Where were you ?

[Gunner46]

Watching interrupted programming getting ready for work....vividly remember watching the 2nd tower impact while they were talking about the first. Horrible feeling.

I fear we are being PC lulled to complacency again.

Presently, You may not too far from the Truth.

 

[VAspeedgoat]

Similar to what I'm doing today. Pretty blue sky taking care of odd end jobs. I remember taking food down to the fire and rescue guys working near the Pentagon. There would be whole families out over bridges waving flags as you drove down the interstate. It's a shame it takes something like that to make us come together.

 

[muledeerjunkie]

I was in the Alaska bush , did not know what happened until I got picked up by the bush pilot. He was a few days late and brought newspapers for us to read.

^I can totally relate with that...

We were north of Lake Illiamna Alaska on a moose hunt when it happened. We noticed there were no contrails in the sky for a couple days, no small planes were flying either and a pair of fighter jets buzzed the valley we were camped in (the jets were crusing at a very low level). We didn't think much of it at the time and didn't actually find out about the event until a few mornings later when the float plane came to pick us up as previously scheduled (it was the first day planes could be in the air in Alaska). The pilot verbally told us (no newspaper, no nothing), so we thought he was just messing with us because that sort of thing doesn't happen in the USA. We saw the event replayed on TV later that afternoon for the first time, all of us were in disbelief, angry and had knots in our stomachs! It was a bad ending to a great hunt...

 

[Cammy]

Getting ready to leave for work at Travis AFB when my son came in the kitchen and told us a plane had crashed into the WTC. I was thinking a Cessna like had happened before. I had an hour commute to the base and listened on the radio as the second plane hit.

Took almost 2 hours to get through the gate that morning. Spent the rest of the day watching the news coverage as we stood up the EOC.

 

[1_pointer]

Getting ready to head to Utah State Univ. for some graduate school classes. Wife was laying in bed and said, "Wow!". I had just finished shaving and walked in at the second plane hit.

Our apartment was next to Hill AFB. The next few days I could almost always hear a dull roar as aircraft took off and landed there.

 

[L. I. Yankee]

I was living in Queens,NY. A block from my house you could see the NYC skyline as clear as a bell. I happened to be home from work that day watching what was happening on tv. You could see it the towers burning and the smoke following the wind. After the first tower fell I went outside to where I could see the city. Not long after I watched the second tower fall............

 

[ewludwig]

Fort Bragg, NC. In my hooch doing normal work stuff. Then someone from another unit came in and said a plane hit the WTC. I figured it was a weekend aviator who screwed up. Finally found someone with a TV and realized this was VERY different. Base got locked down, my phone blew up from concerned friends and relatives........in Afghanistan 6 months later.

I went to the Army's survival school (Survive Evade Resist Escape) shortly after the attack. Class was made up of all SOF guys from trigger pullers to logisticians. Guys were definitely paying attention.

 

[the nikster]

My wife, 3 kids and I were in Tallinn, Estonia working on a construction project. As I was leaving work for the day my replacement said a small crop duster had hit 1 of the towers(he was from Sweden). I was in a hurry because our bags were packed for a week long trip to St. Petersburg, Russia for my birthday. I got home and my wife and children were sitting in front of the television watching BBC coverage of the first tower. We were deep in conversation when, inexplicably, the second plane hit the second tower. I remember looking around at my family and feeling very far from home.
It turns out we still went on our trip and were treated as royalty at every turn. It was a fantastic trip forever dimmed by the events of that day.

 

[JMG]

I was in Mildred, MT collecting boring samples for the new bridge that was being designed (at the time). Woke up in Miles City and traveled back and forth from Miles City to Mildred.

I remember talking with the drilling crew and they were "ho-hum" at the time and I was telling them that they didn't understand , , , , , "We're going to war over this!"

It's amazing it was fourteen years ago, already. Let's never forget. God Bless those who were injured or died in that cowardly attack.

 

[TimeOnTarget]

I'd walked into economics class, I realized the seriousness of it all when the usually very funny and laughing, joking teacher quietly and very seriously said "there is nothing that i can teach you today that is more important than this" as we all proceeded to take our seats and watch the news. No one spoke a word the entire class.

I joined the Army within a month.

 

[BR-549]

Delphi Indiana. My crew and I were putting a building up while those went down. A neighbor came over and told us about it. We went into her house and watched some news coverage. As it was unfolding I remember feeling pretty sick at my stomach thinking about all the families that were being affected by it.

Had a college student from Saudi Arabia working for me at the time. After hearing the news I explained to him that he might want to lie down in the bed of the truck and cover up with something on the way home.... "just in case".

 

[SFC B]

I was in the field at Ft Lewis, WA while a member of 2/14 CAV. We were finishing up a 2 week BDE level exercise and were in a CP about 3 miles outside the contonement area refitting for 2 days prior to coming back in to our SQDN AO. The SQDN COs driver (a good buddy of mine) came and rousted me out of the back of my HUMVEE. When he told me what was going on I thought it was a joke. We had been sharing a book which had an eerily similar plot line and I thought he was just trying to get me first thing in the morning. Was I wrong. We got pulled together and given a briefing but then had to sit in that F'ing CP for another 2 days worrying about our families until they let us in. I got home and sat down to watch the news. I have only watched the Twin Towers sequence that one time. I just couldn't do it again. Life in the Army surely changed abruptly and now I sit here ready to retire praying that the next generation has nothing like that happen to them. God Bless America!!

 

[jones39]

I was in Ag Law class at Auburn University. A friend came into class late and told us that the world trade center had been hit and we all blamed him for having to much to drink the night before. Within 20-30 minutes class was dismissed and we returned to our fraternity house and turned the tv on. Classes were cancelled for a couple of days and we watched the news coverage of this tragedy for the rest of the week. Football game against LSU was postponed until 1st week in December.

 

[kenton]

Sophomore algebra class, english teacher ran into the room and flipped on the TV. My friend's dad was an air traffic controller and handled the plane that crashed in PA as it flew over Ohio.

 

[PJ0311]

I was on the scaffolding at a construction site when I heard about the first one on the radio. I had ironically just watched a rerun of some old show like X files or something where a terrorist had hacked the autopilot of a jet and was guiding it into the towers until the hero of the show was able to stop it. I remember thinking someone had figured out how to do that, suicide pilots never occurred to me. I was in the Marine reserves at that time so I grabbed my gear and told my boss I had to go since I knew I would be going somewhere. We mobilized and then stood down, a pattern that would repeat over the next few years. 4 years later I would find myself in Anbar Province, Iraq holding a Zippo lighter with an etching of a plane flying into the towers on it. There was a light on one of the towers that would light up when the top of the lighter was open and it played the funeral march. We found these lighters all over the place in Iraq.

 

[dwm4375]

Junior year at PSU, just back to my apartment after an 8am class. Called home and was told to turn on the TV. Woke up my roommates and watched until I had to leave for my next class. A few weeks later was signed up for the Marines, OCS the following summer and active duty starting in the summer of 2003.

 

[Tikka06]

1st period class of my senior year in HS. The teacher let us watch it all on tv. I had already turned 18 and was working as a part time firefighter in the next town over, having worked the night before. Seeing all those NYFD guys go down really struck a cord with me. That events that day set into motion decisions that took me all over the world and as a result made me the man I have become today. This morning while getting my 2 year old son ready for the day. I realized that one day he would probably ask me this same question, and the conversation that could result. As sad and polarizing as it was, I kind of look forward to explaining it all to him.

 

[kansasdad]

I was late arriving at my dental office as I watched the breaking news showing the first airplane related fire, and saw the second plane hit live. My irate patient changed her tune when I turned on the tv news station.

My brother worked at the Capitol in DC. The plane that was last to come down is supposed to have been targeting either the Capitol building or the White House. He was escorted out of the Capitol area through the underground tunnels.

Wichita calls itself the "Air Capitol of the World". Boeing Military and Boeing Commercial, Cessna Beechcraft and Learjet all have/had large plants here. The no fly directive made for strangly quiet skies, with only military aircraft from McConnell AFB breaking the silence. The subsequent economic downturn and reduction in commercial and personal/business aircraft manufacturing precipitated by this event continue to effect Wichita to this day.

 

[OriginalOscar]

Morning staff briefing with my SkyWest team in the SLC hub. Surreal as we got everything on the ground as quickly as possible. By afternoon when we looked at the national radar feed it was clear with nothing in the air. Walk outside onto the ramps and the only sound was a fighter making periodic passes around the airport.

Thursday afternoon when we started moving flights again it was an entirely different world.

We should all remember how Americans responded together and we have incredible ability to overcome any challenge as a nation if we act as "one nation under god". God bless America and those we honor on 9/11.

 

[F250]

I was on a day off, and had driven across the border into Quebec to have breakfast with some friends. When I got back to the border it had shut down. No one was being allowed into the US. One of the Customs Officers I knew, saw my truck and walked down the line to me. He told me what was going on. He told me I was going to work - every law enforcement officer in the US was being called in. They moved some cars around and passed me through the Border. He was right, my Lt. had been trying to reach me.