20 Years in Reflection: Where were you on September 11th 2001

I was in alone in my office at the Mill when my wife called called me. I shot home and dug out an ancient TV with a whip antenna and took it to the office where we had no cable. At the time, our little Alaska GD was visiting with us. The big issue then was which family member was going to take her home. Funny how priorities can change in the blink of an eye. My nephew Danny, who worked at the pentagon at the time, called to tell us that he was not at work but at a building nearby and saw the plane hit. Jack.
 
I was headed up from Boston office to Danvers to do a big meeting on a campus master plan -- beautiful day that morning and did not have the radio on because I was running thru the bullet points in my head and tuning the whole presentation -- arrived at the place and walked in with everyone pale and speechless -- the facilities director I worked with came and got me from reception and we went to a conference rm with a TV and watched the 2nd plane hit

After watching for a while we quickly abandoned any idea of meeting about the project and I headed back to Boston to connect with our office people, send them home, and batten the hatches there as it seemed like things had changed forever -- parked in a commercial space a block or so from the office because it was crazy around South Station where our office was with people trying to get home or somewhere and they had evacuated all the Boston towers around there (Fed Reserve, etc)

Yes, I got a parking ticket from BTD at about 1:30 PM on 09-11-01...
 
I worked for a small company and it was the day of our annual company BBQ at the CEO’s McMansion in Westwood. Not too many people showed up. Pretty surreal eating ribs watching the TV’s we set up on his porch. F15’s from Otis AFB flew overhead a couple of times. One of the consultants that was working on one of my projects was in DC that day. Took him 3 days to get back to Boston.
 
I was at work and had Stern on the radio. This is before he was on satellite radio and before he became an ultra lib and virtually unlistenable.
What sticks in my mind is right from the first plane he was saying this wasn’t an accident and when the second plane hit he immediately said we’re under attack, we’re under attack.
We turned on a tv but kept the volume up on Stern. There were people calling into the show who had more information than the networks on what was happening in Manhattan. My memory is they kept broadcasting for quite a while and then various members of the crew started leaving one by one.
 
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I was at NE Baptist Hospital getting a test. As I'm leaving I see a bunch of folks crowded around a tv watching the disaster unfold.

Five minutes after leaving an old friend who worked in government called. He told me to get my Mom out of Dorchester and to my house. He was hearing all sorts of weirdness including a countrywide lockdown. They just did not know WTF was going on and all options were on the table.

So I ran over to her house and convinced her to come over for a few days while this was sorted out. The only argument she would listen to was helping with the kids and keeping them calm. To be sure the kids were younger and had no real idea what was going on.

I hit the SE Expressway and was driving about 75 MPH to get home. I see a Mass State Police vehicle in my rear view mirror with lights blaring. I'm thinking I'm getting pulled over for speeding. The guy goes past me at at least 100 MPH. Not sure where he was going but at that moment in time he didn't give a sh*t about speeders.

Such a weird time in our lives. I recall how creepy it was without airplanes in the sky for about a week. Just bizarre.

I called my business partner on the way to Mom's apartment. He said he was telling everyone to go home for the rest of the day to see how things shook out. Four of them went out golfing...

:)
 
I was working at the plant first shift in the New Bedford business park. I got a page from my wife about the first plane , she was home not working as the kids were young then. The second page came shortly after ,,, and that night I was looking for a way to get back in uniform. I had been aviation in the Mass Guard for 6 years , been out for 13 years. On the 30 of October I swore the oath again and joined the mountain infantry unit in Rhode Island as a 35 year old with three boys at home , my oldest being 9 then.

I spent the next decade and change wearing the blue cord ,, deployed to Iraq , and had the best worst times ever ,,,, I would not change a single thing. it was what I was born to do, I went with best citizens this country has ever produced. I was lucky to have a strong woman behind me , always supporting and truly understanding the reasons for it all. I will do it again when the need calls as well ,,, till my last dying breath.

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God bless America , Why is the sky blue ,,, because he loves the Infantry
 
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I was a third year med student working on a OB/GYN ward. Vividly remember the feeling that all these new mothers and baby had a terrible birthday event. Every patient room had the events on the TV and just about every mom's eyes were glued to the TV. I recall the newborns spent most of the day in the nursery.
 
Where were you on September 11, 2001 and how has it changed your life?
I was in Jacksonville, NC enjoying my last day of a two-week leave period (vacation), sitting on the couch watching The History Channel.
My mother-in-law called and said to turn on the news, as a plane had hit the WTC.
I switched channels and watched for a few minutes before seeing the second plane hit.
WTF? Confusion. Denial. Can this be real?
Then a report came in that the Pentagon had been hit.
I left the house to go pick up my son at daycare; I didn't know what was going on, but I wanted us to all be together.
The duty officer called at about 3pm and said to come into work.
I got home that night around 10pm.
Nine days later I was on the USS Shreveport for a regularly scheduled deployment.
By early December we had landed via C-17 at FOB Rhino.
I was among the first conventional units that convoyed to Kandahar airport.

How did it change my life?
It is very clear that there is a group of people out there who will stop at nothing to kill me (and probably you too) because their prophet says to "smite the necks" of the non-believers in order to make the world an Islamic Empire governed by Sharia law.
 
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I was on the range for annual qualification. They called a cold range, and the boss gave us the very short version (that the second plane had just hit, so it wasn't an accident).

He told us we could report back for regular duty, or keep shooting.

I said, "We're at war, so let's keep shooting." So we did.

And then we all reported back to regular duty afterwards. We all worked 16 that day, and then everyone went to 12 hour shifts for about a week to provide maximum coverage.
 

Not duping at all. I just didn't feel like retyping it.

One of my professors came in the next day and canceled the lecture because he'd had a cousin on one of the planes. I remember thinking it was classy of him to show up and tell us, rather than posting a note or something. Back then, there was no way to get the word out to everyone in a situation like that. Funny what you remember.
 
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I was installing a metal roof on a Barnstable DPW barn. Went into dunks to get coffee for the guys and there was a crowd around the TV.

I was watching it and talking to the others when the second plane hit live. I knew right away what it was and told my boss he might want to start looking for my replacement as I was in the guard at the time. 2 weeks later I got the call up and spent the next 2 years on active duty.
 
Nailing the ridge vent on my roof with a radio playing in the background. The program was interrupted and I got off the roof in time to see the second plane impact.
 
I was at work, in an informal meeting, when I heard about the first plane hitting the WTC. The person relaying the news report didn't say what kind of plane it was, so I immediately remembered a case I read of long ago, where a B-25 Mitchell bomber hit the Empire State Building. Passenger jets don't fly that low over populated areas ... right? Right?

A little while later came the news of the second impact, and I knew it was no accident.

I had already requested to take that afternoon off, to burn a half-day of vacation I had to spare. I spent it in front of the TV watching the news. Also, when I left at noon, the morning paper had an Extra! edition out. The first and only time in my life I've ever seen an extra. My overriding impression of the day is the complete, total, and absolute confusion. No one knew anything other than "airplanes have hit the WTC and the Pentagon." There were rumors of an assassin team after President Bush; of car bombs at CIA and the State Department and other important agencies; of other passenger jets that were out of contact and presumably hijacked; of communications being lost with aircraft flying transatlantic...

From that day to this, every time I hear some damnfool Bush-hater complain about how he reacted, or call him a coward because he immediately boarded Air Force One and vanished -- I want to slap them silly. Nobody knew what was really going on. Nobody knew anything. The President's first job was to get away from any assassins who might have been after him -- and to this day, there is at least one credible report that there was an assassin team after him.

What did I learn from it? That radical islam was a far more formidable foe than I previously thought - which was considerable. And that if we didn't convince them we were too dangerous an enemy to mess with, then genocide of them or us was inevitable. I still believe that.
 
On 9/11 I was working in desktop support at Simmons College. To get to our office you had to walk thru the media center and by a wall of satellite download TV screens, with CNN being prominent of course. One of our group spent most of his time at work buying/selling on eBay or just cruising the internet. He called us over to tell us/show us the first plane hitting the tower. So we're all gathered around, watching and then see the 2nd tower get hit. A co-worker was a retired Boston PD detective and personal friend . . . we looked at each other and knew that we were at war! At that point we all headed to the media center to watch it live on CNN's downlink. Eventually we all got sent home early and as I waited for the train at Ruggles station, I was joined by a Northeastern University VP and a co-worker of his. NU was worried that they could be the next target. I laughed and told them that outside of New England, when you mention Northeastern almost everyone responds "you mean Northwestern" (in Chicago IIRC), so nobody is going to target NU! It was a most solemn ride home, but we were glad to get out of the city before they shut it and the MBTA down.
 
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I was in Vegas for a convention, I had just come down from my room to the 'Cafe for some coffee (it was like 7am there) and saw the second plane hit on the TV.
What a shock to everyone. Show was canceled, flights grounded, wife and our crew wandered around Vegas for 4 days until we got a flight out.
 
I was in work and we all went into a conference room to watch it on TV. My older brother called and said he was at home in CT and not in his office in the North Tower. We could not get our younger brother and fiancé on the phone who was a few blocks north of the towers on vacation from Ireland. I called my mom in Ireland a million times that day. Our younger brother finally woke up, hung over from the night before, look south, packed their bags and headed up town for the GWB. They got a ride from a total stranger, made it to Fort Lee where my older brother picked them up. We were all in my older brothers office a few days before it happened. I have never gone back to ground zero.
 
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I remember that morning, it was a beautiful, sunny day. I was at my office at Westover ARB (I was an Air Reserve Technician). The ART from the ALCE had an office down the hall and they had a television. He came into my office and told me that an airplane had just hit one of the World Trade Center towers. A bunch of us rushed down to his office and were watching when the second plane hit.

I turned to the people there and said, "We are at war."

Probably not the only person to make that statement that morning.

Our Wing went on alert sometime later that day.
 
Was working as apprentice electrician standing on 2nd floor of a building just coming out of the ground for EMC in Hopkinton. Foreman came walking by and mentioned plane had hit the tower and we didn’t think much of it figuring it was just a little plane and it was a accident. Then shortly after another foreman came out of the job trailer where he had a radio on and said 2nd plane hit the tower.
This was before anybody had smart phones we turned on a radio that was on the job site and listened to the news. Will never forget going home that night and turning on the tv and seeing the pictures.
 
I was just leaving a client , hopped into the truck and turned on Stern just in time to hear ""We're under attack ".
Found out a short time later that a gal my wife and I went to school with was on one plane and the husband of one of my wife's co-workers was on another. [angry]
 
I was in middle school.

In gym class, and even though the teacher said he wasn't supposed to, turned on the tv. We were let out early, when I got home my grandparents were home and tried to explain to a young kid what happened.

Needless to say, that was a very life changing day.
 
Taking a biology test in high school. Teacher next door had a free period and had the news on. Speculation of small plane accident at the time, then the second plane hit. For the first time in my life my dad was home from work when I got home from school, watching the news. Still remember it like it was yesterday.
 
I was working for CVS at the time as a Pharmacy Tech, when this guy comes in yelling they are bombing New York.
I went out back an got a little TV they had in the lunch room, and we all just stood there frozen to that little TV.
 
Was going to work: to pickup a work truck at my buddy's brother's house.
It's where we parked it because it was a good sized dual axel commercial truck.

We pull into his brothers driveway and his brother comes out of the house talking about a plane hitting the world trade center building, and reports that it could be an orchestrated terrorist attack.

We go inside to watch the news report and as we are watching it ..... the 2nd plane hits......
 
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