9/11 stories

[Zach]

I was living in CA working for PacBell at the time. Heard the news on the way into the yard, we all gathered around the TV at the yard and watched instead of having the United Way meeting from the Union. Got the word that all PacBell buildings were on lockdown not knowing if Comms would be targeted. We serviced a few Microwave sites that fed back east.

Somber day.

 

[Brittany Chukarman]

I was sage hen hunting 30 miles from the house. On the drive home I turned on the Am radio and reception was in and out. I could only make out some of it now and then. Something about an explosion in the WTC. I sounded like Orson Welle's War of the Worlds and I thought it was some kind of a hoax. It was so strange for a week or two after that with no planes in the sky. It was (is) also my birthday.

 

[Wildabeest]

I was in jr. high and they didn't allow us to watch it after it happened. It shaped who I am. My parents pleaded for me to try college first, when that, I, failed I enlisted! I would've served 30 years if I could but my brain said otherwise.

Thanks for your service and sacrifice @Boomerusaf, @BcGunworks, @davinski and @Scott85

 

[blueridge]

I was in graduate school, sitting in the waiting room of the university’s travel clinic getting vaccinations to go to India on an international study grant. Watched it unfold live on the tv there. Devastating.

The way that it impacted me the most was considering how much that one incident influenced the American psyche, as we all can attest to, and then thinking about the populations around the world in war ravaged areas where this wasn’t a one time catastrophe, but an extended reality, day in and day out. I don’t know how people can stay sane.

A month later my travel partner and I were in a Muslim city in central India feeling very paranoid. We’re walking down an alley and turn around to see a mob of men, dozens, walking rapidly towards us. Before our freak out can fully manifest, the closest smiles, Salams, and walks right past us, as do the rest. ... It was midday and they were all headed to the mosque that was at the end of the street for noon prayers.

 

[Wildabeest]

Not to get off topic, but:

Reading these made me realize we have quite a few service members on this site.

Thank you guys!

And a lot of people way younger than me with the “I was at school...” memories! I was at work. 3 months later, and ever since, my work has been focused on keeping bad people from doing bad shit like this. As tragic as that day was, it was great to see the country come together to respond.

 

[dgc1963]

I was working at a retirement home an older man walked by and told me a plane hit the tower I thought OMG wonding about the folks that were on it, a while later he comes by again and told me another plane flew into another tower and I thought he was just confused so keep working then one of the matinance guys comes by and tells me no 2 planes flew into the world trade center buildings I looked at him and said we are under attack !! stopped working headed home called my mother ,sister and brother turned on the news at home and was in shock
All I could think about was how many Moms ,Dads,Brothers Sisters left home kissed their family good bye and said I love you see ya tonight........ But tonight didnt come
Today is still a day of Prayer and rememberance
The best thing I ever heard about 9/11 was that on 9/10 we were all just doing our thing living our life
BUT on 9/12 we were the people God made us to be! we didnt care about pollitics,race or anything we were all Americans then we drove 8 hours away to help, stood in line to give blood gave what we could just to help someone we didnt even know
wonder why we forgot so soon

 

[Simeod]

This is not something I enjoy talking about, but I was just talking with a friend who was there with me about how important it is to talk.
I had been in the military for 11 years at that point and was EOD. We were in NYC to support the UN General Assembly which was slated to start in a few days. We were at the World Trade Towers when the attack happened. When the first plane hit, we just down the street in a deli before a meeting in tower 7 at 9am. Being there on the ground we had no idea it was a plane. We thought it was a bomb of some kind smuggled into the building. We quickly went to tower 7 to link up with the TSD from the USSS. We were in the lobby signing in when the second plane hit. It blew rubble into the windows of tower 7. We helped evacuate the building and spent the next week at the towers and assisting the local bomb squads.

It was a surreal event. It didn't seem real at the time. It was too big to take in. The poor people trapped in the building while it was burning were hanging off the sides trying to escape the heat hundreds of feet up. I can honestly say that the NYC fire and police departments lost some real heros that day when the buildings collapsed.

It was a world changing event. It unified our nation. Unfortunately how quickly we forget.

 

[sharpshooter97]

I was just a kid when it happened watching it on the news with my dad, it shaped the course of my life for sure. Joined the army right after highschool and did a tour in Afghanistan.

 

[F250]

I had crossed into Canada to exchange some money at the bank as I was headed to Saskatchewan for waterfowl hunting in a couple days. When I returned to the small border station, the border had been ordered closed. I was about the tenth vehicle in line. I had heard on the truck radio about the towers. One of the US Customs Officers looked out the office window and recognized me. He walked down the line and waived me through. He said, " Better home and get and in uniform. Everyone is being called in." Game Wardens were assigned to specific areas of concern. Lots of unknowns for front line officers for many days.

 

[WVmike]

I was in 6th grade reading class. The principal came over the loud speaker and said some things that I don't remember but then they let us turn the class tv on and saw what was happening as it was happening. We went home early that day and I continued to watch at home. It was scary but also made me very upset and I made it a point to join the Marines when I got my first chance to go.

 

[TwistedSage]

5th grade social studies class. Mr Thomas gets a call and wheels in the tv. Didnt say much we just watched. Whe. The second plane hit his face dropped and he said oh my God were under attack. I grew up in south Jersey about 2 hrs from NYC with most people having some family in the city. We watched the news the rest of the days as the faculty were making frantic phone calls to loved ones. I honestly remember it like it was last week, forever burned into my brain.

 

[Nutrioso]

Fishing a small stream in Arizona. We stopped at a small store streamside to grab a sandwich, having no idea what had happened. Walked in and everyone was staring at the TV in horror. Guy I was fishing with had a son in the Army. He saw what was coming and that trip was cut short. Erie thing was for days afterward the skies were so silent.

 

[3rdCoastTXHunter]

I was a Jr. in high school sitting in math class when we heard to turn the tv on and we all started watching in disbelief. Kinda not really realizing the gravity of the situation. Then around lunch time my dad showed up to pull me and my brother out of class for a few minutes to speak with us. He is was a police Sgt. with one of the large department in Texas and they got called in and got told that they did not know when they'd get back home. After that the gravity of it all really started to sink in.

 

[Hem]

Going to my construction site.
Confusing day trying to focus on my work but knowing this was serious chit.
My sister and her family lived near the towers. Actually my nephew would typically be in daycare at ground level...but not that day.

Thankful.

 

[N2TRKYS]

I was cruising timber.

 

[Outbound]

I was 12 years old, living near Vancouver BC, Canada. My dad shook me awake and said "A plane just hit the World Trade Center." We didn't have cable tv so were listening to the radio when the second plane hit. I still remember the anchor saying "a second plane! oh my god oh my god oh my god". My dad was a career firefighter. The loss of so many heroes that day affected us in a small city on the opposite coast in another country. Dad's shift wore NYFD pins for on their uniforms for a good while after that. Even at a young age, when I finally watched replays at school of the towers falling, I knew the world had changed forever.

 

[dcopas78]

I was working on a Superfund cleanup site just north of Cincinnati, putting in an groundwater intercept/treatment system as well as a gabion basket wall along an eroded creek bank to protect the intercept trench. The track hoe operator had his radio on and just stopped right in the middle of dumping some rip-rap into one of the wire baskets. He swung his boom out to the side of machine and motioned for us all to come up to the cab. At that time, they were still trying to figure out if it was a Cessna or a larger plane that hit the tower when the second plane hit as we were listening live. We all pretty much gathered around his hoe and listened for about the next couple hours, in disbelieve. Our company held many different contracts with government agency's so we knew we would be getting calls for people to go there. We had emergency response contracts with FEMA, OSHA, USPS, etc. By the end of the day, my friend Alex and I were in the bosses office. He told us we both would be going to New York when requested. That call came on September 18th, when rescue efforts had all but seized and it became a cleanup effort. However, in the 24 hours that passed from getting the call to when we were to start traveling to get to the site, I was called off of Ground Zero duty to attend to another job we had in Utica, New York that needed a replacement worker trained in Health/Safety/HAZWOPER for one that had quit.

Alex spent 11 months on the Ground Zero site working a contract for FEMA as a recovery specialist. His job was to go in as compressed tanks were found, and try to identify what was in the tanks. Tanks that included SCBA and backboards that firemen had on when they perished. He saw things I don't want to fathom. He didn't come back the same person that went up.....way more subdued and not so happy-go-lucky. We were both young, mid 20s, and in a way I think that site took the last little bit of "childhood" that lingered in his otherwise adult body. Initially, I was kinda bummed that I didn't get to go help. But in the end, although I would have gladly done it, I'm glad I didn't end up there.

 

[JLDemo]

I was a freshman in high school in Wood Shop, my older brother who was a senior was in the same class. It was one of the few moments in our time together in high school we didn't fight, we just watched and stayed silent. Shortly after graduation my brother and his best friend who was in the same class, headed off to boot camp. I followed suit soon after, we both served multiple enlistments along with his best bud.

God bless those first responders.

 

[Howie]

The wife and I were one "Downeast" schooner cruise up in Maine, in Penobscot bay. No phones, no games. 4 days of relaxation.
All the Schooners from the association (maybe 12) were meeting at the Maine Wooden Boat School for an open house. The place was a ghost town as we disembarked on the little shuttle boat around 6 PM. All the yard tents were there with tables and the band was set up but no one was around...strange.
We walked around a bit, saw some of the workshops then noticed a crowd by the admin. building up the hill. When we got there almost 100 people were staring at a 19" TV in the one office showing the destruction. We had no idea this had happened till this moment.
What a shock.

 

[diamond hitch]

I was scheduled to teach a class on advanced placer deposits for the National Training Center (BLM) in Lincoln , Mt. I was watching the morning news when the second plan flew into the tower. As I was driving home that night the towers started coming down. It was a new reference on reality. Even in the pucker brush of Montana.