Posted on 09/10/2007 6:41:30 PM PDT by Milwaukee_Guy
This has to be one of the most interesting threads ever. Normal people going about normal everyday things. Then everything changes everyone forever. I say “forever,” but hope it won’t be.
Blessings, but frankly, this is not something I’d be interested in reminiscing about in a casual, conversational fashion.
I’d hope others would feel similarly.
Not at all sure “Breaking News” is quite apt, either.
“this is not something I’d be interested in reminiscing about in a casual, conversational fashion.”
it’s not casual and conversational fashion..it’s exactly how most posts are written, how they learned about what happened on 9/11.
I think it’s an excellent thread
“This has to be one of the most interesting threads ever.”
BTTT...it’s a great idea and great thread.
I wanted to believe (but seriously doubted) the first plane was an “accident” but the 2nd plane removed any doubt that it was in fact WAR !
I was in bed watching, appropriately enough, ‘The West Wing’.
A newsbreak alerted us to an apparent accident involving a plane hitting the Twin Towers. During direct coverage of this ‘accident’, we watched in horror as the second plane hit.
I rang in a friend of mine in Canberra and said, “Are you watching this? Are we at war?”
It was late at night in Australia. Not much sleep was had as we watched the dreadful realization of what had happened.
At work the next morning all were in shock. The General Manager called everyone together and after a few words made the memorable statement, “For those of you who pray, now is the time to do it”.
Left the midwest around noon Friday and drove 26 hours, essentially non-stop to SW Colorado, spent all of Sunday morning sleeping and recuperating from the drive and acclimating to the 9000 foot elevation gain.
Set base camp 20 miles up a 4WD only trail from the nearest jumpoff town late Sunday, and organized backpacking gear for 6 days, plus a full rack of rock pro and 2 60m ropes Monday morning, then set off up a 70 degree slope aroud noon with 105 pounds on my back.
Made it over a 12K pass and down to aboue 11.5 by quitting time, spent a rough night trying to sleep that high, was up by six, done with coffee by 7 and had worked my way over to an adjacent knoll with a camera by 0915 eastern, 09-11-2001:
http://users.in-motion.net/~jefft/places/CowCreek/cc1.jpg
Feet were starting to burger out on me with the heavy load, so I stashed the winter gear and one 60m rope, and pushed on downcanyon till around 1600 Tuesday afternoon. Dropped my pack to scout for a place flat enough to pitch a tent, and took about an hour to re-locate the pack after getting twisted around on a network of game trails.
Should have rapped down to get water from the campsite, but got back up safe anyway, did dinner, enjoyed bugling elks, was almost over losing the pack when a bear bawled a few hundred feet downtrail. Even blackies will fight when surprised and on this terrain, camp was probably blocking one of the few up or down canyon routes of transit.
I remember looking up, hoping for a contrail, the only sign that life exists elsewhere when you’re in the backcountry.
No joy.
Something broke an armsized branch about 40 feet from camp around 0400, and then broke another when the safety came off my 12 gauge, then went silent and didn’t bother me anymore.
I was up by 0600 and down (past the bear) to the main waterfall/cliffline blocking access to the lower valley floor by 0930 Wednesday. Ambiguities on the USGS maps aside, the only way further in was a 350’ vertical rappel.
Two days from base camp, with a 12k pass between me and the truck, and 1 day below my second 60m rope, the best I could hope for was a day up for the extra rope, a day back down to my current position at the top of the falls, a day to rap the falls and jumar back out, with zero exploration time below the falls, then a tough two day climb over the pass with only one day’s supplies, stretched thin, to make it back out.
I bagged it, the risk (maximal, local guides won’t even go past the falls) wasn’t worth the gain, (zero, other than knowing whether the rap would go clean or I’d be killed by the loose friable falling rock).
By the time I made it back up to camp 1 at 11.5k around 1600, visions of cheeseburgers dripping with grease were dancing in my head. I strapped on the stashed gear, which was now short three days supplies, right around 100 pounds, and went for it.
Topping the pass took everything I had, but it was all downhill from there, and I arrived at base camp at ten till nine PM.
The whole jumpoff town, 20 miles downa very rough trail, shuts down at 9 pm, so the burger I busted my ass for was out of the question.
Until I remembered I was still on eastern time, threw my pack in the truck and literally dumped base camp in on top of it.
That was one hell of a ride, till one corner, too close to a 400’ dropoff, brought reason and sanity to the pilot, and I rolled into town, bearded and filthy from five days without a bath, at 2050, local.
Ten minutes to dig my wallet out of my pack, get gas and breakfast, and get to the resteraunt to get my order in before 2100, and then I found out the truck had a flat.
Got air, breakfast and the wallet, with five minutes to go, when the cashier showed me the front page of the Wednesday Denver Post, told me twenty thousand were dead in the previous day’s attacks, and threw me out so she could close.
Made the resteraunt, they took my order, didn’t know anything more than the cashier, newspapers are normally flown in but that wasn’t happening anymore, and they closed down, leaving me alone in a silent town, two rough (daylight) driving hours from the nearest small city, shortly after midnight, 1450 miles from home, way too far into the mountains for the truck radio to work.
I drove out of town, back up into the hills to around 9500 feet, sacked up in the truck’s front seat, feet mangled and oozing, unsafed all my weapons, and chain-smoked, waiting for the sun to come up.
Sometimes it feels like I’m still waiting.
I was at my apartment on Connecticut & Van Ness Sts., NW in Washington, DC nursing my then 9-month-old son and watching FOX5 Morning News when they cut in to the first breaking news of the fact that a plane had hit one of the twin towers... my husband, a DC cop, was en route to work... then, when the second plane hit (making us all aware of the obvious), I called him up and told him what was going on and then I didn’t see him for about a week... he spent the entire day at the Pnetagon site that day.
BTTT
441 posts should tell you others don’t quite agree.
I was called to the radio at work. I gathered up my children from school.
One of them was very angry with me for trying to protect him. I cut him loose.
I will never forget.
We can’t let others forget either.
I worked the late night shift the night before and was in bed when the phone rang. It was my Dad calling to me what he knew at that time. I was stunned. I remembered about a year before the U.S.S.Cole had been attacked by a group led by a man named
Osama Bin Laden.
When I got home to view everything on TV, I couldn't believe the devastation. One other thing stood out in my mind: As I live in an area where flights from Tampa, Orlando, etc. fly over all the time, everything was eerily quiet, with no flights anywhere.
The next day, three F-16's, flew over in a circular motion heading east and patrolling the skies. Again, other than those jets, it was eerily quiet.
God bless all those who died on that day and God bless America!
I was at work and my co workers were frustrated because all of the news websites had crashed. I suggested to them that they try Drudge which seemed to be the only web page that would load that day.
The first words out of my mouth to her were, "honey, we are at war."
Never forget.
5.56mm
First off, I’d like to thank Milwaukee Guy for starting this 9/11 remembrance thread. So much of what concerns the readers and posters at FR can be directly traced back to that infamous day. I’ve read up to post 401 of this thread. Every single word — and I’ve been riveted the entire time. Much like I was on September 11th 2001...
I remember rolling out of bed and heading to the kitchen to start the morning coffee as usual. Once the pot was cooking, I went out to my office (we run our own business from home) and fired up the computer, the radio, and a cigarette. Just like a thousand other days.
While I’m waiting for the computer to load up, I begin to notice that something is different about the normal flow of morning talk radio. I still haven’t had my first cup of coffee yet, so things aren’t all that focused for me, but still, it sounds like some sort of breaking news going on.
I get up and cross the room to turn up the broadcast just a bit. Something about the tone of the voices alone, is pinging my warning radar. It’s at that point, that I first hear that a plane has gone into one of the WTC towers in New York City. Processing that information almost negates my need for coffee and brings me almost fully into present time.
I dash into the house and wake my wife. “Honey, wake up! A plane just crashed into the World Trade Center!” She’s up and heading to the office in an instant. I follow her and grab my first cup on the way. The information on the radio is now coming hot and heavy, and the emotional tone of the announcers seems to have ratcheted up a notch. I can’t take it any more and head to the house to turn on the television.
The images I saw that morning are forever etched in my mind, as I’m sure they are for everyone here, and all across America. I didn’t need a talking head to tell me that we were under attack. I can remember turning to my wife and saying something to the same effect, and that someone was going to pay dearly for this act of war - and soon.
I seem to remember that the pot was cold by the time I finally went to get my second cup of coffee. My wife and I realized that we had clients and a schedule to attend to and got on the phones. After the first couple of calls, we realized that the world had stopped that day. Business was effectively canceled for the day, and we spent the next 48 hours or more glued to the television coverage on FNC. I think it was perhaps four days later that my wife finally asked me if we should open the shop again.
I can remember driving to my first client after 9/11 and noticing all of the American flags on all the cars. I had been carrying an American flag decal in my clipboard for weeks and hadn’t gotten around to sticking it on the window of my truck. I remember that I purposely made a stop before getting to my first client, just so I could get that sticker on my window. After 9/11 it just did not seem right for it to not be there. It’s faded and cracking now, but it still says “I Love America” to everyone who sees me.
One other thing — a lot of folks have commented on what a beautiful day that was. That is one of the other things that stuck in my mind about 9/11. It was one of the prettiest days I had seen in a very long time in SoCal. That one thing stands out as such a strange counter-point to the events of that day.
I’ve been moved by all of the posts I’ve read tonight. I’ve often wondered too, why everyone in America does not take the time to truly honor and remember that day, and those who perished at the hands of our psychotic enemy. I do, and am happy to be in the company of other like-minded patriots.
I was in the ISO building (Insurance Services Office, where I worked) in Jersey City on Washington Blvd, which runs along the Hudson River. The ISO building is directly across the Hudson from the World Trade Center (some of the ISO employees had offices at 7 World Trade.) We were notified of the “fire” going on at the North Tower and around 8-10 of us on my floor all grouped along one of the windows to take a look. I remember people commenting and speculating on the size of the blaze (which, for some reason didn’t actually sink in to me at the time.) We could see debris falling from the Tower. There were helicopters hovering all around videotaping for the media and one small private aircraft flying up and down the river, apparently “rubber-necking”. I commented that that guy was going to fly into one of those helicopters and get himself killed. Not too long after that, as we were all looking toward the Trade Center (our window faced south so we were sort of having to look leftward to observe)...all of a sudden from our right came this huge plane (we actually thought it was a military plane because our view was mostly of the underside of it, which was a battleship gray in color). I commented, “...and look at this guy! What’s he doing?” We stood. Conversation quickly quieted as we watched what we could not believe was happening. When the plane struck the South Tower it was as if our collective breaths had been sucked out of us. We shuddered. There was a great, “Ooooooooooooooh,” and “My God...,” and “Did you see that?!” We watched as the ball of flame shot up from the backside (to us) of the building. Someone (probably several someones) said “Terrorists.” We stood gaping out the windows in disbelief as our world and our lives changed forever right in front of our eyes.
I was in my midtown office at a meeting with a full view of the towers when the first plane struck. Someone said, “holy h$t” and we all moved to the window. A colleague of mine was on the phone with his sister who worked at Cantor when his phone went dead.
We quietly stared at the towers when there came a second explosion.
At this point things get very confusing. I remember our managers telling us there was a terrorist attack and we have to move to our uptown disaster recovery location. As we walked through the streets, I noticed that people were not talking and were acting like zombies, wandering aimlessly.
At our DR location, senior management were talking about recovering tapes and other supplies and getting them to our facility in Jersey. I remember mentioning to them that our tapes are stored in the sub-basement of the WTC and even if we can get them, how will we get to Jersey. They looked at me like I had two heads. A little while later, most of us were sent home, although no one knew how to get home.
Someone mentioned that Citicorp center was having a blood drive so I went there. I waited for an hour or so and then they stopped asking for donors. I went down to the river to see if I could get a ferry out and there was an emergency aid station set up. I asked if I can help and they told me no injured were coming in.
There was a ferry goingto Jersey City and after several hours, I managed to get a ride to Jersey. The ferry service was asking if anyone was within 10 blocks of ground zero and those people were to get offthe ferry first. Turns out there was a decontamination station setup.
There was one train leaving Jersey City for points west. Newark Penn was closed. I got a ride out to Short Hills where I hitched a ride to the Hilton. My wife came and got me a couple of hours later. It was now midnight.
The next day I went to get my car which was parked in a garage of a bus line. There was a chalk mark on my tire. Getting into my car the attendant said, “welcome home.” At that point I finally comprehended what took place the last 24 hours and broke down.
I will never forget.
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