Where were you on 9/11/2001?

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I was a teacher too. I worked in a little Catholic preschool within the commuter zone. Many people from CT didn’t come home that day.

We were out in the playground with our little 3-4 year olds. The morning was so fresh so pretty. I had just finished tying loose shoe laces and had stood back up. I sudden got a chill and realized it was way to quiet. No cars, no dogs, no one talking except for us and our little children. I had turned around checking my watch, realizing the the kids from the big school were way over due for their recess. And then I saw him the first father, running into our play ground. He had tears streaming down his face. He grabbed his little son in his arms, and started to run looking up at the sky. He had said under his voice “We’re at war! We’re at war!” As he ran out of the playground.

Suddenly my second father came running up to our yard. He looked so terrorized. I got to him and he said “We are under attack!” as calming as an adult could. I started following him in the building. He said I don’t want my son to see me yet. I suddenly realized he was hardly calm, he was just barely keeping his emotions in check. He took me into an empty class room where a TV was, my other teachers and staff were gather the children up to bring the in. When the TV was turned on in a matter of mere minutes we watched the second tower get hit. The horror on the father’s face I will never forget. He just said, “Oh God!”

His son was our newest birthday boy. His family had celebrated his 4th birthday the Sunday before. On Monday,The four year old arrived with a bright red fireman’s hat that his uncle had given him. His suprise birthday party had been at the firestation with family and friends and NYFD’s finest where his uncle worked. He had even gotten a ride in town on one of their big trucks.

When one of the teachers aids came around the corner with his prized hat still on, his father lost it. And began to collaspe and hold his little son closed to him. I gave them both a hug and gently as I could helped them on their way.

When I returned to the class room and the other teachers standing in shock. I sent one to make sure only one door was unlocked and another brought the phone with the cord to me and someone else brought a chair. From my angle I could hear and see when parents arrived, and man the phones and the other staff would try to keep the kids calm and let them play.

As I sat down to watch. I watched in horror as the first tower fell. I was in shock, later I would learn that my little 4 year old’s uncle was in tower two along with others from the same engine.

I won’t ever forget. Those somber minutes, hours, days, and weeks that followed. The children who woke up from a nightmare at naptime and carrying them down the hallway in my arms and praying rosaries over their cots as they slept. There was not a one of them who was not touched by this event.

We had to postpone the community helpers unit we had just started, for later that spring. We concintrated on weather, animals, bugs, and such.

I will never forget the long hours I spent before Jesus in adoration giving a weeping one a tissue. Or the smell of the air when the poor air alerts and ash weather reports were aired on the morning radio news as I drove to the school in the morning. There wasn’t an adult among us who didn’t know what that ash could be.

I won’t ever forget the man hunts that began in our city streets when it was identified that some of the men in the sleeper cell were living in our area. It wasn’t until later that we found out they were the terrorists who “piloted” the planes into the tower. I will never forget the strange illness that many of us came down with three weeks later. That took several rounds of antibiotics. Or the nurses faces when I came to the clinic with the symptoms back. Or the doctor who came to the triage room and said that they had just had a meeting with homeland security. And they issused a three day monster pill that killed the bug and made me sick. I won’t forget the terror of our postoffice being shutdown because of dangerous ammounts of anthrax found.

With hope though, I will always remember the day our little fireman came back, with a big smile on his face, and his precious plastic hat. He said it all. Dispite his loss he told his friends everything will be ok. Jesus said they are all with him including his uncle. But I tell you we had to get more fireman’s hats for our dress up station. If you asked a child within the commuter zone what they wanted to be when they grow up it was to be a fireman or police officer. They all wanted to be heros.

I will remember later that spring, the week after our community helpers unit. We had an accident with a electric griddle while we were cooking out green eggs and ham for Dr. Suess day. The smoke alarms went off and the big latter firetruck showed up. Many of that crew had spent weeks in the pit. It did all of our hearts good to see the children running up to hug their heros. They all got a tour of the truck and another run of the sirens. And then we sat down and had green eggs and ham. Those firefighters were uplifted and healed a little by our little ones’ laughter.

Whenever I see or talk to a service man or women, police, nurses, doctors, or firefighters I always make a point to thank them for their service. God bless all who serve others and may the Lord give us peace to make sure those lives lost were not in vain. So many good people died that day. Many hearts still ach, I know my dose still. I cried quite a bit to post this.
 
I was 24 and it was just before my wedding (in October). I was living with a housemate and had returned from somewhere unimportant and turned the TV on just before I went to bed (it was around 10.30pm or a bit later). The first tower had been hit, I didn’t register what it was so I flicked through all channels. Every one of them had the same picture. I realised it wasn’t a glitch, but something big had happened.

I watched by myself as the second tower was hit and they fell. I think I rang my fiance to tell him, but I can’t remember.

We were booked to go to Bali for our honeymoon, and were scared to go. We did go, and a year later, the places we had been there were bombed in a terror attack.

It took a long time to feel safe again, but I do feel safe now, and I think that being in rural Australia has something to do with it. I have no idea what it would be like to live in the US at that time or now.
 
Bryan, Texas

I was getting ready for work and the first plane had hit. I was watching Fox News. They had a commentator on who was saying not to panic; don’t jump to conclusions that this is anything bigger than a horrible accident. Then the second plane hit. You could see on his face that this was no accident.

Then I was at work and we were waiting on a lawyer to appear for a hearing (I work as a court reporter in a courtroom). The lawyer came in and apologized for being late but that she was watching what was happening at the Pentagon. I remember thinking, “Silly. It wasn’t the Pentagon. It was the twin…” That’s the exact moment that it really hit me how huge this terrorist attack was. I mean, I got it with the twin towers, but that just kind of sealed it for me.
 
I was at work, at my north-facing window desk on the top floor of the old headquarters building of one of our government’s less popular agencies. The word spread, someone turned the branch office’s TV on (CNN), and from then on not a lot of work got done, until the point that we were all sent home.
 
I was driving to work (would have been 6:30am or 7:00am Arizona time when the first plane hit) and heard a news bulletin on the radio. I would have been listening to Howard Stern, but it was at a commercial break, so I had another radio station on. When I got to work, everyone had their computer to cnn.com and the TV was on in the breakroom. (Around 9:30 or 10:00am Arizona time, the news got worse and several people were crying. I remember a co-worker saying, “Life as we all know it just changed today,” or words to that effect. Everyone was sent home early. The mall was closed, several businesses were closed - even the movie theater at the mall was closed.

I remember there was a vigil at a nearby hotel that afternoon, near Metrocenter, and an evening vigil near ASU. I remember there was a U2 song the alt-radio station was playing that had 911 emergency calls dubbed over the music.
 
I was working a temp job for a large insurance company, doing data entry stuff.

I remember how bright and sunny was that day, with an impossibly blue sky.

I was at my desk getting ready to go on the computer, when a lady I recently met (she lived in the same small town as the organist at my then-parish) came by and said to me, ‘I just heard that a plane crashed into the World Trade Center.’ ‘In New York City?’ I asked. I had a phone next to me, so I called my mother. ‘Ma,’ I said, ‘turn on the TV, something’s going on in New York. A plane crashed into the World Trade Center.’ I thought it was an accident.

But when the second plane hit, and then we heard about the attack on the Pentagon, we found out it wasn’t an accident-America was under attack!

I didn’t know at the time that all the desk computers were tuned into the Internet, so nearly everyone was watching it ‘live’, as it was happening.

Another co-worker was upset because her son was an airline attendant with [now-defunct] TWA. She was trying to get in touch with him after all the airspace in the US was shut down. Eventually she heard from him-he was on the ground, safe in the Midwest.

I forgot when I heard about the crash of Flight 93 in Shanksville, PA. But I did hear ‘live’ on the radio which a supervisor had in his cubicle, the collapse of the Twin Towers. I remember the voice of the late ABC anchor Peter Jennings reporting on that.

It was around 11:30 when the announcement came over the PA system that the building was going to close; with NYC on lockdown, no work was coming up from there. So we all left-I remember it took a long time to get out of the lot, with all the traffic.

As I drove, I switched my car radio from my usual classical FM station to an AM news one. I heard ‘as it happened’ an interview with a tearful NYC woman looking for her husband who was missing from the WTC. Suddenly, her tears of sorrow turned to tears of hysterical joy when her husband suddenly materialized, weary and dust-covered,but alive! She apparently threw herself into his arms; and when the female reporter asked him, ‘All you all right?’, he replied quietly, ‘Yeah-I’m all right’, and then he and his wife went off. The reporter wisely shut up and asked no more questions. I was crying by then.

I stopped at our Adoration Chapel and prayed the Chaplet of Mercy for all who had died. Then I stopped at a local KFC, since I left the office before lunch. I think there was a TV on, so those in the restaurant watched everything in silence. I remember that my car was stuck in the drive-through, and I couldn’t get it out right away! :o

I eventually got home, and as I watched the TV coverage with my mother and my little dog ‘Tia’, the enormity of it hit me right then and there. We had the TV on for most of the rest of the day, and for many days after.

I’m so very sorry for your loss, Lady Marchmain. I’m sorry for all those who innocently died on that horrible day ten years ago, just going about their daily business and routines.

I grieve for the valiant firemen and policemen, who rushed to the Towers to save lives, and then lose them as they [the Towers] fell. I think of the brave passengers and crew on Flight 93, who fought back against the terrorists and kept the plane from crashing into the Capitol or the White House in Washington, DC. Heroes and Heroines, all!

And I still have anger in my heart towards the Islamofascist fiends who perpetrated this atrocity! ‘Islam is a religion of peace’…HA! NO WAY!
 
9/11 Remembered
9/11: The 25 Most Powerful Photos
Commentary of Photo 4

“Getty photographer Spencer Platt’s picture of a crowd in Lower Manhattan watching the twin towers burn captures, in one instant, the profound disbelief that held sway in the city and around the world – a disbelief that inevitably turned to mingled rage, grief, and fear as the scale and the nature of the attack on the country gradually became clear. Here, in a sense, is a portrait of the terrorists’ true target: young and old, men and women, civilians of countless races and, no doubt, countless creeds who were, mysteriously, spared, only to bear witness.”

Source Link
 
I’m so sorry for your loss, Lady Marchmain. On 9/11/01, I was 19, and asleep. My mom called at about 8ish (Missouri time) and told me to turn on the TV and get back with her. She said she heard at work that a plane had hit the WTC, and she wanted more info. I yelled to my brother to wake up (we still shared a room back then) and flipped on the TV in time to watch the second plane hit. Throughout the morning, I kept in contact with both parents as I watched the horrifying news. We have family in NY. I was born there and lived my first ten years there.
During one phone call with mom, she told me that my godmother worked in Tower 2, the South Tower. As I tried to figure out who to call to find out if she was ok, I watched that tower fall. An odd feeling came over me that I had never felt, and I knew that I had just witnessed her death.
The next few days were met with the realization that that initial feeling was true, and I believe it was six or seven months later when she was recovered from the wreckage. 9/11, to me, is a day that the world truley stood still. It was my generation’s Pearl Harbor, or JFK assassination, and I sometimes think how horrible it mst be for the generation that lived through all 3 of those dates.
On a positve note, on 9/11/02, I began dating the woman who would become my wife. So there is a bit of a positve thing there.
 
It was my day off from work and my husband was working from home. One of his friends called to tell us to turn on the news. I watched the news with my husband.

After the second plane when it became obvious that our country was under attack, I needed to see my children. I knew that they were safe but I need to see each of them with my own eyes.

I drove first to my daughter’s pre-school. She was 3 years old. I went into her classroom and gave her a big hug and kiss. It took a lot to let her go. I just wanted to keep hugging her and cry. I watched her play with the other children for a few minutes. The teachers were making phone calls to make sure their family was safe so they liked having the extra pair of eyes.

Then I drove to my boys elementary school. I went to my youngest son’s kindergarten class first. I just peaked in and watched him. I wanted to hug him but didn’t want to disrupt the class.

Stopped by my other son’s first grade class next. Again just watched him for a few minutes. Just needing to see that he was safe.

Then I headed over to my oldest boy’s third grade class. I had volunteered to help with a science experient so I was able to go in his classroom. I don’t even remember what the experiment was. I was just relieved to see that all my kids were safe. All the parents and teachers were obviously upset and a few of us had been crying but we tried to hide it from the children. It was tough.
 
TheRealJuliane said:
My older son was in the 5th grade, so you are 19 or 20. His class was going on a field trip to downtown Houston, and a bunch of us moms were sitting in the teacher’s lounge chatting before we were to drive the class downtown. One of the staff came in and told us, but they couldn’t get a picture on the only TV, just audio but not good audio. I got enough to tell that 2 planes had hit and that others were expected. I got scared that the refineries would be a target. That would have crippled us for far longer than knocking down the WTC did. I couldn’t figure out what I should do, take my sons (5th and 2nd grade) home with me, or let them stay at school. I was afraid that if something happened, I wouldn’t be able to get to them.

But eventually, I decided that taking them home would cause them too much alarm, because I was panicked. So I left them at school and went home, and saw the towers fall live.

My husband was out of town at a convention and since he drove there, he brought several people back to the area, but he didn’t get home until later in the day. And when he did come home, he wasn’t much comfort. He said something like, “Now you know what the rest of the world goes through.” I was in shock, but his manner was pretty detached. A gulf opened up between us that day, and it’s never been bridged. We see life very differently, even apart from our religious viewpoints.

I didn’t really tell my kids what had happened, for quite a while.

The person that I was on 9/10/2001 died when those towers fell. I can’t go back to that mostly happy, optimistic person. I struggle with hatred and bitterness. It’s hard for me to believe that my sons are going to live anything like my mostly happy childhood. Yet I can’t poison them and their hope for the future.
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Always hold out for hope! Never forget that. I didn’t truly grasp what happened that day completely or even in the months that followed. It took me a while for me to truly understand what completely happened and I also learned more about the state of the world that day and later on. It is never been a perfect world since the Fall of Adam.

There are many bad people in the world, and that is a fact. But I also personally believe that all people are good deep inside. Some have lost their way through the things of the world unfortunately. Just remember Chirst. Through him, all things are possible and it is through him one can become joyful at how one looks at the world, even in its current gloomy state. In the end, Chirst will come again and rule this world. I wait for that day with joy. As should any faithful Catholic.

Don’t lose hope! Always remember Him. Everything in Him. The rest will simply fall into place sooner or later.

Here is a song I like that fits perfect in this area: youtube.com/watch?v=Bk9vqMdWZdM&feature=channel_video_title

It gives you a smile at the good things in life one has been blessed with. The little things.

Hope you like it.

In Chirst,

Art321
 
I was driving past Dulles Airport on my way to work. I was listening to the news, but it wasn’t really evident what was happening.

When I got to work, I went to my 2nd floor office. It was about 20 feet from a two story atrium with a big TV. People were on the ground floor and the second floor balcony mesmerized by the TV.

It got really awful when the report of the plane hitting the Pentagon came on. We were about 30 miles away, but we all knew people that worked there - the company had a defense business as well - our people could have been there, so people freaked.

My son, whose birthday is Sept 11, was on a fieldtrip to see a classical symphony at Wolftrap (National Park for the Performing Arts). My wife and I were frantically trying to find where the buses were and trying to determine what to do. Turns out the buses were turned around and they all went back to school. The school system told us to leave the kids in school, but there was a steady stream of parents signing their children out.

I left work by 10:30 or 11 - we were all just shocked. By then, Dulles was quiet with no takeoffs or landing. One of our parishioners was killed at the Pentagon and numerous had their stories of survival.

It was part of a long series of tragedies that seared the psyches of my son and his classmates - a beloved teacher who killed her husband in a fit pf post-partum psychosis, the DC sniper, a classmate killed in a boating accident, 9-11, the Gulf War. It was a tough time. They had a really hard childhood.
 
I was in 5th grade. Since I lived in the Central Time Zone, it was still homeroom time, if I remember correctly: classes had yet to start for the day, or if they had, it was the first class of the day. Either way, I was in Mrs. Allen’s room. Another faculty member came in and told her the news, and she announced it to us.

I wasn’t sure what to make of it. I’d never heard of the World Trade Center, and I wasn’t really sure how big a deal it was. I remember our speculations on how frequent terrorist attacks would become: since I lived in St. Louis, there was a rumor in my class that the St. Louis Arch would be the next target hit (why terrorists would attack a fairly unimportant monument such as the Arch, I’m not sure). Since we had no sense of scale, we thought the Arch would crush our city if it fell (even though we were probably 20-30 miles away). I was also fairly certain that World War III was just around the corner.

One of my friends felt really sick, and I had to walk with him to the nurse’s office. It turns out he had a family member, an uncle or cousin, in New York City that day. Thankfully, the family member was uninjured, but my friend became sick with anxiety wondering what had happened to him.

I remembered seeing many teachers watching the news on TV whenever they were not teaching. In one 8th-grade classroom, all the students were just watching the news with their teacher (Requiescat in Pace, Mr. B).

My school started a tradition of praying an all-school rosary every Tuesday in remembrance of 9/11. We had a memorial Mass and such in the days immediately following. One involved handing out red, white, and blue hearts with the names of victims for us to pray for.

I remember watching the news when I got home and not really understanding what was happening. As I said, I was only in 5th grade (so around age 10), and I didn’t know what the World Trade Center was. It was just a somewhat surreal time, and it’s interesting to think now how much our country was affected by the events of that day.

That’s what I recall of the flashbulb memory of that infamous day.
 
We were stationed at Ft. Hood, TX. Husband was in some required courses for his military career and wasn’t due on post until 10am that day. Our daughter was 2 years old and was just waking up. We were watching the Today show on NBC, normal morning routine and Matt Lauer was still reporting that they thought it was a small airplane that had crashed into the first tower. As we were watching the continued report, the second plane crashed into the second tower on live TV and instantly life changed. Hubby was immediately called into post, not sure what it all meant.

When the plane crashed into the Pentagon, Ft. Hood considered themselves a target. The post was immediately shut down, all active personal was on lockdown and I then had to call every wife in on the Family Readiness Group phone tree to alert them of the status. Some wives had NO idea what had even happened as they had turned on cartoons for their kids when they awoke and that was the only tv they had seen all morning. I think that was the most unusual thing I had to do, to explain to other wives over and over again, we as a nation were under attack and not really knowing at the moment what that meant for us at Ft.Hood.

I also remember a panic at the gas stations that night, hubby was released later in the day to come home but needed to fuel up and there was a run at the gas stations and the grocery stores because people panicked.
 
I was in college. I had a late morning class so i was sleeping in. I remember waking up to my answer machine as my mom was calling me. She said something about turn the tv on. I got up and then called her back and said “why do I care that the pentagon is on fire.” she said the pentagon is on fire? She then told me she was leaving her office as she worked in the bank of America sky scraper in Houston. I kept thing why is mom my over reacting about the pentagon?

Then the news flashed back to new York. I don’t remember how I felt as I watched them burn and then the replaying of the planes hitting. I saw them tumble and knew things wouldn’t be the same.

I then spent some time tracking down friends and family as my sister lived in DC and my best friend was in NYC. It was an odd feeling knowing that my brother the marine was guarding DC in the days after. My brother guarding my sister’s city…strange.

I think it hit me most when I travelled home two weeks after for the birth of my first niece. Walking through the airport and seeing the military with weapons was something new. The whole family made it home for my niece and it is still my favorite picture because I know what it meant for all of us to get together and that there was good in the world since we were celebrating a new birth, new life into the family.

(Selye ever 11 has many other meanings for me also because is 2008 hurricane ike was bearing down on Houston and my nephew was born on that day.)

It struck me this week that kids under the age of like 15 either weren’t born or don’t remember life before 9\11. how do we explain it them? How do you explain what life was like before? Is this our pearl harbor or where were you when JFK was shot story?
 
I was at work. Like most, I thought it was an accident at first. When the second plane hit, we all realized what was going on. I had a coworker in another office who had a friend who worked in one of the towers. He worked nights and the day shift never showed up to relieve him. We had a conference call going between the three of us and we could hear the alarms in the background. The other guy on nights with him left as soon as the first plane hit but he insisted on sticking around since he couldn’t reach his manager and he didn’t want to leave the office unattended. We pleaded with him to leave and he said that if it got any worse he would. We lost the connection with him shortly after that. I don’t know what sort of phone he was using–cell, landline, etc.–and looking back I don’t know how we kept him on that long (and, honestly, it could have been the second plane hitting that caused the line to drop–some of the events from that day are a blur). When his line dropped, my coworker and I both prayed that he took that as a hint to get out. We found out later that the guy who left first got home fine. My coworker’s friend never made it out.

I don’t think anyone in my office got any work done that day. There was a pretty steady stream of people leaving early as the day went on. I was told I had to stay until the end of my shift, even though all I did was bounce back and forth between the TV in the break room and my PC (I was one of the few people who had a semi-reliable internet connection all day). I also spent a good deal of the day on the phone with my wife. She was 7 months pregnant with our oldest daughter, and I was doing whatever I could to reassure her.

On the way home, the station I was listening to took a break to play the Star Spangled Banner. I’d held up fine all day, but when that started playing I had to pull over for a good ten minutes. I spent the rest of the evening comforting my wife and son and calling family and friends to make sure they were okay.
 
I was a junior in high school in September of 2001, only days into the new academic year. I remember sitting in third-period history, listening to a lecture from the teacher when the principal’s voice came over the PA system announcing that they had just received word a plane hit the World Trade Center in New York City. At first this had everyone thinking perhaps it was just an accident; I didn’t think much about it, believing maybe a pilot of a small, privately-owned plane had lost control and happened to crash into the building. It wasn’t until another announcement was made by the principal almost an hour later that a second plane had been flown into the other tower. From that point on, we knew there was something major going down across the Hudson.

The rest of the day was spent going through classes, but with radios tuned to stations from which we tried to glean any new information through the crackling static, brought on by the eventual collapse of the towers and the loss of the radio signal from the antenna atop one of the buildings. We also watched the TV screens, glued to the news channels as they covered the rapidly unfolding story; throughout the rest of the day was looped video of the second plane crashing in a ball of flames while the first tower was already burning. I remember seeing the news cameras capturing the smoke billowing out of both towers, which had been hit on the upper floors, before the first one eventually imploded and crumbled to the ground, followed a short time later by the second. I recall going home from school feeling numb, one question at the forefront of my thoughts: Why?

A candelight vigil was held that night, and it seemed like the whole community came together to share the sadness, the numbness, the feeling of powerlessness that resulted from the horrific events that took place earlier in the day. Of course, the flights that also went down into the Pentagon building and a field in Shanksville, PA were just as tragic, since they, too, were hijacked by radical Islamic terrorists; however, being from New Jersey, the attack on the World Trade Center hit closest to home. That day, all of us asked the same question…Why?
 
I had just started undergrad and was only a few weeks into my first year classes when it happened. It was an early day for me—I had class that morning, so I was up and in the campus center, which was mostly empty at that hour. I remember walking into the center, picking up a bagel and starting to walk towards the cashier when I noticed something strange. The radio playing in the background: instead of easy listening or classic rock, tense, spoken voices emerged from the speakers. I couldn’t make out what they were saying over the noise from the kitchen, but I knew something was happening. It felt like one of those cinematic moments when the character realizes that something is terribly wrong and the camera zooms in close to her wide-eyed face. Startled, I placed my bagel back onto the counter and rushed back to my dorm.

When I reached my dorm room, my roommate was already gone and most of the hall was either gone or still sleeping. My TV wasn’t even set up yet—we were still waiting on an issue with the cable connection. I searched my still-packed boxes for my radio and managed to pick up the live broadcast…from New York City…the twin towers…what was happening? I was so confused…something hitting the tower? The tower collapsed? I froze, trying to picture this…collapsed? Collapsed?? How? Did it fall over? What on earth was going on?

I heard shuffling on my hall. It was our RA. He emerged sleepily from his room, seemingly unaware of what was going on. “Did you hear this?” I asked. “Something about the World Trade Center…collapsing?” “Hm? Collapsing? What are you talking about?” he replied, still half-asleep. “I heard it on the radio…do you have a TV set up?” “No, not yet.”

I called a friend that I had met during orientation. Her roommate had a TV. I made my way across campus, joined a room full of somber, tearful teens and finally saw everything.

P.S.:
Tantum_ergo said:
… unless people here are traveling around in the Tardis…
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Yay, fellow Catholic Whovians! 👍
 
Dearest fellow Catholics,

Thank you for sharing your 9/11 stories with me. I am praying at the times each plane hit, when the towers collapsed and will be in prayer all day today. Your stories of course, moved me to tears over and over and over. It seems I will never cry enough to soothe the pain of that day 10 years ago. I don’t think we can hear these stories enough, so please keep telling them.

In Mass last night, the 1st reading was an exhortation on forgiveness, and then the Gospel was Jesus’ answer to Peter’s question on forgiveness. I sat there struggling not to break down, for I had never fully understood Jesus’ parable about the ungrateful servant. “Forgive us our trespasses, AS WE FORGIVE THOSE WHO TRESPASS AGAINST US” were just words I have spoken at the end of the Lord’s prayer.

I have a long way to go, but last night was a first step toward healing. My cold and bitter heart was chipped and cracked to hear of God’s mercy for me and my own selfish response to others. Please pray for me and for others whose hearts have been so frozen with anger and hatred. God bless each of you,and your families and friends. May God have mercy on all the souls who perished that day 10 years ago.
 
I’m British and was 9 years old 10 years ago.

I remember being in Primary school, when the Head Teacher suddenely walked in with a face as white as chalk. She rarely ever came into the classrooms herself, so I knew that something was “wrong” but I suspected that she was coming to give somebody into trouble. Instead she asked for our teacher to come outside, because something shocking had happened and she must come to her office with all the other teachers and watch it on TV.

Everybody in my class started whispering, wondering what might have happened. Of course, now I know that the Head Teacher didn’t want to alarm us because we were only children. Our teacher was gone for a long time, and we all knew by then that something was really, really wrong. When she came back, she was in tears and dismissed us very rapidly.

When I walked outside, I got into my dad’s car and my elder brothers (In secondary school) where there. They immediatly told me to be quiet. My father and brothers all looked deathly white and were covering their mouths in shocks, listening with rapt attention to our car radio.

My dad told me that a plane had crashed into a tower in America.

When we got home, my grandmother, mother and grandfather were watching the TV and as soon as we walked I heard my mother screaming, “Oh my God! Oh my God!..”

I looked at the TV and saw a Tower in flame, with lots of smoke. It was horrendous. I was absolutely terrifed!

It was when I saw the Towers falling, one after the other, that it all really hit me.

My mother just screamed, “There are people in there! Jesus - there are people in there!”

That just said it for me. I was shaken to the core, and it was the most shocking thing I had ever seen in my entire life up until that point.
 
I was in Darwin, Australia assigned to the USS PELELIU LHA 5. I’m a Naval Officer and one of my collateral duties was Senior Shore Patrol Officer for the Amphibious Readiness Group (ARG (3 ships and their Navy personnel, embarked Marines, staffs etc). - responsible for arranging, scheduling and supervising the Shore Patrol teams and carrying out a recall of all Sailors/Marines if required. As well as coordinating with local law enforcement along with our NCIS agent.

I normally would sleep afternoon to evening and spend the night roaming between shore patrol teams and any incidents. When I got up to get ready the first person I met was a surgeon from an embarked medical team, he told me that some aircraft had hit the towers in NY, that there were rumors the Pentagon had been hit so I probably needed to check with the staff about doing a recall. Anyway there was some waffling but just prior to by leaving, the ARG Commander decided to recall everybody. I relayed that to the teams, and went to supervise/assist. (Go to more remote distant than the downtown district since I had a vehicle).

All the Sailors/Marines were already headed back. Every bar and nightclub had put the live coverage on their TVs. Everyone had seen what was happening and instead of getting in that last bit of partying or dancing or drinking- they had all realized that we would be needed somewhere to do what they had all signed up to do. Thousands of men/women just headed back without any official notice of a recall. A lot of the young men/women experiencing their first time in an overseas port, every reason to drag it out that little bit more- even if just to continue to watch the live news. I was incredibly impressed with our young Sailors/Marines being so committed to their mission. As I was checking nightclubs for stragglers and putting out the word that the recall was official, I saw the towers go down. A lot of Australians came up to me and expressed their shock, their condolences and their outrage.
 
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