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

I was about 2 weeks into my freshman year of college. I had an 8 am class that morning and after the first plane hit people started getting calls and texts. Got back to my dorm, joined a bunch of people watching in the lounge and saw the plane hit the South Tower. More and more people gathered to watch as people were coming back from there classes.

Later that morning after going back to my room I heard swearing and door slamming. Turned out a guy test lived on my floor had a father who worked in one of the towers and his family couldn’t get in touch with him. Later on we found out that he, like many others didn’t make it out.
 
I was driving my semi in RI when it happened.
I will never forget.
I also will never forget the religion of peace that condoned it.
I will never forget the ragheads dancing in the streets like it was the best day of their lives.

RIP 911 victims. Peace to the affected families. Hope to the rest of us that we might find a way to deal with the images still vivid in our minds.
 
I was living in a sheep farming village outside Maastricht, the Netherlands. Crazy farmer neighbor hysterically came to door and tried to tell me what was going on. All I understood was CNN, CNN, CNN!. Watched some coverage, spoke to some friends in the States then rode my bike over to US Cemetery in Margraten for some quiet time. Crazy times.
 
My then wife and I were visiting friends in Kentucky that day. Never forget, my grandmother called up our friend's house to tell us all what was going on. I still don't know how she got the number. We watched the second tower get hit. They closed everything in the town, except a few restaurants. We went to one for dinner that night, after watching TV all day. We were the only customers, the staff came over and sat with us as we ate, all talking about the events like we were all friends. I hate people, but I didn't mind that day.

On the drive home a couple days later I remember all the digital roadside construction signs in Pennsylvania displaying the American flag. I detoured closer to NYC far enough for us to see smoke still rising. I also remember the price of gas skyrocketed all the way home, and one high pressure gas station attendant tried to force me to buy an American flag or I didn't support my country. I've rarely felt so much rage as I did those few days. Every time the memories start to fade, the anniversary roles around and I get so angry all over again.

I think of the dogs, as well as the first responders. Those bastards took so much that day.
 
I was standing in the parking lot at work talking to a customer on my cell phone. We had just been talking about what a nice day it was when he said " Did you hear someone flew a plane into World Trade Center in New York?"
Turned on the TV in my office and a few of us had gathered around when the second plane hit. Then the reports of other planes came in.
My daughter's school called with a recorded message that the school was in lock down and that the Police had been dispatched. That is when it hit me that no one knew what was going on.

My wife is a nurse and had worked the night before. I knew that she would be getting up soon to pick up my daughter from school, and I didn't want her to show up unaware. She answered the phone, clearly half asleep, and I said " Listen, I know this will sound bizarre, but terrorists hijacked a bunch of planes and flew them into the Pentagon and World Trade center. The school called and they are in lock down until they can figure out what is going on"
She said " WTF are you talking about?!" so I said, "Turn on the tv, and call me back" she asked,"Which station?" I said " any station" and hung up.

A couple of minutes later, she called me back and said " Oh my God, what the hell is going on?" " I don't know. I will be home in a little while. I am going to get our daughter
 
I was working on a kitchen rough in Belmont. Howard Stern was on BCN and I had it on as usual and I think it was Robin (maybe baba buey) who told Howard that a plane had crashed into the tower. After a couple of minutes, it was clear that it was not a small plane. I found an old console tv in the basement and turned it on. When I saw the damage, I said to the others "my God, the fvcking tower is going to fall. A short time later the first one went down and I wanted to puke but tears were flowing. I don't remember if my wife got there before the second tower fell. I went outside and the F-15s were headed west with afterburners blazing.

No other air traffic, not even the birds were flying. Dead silence.

The antenna was shit and I found some tin foil and used it to get a signal.

We all gathered around and I called my wife and woke her up and told her what was going on. She was working nights and thought I was bullshitting her. She put the tv on and as we were in total disbelief, the second jet hit.

My wife wanted me to come home and I said no and she should stay home. She came to the job site and left hours later.

I wrote a long letter to my six year old boy and put it in the folder with his art work from school. Some day he will find it and remember what he was told by me and not what was fed by teachers.
 
I was three months out of the army, in grad school. That was supposed to be my first day of student teaching, but they postponed it the night before. And thank god. My very first day as a student teacher DID NOT need to be 9/11/01. It was bad enough on 9/18, when the kids were still shell-shocked.

I didn’t see any of the coverage live, as I was in class. But the moment I heard what happened I knew it was al-Qaeda. I’d been giving briefings about them as recently as May; I doubt anyone at Ft Bragg was all that surprised by 9/11.


They say we’re nearly at the point where more people have died of delayed illnesses caused by the rubble than died on the actual day. Sad.
 
King said:
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.
Click to expand...

We were on vacation at my sister-in-law's bungalow in South Seaside Park.

I had Imus on the radio,
but I was concentrating on the Daily News crossword puzzle.

Suddenly I realized that Imus was ridiculing a report by a woman of a plane crash,
because it seemed unbelievable.
(I think it was Warner Wolf calling in from his apartment,
relaying what his wife had witnessed).

I took the compass bearing off of a map,
and biked to the top of the Rt. 37 bridge over Barnegat Bay.
I could see the smoke plume from 53 miles away with 7x50 yacht glasses.

I was expecting to get rousted or worse any minute,
standing at the very top of the causeway
right after a terrorist attack. But everyone was oblivious.

A couple of guys were fishing in a boat right underneath me.
I wondered if they were night shift cops or firemen.
I couldn't bring myself to yell down to tell them what had happened.

That afternoon we bought a 5 gallon gas can at Pep Boys,
in case there was a shortage - we had the bikes and kayaks with us,
and couldn't get back home on a single tank.
I've never filled it, but we still have it.

The next morning we woke up to the smell of burning PC boards.
53 miles away. (The wind came from the north overnight).

We stopped at Garrett Mountain Reservation park in Paterson on the way home
from vacation. There were still tons of people at the clifftop lookout,
looking at the smoke.

Everyone drove "on eggshells" for the first few days.
No one wanted to hassle anyone else.

There were lots of soldiers in the Jersey Turnpike rest areas,
from convoys that had stopped for lunch.
Everyone was thanking them.


Two of my wife's cousins were late getting to work in the towers.
(One saw his office collapse while he was stuck in traffic on the Pulaski Skyway;
he became a deacon in his church).

Another of her cousins who worked in a nearby building
was already in his office when the first plane hit.
A colleague became so upset, he decided to punt for the day
and escort her. They caught a train back to NJ
from the basement of the WTC
before the first collapse buried the PATH station(!).

The dead-end extension to the street I grew up on in Massapequa
was renamed after a local who was a Port Authority police officer.
I wonder whether she was the sister of a grammar school classmate.


Going to work a couple of weeks later,
after air traffic had resumed,
I saw someone in a single plane skywriting near Hopkinton.
I've never seen a news article on it.
He spelled out some inspirational word; maybe "HOPE".

ETA: Two footnotes later in this thread.
 
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My father (from Florida) and brother (Chicago) were visiting for a few days. We were up at the Grand Canyon for a couple of days. Watched the news for hours, finally left to drive back to my house in Mesa. The whole way back bro is trying to figure out how to get home to his boys. No planes, no trains, car rental places saying "take it across state lines and it's GTA." He was going to buy a beater and drive home but his wife talked him out of it. Found out later a college buddy was 10 minutes late for work cuz his kid was sick. Saved his life.

My father used to have an office at 11 Broadway. We'd take Amtrak to Newark, PATH to the WTC, walk to his office. I remember watching from the street when they were digging the foundations. Trucks looked like Matchbox toys. I used to go in with him on vacations from school, go up to the obs deck and take pictures.

My younger daughter was 4 months old. She's a Senior In High School now. We're still fighting.
 
Safety Manager at BS&G at the time. Staties called me and told me to get all our trucks off the roads. Serious concern about mixers on the street for many days after. We sat there watching the Pru thinking oh, shite. I hope that's not next. We were all up in dispatch fixated to the crappy TV the night watchman would watch.
 
A friend of mine who was living in Seattle at the time was visiting here and flew out of Logan that morning. I didnt know the flight number or the airline, just that he was flying out early to CA and then on to WA. Watching all that unfold I had no way of knowing if he was on one of those planes or not. I had sent him an email some time that morning and then just waited. Much later in the day his gf returned the email saying he was ok and his plane had to land in Chicago.
 
I was on 95 driving to Boston to teach a seminar at MetLife when the first plane hit. Stern reported that a small plane hit the tower and nothing said again until the second plane hit.

We decided to go on with the training. We stopped for a break every half hour or so to watch the news. Very surreal.
 
AHM said:
We were on vacation at my sister-in-law's bungalow in South Seaside Park.

I had Imus on the radio,
but I was concentrating on the Daily News crossword puzzle.

Suddenly I realized that Imus was ridiculing a report by a woman of a plane crash,
because it seemed unbelievable.
(I think it was Warner Wolf calling in from his apartment,
relaying what his wife had witnessed).

I took the compass bearing off of a map,
and biked to the top of the Rt. 37 bridge over Barnegat Bay.
I could see the smoke plume from 53 miles away with 7x50 yacht glasses.

I was expecting to get rousted or worse any minute,
standing at the very top of the causeway
right after a terrorist attack. But everyone was oblivious.

A couple of guys were fishing in a boat right underneath me.
I wondered if they were night shift cops or firemen.
I couldn't bring myself to yell down to tell them what had happened.

That afternoon we bought a 5 gallon gas can at Pep Boys,
in case there was a shortage - we had the bikes and kayaks with us,
and couldn't get back home on a single tank.
I've never filled it, but we still have it.

The next morning we woke up to the smell of burning PC boards.
53 miles away. (The wind came from the north overnight).

We stopped at Garrett Mountain Reservation park in Paterson on the way home
from vacation. There were still tons of people at the clifftop lookout,
looking at the smoke.

Everyone drove "on eggshells" for the first few days.
No one wanted to hassle anyone else.

There were lots of soldiers in the Jersey Turnpike rest areas,
from convoys that had stopped for lunch.
Everyone was thanking them.


Two of my wife's cousins were late getting to work in the towers.
(One saw his office collapse while he was stuck in traffic on the Pulaski Skyway;
he became a deacon in his church).

Another of her cousins who worked in a nearby building
was already in his office when the first plane hit.
A colleague became so upset, he decided to punt for the day
and escort her. They caught a train back to NJ
from the basement of the WTC
before the first collapse buried the PATH station(!).

The dead-end extension to the street I grew up on in Massapequa
was renamed after a local who was a Port Authority police officer.
I wonder whether she was the sister of a grammar school classmate.


Going to work a couple of weeks later,
after air traffic had resumed,
I saw someone in a single plane skywriting near Hopkinton.
I've never seen a news article on it.
He spelled out some inspirational word; maybe "HOPE".
Click to expand...

Thank you for this important post AHM.
I could feel it.
~Matt
 
As I was reading through this thread, I was reminded of a few things.

One, the feeling of rage I had is one of the memories that faded.

Second, somewhere around 9/13 or 14 a friend and I made an iron man round trip to NC and back to trailer a car back. We were going south on the upper deck of the GW, and they had the northbound side shut dow
 
AHM said:
The dead-end extension to the street I grew up on in Massapequa
was renamed after a local who was a Port Authority police officer.
I wonder whether she was the sister of a grammar school classmate.
Click to expand...
I've subsequently learned: She was.

AHM said:
Going to work a couple of weeks later,
after air traffic had resumed,
I saw someone in a single plane skywriting near Hopkinton.
I've never seen a news article on it.
He spelled out some inspirational word; maybe "HOPE".
Click to expand...
I've subsequently checked my EMail archives: It was.
 
Never forget, never forgive. I just cannot watch any of these memorial shows without feeling a blind rage against these savages. My sister was working mid-town that day. Took me most of the day to make contact with her and learn that she was ok and on her way home.
 
As Enbloc said, 'Still sad, still hurt, still pissed'. But I wont be watching the documentaries or any of the other commemorations... I really don't want to relive it, I know people that died and I know people that fought in the seemingly endless wars that followed. Yesterday I saw the picture of that restaurant worker that leapt to his death to avoid the flames... that was more than enough for me, still pissed.
 
CWulf said:
As Enbloc said, 'Still sad, still hurt, still pissed'. But I wont be watching the documentaries or any of the other commemorations... I really don't want to relive it, I know people that died and I know people that fought in the seemingly endless wars that followed. Yesterday I saw the picture of that restaurant worker that leapt to his death to avoid the flames... that was more than enough for me, still pissed.
Click to expand...
I saw it broadcast live No way do I want to relive it either, so not watching all the programs.
 
I watched National Geographic's retrospectives last night; I'd seen bits and pieces before. They were very well done, I thought, and did a great job showing what happened with minimal bias either way.

But when I woke up this morning to the wall-to-wall coverage of commemorations and ceremonies? No thank you. I'm still angry enough about it. I don't need to have that stoked fresh every year.
 
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Len-2A Training said:
I saw it broadcast live No way do I want to relive it either
Click to expand...
yep, i was at work and we had a TV in the rec room and all people went there and watched it in silence, then one gal started crying as her brother was working in one of the towers and she could not reach his cell (he was one of lucky ones who got out).
i was much younger back then and honestly expected for a WW3 to begin. sad stuff.
 
Had an older roommate at university that had an internship at the WTC ~50th floor. He was walking back to his desk opening a Snapple first thing in the morning when he saw a shadow out of the corner of his eye out the window. The first plane hit a moment later, building shook, spilled his Snapple, and he saw glass, debris, fire, and a person on fire fall past the window. He panicked and ran to the office exit where coworkers and the receptionist were still coming into the office asking "what was that?!" "was that a bomb?" as the fire alarm went off. He screamed at them that they needed to leave and they just looked at him funny. He didn't argue and ran out to the stairwell, opened the door to hear screaming in the floors above and a rush of people already trying to get out of the building. When he got to the main lobby there was smoke coming out of one of the elevator banks and some Port Authority Police officers screaming at people to not use one of the exits, which he could see flaming debris raining down on. He got out the door just as FDNY was arriving and another police officer yelled at him to stay under the awning as he made his way away from the tower. He heard glass hitting the awning like rain and a series of small "explosions", looked up to realize those "explosions" were people splattering on the awning and plaza around him. He ran towards his apartment and didn't look back until he heard the second plane hit. Paused for a moment in terror, ran back to his building, locked the door and passed out from shock/exhaustion. His parents freaked out because he wasn't in any state to answer a phone for 24hrs.
 
Last edited:
yeah, the image of people falling down and the whole plaza below red of blood from splashed bodies is not the thing they ever show again. sad.
 
paul73 said:
yeah, the image of people falling down and the whole plaza below red of blood from splashed bodies is not the thing they ever show again. sad.
Click to expand...
I recall footage of FD in some sort of lobby I assume planning on how to go about their task. Every few seconds there was a WHAM above them which the narrator later said was people hitting the roof of the area they were in :(
 
enbloc said:
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
Click to expand...
well said!
 

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