9-11 Memories?

[crybdr]

Not sure if this is the right place to start this, or if it makes sense to start it at all....Please shut this thread down if I am the least bit out of line.

But, I think it's important and revealing to put down our personal memories of that day - they are still 'physically vivid' for me. If others would like to share their memories of that day, I think it would be a 'record' that will live on for a long time - as this forum will live on in the digital record 'forever'. Anyway, I'll start....

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We were having an 'all hands' company meeting that began at 8:30am on Sept. 11. We have 'all hands' meetings every month - to cover the health of the company, new events, etc. This morning, we were being told that we were going to a 4 day work week - with a 20% reduction in pay (the economy was struggling at the time). This was to be a short term solution to reduce the immediate overhead and allow our company to survive a short term downturn - without laying people off. We all agreed that it made sense.

Then....someone poked their head into the meeting saying a 'plane had hit the World Trade Center'. Perhaps by that time it had already been two planes, but information was fuzzy at the time. We finished the meeting and went back to our desks, and some people set up a TV to try to get a signal and some information.

I remember hitting the internet and seeing some early reports, but they were lagging. Once the guys got our little VHS Combo TV working, we saw exactly what was going on. At this point, both towers were on fire. I watched the towers burning for a little bit - and went back to my desk.

I actually called a contact at one of my clients to request some files that I needed for a project - thinking back, I don't know why I did this. Maybe I was just trying to maintain some normalcy in light of the horrific events. I still question why I made that call, in light of what was unfolding on the East Coast.

My wife called me. She was in law school at the time at UW Madison. They were watching the TV in the classroom. She asked me 'Should I go home?' and I said I wasn't sure, but that she'd probably be safe staying at the campus.

I didn't see either of the towers fall on live TV. But after it happened, I did see the TV coverage of the collapses - no words can describe that sight. I immediately left work, got in my vehicle, drove 3 miles down the road, stopped at a gas station, bought a pack of cigarettes, and smoked 3 cigarettes in the rear parking lot while listening to the coverage on AM radio. I couldn't feel my feet on the ground (not from the cigarettes) - it was like I was floating. The situation was too much to comprehend.

My wife and I met at home earlier than usual. The TV is on in the background while we hug and kiss. We decide to head out to the local bar. It's busy there, and there are lots of American Flags being flown from passing vehicles, and lots of red, white, and blue outfits in the bar. We watched Bush's speech regarding the events. There was a lot of discussion. But I think, regardless of any political leanings, everybody in that bar was UNITED for a moment during those events. Which was beautiful.

I think we fell asleep with the TV tuned to MSNBC that night.

I honestly don't know how the next day went. Not because we were hungover (maybe we were) but we were like shocked zombies, the world had CHANGED, and it would never be the same again.

That's my story from that day, and I'll admit that I'm a little teary from writing about it.

[leehljp]

LOML and my youngest daughter and I had just returned to Japan two weeks prior and my youngest had just started her junior year in HS. Our middle daughter had returned to Japan a week earlier as a teacher in elementary school there.

That night in Japan, I was on my computer constructing a web based database for our organization's Japan workers. My oldest daughter called from the US and said that the world trade center had been hit by a plane. I clicked on CNN news on my computer and they had the headlines of the first plane. By the time I got to the TV and the family, the second one had hit. Within a few minutes, I was talking with a friend in the States watching it unfold - news of the other two planes. Almost simultaneously we figured out that it was not the regular pilots, because a pilot, knowing he was going to die would have crashed into the ground rather than kill others. Sure enough we soon learned that the hijackers had trained as pilots.

Just before calling the States, I called our Japan organization leadership and made sure that they were watching. Most had gone to bed. My two daughters and LOML all broke into tears as the towers collapsed. They could sense the people still inside. We stayed up to 3 AM watching in disbelief. Japan CNN did not go to commercials for many many hours.

I think the one thing that changed for me at that time was the security consciousness that we have today and of remaining anonymous as much as possible. The web data base that I was working on was stopped. Company email addresses for business became private and secure. We had some quick thinking and smart folks at the time - guessing the future.

While not related to 9-11 directly but does involve the security and anonymous aspect of the above statement - Within a year after 9-11, many large corporations world wide became very security conscious. I moved to Toyota City in 2004 and of course drove by the Toyota headquarters many times. One day a friend from another country came to visit and wanted to see the main Toyota headquarters. I drove him there (along with his wife and LOML) and we pulled up in front of the headquarters. I got out and so did he. Then I proceeded to take a picture of the large stone that had Toyota Jidosha Kaisha (Toyota Motor Company in Kanji) on it. Three armed guards came running out screaming "No Picture, No Picture!" I explained in Japanese what I was doing and they said it was a security issue. About 2 weeks later, LOML was reading the papers and there was an article on world wide security of large corporate headquarters. In the article was the description of the incident of me trying to take a picture of the headquarters.

I didn't say anything to the security guards but I had two friends that worked in that building and were pretty high up. I had asked both for their business cards as this is a strong cultural attribute there. BOTH of these fellows said that they could not give me their meishi/business cards simply because their office was in the "number 1 building" - and that would be considered a huge security breach.

9/11 made the free world very paranoid and for a legitimate reason.

[drillman88]

I was at work on my off day running the older of the two machines for which I am responsible. A coworker who no longer works with me came up and said that two planes flew into buildings in New York. To say the laest I was stunned. That was around 11 am. As the day went on we found out more information. It wasn't much information, all I heard was it was the World Trade Center and the buildings were still standing.

I got off work at 3 pm and listened to the radio as I drove to found out about the Pentagon and the failed attack that crashed in Pennsylvania as well.

I arrived home aroud 4 and I was transfixed as I watched TV and the plumes of smoke rise from buildings. I watched with hope and listened to the descriptions of the buildings and the rescuers who were working the site. I vividly remember watching the buildings fall and thinking this couldn't be real. The white dust and people running in the streets looked like some type of nuclear fallout.

My children and wife came home about the same time as the buildings fell I remember thinking about the people who woulldn't be hugging their children that night and how fortunate we were.

To all those who lost family to this tragedy, I am truly sorry for your loss.

[Mildoc]

We had a late clinic start time that day for why I don't remember. We were driving to work as the second plane hit. My wife said "Think that could be an accident?"

I said "One plane maybe, two no way."

Then went as numb as that day in class when it was announced on the overhead that President Kennedy had been shot.

[billwmeyer]

I was at work. At that time, I was the grain manager at a grain elevator. I wondered how stupid a pilot could be to hit a skyscraper like that. When we heard the second one was hit, I knew it was terrorism and that we were in a type of war.

All planes were grounded, but then a jet flew very high above our elevator, and in the distance you could make out smaller planes. President Bush and his fighter escort were the only planes in the sky. He was flying to safety. That was a weird feeling also.

It is hard to believe it has been 10 years.

Bill

[Pappy]

I had driven to Austin to piick up a part for my lawn tractor. The television was on in the parts dept in the Deere dealer and I walked in just after they showed the first tower being hit. We all watched in silent horror as the second tower was hit. I called my wife, woke her up, told her to turn on the news, and then watched for about half an hour before going back home.

[Papa]

9-11-01

My wife and I were returning from a visit to relatives in South Arkansas. We had been listening to CD's because she doesn't like country music (try finding something else on the radio in that part of the country). We decided to switch to commercial radio to get a traffic report on Little Rock just as the second plane slammed into the WTC. A few minutes later, we got the report on the Pentagon, and chills ran up our spines. At the time, our naval officer son worked in the wing of the Pentagon that the third plane crashed into. My wife immediately tried to call both my son and our daughter, who lives in Alexandria, VA, on the cellphone but got nothing but busy signals.

I stopped at the next rest area and tried the land-line pay phone and got busy signals also. We debated for a few minutes and decided to press on toward our home in Virginia.

About an hour after the Pentagon crash, our daughter reached us on the cell phone. She had felt the ground shake and the pressure wave from the aircraft explosion. My son-in-law had received a tip from a friend about the fourth aircraft headed for Washington. She and her family had decided to drive south to get away from the target area, and she encouraged us to return to my wife's relatives place we'd left that morning. She had heard nothing from our son or daughter-in-law. My wife and I decided to press on, glued to the radio reports. My wife was pretty shaken at this point.

About 3:30 that afternoon, we got a call from our son, who was home. It turned out that he had been participating in an inter-service golf tournament that morning, so he wasn't in the Pentagon. Many of his work collegues who were in the building perished in the crash. My daughter-in-law hasn't complained about his golf since that day--she bought him new clubs for Christmas.

We watched the tower collapse on TV in a hotel in Tennessee that evening. It was worse for me because, as a civil engineer, I could analyze what was going on.

We got home on 9-12-01. After a few days, we drove past the Pentagon to view the damage. Seeing nothing but a hole where my office was located in 1973-75 felt like a kick in the gut.

My biggest reaction to 9-11-01 was pride in the passengers of Flight 93. Once they realized what was going on, they reacted in typical American fashion. Instead of acting like sheep as the terrorists expected, they attacked and went down fighting.

Papa

[dbhost]

I was working my first current "career" job doing IT work for a car dealership chain. I was working an issue with a dumb terminal connectivity at one of our west Houston stores and was on the phone with my counterpart in Secaucus New Jersey when he saw the first plane hit from his window. At first I thought it was a small airplane like a Cessna or something that just had a bad pilot. I mean bad, but not catastrophic right?

It didn't take but a minute or two for the bad feeling to sink in after he said it was a big passenger jet. I had a gut feeling by the way he described it, and all that this was indeed not an accident.

When news of the second plane hit the big screen in lobby all work came to a grinding halt. Customers, employees, the truck driver unloading the car carrier, everyone just hovered around that big screen in sickened realization of what we were watching...

By noon, the company had shut all stores, and the management office down. The government was trying to get everyone home and safely accounted for.

I remember I made it around Beltway 8 fine, and started heading down the gulf freeway, I could notice other drivers like I had never before, seeing people crying, yelling etc... at their steering wheels as they tried to get home to their families and friends. By the time I hit the Clear Lake City exit I was so sickened by what I had seen, and the news that was still pouring in I had to pull over before the overpass and vomit.

I am still dumbfounded to figure out how anyone can even contemplate mass murder and try to justify it by any means at all. What I found sicker than the actual attacks is the celebrations over the attacks seen in the middle east. To say the least, it changed me, forever....

[Bruce Cohen]

Sorry I'm kind of late on this one. Wasn't sure if I wanted to respond.
I was working in Manhattan at the time and just existed the Union Square (14 st & 5th Ave subway system.
I noticed a rather large group of people looking south (downtown) and at first thought someone was getting arrested (which happens all the time). The view looking downtown on 5th Ave. is a clear line of site to the two towers. At that time, the north tower had already been hit and just started to burn. None of us really knew what happened. And then we saw the second plane turn into the south tower and hit it. We all now knew what that was now.
I also saw both buildings collapse.

Spent the night in Manhattan sleeping on my office couch, as the lockdown prevented me from leaving the city. Additionally, the cell service was out along with the electricity.

I remember walking down to St. Vincent's hospital and watched a large amount of doctors and nurses waithig for the injured to arrived. That never happened.

Woke up the next morning around 6:00 AM, looked out the windows of my office (I worked on 5th Avenue and 18th Street, with windows facing 5th ave. and watched a long convoy of Humvees with .50 Cal. mounted in the rear. Instantly flashed on bad Nam memories and felt even worse.

I usually don't talk about this experience, as I really don't want to remember anything about that time. Too many ghosts, as I knew a few guys on the force (NYPD & FDNY) that never came home.

This was the second worse experience in my life. I'll never forget, nor will I ever forgive.

Bruce
Signature deleted due to the solemn nature of the post.

[JimD]

I was at work and a co-worker mentioned the planes hitting the world trade center and I thought he was messing with me. Then I got out on the internet and saw what was happening. Terrible. I lived in Pittsburgh at the time so I never really worried about our physical safety. Then I learned a co-worker had a son who worked at the WTC - we started praying for him. Turned out he went in late that day and was OK.

We had given my in-laws a 50th anniversary present of a trip to the U. S. Open. They were at LaGuardia on the way home when they closed the airport. They did not have a car and wouldn't have known how to drive home if they did. A cabbie took them to a nearby hotel that you had to pay in cash through a window with metal mesh supporting the glass. They thought it was OK because there was a Catholic church within walking distance. They ran out of cash and we wired them some. My father in-law had to give up on getting home on the discount airline they had tickets for after a few days and buy them tickets on a name brand airline. More of an adventure than they bargained for. We were debating driving up to get them but things were so chaotic the few days afterward that we were not sure we could get in and get out.

I don't think we can win this "war" with bombs. As long as there are significant sized well financed groups that think they are going to heaven because they kill some of us, we are going to have at least occasional incidents. People's hearts need to change.

Jim