Posted on 09/10/2008 6:07:02 PM PDT by truthingod
I was in midtown Manhattan dialing my wife’s phone number in WTC 7 over and over. Six hours later she managed to ping my cell phone from a payphone off the FDR drive, while I was making my way to the Hoboken ferry.
It’s hard to remember today, but on that day, you thought everyone within 10 blocks was probably dead. I thought at least 50,000 were dead. As sad as it remains, it is amazing that more weren’t killed.
When it happened, my wife was getting coffee on the 45th floor. She heard the thud of plane one and saw debris falling. She headed straight for the exits — conditioned from the 90s WTC attack — and a walk down 45 floors. Once on the street, she wouldn’t look at the towers. A friend she met at the exit told her not to because bodies were falling.
We finally met up back in Hoboken at the Black Bear at around 6 p.m. and drank with about 200 other people staring at the TV. Then went to a friend’s place. Pretty much stayed up all night with the TV.
Hoboken was a sad scene for weeks after - a front-row view of that plume that hung around for days and all the “Have you seen?” posters on the telephone poles.
It’s very hard to look at any WTC pictures. And I pretty much have a cry reflex whenever I think about that day.
We should shrink the cells in Guantanamo and find another one of their sh*t holes to invade.
I asked her if it was like the small plane that went into the Empire State Building during the '40.
By her look I knew this was something very different.
As I turned on the classroom television the second plane was plowing into the the south tower.
We watched it for a little while but when they announced that the pentagon had been hit and several other planes were thought to be heading for Washington, we were given a directive to turn off the televisions.
Our school is located about 15 miles from the 177 air force reserve base. The same fellows who were sent to shoot down planes if necessary. We saw a few of the planes in the air that morning, and you could see that they were armed.
Ever time one of the planes went over our school, everyone in the room would stop what they were doing and waited to hear it go by.
Many parents came and picked up their children, including one of my students whose father was a pilot in one of those planes.
The principal went around to all the faculty, checking to make sure if they needed to leave because of family members who might have been in the towers or penatagon.
One of the teachers had a nephew who worked with Morgan Stanley. She remained in school, and was informed later that evening that he was probably dead.
He happen to be on the phone to London when the plane hit the building. Their London office called the family and told them that while he was talking suddenly there was a scream over the phone and then the phone went dead. (They never did find any of his remains.
Another faculty member, had a sister who worked in the pentagon. She should have been in the section that got hit, but had not moved into the new offices because the lighting was not acceptable to the admiral who was in the office.
I didn’t see the plane, because I was picking up my coffee cup, but I sure heard it. Then I heard a series of banging noises to the north a bit after it went by. I thought at the time that it was some idiot buzzing the city and that they were sonic booms.
A few minutes later the guy in the room next to me went down the hall banging on everyone’s door with a coathanger. I opened my door and asked him what was up.
He looked at me and in a typical New York manner said, “What’s the matter? Don’t you watch TV?” Then he continued down the hall saying everyone should evacuate to the street.
When I got down to the sidewalk, I walked over to the corner and looked north, and could see two fiery plane-shaped holes in the two towers. I immediately knew it was deliberate. One crash maybe could be an accident, but not two.
I thought about going up to help evacuate, but then decided I was probably a bit too old to be very useful. So I took the subway uptown to Washington Square, to work. I asked the token lady if the subway was running, and she said something like “Sure. Why not?” But I think I was alone on the platform.
So I rode north under the Trade Center, through a station that collapsed a couple of hours later when the towers fell.
I don’t watch TV, so it wasn’t till I got to the office that I saw the news reports, since everyone was glued to a TV set.
Thanks for sharing your 9/11-we all have one. Some of us really suffered that day with personal loss, but we all lost our innocence in a world that had grown a little too cold.
I went back to MY work.
A short time later I looked up and noticed a few machines had been shut down and abandoned and I did the same, wandering towards an area I thought someone might be,
I spotted a guy going into the office, and I followed.
10 or 12 of us were around a little 13" color TV in front of _____________'s desk and I saw the burning building.
"What the _____ ??"
__________ explained a plane had crashed into the WTC ... and ___________ had a serious, sort of concerned/worried look on his face.
_________ and I were the only vets in the place.
After about a half hour and the second crash ... I turned to ___________ and said ... "If we're open tomorrow, I'll see you then"
____________ said, "Go home and take care of your family"
On the way home, I heard about the Pentagon ..... Got home and turned on FOX and after some time, someone finally admitted that a plane had gone down in SW Pa. (I live in SW Pa.)
Now ... why did I use ___________ instead of a name?
_____________ is a reserve Speciel Forces and we two had discussed many times the danger X42 was to our nation and not long before Sept. 11, 2001 ... x42 had signed an EO that gave Shakey Reno the nation in the event of a national emergency.
Oh ... yeah ... and BTW ... the machine shop I worked at?
We turned gun barrels for private and gummint ( waiting for a huge .223 order to be approved, at the time), repaired and serviced long guns ... Muasers primarily.
The EO stated that shops like mine would be taken over by the gummint.
"So __________, if we're still independent tomorrow ... I'll be in."
______________ left the shop about 3 weeks later ... "retired", I was told.
Yeah ... right.
I was there - lost 22 friends and a girlfriend. All because I was across the street chatting with the coffee guy in his wagon - I survived.
I remember falling from the impact of the first plane and the glass of the store front behind me shattering. I remember debris falling from the sky like a Yankee ticker tape parade on Broadway.
I remember everyone watching from the street like it was a movie. I kept waiting for helicopters to try and land on the roof to get people out that way. I was there in 1993 too and that is what they tried to do when the bomb went off.
I remember someone say what if the building fell when it occurred to me to get the hell out of there. Phones wouldn’t work, cell phone wouldn’t work, no way to try and contact anyone...hoping that everyone I knew was alright.
I remember walking for miles, being numb, stopping in a church in the South Bronx after crossing over just to rest. I knew that the buildings had come down. I said a prayer and walked some more. I wasn’t the only one but there were others. I remember someone putting people in a gypsy cab and giving them rides so I took a ride the rest of the way home.
I remember people eyeballing me as I walked to my house, I couldn’t talk to anyone. I spent the next uncounted hours calling my girlfriend’s cell and home phone, talking to her parents, her friends looking for any news.
Life has gone on - I moved away from NY and am now in Florida. I went to my funerals, I even went to a funeral of someone who turned out to be located alive in a coma the following week. I went to funerals where there was only body parts to bury or simply a picture and some keepsakes.
Nothing was ever found of my girlfriend. We buried a memory. Although I found out how she died - I was reading a survivors story and this person mentioned seeing my girlfriend’s boss by name with “his assistant” (my girlfriend) actually get killed in the sky lobby when the second plane hit. Thankfully it seemed like she did not suffer long if at all. That was rough knowing that the hours spent calling and hoping on that day were in vain because it was already decided by God.
I keep Megan in my thoughts, I miss her and think of her often but more so around this time of year, I hope she is at peace!!
For Mary, Nicole, Patricia, Daphne, Rich, Cesar, Bill, Dick, Milly, Tina, Ed, Pat, Brooke, Terry, Stephanie, Linda, Lisa, Andrea, Frank, Molly, Tony, Tom and Megan please be at peace and God Bless!!
Wow!
I had just finished burying my dad on the 9th. We spent the 10th saying goodbye and packing for our plane trip home from KY to CA. We flew into Ontario Airport at 3AM on the 11th. We woke up that morning to Fox News. We saw the first building burning and then we saw the second plane fly into the second building. The rest is an emotional blur.
Dad had always had a sixth sense about him, and my brother and I seem to share it. That evening, and into the morning, on the plane was horrible. I had flown before many times, but for some reason I knew that we shouldn’t be flying. I knew that a plane was the last place any body should be. The stewardess knew that we were flying from a funeral and she helped with a couple bottles of whiskey. I knew deep down that something was going to happen and I had never felt that way on a plane before, not even on the previous flight.
I was working as a contractor at Redstone Arsenal. I was pulling into the parking lot when they said a small plane had hit the World Trade Center. By the time I got to my desk and saw the TV we all realized what was going on.
After the pentagon was hit, we started realizing that the flight plan to the airport was over the arsenal. I remember going out to the parking lot for a while just to look for planes. No one had any idea if the attacks were still going on if they had ended. They eventually sent all non essential personnel home. The rumors were going wild that patriot batteries were being shipped here to setup air defense.
Also during this time my wife was 7 or 8 months pregnant with our first child. My thoughts during the day was to get to her and bring her home from work. I was also thinking how much the world had changed, and what kind of world was I going to bing my child into.
After the 11th, that got me through the next few weeks was my faith in God, and seeing the outpouring of patriotism I witnessed during those next few weeks.
One more little note (I just got done re-reading my report—it’s been a while.) I still have the little am/fm radio I bought that day. That radio is the reason I made it home that day. I was able to keep tabs of the train system, and was very lucky to get home. I’ve been using the radio when I go out to walk the lake. I listen to Rush Limbaugh on it almost every day. Another tangible reminder. There’s nothing like physical evidence to keep you in touch with the past. Hard to believe it’s 7 years already.
Your loss is so real. Thanks so much for sharing your story with all of us as we each remember our own 9/11. Each story is our own, but each one is connected with real hurt and real pain.
Sure. Then, once I was let back into my apartment a few weeks later, I had to take a double detour to get down there from Penn Station.
But my oldest son had a closer call. He was supposed to give an economics talk at a breakfast meeting in the Trade Towers, but his plane came in very late the night before, so he decided to cancel. He was one of several people I know who decided for one reason or another not to go to the office that day. Another friend dropped his kids off at school because the wife was busy, and arrived there after the planes had hit.
Ever.
L
self-ping
Romans 8:28
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
Blessed be the name of The Lord. We don't always understand his purpose, but we know that all things He does are for good.
Sometimes that's very hard for us to comprehend. 9/11/01 was one of those times.
I rushed home and watched the second plane hit the other tower. I screamed out loud.
Later the reports were that there was a car bomb at the State Dept., (false) stuff happening on the mall etc..
After a while I couldn't take it anymore. I turned it off and went back to canning tomatoes, crying all the while.
That didn't last long, I couldn't help watching.
I spent the next few days in front of the TV. The news was on live, 24/7. No commercials.
My daughter was in the first tower (North) that was hit. I was home getting dressed to go out when my son called and told me to turn on the TV.
My daughter had just started working there and I didn’t know what floor she was on. I watched in horror. My phone was ringing and I was trying to make phone calls to relatives and friends. I couldn’t watch the screen. And then the second tower was hit and then the towers fell... We knew we had lost her.
She was later able to let us know she was OK by using a blackberry.
When my daughter talks about that day, she always mentions the feelings she had as she met the firemen coming up the stairs. She also talks about the injured people that were being carried down the stairs by the firemen and how they all moved aside for the injured to get by. She remembers their faces...
That night I remember watching TV and grieving for the families that were still searching for their missing loved ones and so thankful that ours was alive.
Anyone who was in the city in the ensuing weeks will remember seeing all the "Missing" posters people had made, holding out hope that their special someone was alive. It was heartbreaking.
I remember riding the ferry across the Hudson River the following Monday, my first day back to work. I remember seeing the smoldering ruins, smelling the stench from the smoke, and feeling like we as a nation had really taken a bad hit. I'd seen all the women screaming. I felt like we had to hit em back and hard. I think we've done a pretty good job of that. Nevermind what the libtard traitors say, we took the fight to them. Our brave soldiers take em on over there so we don't have to deal with them over here.
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