September 11

First off, after reading other people's stories, holy hell, I'm old. Most of my students were born after 2001, and I have to remind myself every semester that this is history to them, even if it doesn't feel remotely like it to me. When I was a kid, I remember developing a visceral reaction to Pearl Harbor as a result of growing up around people of that generation (I'm old, but not that old); I wonder if the same thing has happened for others with 9/11.

I was off that morning (don't recall if I had a class scheduled for the afternoon or not, but the school being within visual distance of Manhattan, everything was cancelled in any case) and saw the headline reading the news online. I flipped on the TV in time to see the second plane hit live. A buddy showed up at the house and we watched it unfold together. Eventually got in touch with my brother who lives in Midtown, near the UN; he was fine, but the scenes down there were pretty crazy.

I reached out to a few people I knew in DC. One of my friends from grad school was in the Pentagon when the plane hit that day (probably more than one, but she was the only one I managed to connect with). Again, more crazy stories. I know a number of people who were involved in what came after in one capacity or another; one or two I lost touch with, but I'm 100% sure they were across the fence somewhere.

Lots of stuff changed, especially in NYC and the surrounding area, but in typical NYC fashion, people went back to their lives more quickly than one might have expected.

In reply to Appleseed :

The next day, I remember going to visit my uncle in Hull, MA. Hull is right across the bay from Logan Airport, and the amount of planes flying low overhead is constant. I was sitting outside having an espresso with my uncle and my dad, sitting right there across the water from Logan, and the silence of ZERO planes flying overhead really highlighted what was going on. It was eerie and bizarre. 

As an aside, I'd heard the New Yorkers were legendary hard-asses, but my first visit to the place was several months after 9/11 and I found people to be warm and friendly. There was a shared trauma and survivorship that drew people together.

I flew RIC to STL in late September or early October that year.  We had a stop at LGA.  The pilot pointed out the smoking hole in the ground that used to be the twin towers of the World Trade Center as we flew over the southern tip of Manhattan.  That was a weird feeling.  The sense of loss, the impossibility of trying to imagine the hell that people endured--some for just a short while, others for much longer.

It does bother me that those who weren't yet born in 2001, or who were just small children, can never begin to understand the magnitude of the event.

I was at work.  Walking from my office to a building up the hill across the parking lot for a meeting, I saw Flight 93.  We're near the Albany International Airport so planes are common, this one was wicked low.  Passed me to the north.  A friend was on that flight.

We were turned loose from work.  Thereafter we had the Massachusetts National Guardsmen walking the perimeter with weapons in pairs.  Mrs. 914 was in charge of housing and feeding them.  We were occasionally tasked by the guards to hide a knife or gun in our vehicle to test the morning inspections.  (provided by the Commandant).

Like Kreb, I cried.  I was scared for our future, like now.  But all of this is out of my- our, hands.  Just pray, hope for the best, and hug your kids.  

Dan

Follow up to my tale:  That class I'd been in was mental health nursing and it included a clinical portion at the local large inpatient mental facility.  The week before 9/11 we'd had maybe a dozen patients on the unit.  The week after we had 40, were at capacity and looking to reopen mothballed units to deal with the people who just couldn't deal with the stress of events.

The place was very worked up and chaotic with crying, sedation, acting out and more.  I took the initiative and changed the dayroom TV from CNN (continuous coverage of uncontrollable events) to HGTV and within hours things settled way down.  The administration were so pleased they offered me a job on the spot but I'd only just started at the VA a few months earlier so I stayed with that.

And yeah, my firstborn was 4 months in the oven when things went down and I had a lot of "what kind of a world" thoughts.

In reply to Tony Sestito :

^^This^^  I was at one of our customer's buildings in the old Charlestown Navy Yard a few days after, you can see Logan across the harbor.  Beautiful clear September day (much like it is here today) and silence.    

My memories of the day were being in the office in South Boston and the owner getting a call from his wife "plane into the World Trade Center".  We had a "World Trade Center" in Boston at the time, it was right on the harbor across from the airport and one of our largest clients had offices there.  At the time one of the commuter airlines flew small turbo props, ATC would route them in over the harbor and have them make a sharp left turn onto final for one of the parallel runways.  I'm assuming this was done so as not to slow up the pattern for the big planes flying a more traditional approach.  (You had to see it to believe it, they were maybe 500 feet over the inner harbor and making a pretty steep 90 degree left turn to line up with the runway.  There's no way it would happen today with all the re-development of the South Boston waterfront since the early 2000's.) I assumed it was one of these and that it had an issue making the turn and had crashed into that building.  A few minutes later and we had the real / surreal story.   

We put the TV on and watched both towers fall in real time knowing that there were many many people still inside. I was 39 years old with a 7 year old and a 4 year old at home.  I don't remember feeling as overwhelmingly sad at any time before or since that, it took a long time for that to pass. 

I was 36 at the time.  I had 2 children, ages 9 and 5.

I worked in an open office area and someone stood up and said that the first plane had just hit.  We were all just getting our workdays under way.  News was very hard to come by because no one had a radio or TV in the office and all the usual internet news sources were swamped.  Until the second plane hit there was huge speculation about whether it was an accident or an attack.

I remember that of all places, the neons.org forum was a great news source, as some folks who had news feeds outside the usual internet outlets were able to post frequent updates.

I remember the office head coming on the intercom telling us to stay working at our desks, because otherwise "the terrorists win."

I also remember promptly standing up, giving his office the finger, and going to get my kids out of school.  On my way out I stopped to help some folks hang a giant American flag from the roof of our building.

My wife had also left work.  We made some sandwiches and took the kids to the park at the top of the neighborhood hill.  We ate lunch and then the kids played while DW and I talked it through.

We live in the extended holding pattern for PHL.  It was eerie having the only air traffic be local ANG F-16s on patrol.

I'm going against the prevailing sentiment to say we should forget.

We shouldn't forget that such evil people exist, or why those people thought this was an appropriate action to take against us.  We shouldn't forget those who lost their lives, either as victims or willing emergency responders.

But we have done ourselves and others so much harm in outraged response to what in reality is an extremely unlikely event, almost a statistical anomaly.

I know I'm not explaining myself well here.  Please don't mistake what I'm saying to mean "we deserved it" or that it wasn't a terrible event.  But in the decades since, we have allowed - even ensured - this terrible thing to dominate our existence in so many ways.

Maybe it's OK that we've started moving on and healing.  I don't think that is the same thing as "complacency".

I'd left the office to drive across town to a customer's site. I walked in the front door & my contact, who I'd become pretty good friends with said "A plane just hit the Trade Center". There happened to be a building a couple blocks away named the "Trade Center", so I was momentarily confused. That was about the time the 2nd plane hit. 
 

Like many other parents with infants, I really wondered what kind of world we'd brought our daughter into for well over a year. 

I remember it like it was yesterday. I was working for my dad and his business partner at the time. Got a call from my dad that he had run out of gas(a somewhat common occurrence)and needed me to bring him some.

I had just heard about the first plane while listening to the FAN 590 in Toronto. I jumped in my van with a full gas can and put the radio on. News of the second plane came shortly after.

Got to where my dad was and asked if he had heard what was going on. Nope,didn't have the ignition on. Let him know and then the reality of the situation hit home for us.

 We were scheduled to fly out of Toronto to the UK on the evening of September 13 along with my wife.We were going to have a memorial service and bury some of my brothers ashes on Saturday the 15th. I would be carrying his ashes in my carryon bag.

Leaving a few details out but we did fly out Thursday evening. Security in Toronto was ramped up but less travellers than normal. Security in the UK was very ramped up including foot patrols and checkpoints by UK army personnel.

I'm old enough to remember the Berlin wall coming down.

I was in college on 9/11.

I've touched relics of both days. Concrete from the wall and shards of steel from the towers. Both times it's been very surreal to be physically in contact with items manifested from mankind's capacity for evil.

I remember the feeling of curiosity and sadness for those who died changing immediately to horror and rage at those baseless cowards when it became clear it was intentional.

It's been hard to move past that.

I was flying that day. My schedule for the month was nothing but day trips, with an RDU-DCA round trip in the morning, followed by an RDU-ATL round trip, then done. For some reason, on 9/11 the trips were reversed, so we went to ATL first. They were already stopping departures and rerouting flights by the time we got to ATL, but we were too busy to think anything of it. When we landed, I walked into the gate office where they had a tv on and were talking about a plane hitting one of the towers, just in time to see United 175 hit. We were stuck in ATL for three days. The lack of airplane noise there was weird. When they finally let us ferry back to RDU, they told us to fly the assigned route and don't ask for direct to anywhere. The only radio traffic was we could hear the controllers' half of the conversations with military flights and the only other planes we saw was a flight of four F-16s cruising around with a KC-10 near Shaw AFB, SC. 

One of the far too many things about that day that broke my heart was that my oldest daughter was in third grade and the teacher turned the tv on in the classroom without thinking about what a bunch of third graders might think about the events. My daughter knew I regularly flew into New York and DC and she knew I was going to DC that day. She was terrified, but the teacher blew her off and my daughter didn't know I was safe until she got off the bus that afternoon. 

Weirdly, perhaps, this forum is central to my memories of that day. One of the guys came into the office a bit late, said he'd been listening to Stern and that a plane had hit the WTC.

We tuned in, and in those days before multimedia access was everywhere, we kept ourselves updated thanks to Howard Stern as well as this forum.

It's here that I learned that the first tower collapsed. Here that I heard the Pentagon had been hit.

Left the kids in school because I knew it was big, and thought they should have this moment with their peers, as I had known the assassinations of '68. Maybe that was wrong, but what is right when things go off the rails?

Looking back, it seems like a much more naive time. We had so many fewer channels of information, but it still seemed like we worked to find reasons to pull together. I tried to buy a flag the week after, but everywhere was sold out.
 

I moved to the U.S. in January of 2000, living in SE Michigan. On 9/11 I was at a plant in Jefferson City, Missouri for a two day visit. With the grounding of all the planes my visit extended a couple of extra days, then my boss told me to just keep the rental car and drive back to my home. The overwhelming impression I was left with is how Americans can pull together when confronted with something like that attack. All across Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and western Michigan there were signs and flags hanging from overpasses, farm fences, semi-trailers etc. Over the course of the trip my mood actually improved from one of dread to cautious optimism that the country would survive and be OK. Resilience is probably a good word.

I was in SoCal on a business trip. A colleague from Germany and I had flown into San Diego the day before to visit a client on Sept. 11th at Solar Turbine near the airport. Being on the west coast we were three hours behind the events in NYC. When I awoke I turned on the TV and saw what was going on. Our schedule changed. We eventually met with our client, but were confined to SoCal for a week before we could get flights home. An awful event but we made the most of our forced stay in SoCal.

In reply to Gary :

You were stuck right next door to me...

In reply to Recon1342 :

Amazing. If we'd only known we were mutual car enthusiasts so close under those awful circumstances it might have been more pleasant. We could've met and discussed more favorable topics.

My German colleague and I had dinner the evening of 9/11 at the Hotel del Coronado (the "Hotel Del"), and had a conversation with the guy at the table next to us. He was from the East Coast and was supposed to have been on one of the doomed flights. I don't remember which one. But he had to come out early, so flew on the 10th. Wow! Good fortune. 

My mother had been on a tour of southern France on 9/11.  I honestly forget if it was still in France or whether they had made it to London, but she was stuck over there for about a week before they started letting international flights back.  I think she was staying in a private home with folks who volunteered to let people stay until they could move again.

That makes two of us.  I was 21, between engineering classes at Ryerson University (Toronto).  I found out about the first plane from a post on neons.org, and I seem to remember that there was some sort of (spoken or not) agreement to focus on the events, and forget about the cars for a period.   I went outside, and University staff had pulled a TV outside and we watched events unfold.  There were many questions that day - what's going on, what's next, is there more coming etc.  The prevailing mood on campus and walking through the city can't even be explained. I took the next train home (Hamilton) and spent the rest of the day with loved ones.

Duke said:

I remember that of all places, the neons.org forum was a great news source, as some folks who had news feeds outside the usual internet outlets were able to post frequent updates.

 

In reply to 02Pilot :

I got a reminder that I'm old tonight as well. At the time I had about a year on as a bus driver and have a lot of time and memories of that time.  It seems like a lifetime ago except for the occasional conversation with other old people and one week a year at work where we have some memorial related tasks.  
 

Tonight my 12 year old niece called and wanted to ask some questions. It's weird explaining it as an historic event that happened long before her birth.  I kinda hate that she's getting old enough to start understanding events like that and trying to filter some stories to inform her of what happened but not share the really awful bits that kids probably don't need to know at that age. 

In reply to Gary :

That probably wouldn't have worked out. I was over the fence in Boot camp... lol.

Marjorie Suddard said:

Weirdly, perhaps, this forum is central to my memories of that day. One of the guys came into the office a bit late, said he'd been listening to Stern and that a plane had hit the WTC.

We tuned in, and in those days before multimedia access was everywhere, we kept ourselves updated thanks to Howard Stern as well as this forum.

It's here that I learned that the first tower collapsed. Here that I heard the Pentagon had been hit.

Left the kids in school because I knew it was big, and thought they should have this moment with their peers, as I had known the assassinations of '68. Maybe that was wrong, but what is right when things go off the rails?

Looking back, it seems like a much more naive time. We had so many fewer channels of information, but it still seemed like we worked to find reasons to pull together. I tried to buy a flag the week after, but everywhere was sold out.
 

It me. I'm that guy.

I was driving a fairly horrible Focus ST that had been modified by Steeda that they had loaned us for a while. It didn't have an aux port so I couldn't plug in my iPod on the way to work, so I was listening to terrestrial radio and I first heard Howard reading the report of a place strike moments after the first impact, when he assumed it was just a small plane and an accident occurred. One thing I'll always take with me was hearing how Howard shifted from shock jock into professional broadcaster mode as the realities of the situation became more clear.

I'll also remember that day, along with watching live coverage of the Columbine tragedy, as early occurrences of rampant, massive real time disinformation spread. Over the course of that morning we heard everything from the White House being in flames to reports of armed terror cells on the ground in other major cities. It didn't rally sink in at the time that that sort of response would come to accompany nearly every tragedy from that point on. 

I was at work and that day marked my 1 year anniversary working at the dealership. One of the salesman came into the parts room and told us a plane had hit the tower. Thinking it was a small craft accident I didn't think much of it until he came back telling us it was an airliner. We all gathered  around a TV in the showroom as the rest of it occurred.  Next day (the 12th) is my birthday, felt 10 years older instead of just one.

I watched it unfold in real time on a tv we had at work (after the first tower was hit). That is all ingrained in my memory.

I'm at the point where I won't forget, but I also don't really want to 'remember' it. I'd rather not relive the day. I think, for myself, it's better if I get on with life so the evil idiots don't win.

I remember taping a small flag to my mailbox that day. And my wife grabbing my hand in bed that night (she isn't the most affectionate person normally).

Being a PA resident, we are protective of all things Flight 93. I visited the memorial site when it was just an office trailer, and again after the real memorial got built. I'm not ashamed to say I had to go hide behind a display for a bit as I just couldn't make it through viewing all the personal artifacts they found.

If you want to read something good from that day, this book was a real treasure. It's a remarkable tale of how a very small community in what most of us would regard as 'nowhere' displayed humanity in a deeply touching way.