Where were you on 9/11/2001?

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I was working my shift in a firehouse an hour north of NYC on the Hudson when the planes passed overhead. When the first plane struck we (like most I suspect) thought it was an accident. My wife, who at the time was in the Air National Guard full time called me after the second plane hit and I told her I’m calling my parents to pick our daughter up at school (her 5th grade teacher had the tv on and quickly turned it off). Both of our bases (I was a federal fireman at the time) were locked down so we didn’t see each other for almost a week.

I lost quite a few men who helped me during my carreer. Two people who used to work in my department had two different outcomes. One who I worked with before he went to FDNY passed when the towers came down. The other who went to FDNY before I got to the upstate department (but we knew each other) was the captain of the Miracle in the Stairwell crew ( news.yahoo.com/fire-chief-saved-by-9-11-good-deed-.html ). So this is a mix of emotions for me.

R.I.P. Richard “Bruce” VanHine of Squad 41.
 
SwizzleStick said:
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
Click to expand...
Yes, profound.
Thank you for link.
 
Digital_Blue said:
I was around 24 years old, living at home in the basement, unemployed at the time. I had been unemployed to that point for several weeks and I had been somewhat lazy in actively looking for a job.

So, early that morning of Sept. 11th, 2001, my basement door is violently opened by my father with him yelling down the stairs “SON!! GET UP HERE RIGHT NOW!!”. From my slumber I almost quite literally jumped out of bed with my heart beating, I thought “this is it, I’m probably going to get ‘the talk’ about living at home unemployed and not searching for a job”.

So I slowly walk up the stairs anticipating that I’m about to get completely berated, maybe even thrown out and soon as I got to the top of the stairs I saw my father sitting on his couch calmly completely focused on the television, not even acknowledging my presence.

I move into the room and look at what he was focusing on, the television, to see the smoking tower. He never said a word, I began to gather all the information off the television, from the verbal report, from the headlines scrolling at the bottom of the screen. A plane had (accidentally?) flown into the tower. I guess it could have been plausible, some pilot, mechanical or computer error. But within a minute I witnessed the second plane collide. Something was seriously wrong.

I sat next to the old man and watched the television in complete silence, seeing the entire event unfold. The people jumping from the towers, to the towers themselves collapsing.

After the second tower collapsed I walked out to the front porch and lit a cigarette and stared at the empty blue sky, my emotions just twisted and my thoughts were on the fact I knew at that very moment in time, the world I had lived in for the past 24 years would never be the same.
Click to expand...
Nose snorts, followed by hysterical laughter I’m sorry, you have a great story, but when you called your dad “the old man” I lost it because that’s what we call my dad. 😛
 
it’s eerie because the sunday before 9/11 (a tuesday), 60 Minutes had a feature about Bin Laden called “Why America Should Fear this Man” or something to that tune. my DH taped it for a current events class he was teaching…

anyway on the morning of 9/11 i was with patients in my office with the radio on. the other nurse practitioner had just stepped out to get some coffee from the cafeteria right next to our office. we heard the announcement of the first, and then the second plane. i said to her “i bet its that guy from 60 minutes!!!” since she was a very down to earth realist, she sort of rolled her eyes at me and laughed. little did we know…

i lived through the shuttle explosion but was in jr high at the time. this was so much more of an impact. obviously, Americans have changed, and our country will never be the same.

i pray for our safety all the time and feel like we’ve let our guard down alittle too much at this point. we’ll never be the same.

But I know that God was there that day- leading the firefighters into the building and helping them to rescue people, in the stairwells meeting the injured and welcoming them home,

He was with those who had to phone their spouses to tell them that they would never be home again. He held them up while they called, and held up the spouses on the other end when they heard the news.

He appeared to those who didn’t know Him before, and he showed them they way home. He smiled lovingly at those who DID know him and led them too…He was with every person on each of the 4 planes, with every prayer said, and with the pilots as they were overtaken.

He was with President Bush as he had to lead our nation and decide to go to war. He was with each of us as we stood in line to donate our blood, in our churches hearing every prayer in every language- English, and Arabic too.

He was with the Muslims who prayed with us and for us. He was with the priests lined up outside of the NYC hospitals administering Last Rites and He has been with us through our tears, our mourning, our new beginning and He was definitely with us today.

God’s peace to all of you today and every day…
 
twk001 said:
it’s eerie because the sunday before 9/11 (a tuesday), 60 Minutes had a feature about Bin Laden called “Why America Should Fear this Man” or something to that tune. my DH taped it for a current events class he was teaching…

anyway on the morning of 9/11 i was with patients in my office with the radio on. the other nurse practitioner had just stepped out to get some coffee from the cafeteria right next to our office. we heard the announcement of the first, and then the second plane. i said to her “i bet its that guy from 60 minutes!!!” since she was a very down to earth realist, she sort of rolled her eyes at me and laughed. little did we know…

i lived through the shuttle explosion but was in jr high at the time. this was so much more of an impact. obviously, Americans have changed, and our country will never be the same.

i pray for our safety all the time and feel like we’ve let our guard down alittle too much at this point. we’ll never be the same.

But I know that God was there that day- leading the firefighters into the building and helping them to rescue people, in the stairwells meeting the injured and welcoming them home,

He was with those who had to phone their spouses to tell them that they would never be home again. He held them up while they called, and held up the spouses on the other end when they heard the news.

He appeared to those who didn’t know Him before, and he showed them they way home. He smiled lovingly at those who DID know him and led them too…He was with every person on each of the 4 planes, with every prayer said, and with the pilots as they were overtaken.

He was with President Bush as he had to lead our nation and decide to go to war. He was with each of us as we stood in line to donate our blood, in our churches hearing every prayer in every language- English, and Arabic too.

He was with the Muslims who prayed with us and for us. He was with the priests lined up outside of the NYC hospitals administering Last Rites and He has been with us through our tears, our mourning, our new beginning and He was definitely with us today.

God’s peace to all of you today and every day…
Click to expand...
Thank you for this- 2 months after 9/11 I wrote something in my journal called God was There, but you captured what I had tried to say as a young 20 year old so much better than I could- even now. Well said.
 
I was in Japan and because of the time difference (13 hours ahead) it was evening here. I saw the first plane crash into the tower but though it was a terrible accident. My husband had worked late and was coming home very soon so I turned off the TV and made him dinner. We watched a video (can’t remember what) and we went to bed.
When I got up the next morning, I knew something was wrong as soon as I turned on the TV. All the regular programmes had been cancelled and the TV kept showing the two planes crash into the towers and the towers fall.
I was teaching in a high school as an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) at the time and went to school as usual. One of my colleagues, another ALT, was from the US, NC to be exact. She had stayed up all night watching CNN, was red-eyed from crying and lack of sleep. I expected the teachers to talk about what had happened with the students but instead, the teachers I worked with that day only said that it was an American problem and nothing to do with us. The day continued as normal with almost no mention of what had happened. When I got home I resumed watching what had happened and as the details can out, started to worry what the response to this would be - political, economic, military. I have relatives in the Middle East and was worried for them.
The TV coverage continued all week but there was still no reaction at school. Only the foreign community seemed concerned about it. As time went by, I became more and more shocked by what had happened and the lack of reaction here. My mother had said that there were Masses said in Ireland, the local fire station in my small hometown had collected donations for the families of the NY firefighters, the local high school held several fund raising events to help people in NY but here, nothing was happening and nobody seemed to care very much.
The following spring I took a vacation with some of my relatives from Syria. This is when I realized that it was so difficult for them when flying. As we got on the plane, we felt all eyes were watching us - 3 young women in their 20s with two men also in their late 20s and early 30s and 3 small children. Obviously a family going on holidays. We spent our vacation in northern Europe where people either went out of their way to be kind to us, or to avoid us completely.
I saw then that this was not only a US problem. This was a problem that had an effect on everyone. We were suspicious of one another, fearful, some filled with hate, others with sorrow, some trying to keep the peace. As the terrorist attacks continued - Madrid in 2004, London in 2007 - I was deeply saddened by what was happening. No, this was not a US problem. It was a problem we all shared.
My colleague returned to the US in the summer 2003. She said it was not the same country she had left in 2000. She still morns the country she grew up in and said her children’s childhoods have been very different from hers.
 
I had dropped my 3 children off at school that beautiful, blue sky morning and was having my second cup of coffee when my husband called from work and told me to put the television on, that a plane had flown into one of the Twin Towers. He must have heard it from someone that came into his office, because by the time he called and I turned on the set, I had to tell him (still on the other end of the line) that as I was watching, another plane just hit the other tower.

Although we were living in Maryland, I spent the first almost 40 years of my life in New York. I was and always will be a New Yorker. All of our families were and are still there. I felt relief that no one I knew worked in the Towers or the city, but still could not shake the grief of a great tragedy was flashing before our eyes. It was a most unbelievable event and there would be days when we would still have a fleeting moment when we would think, no, that couldn’t have happened. To see those buildings there one moment, burning and then to just have them tumble down the next was incomprehensible. The lives lost- irreplaceable, the number of people affected by loss of family and friends- uncountable.

As a child, I remember feeling safe in thinking that no one would ever attack our country. No one would ever dare. All that changed that day. For me, it was truly the day that the world changed forever. And I have never felt quite as safe as I once did.

I don’t remember much more about that day, and yesterday my daughter told me that yes, she remembers they had an early dismissal from school-she was in her first few days of 6th grade at the time. Now, she is a senior in college, and told me much to her horror, that when they discussed 9/11 in class recently, that there were some students that didn’t think it was such a big deal. Being the born in New Yorker that she is, she let loose on one girl about her less than sympathetic and ill-formed opinion. Her only response was “oh, let me guess–you are from New York?” To which my daughter answered “Yes, and damn proud of it!” ( Further discussion from the girl about how New Yorkers like to act as if it only happened to them. And you know she got schooled again from my daughter about why that just isn’t so…)

My family spent a good part of the morning watching all the documentaries about 9/11 that were on television. Ten years later, and the sobbing and tears came as easily as if it were just yesterday.
 
SwizzleStick said:
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
Click to expand...
Thank you, SwizzleStick, for the link.

Seeing the photos brought back a lot of memories of that day, one that none of us will ever forget.
 
barb_finnegan said:
Thank you, SwizzleStick, for the link.

Seeing the photos brought back a lot of memories of that day, one that none of us will ever forget.
Click to expand...
You are welcome.

It is a day I will remember always. Truthfully, it is one nobody should ever forget.
 
Long Island New York - Highway 495 expressway - listening to WBAB on the radio.

The radio station had a TV on monitoring news while they played songs and all of the sudden the DJ said OMG, a giant jet just flew into one of the towers… and he proceeded to say… those damn terrorists…

I was about 10 - 20 minutes from the office.

The radio stopped playing music they followed the news and were broadcasting the events…

As soon as I pull up in my parking spot, the 2nd jet hit the other tower.

Well so much went through my head because we had 2 high profile restaurants in the towers and a third one down below by Port Authority.

~ Let me mention that the restaurant down below by PA, was bombed in the 1993 bombing and was completely destroyed. God Blessed us then and we did not lose any employees. ~

Back to 9.11.2001

Listening to the radio, I had no idea where the plane(s) hit and it wasn’t until I walked into the building and there was chaos.

My field of expertise is Information Technology and my position with the company was Sr. Systems Managers for the nations hospitality restaurants - mainly all of their computers and point of sale devices which most of you would know as cash registers.

Speaking or typing about 9.11 makes me shake to this day. I’ll make my story short.

I had posted this in another 9.11 thread on here so I’ll just say the same thing.

I lost 37 friends and co-workers - all perished - They were the morning prep crew & management.

They were on one of the floors where the first jet hit.

If this jet would have hit the towers say around noon into the afternoon, our loss would have been in the 100’s.

I lost 6 neighbors.

My mom’s best friend lost her only 2 sons.

As soon as the second tower collapsed - our building shut down and they sent us all home.

Returning back to work the next day - you can see the smoke from Manhattan from Long Island, and the stench - let me tell you about the stench.

It was horrible - you actually smelled the fumes and what we called “death” for days and days. Apparently the winds were blowing towards east.

Never in my lifetime or my co-workers life time did we ever smell anything like that.

But my story does not end here.

My husband ( now ex ) was suppose to fly out Logan airport - Boston - and he was to be on the flight that hit the tower.

However, there were delays in meeting with his clients so he had to change his airline tickets and trip all togther.

My husband flew into Logan the same time Mohamad Atta (et al) were flying out.

I still have not gotten over any of this.

I see my mom’s best friend at Church and dear Lord, this poor woman who lost both of her sons on 9.11, walks around in a lost state of mind.
 
Gearoidin said:
I was in Japan and because of the time difference (13 hours ahead) it was evening here. I saw the first plane crash into the tower but though it was a terrible accident. My husband had worked late and was coming home very soon so I turned off the TV and made him dinner. We watched a video (can’t remember what) and we went to bed.
When I got up the next morning, I knew something was wrong as soon as I turned on the TV. All the regular programmes had been cancelled and the TV kept showing the two planes crash into the towers and the towers fall.
I was teaching in a high school as an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) at the time and went to school as usual. One of my colleagues, another ALT, was from the US, NC to be exact. She had stayed up all night watching CNN, was red-eyed from crying and lack of sleep. I expected the teachers to talk about what had happened with the students but instead, the teachers I worked with that day only said that it was an American problem and nothing to do with us. The day continued as normal with almost no mention of what had happened. When I got home I resumed watching what had happened and as the details can out, started to worry what the response to this would be - political, economic, military. I have relatives in the Middle East and was worried for them.
The TV coverage continued all week but there was still no reaction at school. Only the foreign community seemed concerned about it. As time went by, I became more and more shocked by what had happened and the lack of reaction here. My mother had said that there were Masses said in Ireland, the local fire station in my small hometown had collected donations for the families of the NY firefighters, the local high school held several fund raising events to help people in NY but here, nothing was happening and nobody seemed to care very much.
The following spring I took a vacation with some of my relatives from Syria. This is when I realized that it was so difficult for them when flying. As we got on the plane, we felt all eyes were watching us - 3 young women in their 20s with two men also in their late 20s and early 30s and 3 small children. Obviously a family going on holidays. We spent our vacation in northern Europe where people either went out of their way to be kind to us, or to avoid us completely.
I saw then that this was not only a US problem. This was a problem that had an effect on everyone. We were suspicious of one another, fearful, some filled with hate, others with sorrow, some trying to keep the peace. As the terrorist attacks continued - Madrid in 2004, London in 2007 - I was deeply saddened by what was happening. No, this was not a US problem. It was a problem we all shared.
My colleague returned to the US in the summer 2003. She said it was not the same country she had left in 2000. She still morns the country she grew up in and said her children’s childhoods have been very different from hers.
Click to expand...
All compassion to you and your middle-eastern relatives.
Because of your post, I’ll say something I’ve avoided saying.

It stuns me to see that on a Catholic website, several posters (pages back) have
stated that their immediate anger was toward Moslems. I’m so saddened by such
thinking. Any adult should know that the heart of the matter was terrorism and the
perpetrators were terrorists. To blame an entire religion for the actions of a few is
something that I can’t comprehend. It’s similar to blaming the entire Catholic Church
for the crimes of some priests.

Finger-pointing at a religion as the “problem” when the problem is outlaws within
a religion is truly upsetting to me - and I think it should be to all people of faith.
 
catharina said:
All compassion to you and your middle-eastern relatives.
Because of your post, I’ll say something I’ve avoided saying.

It stuns me to see that on a Catholic website, several posters (pages back) have
stated that their immediate anger was toward Moslems. I’m so saddened by such
thinking. Any adult should know that the heart of the matter was terrorism and the
perpetrators were terrorists. To blame an entire religion for the actions of a few is
something that I can’t comprehend. It’s similar to blaming the entire Catholic Church
for the crimes of some priests.

Finger-pointing at a religion as the “problem” when the problem is outlaws within
a religion is truly upsetting to me - and I think it should be to all people of faith.
Click to expand...
I’ve been reading along with the entire thread and I don’t remember seeing that. Could you please point out the posts that I missed?
 
jakasaki said:
Long Island New York - Highway 495 expressway - listening to WBAB on the radio.

The radio station had a TV on monitoring news while they played songs and all of the sudden the DJ said OMG, a giant jet just flew into one of the towers… and he proceeded to say… those damn terrorists…

I was about 10 - 20 minutes from the office.

The radio stopped playing music they followed the news and were broadcasting the events…

As soon as I pull up in my parking spot, the 2nd jet hit the other tower.

Well so much went through my head because we had 2 high profile restaurants in the towers and a third one down below by Port Authority.

~ Let me mention that the restaurant down below by PA, was bombed in the 1993 bombing and was completely destroyed. God Blessed us then and we did not lose any employees. ~

Back to 9.11.2001

Listening to the radio, I had no idea where the plane(s) hit and it wasn’t until I walked into the building and there was chaos.

My field of expertise is Information Technology and my position with the company was Sr. Systems Managers for the nations hospitality restaurants - mainly all of their computers and point of sale devices which most of you would know as cash registers.

Speaking or typing about 9.11 makes me shake to this day. I’ll make my story short.

I had posted this in another 9.11 thread on here so I’ll just say the same thing.

I lost 37 friends and co-workers - all perished - They were the morning prep crew & management.

They were on one of the floors where the first jet hit.

If this jet would have hit the towers say around noon into the afternoon, our loss would have been in the 100’s.

I lost 6 neighbors.

My mom’s best friend lost her only 2 sons.

As soon as the second tower collapsed - our building shut down and they sent us all home.

Returning back to work the next day - you can see the smoke from Manhattan from Long Island, and the stench - let me tell you about the stench.

It was horrible - you actually smelled the fumes and what we called “death” for days and days. Apparently the winds were blowing towards east.

Never in my lifetime or my co-workers life time did we ever smell anything like that.

But my story does not end here.

My husband ( now ex ) was suppose to fly out Logan airport - Boston - and he was to be on the flight that hit the tower.

However, there were delays in meeting with his clients so he had to change his airline tickets and trip all togther.

My husband flew into Logan the same time Mohamad Atta (et al) were flying out.

I still have not gotten over any of this.

I see my mom’s best friend at Church and dear Lord, this poor woman who lost both of her sons on 9.11, walks around in a lost state of mind.
Click to expand...
I am so sorry, so very sorry.
 
catharina said:
Thanks so much.
I have no appetite for
reading those very few posts again.
Click to expand...
It’s human nature to do so.

I am one of them - ever since that day, whatever respect I had for islam went out the window and I am still the same way today.

Not very Christian like I suppose, say what you want to say!

I visit many and I mean many of islamic forums on the net. I have yet to read one nice statement from muslims regarding Christianity.
 
jakasaki said:
**It’s human nature to do so. **

I am one of them - ever since that day, whatever respect I had for islam went out the window and I am still the same way today.

Not very Christian like I suppose, say what you want to say!

I visit many and I mean many of islamic forums on the net. I have yet to read one nice statement from muslims regarding Christianity.
Click to expand...
I’ll agree with you - “not very Christian-like.”
The point of our faith is to rise above human nature.
God gives us the grace to do so. The rest is up to us.
We are to be peacemakers. There is no doubt about that.
 
jakasaki said:
I lost 37 friends and co-workers - all perished - They were the morning prep crew & management.

They were on one of the floors where the first jet hit.

If this jet would have hit the towers say around noon into the afternoon, our loss would have been in the 100’s.

I lost 6 neighbors.

My mom’s best friend lost her only 2 sons.

My husband flew into Logan the same time Mohamad Atta (et al) were flying out.

I still have not gotten over any of this.

I see my mom’s best friend at Church and dear Lord, this poor woman who lost both of her sons on 9.11, walks around in a lost state of mind.
Click to expand...
I am so sorry that all of this has touched your life, jakasaki.
I have learned that some people will never fully understand others people’s pain. I am so sorry for yours. May God bring you His peace.
 
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