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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.