Posted on 09/10/2007 6:41:30 PM PDT by Milwaukee_Guy
Might be a good time to revisit how we all heard about the the attack on 9/11 and how we reacted to the darkest day in American history.
What emotions were strongest for you on that day?
How did you find out? Did you stay at work? Did you go Home? Who did you call?
I started work at 7:00 am CDT. Went to my shop office and was busy checking out how the night shift did and what the latest production schedule required that day. I didn't turn my desk radio on because things were a little busy.
Phone rings and it's a call from my younger brother. He never calls me at work. Something has to be wrong...
Brother - "Two planes hit both of the World Trade Towers in New York."
Me - "What?"
Brother - "Both World Trade Towers are on fire. Both were struck by airplanes"
Me- "Both? Two airplanes?"
Brother - "Yep. The second tower was hit just a minute ago. I actually saw it live!"
Me- "This is straight out of a Tom Clancey or Dale Brown novel. This is like a bad movie."
Brother - "Get to a TV, you won't believe your eyes."
Me - " They actually did it this time."
My next thought was how do I calmly and factually inform the shop and my family? I put my thoughts together and started passing the word...
9/11 Ping!
I was enroute to work, a very short drive. I had just left my house and checked the news and FR just before leaving. By the time I got to work, the 1st plane had hit. I sat at work at my desk monitoring the FR thread.
I was in college...the phone woke me up, and my roommate answered. I will never forget his first words...
“Big planes?”
Anger!!
Was headed out the door to Mass before we knew it was really a terrorist attack. Forty minutes later we all knew and hurried home to see the coverage. Later that day we found out a member of our parish in Missouri, who happened to be at the world trade center that day, was killed by falling debris.
If you’re talking about 9/11/73, I was cheering the news of Augusto Pinochet’s coup d’etat that brought down Chile’s red regime led by Salvador Allende.
I was driving across town on I-394 to pick up some items from a vendor. I was listening to a local morning show and they said there was a fire at the World Trade Center and had no idea an aircraft had hit it. By the time I got to my destination the second tower had been hit and it was obvious what was going on. The people I was there to see had no idea anything was going on until I told them. By the time I got back to my office the Pentagon had been hit, and it was plain we were at war.
Nashville, after the first and before the second. Woke up to news of the attack and headed out I-24. Aircraft were already ordered down and the sky was full of planes coming in. I was super pissed and new it was the Islamo-Facists. I left work when the south tower fell and decided to be home to try and understand the gravity. Work was not possible for anyone.
I was in my third period English class in my third year of high school (five total). My friend came into class late and told the class that two planes crashed into the World Trade Center buildings.
That was when I found out.
I was at work in the heart of downtown Cleveland, Ohio. I went outside at 10:00 a.m. for a break. I saw about 5-6 passenger jets heading toward the airport one right after another. I said to my friend who was with me, “Something’s up. They’re making these planes return to the airport.” When I returned to my office about 10 minutes later, I learned what had happened.” I said out loud, “Bin Laden.” My “know-it-all” boss replied, “Let’s not accuse someone before we know for sure.”
On Free Republic.
Reading FR when the first plane hit. We were the first with the story
I was at home, homeschooling my son (13 yrs. old) and my mom called to say that they were watching tv and a small plane had flown into the WTC tower. We turned on the tv and were watching in time to see the second plane come into view behind the building and slam into the other tower. At that point I realized it was terrorism.
I was at work, working for a MUSLIM from Pakistan !!!!
Can’t give details now...no time...maybe later.
Sounds like a bleeder.
I remember hearing something on the radio news when my alarm clock went off about a plane crashing in NYC, but thought it was a small plane and didn’t think it was anything big. Then later I watched the news on TV while eating breakfast before going to work. The media was still confused about what exactly had happened, but they were starting to say it may have been a large airplane. On my way to work, I heard on the radio that another plane hit the WTC, and also one at the Pentagon. I called hubby on my cell phone and told him about it. By then we knew something big was going on.
At work, we had a TV on, and of course I was reading FR. The moment that really stands out for me is watching the TV when the towers fell. We were all in disbelief. None of us got much work done that day. We all left at about 3:00 in the afternoon. There was some comfort in being together watching it all unfold. But I was glad to get home. In the following days, I was afraid of more attacks, and felt uneasy about the fact that I worked in a downtown area.
What do you mean? :-)
I was teaching my first period English class.
A kid came back from the bathroom and said that a plane had crashed into the WTC. I laughed and said a teacher must be showing a Die Hard movie.
After a few minutes, I began to literally feel nauseous. I was thinking about recent terror training I’d attended in the Navy reserve, I also thought about how an FBI buddy of mine had been insisting for the last several years that the Muslims “were coming back. This is big.”
An announcement came over the loudspeaker and one of the worst days of my life began.
I was at home reading WorldNetDaily and a single short item appeared at the top that a plane had hit the WTC.
I was on the way to the airport, due to fly from Raleigh/Durham to Providence for a business meeting. My boss called my cell phone to tell me that I was not going anywhere. Spent the rest the day watching TV in disbelief.
You’re young yet very wise. In my Sophomore year I was informed around 2:30 over the P.A. that Reagan had been shot. You will never forget.
I was on a United Airlines flight that had just taken off from Seattle, enroute to Los Angeles. The pilot came on the intercom and indicated that for some unknown reason, he had been ordered by United flight control to divert to and land in Eugene, Oregon - which we subsequently did.
Only when we had landed and people started calling home using their cell phones did we know why we had been diverted. We went into the terminal and watched the towers collapse on TV.
I quickly rented a car and drove the rest of the way home - 14 hours.
Never heard that claimed before.
My brother and I are avid Tom Clancey and Dale Brown readers and we both new it was likely a terrorist event.
Before I could call my wife she called me and relayed that she too saw it live. Took her and her mom a minute to realize that it was not a preview of a movie but the real deal.
Our daughter was in third grade and at school. The next big question was, what do we do with her?
We agreed to watch events and not overreact by taking her out of school this early into the event. She went to a Catholic School in Milwaukee and we trusted the staff to take care of the kids.
I was in DC driving frantically down the Clara Barton from Bethesda to pick up Clint Jr at Capitol Hill Day School after I heard about the Pentagon crash.
I was getting ready to go to a grad glass when an aunt phoned telling me to watch TV. She said that one of the WTC building was struck by an aircraft. I turned to FNC and saw the plume of smoke billowing from one tower and a number of scenarios ran through my mind. Then, I watched as the second airliner headed for the other tower. Before the second aircraft stuck its target, I muttered outloud, “It’s those jihadist M*****f******!” When the the the second airliner hit its target, I lost all composure and started screaming (mostly obscenities). One of the very few times in my life when I cursed a solid “blue streak.” Then, there was the news of the Pentagon. At the point I became rather calm and thought, “We are really in it and it is time to bring pain to some very evil people.”
I was in Oakland getting ready to go to work installing a Radiology system at a hospital...I put on the news as I was getting dressed....I saw the first tower burning and called my wife in Texas to see if she was watching...we sat there in front of the TV, a half a nation apart, talking to each other on the phone for several hours.
Meadow Muffin
Getting my morning coffee at the grocery store. Got back into my truck. Listening to the morning sports show. As they broke for the top of the hour, they reported that a small plane had hit the WTC. They never came back to sports.
My second thought was to realize the magnitude of just how big the attack was. By the time the event had sunk in as a reality my phone began to ring. Relatives we had not heard from in years suddenly wanted to know where my entire family was located. Funny how some of those relatives who almost expected to hear that our sons were headed to the streets to protect them are now so antiwar.
Its not plain to the socialist SOB's that are in control of Congress.
The democrats are allied with the terrorists against the GOP and the miltary industrial complex.
I was in Alaska, living there.
I worked until 0130 on 9/11 and came home and fell asleep with the TV on.
I remember dreaming about Washington being attacked.
I woke up and saw what was going on.
I called my sister and said I might be gone for a while.
War is here, and I will be going.
I called work and they said we are ready and to come in at normal time.
I then went and gassed both vehicles.
I checked my ammo situation, I felt we were good.
I then woke my wife and told her what had happened.
It was weird, as I rarely put TV on in the morning. I had just come from taking my grandson to Kindergarten and usually my routine was to lay back down & catch a few more ZZZZZZ’s.
All I could think of when I saw it was “Oh MY GOD”! I knew right away it was an attack, no doubt in my mind! Too bad so many so-called Americans have forgotten so easily & have been dividing this country ever since!
I was in Las Vegas for the 30th anniversary Star Trek convention the week before. I flew back to Dallas on 9/10. The next morning I did not turn on the news and listened to CDs all the way to work. I didn’t know anything was happening until I got out of my car at work and somebody asked me if I knew what was happening. They mentioned a “plane crash” and nothing else. By the time I got to my desk, both towers had collapsed and everybody was watching CNN in a conference room in utter shock.
I’ve kept my boarding pass from that flight.
I had CNN up and saw that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. This was a just a few days after that lunatic had tried hang gliding from the Statue of Liberty. I figured it was a small plane carrying the same type of nut. Then I saw that a second plane had hit. And then I saw the holes and the smoke. And I knew.
You know how things stick in your mind? One thing I will always associate with 9/11 is that on my return flight from Japan just two days prior I had a small pair of scissors in my carry on. The air line in Japan took them away from me for the duration of the flight but in LAX I was able to carry them right on the plane with no problem. And believe me those blades were a lot larger then box cutters.
I guess people could have had that sense that the terrorists were coming. Did you have an immediate reaction to the Murrah building when it was targeted? We had been told since the 80’s it was just a matter of time.
I forgot to add, did anyone on FR think it was anyone but Al-qaeda?
Wondering if my cousin was working that day at his usual job in the Twin Towers … he was.
I heard the planes were hijacked, via someone at FAA ATC Islip who called the person one cube over — I checked FR, and there was the thread.
I thought it was some weird dream at first.
My boss is a lib, ex-Army transportation. She used to run the office like the Army until we all get fed up. She thinks no one is more knowledgeable and valuable than her. She was made humble a hard way.
One of the teachers came in and told me, a plane had hit one of the twin towers. I mentioned that it had happen before when a plane hit the Empire State Building.
She told me, "No, this was not an accident."
As I turned on the television in our classroom, the second plane plowed into the second tower. We watched it up until the pentagon got hit. That is when we got orders from the principal to turn off the televisions.
I should mention our school is about 10 miles from the 177 air force reserve station. It was those pilots who were trying to intercept any other planes heading into NYC. We heard the planes over our school as they were heading out and coming back throughout the whole day.
By the end of the school day, half of the kids in school had been picked up by their parents.
It was weird, every time we heard a plane go over we stopped what we were doing until the sound was gone.
One of the teachers in the school lost her son, who was on the 87th floor of the first tower. She got a call from London that night. Her son was on the phone to one of their offices in London when the plane hit. They told her they heard a scream and the phone went dead.
Another teacher had a sister who was suppose to be in the wing of the pentagon, but because that section was just remodeled, they had not moved back into her office.
I was in a meeting in Dallas. When I came out of the meeting, I saw all the cleaning folks gathered around a TV spanish station. I saw the smoke and fire, and figured it was another terrorist attack overseas. When I was at my desk, one of my coworkers came in and asked if I’d seen the attack. “Yeah.”
“They’re tracking down the planes, locked down the plant, and calling everybody.”
“Why call everybody?”
It turns out that 4 of my coworkers were on one of the planes that crashed into the twin towers.
I was in the bar of a hotel in Bangalore India, and saw CNN on the screen with the first tower smoking...called the attention of my other company people just before the second plane struck.
We aske the band to stop playing..and they objected..told them people were dying. They stopped.
We sat and watched to coverage.
After hanging around and seeing the towers collapse, I walked to the Village and tried to give blood at St. Vincents. They didn’t have enough bloodsuckers, so they bussed us over to Cabrini. In the meanwhile, I got really sunburned (I’m a redhead). I also borrowed a cell phone and called my wife, who told me that her best friend, who happens to be the god mother of my older daughter, was staying in the W Hotel in Union Square and that she had room for me.
So I got to stay in a luxury hotel room, with a woman who was not my wife, on her expense account. How’s that for a war story?
Our daughter is turning 6 today. She's the cutest, brightest, smartest little thing.
Not everything about that day was horrible.
I always checked Free Republic in the AM, even before turning on the TV...
..it was shortly after 7AM I think...and I told him FR said all the airplanes were grounded.
He thought I was kidding...
..we turned on the TV......when the first tower fell, we turned off the TV and sat there praying & crying.
A few days later we left for home....drove...from California to Florida.
ALL ALONG THE ROUTE HOME we saw American flags everywhere...
..people were very somber.
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