A somber and retrospective 9/11 to those who witnessed it.

enbloc

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Still sad, still hurt, still pissed.

God Bless those who died to Save and those innocents involved.
Strength to their families and Survivors.

~Matt

636403029350259129-Firefighters-raise-flag-Sept-11.jpg
 
The finance person in my former company moved to NY with his wife and two small children around 2000 after our company was sold. His wife was lost in the towers. http://projects.washingtonpost.com/911victims/nauka-kushitani . I think of them and their children, both who were under 5 at the time, who never had much time with their mother. My sister's neighbor was a stewardess on one of the planes. My neighbor at the time had a family member who was a stewardess on one of the planes. I hope their families can find peace.
 
I remember that day well, got to work and watching it on the net I thought that it was a bad joke. I had drinks with a buddy in the top restaurant of the tower not too much before.

17 years ago, Bin Laden's family will be quickly whisked away out of US, soon after the attack.
 
Still sad, still hurt, still pissed.

God Bless those who died to Save and those innocents involved.
Strength to their families and Survivors.

~Matt

636403029350259129-Firefighters-raise-flag-Sept-11.jpg


When I think of 9/11 I always remember the sad, chilling sound of the alarms from the firefighters suits coming from the rubble.
It always hurts.
 
I still remember going to the cafeteria at work because the network was too slow to do any work. As I walked over there, an old guy says to me "A f***ing towel head just crashed a plane into the World Trade Center". I didn't think much of it but when I got back to my desk everyone was talking about it. A bunch of us went home for the day and sat glued to the TV, full of anger and disbelief.

My sister's boyfriend at the time was supposed to be there for training that day. They moved it to another building at the last minute but she didn't know that. When she couldn't get a hold of him all day, she was a mess. He ran something like 15 miles to get home that day and was filthy from the dust.
 
We had the news up on a big screen at work as we watched. When I first heard a plane had hit the WTC, I thought it was a small plane, but after turning on the news I couldn't believe the damage. We had the projector on in our large conf room when the second plane hit. Certainly will never forget.
 
I was in shop class, i had just replaced the blue tube in a projection tv and turned it on just in time to see some footage of the first tower hit. I first thoght it was cgi, a sick joke. It got really quiet, and we attracted people from the hallway as classes changed. It took a couple of hours for me to realize what was really happening. I really wanted it to be fake. Or an accident. Alot of my friends commited to serving that day. Some didnt come back from the sandbox the same. Some didnt come back.
 
When I think of 9/11 I always remember the sad, chilling sound of the alarms from the firefighters suits coming from the rubble.
It always hurts.
As a fire lieutenant that sound chills me to the core. It was very surreal hearing that during the news and reading your post reminded me of how it made me feel.
Thank you sincerely for helping me to remember.
 
I was lying in bed with my infant daughter on my chest when I turned on the news that day. I have never felt so much rage in all my life when I realized what was happening. I was anxiously waiting for the phone call from the Army to report to my station. When the call came I felt the upmost pride and determination while putting my uniform on. I felt like we could take on the world.
While I was at my station standing watch and guarding the reserve center there was a near constand flow of cars and trucks with flags on them. Everyone was honking there horns and thanking us for our service. Young men were asking us how they could join the fight. The Patriotism was palpable and moving.
How things have changed.
 
Such heartfelt responses. Thank you so much to all that posted. It means a lot to me.

If you ever get the chance, tell a young person what you saw, what you heard and what you felt. Your experience teaches and informs.

~Matt
 
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Senior year of HS, we were in Economics when a friend popped in to tell us all the news.

Our teacher told him: "they did that in '92. There's no way they tried again. Get out of here."

After class, the halls were full of conversation. Friends were frantically calling family that worked in the towers. Shortly, they had the live feed playing in the cafeteria, and told us that we could all choose to either go watch there, or go home.
 
A friend of mine was working at a tech company in 2001, and him and another employee were being sent to California on 9/11 to meet a vendor.

They drove to Logan, and were getting ready to board Flight 11.

Just before he was ready to board the plane, he received a phone call from his manager telling him to let the other employee go on the trip, and for him to return to the office.

He returned to the office to be laid off.

He went home, and found the police and ambulances at his house. His mother in law was babysitting, and she dropped dead.

The co-worker was killed on Flight 11.

He has the Flight 11 ticket stub as a reminder that your life can change in a second.
 
Another friend of mine was the South Tower building manager from 1990 to 2000.

He was there when the 1993 parking garage bombing happened.

His office was on the 107th floor of the South Tower, and by 2000 he had bad premonitions of another terrorist attack.

The paranoia was so great that he quit the job in 2000 and left without another job.

If he was still employed there in 2001, he would have been a victim.
 
My brother Mick had an office in the North Tower, luckily he was in NJ that day. Sadly many others on that floor did not make it out. Three days prior Mick, our younger brother Seamus on vacation from Ireland, his fiance, my wife and I were his office admiring the view. I can only imagine the horror of that view on 911.
 
Just about to pull into work, listening to Howard Stern. First plane hit and everyone thought it was an accident. At work second plane hit. Everyone stopped working and huddled around a small tv. Work began sending out emails every 10 mins updating everyone. At about 11:30 AM the president sent everyone home to be with their family. I go home and filled up every gas can I can find and the car. Wife's boss won't send anyone home. I debate going to get her. Luckily she worked only a mile away from home and I decide to wait.
 
Knew a nice girl from college whose fiance was killed in world trade center. Bastards. Islamo fascism needs to be stomped out, it just doesn't
seem like the US should have to do it by ourselves.
 
I had the Officer of the Day at Station Gloucester that day. We were getting the boats underway for 2-boat training. One of the 41's had already gone out with the CO on it.

I was issuing sidearms to the second crew when the cook came running out of the messdeck yelling put on the TV. Howard stern says that NYC has been attacked. We turned on the TV in time to see the second plane hit.

The second boat got underway for training. I set up a roster for armed guards. Fielded phone calls of people wanting to stand overwatch on the top of the station.

When the boats got back, the CO got a phone call, then retreated to his office and shut the door. A few minutes later I had to brief him on watch schedules. Knocked on the door, was told to enter. Guy was bawling. I'll never forget it. One of the kids he had at his last command was in one of the towers when it fell. He was one of 11 that died with Rescue Co. 5. That's as close of a connection I have to anything that happened that day, but I'll still never forget it.

Jeffrey Palazzo, 33, FDNY firefighter, member of Rescue 5

After an extended duty section change over on the 12th, I went home and got falling down drunk.

I ended up at Sector Boston on the next duty swap doing patrols for the new Harbor Defense unit until Logan opened up again. Hearing nothing, no sounds of the planes for so long, and then all of a sudden a plane takes off was eerie AF.
 
I was working in NYC then and saw it with my own two eyes. Glorious fall morning up to that point. Absolutely bluebird. Terrible day from there forward. Memories that I wish I could make go away.

I don’t talk about it much and don’t think about it much. I feel like if I do think about it that I should first think of all the heroic people and what they did that day, or the victims and their families. But to this day the first thing I think about is how much I want the bad guys involved (in any way, even peripherally) to hurt.

I don’t feel good about it and I don’t think it speaks well of me but that’s how I feel.
 
I was in my office, remember looking up at the muted TV seeing the planes hit the towers. Thinking to myself what movie is this? Turned the sound on only to learn of the real life horror. Still triggered every 9/11, become very angry, there is now a second deep wound in my soul. The first one was when my fellow Marines and good friends died in the Beirut bombing. There can never be enough dead Jihadists to satisfy my thirst for revenge.
 
I was in 5th grade at the time. None of the teachers told any kids and acted normal all day. The custodian kept coming in to talk to the teacher though, which at the time was a little strange.

I had an afternoon paper route and my dad didn’t let me waste any time delivering that day. The black smoke on the front of the news paper is still pretty vivid, very scary for a 10 year old too.
 
I had just walked out of an account and turned on the radio in the truck.
I don't think I even moved for almost half an hour .
Called the Wife and told her to head home and I would meet her there.
We found out a day or so later that two people we knew were on each plane., one was the husband of the wife's co-worker and the other was a girl we went to school with.
Anger is too mild of a word for what I did and still feel about it.
Never forget.

And never forget that there are people trying to flood this country with tens of thousand of those animal's brethren .
 
The Giants and Broncos played a Monday night football game that ended really late the night before... I grew up in Northern NJ only 10 miles west of NYC - lots of my classmates parents were late to work the next day and it saved their lives.
The news reports told us to close all windows in our houses if we lived in the area because there were fears of chemicals on the planes.
I was able to volunteer time with the Salvation Army handing out food outside the NYU medical center to the first responders and one night in October they found a bunch of human remains and all of the sudden there was a huge military and police presence, snipers on the tops of buildings, helicopters and lots of men with rifles. It was a very surreal situation.
 
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