Where were you this day 15 years ago?

.

 

I had my 9 month old son on my shoulder watching the news when the second plane hit.

 

Our youngest son's birthday today. His 16th was a most bitter birthday.

 

At work (as usual).

It still bothers me when I see an old picture or TV show with a shot of the twin towers.

 

USS Texas?

 

The Avatar photo?

Yes.

 

I was in the World Trade Center in NYC that morning, though fortunately I was outside and a few blocks away when the towers were hit due to an early meeting. I won't forget, but I also don't think large scale violence, death and destruction in my neighborhood, even when I see it happen close up, and even when several of my neighbors are killed, is somehow more serious or significant than violence, death and destruction anywhere else in the world.

 

I was at work (in Canada) and my wife was in a plane flying from DTW to DFW when the first plane hit. Will never forget the concern, uncertainty and horror of discovering the atrocities of that day. Unfortunately, wide scale senseless killing continues to go on around the world and I do not understand any of it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

We've become desensitized to violence, and it doesn't become real until it literally hits home.

 

New Yorker, but in London at the time - Reuters office. St Paul's Cathedral was just down the street and the building management had a plan in place in case of terrorism. Sadly, the USA was the last major country to be relatively free of major incidents of terrorism until then.

My mother who worked at the UN at the time, was evacuated from the building and had to walk out of Manhattan. Calls into NY were tied up due to the number of calls being made and it was almost 24 hours before I got in touch with my family. Spent the night worrying in my London hotel (Park Lane Hilton) that someone was waiting to explode a suitcase nuke in NYC as an encore, or someone was going to drop a plane into Buckingham Palace practically next door

It's true that the USA was way overdue for this sort of thing to happen, but it was a terrible, terrible sucker punch.

More people died in other single events, like the Indo tsunami (hundreds of thousands) and other natural disasters, man made disasters like the practically unreported ferry capsizings in the Philippines that drowned 3 thousand or more people in one pop, but It's probably the most significant political world event after the Berlin Wall came down, on how it triggered or signaled a change in the world dynamic that led to where we are now.

 

I was at work on Rikers when the planes hit, then at Ground Zero immediately after Tower 1 came down. Stayed down there for that entire week, and months afterwards. Incredibly soul-crushing, but most memorable, so no worries of 'forgetting' on this end.

 

My (now-ex) wife called me as she sat in traffic in front of the Pentagon to tell me she had just heard on the news that a plane had crashed into a World Trade center building in NYC. I turned on the TV and was watching, and saw the 2nd plane hit the second tower. 20 minutes later I was walking out the door to go to the office and I heard a *bang*. I got to the office a few minutes later and turned on a TV to see more about the WTC buildings, and the news that the Pentagon had just been hit came on the news (we live ~ 4 miles south of the Pentagon). The plane passed right over where my wife had been stuck in traffic 20 minutes earlier.

The next 3-4 hours were spent with everyone glued to TVs and radios, as there were numerous warnings of unidentified aircraft flying along the Potomac, and a lot of fighter jets circling around. There were reports that various government buildings downtown had been bombed. The whole region was in a panic, and the highways were choked with traffic as many tried to get back home. Some spent 8+ hours in traffic.

3 days later I was asked to visit the building. After passing through a lot of heavy security I was led down a building corridor lit only by a few temporary light strings. Water was pooled 1-2 inches deep on the floor. We turned a corner, and before me was a vast cavern of debris and rubble, with large pieces of airplane still sitting among the debris. Well over 100 rescue personnel were still climbing all around, although by this point the primary effort had shifted from searching for survivors to searching for bodies. It was by far the most horrific thing I have ever seen firsthand. I had trouble sleeping for weeks, and the memory will always be with me. But the strongest memory I have is of the hundreds of rescue personnel who worked nonstop for many days trying to find and treat survivors. It gave me a lot of hope for humankind at a time when there seemed to be very little.

 

It was the evening here in Oz, prob around 10:30pm. I was watching "the west wing" in bed with my gf (now wife). During an ad break there was a news clip about a "small plane" hitting the WTC, but by the time The West Wing finished, it was clear it was a lot more.

 

Far away in Australia, my ex had called in the middle of the night, I watched in disbelief and I suppose shock.

I worked in a very big open plan office, usually a gab fest if anything happened like football,elections etc. However, it was very subdued that day, not many people talking about it, just quiet words and not a lot of conversation.

And last night I watched the documentary about the two ex US Marines who just suited up and went to help. They ended up saving two police officers who had been buried deep in the wreckage.

 

I was in the Louisiana Army National Guard at the time and my unit had spend 20 days in Germany for AT that summer. However, I was finishing up my degree that summer and managed to get my AT rescheduled until later in the fall at BN HQ. My first day of that reassigned AT was 9/10/2001. So there I was the next morning having my morning coffee with the BN XO when someone told us to head to the briefing room to get to the TV. We were there watching maybe 2 minutes when the second plane hit. All hell broke lose after that. We got the call fairly quickly to move to highest security status and I had to string C-wire with the unit supply sergeant to block off the entrance to the road. Phone rang off the hook all day with fellow guardsman calling in to report...most of them asking to come in. I wasn't sure I would get to leave but we got word late that for now the BN wasn't being activated at that point. I went home where my girlfriend (now wife) told me one of my fraternity brothers dads had been in the towers and he hadn't heard from him since. Turned out his father, Louis Williams, was the only person from Louisiana to die in 9/11. He was from
Mandeville where I currently live and we have a nice memorial for him in town. I still see his son often. His posts on Facebook every year about his father on 9/11 are heartbreaking as they were quite close. It's a day I'll never forget.

 

I worked in the Boston financial district, though home that day, the following days in work were eerie with no sound of aircraft flying over the city. Some friends and I were out fishing a couple nights later (off southcoast Mass) with the ground stop still in place when we saw a formation of military aircraft with anti-collision lights in different patterns. Looked like escort for something important.

 

I was in school, in 1st grade, and I don't remember what we were doing but I do remember after someone came and talked to my teacher everything just didn't feel right. Shortly after that all the students (very small school maybe 50 kids) were put in one classroom and all the staff sat on the other side. They watched the tv with the back of it facing us. Next thing I knew we were getting picked up from school early, and when I got home my dad was unloading gallons of water and non-perishable food from the car to the basement. I don't think I really grasped the situation at the time but I remember the sickening feeling it gave me.

I also remember finding out a few days later that my cousin was supposed to have a meeting in one of the towers that morning. But for some reason his alarm didn't go off and he woke up just as the first tower was hit.

Today at work was weird too, there was a point when I half heard a call dispatched for an MVA, and then shortly after the medic on scene called back saying something along the lines of "we need a lot more units, multiple patients here" in a tone that didn't sound reassuring. Shortly after that response almost every advanced unit in the city was redirected. I had that similar sickening feeling but fortunately it was not anything as terrible as we initially thought.

 

Me at work then heard the F18s from Dobbins AF base literally a stone throw away from our office take off like never before. Just knew right there and then something was way off. A terribly shilling day one I will never forget.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk