TV. We did, and sat there in awe watching the events unfold... we saw the second plane hit live as well. I remember being in shock, and crying for all those people, and I called my dad as soon as I could. I sat on the phone with him for an hour as he watched at work too, and had no idea what to do, think or say... it was just horrific to me that anyone could hurt so many people. I had a class at 10:00 that I ended up going to, and the teacher taught it as if nothing happened, most of us sat in stunned silence. I dont know if he didnt know or just didnt know what to say. After that we did get a campus-wide email saying that we were welcome to not attend classes, and that counciling and call centers had been set up for anyone who was affected or might need to contact family.

That day was also my godson's second birthday... today he celebrates his nineth. It is still odd for me to feel so sad and so happy on the same day. In some ways I am thankful he was too young to understand it all.

[Carlee10]

I was in fourth grade...I didn't know what a terrorist was, or Iraq, Iran, or Afghanistan was. I didn't know what the Pentagon was besides for a shape, or the Twin Towers. All I knew was that one of my classmates told me some planes flew into a building. That night I was educated, the painful way. My broher was only in second grade;everything had to be explained to us, like why people would want to fly planes into buildings. Scary how fast stuff can change......

[Bharat Nain]

Unlike most of you, I was in India at this time. I remember getting a phone call from my uncle telling me to turn the TV on. As soon as we turned on the TV, all the channels (or most) had some form of news coverage with the twin towers in flames. My dad used to work in NYC and he happened to be in the area that day. It was a very scary moment to not know where he was. We were dialing his number constantly every 2 minutes only to get a lovely American lady to tell us that all lines are busy. We talked to him few hours later only to find out he was suppose to be(but wasnt) in a building across the WTC. But anyway, it was very horrific to see what happened. I remember the newspaper being delivered early in the morning - earlier than usual with the headlines "America under attack". (Morning over there was some time around 7 PM here). And then a year or so later I end up in this country. I hope you all know how blessed you are to be in this country. If any other country had to sustain such damage, they would be in pieces. Make sure you show respect to all those who serve this country and those who died to preserve this free world. In my opinion, there is no better place to live. I hope every one of you takes at least a few moments to say a few prayers for those who gave/lost their lives and also think about how blessed you are just to live here.

[JoshD]

I was in the 6th grade back in St. Louis, MO. I remember a parent coming into our history class and talking to the teacher for over 30 minutes, which was odd because our teacher hated interruptions. Anyway she didn't tell us anything, but I found out in Spanish what had happened. We were all terrified at what had happened, and when I got home me and my mom just watched CNN for hours.

And Mr. Linn, I never had the honor of meeting Karl, but I have heard nothing but great things about him. It was and honor to serve as the president of the team he helped co-found and it was also an extreme honor to receive the scholarship set up in his memory. I for one will never forget the sacrifice he made for our country.

[Protronie]

I was on a night paving job so sleeping on the couch... feel asleep watching CNN (about the only thing its good for). Woke up seeing the north tower on fire. Thought it was a movie at first, then thought NYFD was going to have a tough time putting that fire out. Then the second plane hit and I was shocked... turned on all my scanners to listen to what was going on.
Called my boss and sent would out to our crews... that night I went to work with four scanners monitoring everything. Nobody knew what was really going on or what / where the next target would be.
There was a lot of talk about the big fuel tank farms in the area and my boss told me and my NC DOT counterpart to keep our nuclear density gauges under lock when not actually using them.
Being born in NY it hit hard, being a vol firefighter at the time my first thoughts went to the firefighters and other emergency workers... losing 343 brothers in one moment was a major shock to everyone.
To be honest... I was fighting mad and frustrated cause I couldn't dish out some good ol American pay-back.

-p

[IndySam]

Nothing remarkable about how I watched it. I was at work like most people and watched it on the TV in the break room, like most I can remember every moment of it.

After the second tower fell I went outside. It was a beautiful day with a brilliant blue sky without a single cloud. On a day like that in Indy you can usually see 10 contrails in the sky and if you look you can easily spot at least 4 or 5 jets.

It was dead quiet, no noise from the planes, no vehicles on the roads (my office was in a mostly residential area and by then most people were at home or work watching what was going on) even the birds were quite like they knew something was wrong. Absolute dead silence. I was in the middle of 800,000 people and it seemed like the whole world had stopped and I was on an island all by myself. Never will forget that feeling.

[Dick Linn]

Originally Posted by JoshD

....

And Mr. Linn, I never had the honor of meeting Karl, but I have heard nothing but great things about him. It was and honor to serve as the president of the team he helped co-found and it was also an extreme honor to receive the scholarship set up in his memory. I for one will never forget the sacrifice he made for our country.

Josh, give me a holler on the phone. I'm in the phone book in Midlothian. Or PM me or something. I'm reasonably sure we've met, but I can be flaky at times. If you know my younger one, Tan, he will attest to that, LOL.

VCU was supposed to let me know about who got the scholarships each year and get us to meet up, but they never did. Ah ,well. Best laid plans and all...


Jon236: Thanks. We do what we do. Some of it works out and some does not work so well. I have good memories of all those hundreds of hours spent each year with the team.

P.S. Josh - Karl was the one who designed that team logo. The fireball sorta thing. We won the unofficial button logo award at the VCU regional two years in a row, while we got our act together. Several years later, we did receive a Motorola quality award for our robot.

[Elgin Clock]

7 years later & I still remember exactly where I was when it happened. It's one of those events.. Like how people say they can remember exactly where they were when they heard Kennedy was assassinated, or when Elvis died.

Before 9/11/01 I had only one memory that was similar to that thinking of "where were you when?" and that was when the space Shuttle Challenger exploded.

Anyways, 9/11/01 I was at work & someone came in & said the first tower was hit. We turned on a TV we had sitting by (about 20 of us surrounding a little 10" TV - what a sight!).

One of my most vivid memories of the day was when my boss came around & said a little while after the first plane hit, "Ok people, nothing else to see, back to your desks...".

Famous last words huh? I (as well as the other 20 people) were about to leave the TV (not really) & then the second plane hit, & then the reports came in of the flight over PA.

It's not that my boss was being mean, but we were at work, & expected to get work done. Little did he know that statement to get back to work would leave such an impression in mostly all of us standing there I'm sure.

Since then, I've changed jobs, seen the world & the US cope with 9/11, saw all those candle light vigils & memorial dedications as well as the formation of a Homeland Security & a Terror alert system.
Some days (looking back on the news coverage of 9/11) I think the words "terror", "terrorism", or terrorists" were the most used word on the news for days on end, and that somehow numbed the general public to the severity of those terms.
The US flags that were popping up everywhere in the days following 9/11 are less & less now which is also quite sad.

Being so close to NYC, it seemed that day anyways, that everything was happening in another world since I was only seeing it unfold on TV, but over the years, I have met people who lost friends & family on that fateful day so it hits closer to home when that happens & I just visited Ground Zero a few weeks back & while it just looks like a construction site which isn't a rare sight in NYC, not seeing the profiles of The Twins from a distance away (South Street Seaport area in particular that day) served as a reminder more than going to the actual site.

On another note, I've also since then had friends & family join & serve in both Iraq, Afghanistan & elsewhere in the military, & although my feelings on the war I'll keep to myself, I do support every one of the troops who decide to accept the call to defend the best darn country in this world as a direct result of the events of 9/11 or just because they feel the same way about this country as I do.

[rdlevy1215]

I was in 5th Grade and at first they wanted to keep everything away from the 5-6th graders, but as we walked across the building many of the TVs were on (every room has cable-tv at my middle school) and you couldn't help but see what was happening. I walked into one of the rooms and asked "where did the tower go?" as I said that, the north tower fell .... truly unbelievable ... I remember Bill Ritter from WABC-TV in NY saying something to the effect of "the twin towers are no more. Two airplanes struck the towers........"

I will never forget.

[BrentJ]

I was working as a theatre technician for a high school here in Auckland, NZ. I was off work sick that day and remember watching on the TV. At first I thought it must have been a movie I couldn't believe it.

We held a memorial service in the theatre a few days later because quite a few of the students were so upset about what had happened in the USA.

[Protronie]

9-11-01 will always be remember by us as the day the WTC fell but some other interesting things happen on the same date.

Here's the list and link
http://www.historymania.com/american...y/September_11

1226 - The Catholic practice of Perpetual adoration begins.
1297 - Battle of Stirling Bridge - Scots of William Wallace defeat
English.
1541 - Santiago, Chile destroyed by indigenous tribes.
1609 - Henry Hudson lands on Manhattan island.
1609 - Expulsion order announced against the Moriscos of Valencia;
beginning of the expulsion of all Spain's Moriscos
1683 - Christian Army under the command of the King of Poland defeats
an invading Muslim Army attempting to take Vienna.
1709 - Battle of Malplaquet - Great Britain, Netherlands and Austria
defeat France.
1714 - Barcelona surrenders to Spanish and French Bourbonic armies in
the War of the Spanish Succession.
1776 - British-American peace conference on Staten Island fails to
stop nascent American Revolution.
1777 - Battle of Brandywine
1786 - The Beginning of the Annapolis Convention.
1789 - Alexander Hamilton is appointed as first Secretary of the
Treasury.
1814 - The Battle of Plattsburgh.
1847 - Stephen Foster's most memorable song, Oh! Susanna, is first
performed at a saloon in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
1857 - The Mountain Meadows Massacre: Mormon settlers and Paiutes
massacre 120 pioneers at Mountain Meadows, Utah.
1858 - George Mary Searle discovers the asteroid 55 Pandora.
1888 - Death of the Argentine politician Domingo Sarmiento, after
which the Latin American Teacher's Day was chosen.
1911 - Middle Tennessee State University was founded in Mufreesboro,
Tennesseee
1914 - Australia invades New Britain, defeating German contingent
there.
1918 - The Boston Red Sox won the World Series; they would do so again
on October 27, 2004 after 86 years.
1919 - US Marines invade Honduras.
1921 - Fatty Arbuckle arrested for rape.
1922 - British Mandate of Palestine begins.
1922 - One of the Herald Sun of Melbourne, Australia's predecessor
papers The Sun News-Pictorial is founded.
1926 - Assassination attempt on Benito Mussolini fails.
1931 - Salvatore Maranzano is murdered by Charles Luciano's hitmen.
1932 - Franciszek Zwirko and Stanislaw Wigura , Polish Challenge 1932
winners, killed in a plane crash as their RWD 6 crashed in the ground
during a storm.
1940 - George Stibitz pioneered the first remote operation of a
computer.
1941 - Ground broken for the construction of The Pentagon.
1941 - World War II: US Navy ordered to attack German U-boats.
1943 - World War II: German troops occupy Corsica and Kosovo-Metohien
1943 - World War II: start of the liquidation of the Ghettos in Minsk
and Lida by the Nazis
1944 - World War II: the first allied troops of the US Army cross the
western border of Nazi Germany
1948 - Henri Queuille becomes Prime Minister of France.
1955 - Dedication of the first Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints in Europe, the Bern Switzerland Temple.
1961 - Formation of the World Wildlife Fund.
1965 - The 1st Cavalry Division of the United States Army arrives in
Vietnam.
1970 - The Ford Pinto is introduced.
1972 - Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) begins regular service.
1973 - A military coup in Chile headed by General Augusto Pinochet
topple elected Marxist President Salvador Allende. The CIA had
attempted to oust Allende for 3 years before this.
1981 - The Pee-wee Herman Show airs as a special on HBO.
1985 - Pete Rose gets his 4,192nd career base hit, breaking Ty Cobb's
record which stood for over 60 years.
1987 - 9-1-1 Emergency Number Day.
1987 - CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather, angry over being preempted
for a tennis match, marches off the set, leaving affiliates with six
minutes of an empty news desk.
1987 - Reggae musician Peter Tosh is murdered in his own home in
Kingston, Jamaica, Jamaica.
1989 - The iron curtain opens between the communist Hungary and
Austria. From Hungary thousands of East Germans throng to Austria and
West Germany.
1990 - Céline Dion releases her first English-language album, Unison.
1990 - President George H. W. Bush delivers a nationally televised
speech in which he threatens the use of force to remove Iraqi soldiers
from Kuwait, which Iraq had recently invaded.
1992 - Hurricane Iniki, one of the most damaging hurricane in United
States history during its time, devastates the State of Hawai'i,
especially the islands of Kaua'i and Oahu.
1997 - Scotland votes to re-establish its own Parliament on the 700th
anniversary of the Battle of Stirling Bridge, after 290 years of union
with England.
1998 - Independent counsel Kenneth Starr sends a report to the U.S.
Congress accusing President Bill Clinton of 11 possible impeachable
offenses.
2000 - Activists protest against the World Economic Forum meeting in
Melbourne, Australia.
2001 - The September 11 attacks destroy the World Trade Center in New
York City and part of The Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and down a
passenger airliner in Pennsylvania. In total, almost 3,000 are killed.
2003 - Swedish foreign minister Anna Lindh dies after being fatally
wounded on September 10.
2004 - Petros VII, the (Greek Orthodox) Patriarch of Alexandria and
his company were killed in an unexplained helicopter crash outside
Mount Athos, Greece

[Al Skierkiewicz]

I was in my car on the way to work when I heard a small plane crashed into the first tower. Traffic seemed very heavy after that. I made it into work and turned the corner into the shop. The monitor was on a live news feed just as the second plane hit. I remember thinking this was no accident. I was assigned on a remote production the station was working on. Our location was a bar in Chicago south of the loop. I tried to convince the producer that we should postpone but he wouldn't hear of it so we packed and headed out to the site. When we arrived the TV at the bar was on. I remember it was an old Sony, in need of a new picture tube and a better antenna. We continued to set up for the scenes we were scheduled to shoot. It was dark in the bar and we had trouble finding power and place to run cables. Around 11 I received a call to return to the station and assist with live news and commentary with phone interviews, intercity live shots, etc. By the time a cab would come for me, downtown Chicago had been evacuated, Sears Tower being one of the proposed targets. The cab had to drive through downtown and there was no one, it looked like an early Sunday morning. The cab driver asked if I had a preference to get back to the station as the expressways were jammed. We elected to take Lake Shore Drive and began our drive north along the lake. I remember the drive was peaceful and relaxing. The sun was shining and the water was calm. There were very few vehicles during that drive and I remember the car radio was on. Traffic reports stated that there was a three hour travel time to O'Hare airport about 15 miles away due to all the traffic. I made it back to the station in record time and stayed at the station for the rest of the day.
I heard later that a transmitter engineer for WNET (PBS) was at the top of one of the towers working on their transmitter. Knowing there was no way for him to escape he used his cell phone to say goodbye to those he loved. I also received a report that several fellow IBEW union brothers working on the towers, also perished.
I think I was most disturbed to find out about the flight from Washington that struck the Pentagon was carrying a group of young students to a National Geographic ecology conference. I remember thinking that the terms we were using were all wrong. Even 'coward' doesn't seem to fit the people who would use innocents to further their beliefs.
In the weeks and months that followed, people in Sears changed their habits. They began looking people in the eye and engaging them in conversation in elevators. They wanted to be sure you weren't another terrorist trying to take down a building. They wanted to know who you were and what you were doing. It was actually kind of nice.