• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Do you remember where you were when

R

randym431

Golden Member
Just like most everyone old enough to remember JFK and Dallas, the moment and memory froze in time. How many also feel the same froze in time memory of hearing of 9/11 planes hitting the WTC?

Myself, I was at Home Depot getting some hardware and at the check out the clerk said "did you hear about the plane that hit the WTC in NY?".
The way she said it was like off the sholder, and I thought she was starting a joke, like, "did you hear the one about...".
So I, waiting for a punch line, said "no, what happened". And she said, "no, really, a plane hit the WTC in NY". Go home and turn on the tv, its all over the news.
So I left and still thought she was nutz. I got in my car and turned on the radio (AM station), and sure enough it was all the news.
By the time I got home, the first tower had fallen already.
That moment and being at home depot is froze, just like with JFK.
 
New York 😕

Actually I heard about it before stepping outside. I got a call from my roommate's mother. She told me there was an explosion at the WTC and it was either a bomb or a plane. At first I hesitated to take her seriously, but I then looked out my window and could see the smoke. At this point the building were still standing.
 
Albany, sleeping. My best friend knocked on my door and said, "you were right, one of the trade centers just collapsed." Of course, I have to give a little background about why he would say that. You see, I have a fear of heights.. and my reason for not going up high buildings is that they are likely to fall over. So I used to say stuff like the Trade centers would fall over one day.
 
Utah, Provo, sleeping. My Grandfather in Hawai`i called me. Told me to turn on the TV, "America is under attack" he told me, flipped on the TV, just in time to see a replay of the second tower collapse.

That grandfather never called, ever, before then, hasn't called me ever since.
 
California, where I?ve been all my life.

We received a phone call, the commotion woke me up, and since we had just finished moving into a new house we had to hook up the TV.
 
Inbetween classes back in highschool. Got to my government class and watched it happen on an old TV with bad reception.
 
My roomate woke me up after the second plane hit. For most of the day, we were in the dorms, watching it all on TV.

Being a lifelong new yorker, I wasn't shocked. Not even the slightest bit. This isnt the first time they've tried this exact thing, and crime and death wasn't exactly a shocker either. It made me angry, if anything.

If anything really emotionally got to me that day, it was the actions of our fellow citizens.

On one hand, it pretty much made me lose all faith in our society as even our diverse campus became a gang full of idiots, willing to nuke the entire region over this. I saw the way my muslim friends were treated much differently for a long time afterwards, the same muslim friends that were sitting with me, watching the entire thing, shaking their heads, wondering how these bombers got it so twisted. I saw stupid little paris hilton like girls, talking about how they have a great excuse out of class for the next few days. The things that I heard come out of people's mouths that day made me believe that they had been successful in terrorizing us.

The next day I went down to ground zero, just to be a helping hand. When I was down there, I saw the complete opposite. I saw soldiers and workers passed out on the street, with makeshift blankets, working 24/7. People of all walks of life were running around, doing what the could. I ended up helping the salvation army pass out food, and punk kids brought sacks full of food from as far as jersey. Regardless of what you hear on the news, NYC is not normally like this. NYC is the place where you watch over your shoulder, everyone can possibly be your enemy. It was a shame that it took something like this for all of us to finally see each other as people.
 
Oh man, that was definitely a memorable day. I was living in far east Texas, about 45-50 miles from Shreveport, LA. I had just gotten home from work about 15 minutes earlier, and was eating, but hadn't turned on the television yet.

I was quite surprised when, at 8:05 a.m. (central time), someone started banging on my door. It was my dad, who's retired. I opened the door, and he walked in, without saying a word, and starting trying to turn my TV on (old people don't "get" universal remotes). So, after the "what ARE you doing" from me, he said that the World Trade Center had been hit by a plane. Well, we both sat there watching for another, what, 45 minutes or so, and we see the second plane coming in, and hitting the south tower, I guess it was.

Man, we were definitely surprised, because up until that point, it was assumed by everyone, including us, that the first plane had been an accident. So, I watched both towers fall, on live television. Then, while the people on TV are still chatting away, I hear a "plane" coming, at fairly low altitude. I run outside, to see four F-15's go by, at around 10-12,000 feet altitude, and going as close as you can go to the speed of sound, without breaking it. In other words, right around 700 mph, or even slightly faster.

That was even more of a surprise to me than the fact that some terrorists had hijacked some planes. Unless it's a true medical emergency (like someone onboard's heart has stopped), or during times of war, flying that fast, at such low altitude, will get your pilot's license revoked, or get you court martialed, if you're in the military. And that's the first time that it happens.*

Anyway, I started thinking crazy ******, since there were four of them, all doing it. And even moreso, because they were going away from Dallas, instead of towards Dallas. Luckily for me and my brain, within about 15 or 20 minutes, the people on TV said that the Pres was on his way to Shreveport, to address the nation.

But, before they said that the Pres was coming, I started hearing more planes. I went back outside, and there was two F-16's flying CAP (combat air patrol) right over my house. Anyway, from about 30 or 45 minutes before he got to Shreveport, until about 30 minutes after he left, there was somewhere between 16-20 combat aircraft in the air over Shreveport, in about 15 mile intervals. There were F-15's, F-16's, F-111's (as near as I could tell), and A-10's, all flying CAP.

It was definitely a crazy day. One that I will never forget. I got some stuff on video tape that I've never seen re-aired. Crap, now I'm gonna have to dig out that tape, so I can transfer it to DVD.


* Military aircraft, when doing training exercises in some of the western states that have much more land than people, sometimes get permission to fly that fast, at around 20-30,000 ft, though it's usually done over the ocean, I hear.
 
I was in school when it happened. When I arrived to class, the teacher had it on the T.V. One plane had hit, but both towers stood. The T.V. remained on. We saw everything after that. We all saw the second plane hit the tower. We also saw when the towers collapsed, live. Pretty much all work was cancelled that day. Class to class, we just went and watched the T.V. and talked about what was going on. I will never forget that day.
 
I was asleep in my room in college, and was woken up by NPR on my alarm clock right after the first tower was hit. I made it downstairs and got the TV on in time to see the second tower hit.

That day was very surreal--I went to school in upstate NY and my campus was full of kids whose parents lived/worked in NYC. Lost of very somber people and cellphone calls going on, and at one point in the student union they put up screens with the news projected on it so people could follow the developments together.
 
I was at work, while hoping the last six months of my time in the Army would come to an end. Stationed at Fort Meade, Maryland at the time. As soon as the first plane hit, we began fueling up Hummer's and loading our C-band and Ku-band communications equipment up preparing for deployment.
I definately had horrible thoughts that the NSA could have possibly been a target at that time, but luckily it wasn't.
 
I was on my way to work, listening to Bob and Tom.

I at first thought they were joking, but soon realized it was no joke.

That first day there were so many rumors that it seemed like a full scale attack.

I watched the 9-11 documentary last night. The one filmed by the 2 french brothers as it happened.

 
I walked from class to my car to go to work at Wright-Patterson AFB. Lots of people walking by me just said 'turn on the news', but I had to get to work, so I went straight there. I was turned away by a guard waving an M-16 in my face, but he wouldn't tell me what was going on. Got home and saw it on the news.
 
I was at school paying making line to pay my parking fee. A guy was telling how an air plane crashed into the WTC. I remember actually asked the guy what movie he was talking about.. He said , the movie is live on TV now...

Well I got home, tuned in CNN and...

I still remember as it was yesterday

This is from Canada by the way
 
I was in 8th grade in Geometry class and i saw the TV was on. At the time i didn't understand what was going on and i thought there was a fire. Later on in the day more and more teachers had their TV on and we saw the second plane hit the WTC. Afterwards Administration ordered the teachers to turn off the TV's and continue with school.

At the end of that day, my teacher said that the WTC had fallen and I in disbelief and sort of out of it asked if it had fallen to the ground and all. And then my teacher yelled at me for being in his mind inconsiderate when i simply couldn't understand the magnitude of the situation. He then told us about the pentagon and im just sort of staring there like "Wow".

Never will i forget that day!

-Kevin
 
heard it on NPR radio, but I thought it was some kind of "whoo scaary story" like HG Wells War of the Worlds. then I walked into APChem class and they just sat there on the TV watching it. I think after that one of my mom's friends pulled me out of class 2nd period because she was afraid that me and some of her sons (Arabs 😉) might get some "punishment". Had it been my mom's choice I would have stayed in school.
Ironically that later led to one of the cheer leaders accusing me of taking part in it because she never saw me in third period that day
 
Originally posted by: magomago
heard it on NPR radio, but I thought it was some kind of "whoo scaary story" like HG Wells War of the Worlds. then I walked into APChem class and they just sat there on the TV watching it. I think after that one of my mom's friends pulled me out of class 2nd period because she was afraid that me and some of her sons (Arabs 😉) might get some "punishment". Had it been my mom's choice I would have stayed in school.
Ironically that later led to one of the cheer leaders accusing me of taking part in it because she never saw me in third period that day
Click to expand...





Lol at Ms Cheerleader. :roll:


Probably not funny for you at the time, though. 🙁
 
I was getting ready for work when the phone rang and I was told to turn on the TV right now!

I was shocked, but not surprised. I had predicted when GW had been elected the year before that we would -- for certain -- end up going to war during his administration. 9/11 was a lot more than I expected, but not surprising in hindsight.
 
My Alarm clock radio was on for about 10 minutes (had a late class that day) and they started talking about the first reports on CNN about the fire. Got up fast, went to the tv just to see that the few channels i had (no cable at the time) did not start covering it for at least 1 hour. Eventually found a neighbour with cable, put CNN on and lots of people went in and out of that apartment (basically everyone on the floor, about 14 people). Saw both collapses, and the only thought in my head was "New Pearl Harbour, these guys are going to war somewhere"...

i went around newscasts that day trying to find any bits of info i could, a lot of websites were down or had put on basic text versions. I discovered that day thet the only serious radio newsroom in Quebec City was CHOI (98.1FM) a rock station nonetheless. Others went on their normal programming on lifestyle and star gossip...

I also found out you guys had elected the son of Bush, but that's another story
 
L.A. (San Fernando Valley). My clock radio is set for 7 AM (left coast time), and I roll over and turn on the TV and get a full blast of the news from both in real time. 🙁
 
In the server room of a client.

Was in a meeting w/the director of IT security when I got news on my pager that the Pentagon had been hit. We all left to head to the cafeteria to watch the news on TV.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top