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Guest areacode212

Where were you on September 11th, 2001?

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Guest areacode212

I'm just curious as to how everyone heard about it. I'll post my story in a bit (after I'm done studying).

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Guest Flyboy

I believe I was either walking to school (my school is around 1 block from where I live) or just getting ready to go to school.

 

That day, I was focusing on a football that we had for that night and Veronica (a stuck-up bitch that I had a crush on at the time). As I walked to school, I thought... what a beautiful day it was to play football. Not too hot... not too cool.

 

Then, I got to school and went to Algebra... and found that the horrible news.

 

:(

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Guest MrRant

I woke up and turned on the TV which was on ESPN and I thought it was weird that there was a plane crashing into a building and immediately switched to Fox News.

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Guest Cancer Marney

We were on vacation in Thailand. I was actually watching CNN in our hotel when it was reported that the first aeroplane had hit. My girlfriend was taking a shower before we were to dress for dinner. Shortly thereafter, we forgot about dinner entirely.

My first reaction was the common one: complete and total shock, desperate disbelief, horror, overwhelming grief, and then a numb aching emptiness. Seconds into the broadcast, as I realised how many people were dying, and I watched small shapes holding hands and jumping from 100 stories above the pavement, my eyes began stinging and tearing. I tried to say a prayer but my throat didn't work. And I couldn't stop crying.

Then we just lay down and held each other and watched the Towers fall.

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Guest Big McLargeHuge

I was at home, my mom barged into my room, woke me up and said terrorists attacked the us. It was farily early here on the west coast. I didn't think much of it. I thought a couple of fanatics had attacked an airport or something. I thought it was all over with. I turned on the news and saw both Towers emitting smoke. I was like 'Whoa!'. I didn't know what to think. My mom actually went to work, but was told to go home as the San Francisco businesses were closed. We were afraid they'd attack the Bay or Golden Gate Bridge or something. Surreal.

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Guest HBK16

I ussualy am awaken by an alarm clock but that morning my dad woke me up early and told me what happened. At first I thought it was an accident. By the time, I turned on the TV the second place had hit already. Then the camera switched over and showed both towers were hit and then I knew it wasn't an accident. At the exact moment I got into first hour, the plane that crashed in Penn hit the news.

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Guest Spaceman Spiff

I was at work. Checked the 'net early in the day, saw a blurb on MSNBC's site about a plane hitting one of the towers, but not many details were known, so I wrote it off as some horrible accident.

 

As more & more details became known, it was obvious it was no accident. Pretty much spent to rest of the day getting details off the web (when I was able to actually find a site that wasn't overloaded) since there was no TV or radio in the office.

 

Didn't see any TV footage until I got home ~ 5:15 PM, and spent the rest of the day/night watching various news broadcasts.

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Guest Insane Clown Dan

I was in the middle of a Computer AP class in my high school. The teacher kept on going on about how we're all now gonna be drafted into the military. Which, thankfully, hasn't happened.

 

I did feel a shiver go up my spine for a portion of that morning, but it went away after that. I was not in total disbelief that something like that would happen in the future then, and did not feel for the people that died because I have no friends or loved ones. Society pisses on me, and it expects me to care about total strangers and their families?

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Guest treble charged

When it happened, I was in my history class, which was my first class of the day. Next up, I had Chemsitry class, and right after was lunch, and I drove up to the mall to go to the bank and get something to eat. However, the radio in the car wasn't working, so I had no way of knowing anything that had happened.

 

After lunch, I had my World Issues class, and someone who had gone home for lunch had taped the news coverage (I think this guy had a satellite, because it was the BBC) brought it in and we watched it for a good 50 minutes. I was in shock, as I couldn't quite understand what happened.

 

Since I had a spare last period, I went home and watched more coverage from there, until I went to work, where I listened about it on the radio. I got home from work, and watched more, before eventually going to bed, listening to the radio coverage as I fell asleep.

 

I just couldn't believe that I had gone around for more than 2 hours completely oblivious to what had happened.

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Guest Grenouille

I was in my psychology class when we heard about it, but thought it was just a joke or something. Once the TV got turned on and everyone saw the second plane come in, everyone in the room was shellshocked. The rest of the day flowed by with watching TV and speculating on what would happen next.

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Guest papacita

My dad was driving me up to campus that morning for my Criminal Justice class, when we turned on the radio and heard that planes had crashed into the Towers and the Pentagon and that "the Towers are laying in the street". It sounded like somebody was laughing in the background, so we thought it might be some kinda hoax, but we could hear the news reports in the background, so I figured it was real. The guy hosting the radio show also happened to mention that car bombs were going off all over the place, and that a 3rd plane was headed for Philly, which freaked me out considering I was riding through Center City at that exact moment.

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Guest J*ingus

I was at home, turned on the TV and there it was. I knew it was a terrorist attack, accidents like this simply don't happen. Osama Bin Laden was indeed my first suspect, given his past history. And when they cut back and a huge cloud of dust obscured the whole site, I knew the first tower had fallen. Although I was a bit surprised when the second one did as well, given that the hit was so near the top of the building.

 

I wasn't even shocked that it happened. Tom Clancy's book Debt of Honor ended with an attack almost exactly like that. I was just sad at the loss, at the fact that someone, somewhere actually thought this was a good idea.

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Guest MrRant

Yeah when I saw it I though of that book too. And I thought reading that no one would be able to do it right? I had my question answered.

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Guest crandamaniac

I was driving down the road, going to school for my only class that day, Spanish. I was listening to the radio when they came over and said something about a plane hitting a building. Unlike many people, my first reaction of it was that it was a joke. I mean come on, who would be stupid enough to run a plane into a building? So I turned the channel. The next station said something on how they was watching the Today show, and they was showing the WTC after the first plane hit, and this other plane hit the 2nd tower. After that, it registered that this was some serious shit going down. I listened to the radio as much as I could, and then went to class. I wanted to just stand up in the middle of class and say something, but I didn't want to upset them.

 

I got out of class, and got in my truck and immediately turned on the radio. That's where I learned of the other planes, the Pentagon and the one in Pennslyvania. When I came home, I turned on the tv, and watched in horror as they showed the planes hitting, and the towers falling. Me and a group of friends got together and talked about it, and tried unsucessfully to get into a New York chat room to voice our condolences to anybody who lost somebody. Then I had to go to work.

 

First day on a new job, and already my mind wasn't in it. I was just starting working in the electronics dept. at my neighborhood Wal-mart. I came in (after all the training and orientation I had to go thru). They had a TV on broadcasting all that was going on. People would come in and they'd mention what was on, and I'd talk to them. It was so weird the concern on peoples minds, the outright anger, yet sympathy they all felt

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Guest TheRockIsTheEuropeanChampion

I got up at 6:30AM to get ready for school. I turned on MSNBC, 'cause I had gotten into the habit of watching "Imus In The Morning". So I'm getting dressed, and it's announced that a plane crashed into one of the towers. I thought, "Oh, huh, that's a pretty bad accident. Damn."

 

My dad and I discuss this "accident" as he drives me to school. I'm hardly concerned.

 

I meet my friends by their lockers in our school. Valerie and I talk about RAW the night before, especially the JR/Paul Heyman argument. We wanted to memorise it and perform it sometime. Then I mention that a plane crashed into one of the towers. Little concern; 'cause it's no big deal, right?

 

There are televisions in every classroom. I was in my photography class and the televisions came on. CNN. They show a plane hitting, and loudly I said, "Oh shit." I was transfixed. Then I became extremely scared. I mean, what the hell was going on? Damn.

 

The rest of the day, I'm stuck in class. Watching CNN most of the time, but my math teacher turned it off. Like I should care about algebra when something like that is happening.

 

I got home and watched the news with my dad. Watched and watched. I was completely scared.

 

... It's still kinda scary to think about now.

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Guest areacode212

It was around 9 am. I had gotten up at my (normal) late time, and was getting dressed for work. I had started listening to the news on the radio as I usually do, but for some reason, I had turned it off (probably because I was playing a game of Fire Pro or something).

 

Suddenly, my mom, who had been making copies at Kinko's, barged into the apartment yelling that two planes had crashed into the World Trade Center and that it was a terrorist attack. Apparently, they had heard the news at Kinko's, and everyone there was trying to access news sites but they couldn't get through, so she hopped on the subway to come home and tell me. Then, she said that she would go down there to see what was going on (she's a freelance journalist, among other things, so she does stuff like that).

 

So, I turned on the TV to see what was up. And since I don't have cable, and since every New York broadcast station had their antennas at the top of the north tower (where some engineers for various local TV stations were killed), every channel was out (except for WCBS, which had a backup antenna somewhere else). It was then that I realized that these weren't small planes, but fucking airliners. And it just kept getting worse. They started reporting that there was a fire at the Pentagon, and shortly thereafter, that it was in fact ANOTHER plane that crashed into it.

 

I called my workplace to tell them that I wasn't coming in, then I went back to watching. Then, for some reason, I remembered that I had some shit to take care of at the bank, and since I wasn't going to work, I might as well go there and get it out of the way. I got there just after the south tower collapsed (they had a TV there). To me, it was unfathomable for the tower to just be destroyed like that, so I was hoping that it was really just obscured by all that smoke. I mean, it survived the 1993 bombing, right? The guy at the bank was cool enough to help me out with upgrading my account while all this was going on (we were all watching and talking about it). By the time he was done with me, the north tower was gone, and the bank was closing.

 

I don't think I'll ever forget the feeling I had when I got home to my shitty non-cable TV, and seeing the words "World Trade Center destroyed" displayed at the bottom of the screen on Channel 2. The word "destroyed" had such a depressing finality, especially when applied to buildings I saw lit up every night for several years, when I was taking night classes downtown, and where I often went to buy Krispy Kremes, or books at the Borders bookstore, or clothes from the J. Crew in the mall underneath the towers. This was the point where I started fantasizing about torturing Osama bin Laden to death (tying him up, taking a little pair of scissors and cutting him to pieces was my main scenario).

 

Anyway, I decided to go for a walk to gauge the reaction of my neighborhood. Parents were picking up their kids up from the elementary school, trying to explain to them that "those two big buildings were gone". I ended up wandering into The Wiz (an electronics store), and watched some more there. I felt weird just standing there, so I bought a copy of the V: The Original Miniseries DVD (a pretty inappropriate choice, I know). The cashiers all looked really sad and depressed. Then they closed the store. It was around 11:30am or so, and everything was closed. The irony of the beautiful weather wasn't lost on me, either.

 

Lots of people were walking uptown from work, since most subways were out. I decided to walk downtown, against all that foot traffic, to see if there was anything I could do to help. At 72nd Street, I dropped by Gray's Papaya (a somewhat popular place where they sell cheap hot dogs), and while I was waiting on line, I ran into this girl I knew from high school. She was trying to get home to Brooklyn, but somehow wandered uptown to find an open subway station, so I decided to join her on her quest.

 

The mood on the street at that point wasn't as solemn and sad as some may think. Everybody was aware of what happened, but emotionally, things hadn't completely sunk in at that point. It's a little weird in retrospect. It may have been from the adrenaline or our nervous energy or something, but my friend and I were in a surprisingly light-hearted mood. There was a lot of witty banter being exchanged. There were a group of women outside the Channel 7 studios, and one of them was like "this is a good time to be checking out guys", and I gave them a little wink, which they all laughed at.

 

Anyway, we made our way to the 59th Street station, where a few trains were running downtown. I got off at the Canal Street station, and the first thing I saw when walking up to street level was a HUGE black plume of smoke going into the sky. There was nothing like looking down West Broadway, where the two familiar towers once stood, and seeing nothing but smoke emanating from a hole in the ground. I still get furious every time I see that hole in the sky whenever I'm downtown.

 

Eventually, I came across the park across from the courthouses on Centre Street. This place appeared to be "Volunteer Central". This is where people were donating blood, volunteering for rescue & recovery, etc.. I chose to be part of the crew that was nailing stretchers together out of two-by-fours and wooden boards. We ended up doing that for a couple of hours, but it's pretty depressing to know that by that point, there were basically no survivors to be carried out on a stretcher. A lot of reporters were milling around with their colored handkerchiefs. Some guy was telling us about how his dad was in there and he hadn't heard from him. I was so pissed that they had fucked with my city like that.

 

After that, I wandered over to Church Street, where everyone was kind of standing around talking, as it was the closest point to what was already known as Ground Zero. Suddenly, to a collective "oh, shit!", we witnessed the collapse of 7 WTC. That was pretty weird because it was only a few blocks away, yet we didn't hear a sound. It just crumbled silently. I was getting tired by then, so I decided to go home. I had to walk all the way up to West 4th St. to find an open subway station. Everybody on the train was just silent and depressed, and I pretty much did nothing but watch TV and talk on the phone for the rest of the night. At one point, I thought my mom was dead because I hadn't heard from her since she left that morning (she was fine).

 

What a fucking day.

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Guest Incandenza

At the precise moment it happened, I was sitting in a history class. We were completely clueless as to what was happening outside of that room, so I was merrily in the dark for the next 25 minutes. When class was over, I headed over to the little cafe they had in the courtyard (they've since torn it down) to grab a bite to eat, and noticed a small group of people had gathered near the grill the school runs during the lunch hours. I thought it odd at first, as it wasn't even 9:30, and they didn't start serving food there until eleven (though some guy is usually there much earlier getting everything set up). I also noticed they were playing the radio rather loudly, and then I actually started listening to what was being said.

 

Whatever station it was had picked up the CNN feed, and over the next several minutes, I realized what had happened, and what was still happening. The voice on the radio said one of the towers was collapsing at that very moment. The whole thing was--to use a word that's been said a lot but is wholly appropriate--surreal. None of it felt real to me. I walked away to get what I had originally wanted as the crowd at the grill station grew larger.

 

I had another hour-and-a-half till my next class, and I passed the time by reading a book that was assigned for it. When classtime rolled around, I went there, and, naturally, what had happened in New York and D.C. was on everyone's lips. One person kept trying to call someone she knew that was interning in D.C. (to no avail, of course); another kept insisting that Bush had been reading to school children when he found out (not true; the day prior, our prez had been in our town reading to school children). The professor came in, and the girl who was trying to contact her friend in Washington asked if she could be excused to leave, to which the professor allowed. He then said that we would try to go on with our class today, but if anyone wanted to leave, they could (I don't recall if anyone did).

 

That was my last scheduled class for the day, but it didn't matter anyway, as all classes wound up being cancelled for the remainder of the day. I remember trying to go to the mall for whatever reason--I can't recall why, exactly--and was surprised to find them closed. I went over to the nearby Borders and bought a CD; the mood there was one of detachment. Everyone knew something bad had happened, but it happened so far away. It wasn't a part of us, you know? I remember joking around with the cashier about the dimwitted customer before me. He wasn't sure if she had given him his receipt, and he did practically everything just short of removing his own pants to see if it was on his person. It wasn't until I got back to my place and went online to look up a couple of things for an upcoming class assignment that the severity of the situation struck me. Strangely enough, the moment when I became aware of just how real this was came when I happened upon the Aint-it-Cool-News website. They were talking about it (everyone was), and when I saw that thousands of people were dead, my heart sank. Writing this now, I feel like I did at that moment a year ago.

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Guest bob_barron

Okay-

 

This brings back some memories-

 

I was getting my senior portrait taken. The guy says: Whoa- a plane just crashed into the World Trade Centre. I didn't really think anything of it, thinking it was a tiny plane. I just shrugged it off and was ready to get my picture taken. So they're taking my picture and the guy goes: ANOTHER plane crashed into the WTC.

 

My face had this shocked as hell WTF look. How do I know? My senior ID photo was right after he told me.

 

I go up and see my principal and dean conversing and I ask them to confirm what i heard and they were about to call an assembly.

 

I had two thoughts in my head- 1) I knew my grandpa was either flying that day or the 12th (it ended up being the 12th)

 

and the big thought-

 

My mom worked two blocks from the WTC and had already gone into work.

 

So my principal basically tells us what's going on and has he's finished a teacher yells: They just hit the Pentagon.

 

My principal just shook his head and we all were just not even there. We were all in shock. I mean thirty miles from where I live- a city is on fire.

 

So I go to get in touch with my mom calling her cell phone- no answer. I was freaking out, basically saying every prayer I know and trying to just think happy thoughts.

 

I was in the halls and my favourite teacher walked up to me and said my mother was on the phone and she was okay. Thank God.

 

Then I got called to the office. I so thought something had just happened and my mother was dead. I ran as fast as I could to the office where they were just relaying what my teacher had told me earlier.

 

I can remember one of my classmates crying her eyes out, I can remember one of my teachers telling me her neice worked in WTC, I can remember hearing on the radio about the collapse.

 

I left school early that day, went home and finally saw how it unfolded. My dad was away on holiday so I had to email him letting him now that my mom was okay. I finally was able to talk to her at one pm and it was one of the greatest feelings ever.

 

Sorry for boring you with all the details but that's my 9.11.01. A day where I didn't know the fate of my mother for two hours.

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Guest Kingpk

I had just gotten out of my 9AM ecology class and noticed that everyone I saw looked kind of depressed. I went to the library and saw a group of people watching the small TVs there. I don't remember if I saw them collapse live (I think I did). They cancelled classes for the rest of the day and I went home, my head spinning, not really believing what I just saw.

 

The next day, I had no classes so I stayed in bed for most of the day and watched Spaceballs like 8 times. I just didn't want to watch the news.

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Guest bob_barron

I always find it odd that they cancelled classes in a lot of places but like I lived like right next to the city and school wasn't closed early or anything like that

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Guest Vern Gagne

My alarm goes off and the guy on the radio is mentioning that a plane hit one of the towers. Thinking it was just some small private plane, I decided to go back to bed. But I was curious to see what was happening, so I turned to NBC. Than after about 3 minutes of watching, and thinking that this was just an isolated incident, a 2nd plane goes full speed into the 2nd tower. Seeing that 2nd plane hit live is an image I'll never forget. Like Jingus Bin Laden was the first name that came to my head.

 

:angry: :(

 

I heard about the Pentagon and Flight 93 on my way to school. Driving home from school I couldn't help to look up at the sky and think that except for fighter jets, and planes for emergency use there was nothing in the sky over the entire U.S. Just an unreal day.

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Guest Kotzenjunge

Doing my usual chillin' like a villain in AP Biology. It was a half-day at school that day, the first of what was supposed to be six throughout the year, so we were scheduled to get out at 11:10, not because of the attacks.

 

Anyways, it was a little into the abbreviated period when there was a knock on the door and one of the other Biology teachers said very quietly what had happened to our teacher. I heard something about a plane, since I was sitting close to the door at that time. The other biology teacher left, and our teacher told us what she had said, that a plane had crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center. I figured it was some kind of accident, and even said so to the worried people, since a B-17 once crashed into the Empire State Building.

 

Our teacher rushed the lesson because, like us, he really wanted to turn on the news and see what the hell was going on. By the time we got to that, the second tower had been hit, and news was just coming in about the Pentagon. Then the other (false) reports of fires at the Capitol and on the Mall started coming in, as well as a bombing at the State department. I had yet to see the actual impact of any of the crashes, and so no one really knew how deliberate it all was. I watched intently, straining to hear more over the classroom noise and people just talking as if it were a normal day. The bell rang for lunch(which was at 9:30 that day due to the weird schedule), and I went to find a teacher who was watching the coverage with her class or just had their TV on. I found the room that the teachers had mostly congregated in and went to see more of this go down. The teachers felt like me, they were aghast that people were really marvelling more at how the explosions looked than what had actually happened.

 

During the interim between the Pentagon being hit and the first tower collapse, everyone put out ideas of who could have done this, and then there were reports of a plane over Pennsylvania that was headed for Washington, and fighter jets were being scrambled to take care of it. The (all female) teachers were horrified that we'd shoot a planeful of people down, but I knew it was the needs of the many over the needs of the few in this case. As I put this point forth, I looked up at the screen and silenced the room with "um, one of the towers isn't there anymore." Now the teachers were near-hysteria, and some just left to go get their children at their own schools and whatnot. The bell to end lunch came almost right after the second tower went down. During that final period, we left the coverage on as our teacher told us that this was the biggest thing we'd probably see in our lives. The period was spent with me explaining to the other students(very dim sophomores) what was happening and what it all meant. Footage was shown of the Arab world celebrating, and I once again had to explain things to the kids.

 

That class ended, and with it, so did school. It was time for Academic Team practice, but I had no intention of practicing. I turned on the TV in the room, but the coach demanded I shut it off because nothing new was going to happen. Fortunately, she was right. I spent the whole practice wanting my coach to die also for not really giving a crap about what was going on.

 

Practice was an hour, and then I was picked up from school, since my car was having radiator problems at the time. My grandmother was a wreck. Being Tuesday, I had to get my check from work, a grocery store where business seemed normal. I was amazed. The people at the front desk were acting normally, the customers looked calm. I asked the manager at the front, "Do they have ANY IDEA what's happening?" She looked at me blankly. My grandmother needed to get some stuff herself, despite my wanting to get home. I was overcome with an intense fear of public places for the rest of the day. I was almost hysterical wanting to get out of the grocery store and get home.

 

Getting home, I immediately went to msnbc.com and watched the streaming video coverage and started checking around with the people I knew online who lived in those areas. I had two friends in Washington I needed to check on. I got a hold of one, who was trying to calm the other down. Erica's father worked at the Pentagon, but on the opposite side of the one that was hit. Erica didn't really calm down for a full week, especially since she had no idea where her father was for four or five hours after the attack. I continued watching the msnbc.com video but eventually went upstairs to watch the various networks on an actual TV.

 

Absolutely spent, I fell asleep around 2. I woke up around 5:30, when the WTC 7 building had collapsed itself. It was then that I threw a blank tape in the VCR and pressed Record. I knew I'd want this to remind myself or my kids later about how bad things can get.

 

Finally went to sleep around 11:30, when my tape ran out. The next day at school I wore black pants, white shirt, and black tie, with a black armband. Pure idiots asked me why I was dressed like I was going to a funeral.

 

Gee, I wonder.

 

Fo sheez,

Kotzenjunge

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Guest Will Scarlet

I remember I woke up early because the modem on my computer had broke, so I had nothing better to do than sleep. Anyway, I was working on that, and I decided to turn on the tv. It was like 8:30 AM or so, and CNN was reporting about the plane that ran into the Tower. My first thought was, "What moron would run a plane into a huge building?" I was intrigued by it, then the second one hit, as the guy on CNN was talking to an aviatons expert. Anyway, in one of the stupidest convos of the year, the CNN guy was asking if it was the faultiness of the navigational equipment that was causing the crashes, as the expert is like, "It is a clear day out. You just do not run two planes into a huge building on a clear day." Finally, the CNN guy ended up getting it into his head that it was terrorists who did it. It was like, "Duh." After that, I switched to CBS because Dan Rather has at least half a brain.

 

I watched it until around 1 PM, when I headed for my Philosophy class. Some people were talking about it, but it was largely spoken about in passing, it seemed.

 

I came home, watched a little bit more, became bored, took a walk, and that was basically it. I felt largely detached from the whole situation to be honest. I am not sure if it was because I was in Canada, or if it was because I was kind of expecting a terrorist attack on the US one day, after all I had read about terrorism beforehand. I also was cut off from contact with pretty much all of my US friends, so it is not like I could talk with them. It was just kind of a weird day all around from all that happened to pretty much everywhere I went Online having something about it after I was finally able to get back online. Oddly, one of the first places I checked was the Smarkboards.

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Guest Phr33k

I was asleep when the first plane hit. My mom woke me up and told me that a plane had just hit the WTC, and I grumbled something about the stupid pilots not knowing what they were doing up there. That's when I saw the second plane hit, and I was thinking, "Holy shit, what the hell is going on here?" As I was hopping into the shower, the third plane hit the Pentagon, and the first tower collapsed as I was about to go out the door for school. I was stuck explaining the situation to my clueless friends at the bus stop, and that was all that was on our minds for the rest of the day. My dad was in San Francisco on business, so I was all afraid that they'd get it, too. Of course, that never happened, and I ended up watching CNN for most of the next three days. I also named bin Laden as my number-one suspect in the attacks, but nobody else had ever heard of him, so it went unnoticed.

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Guest Michael Joel Benoit

Oh God 9/11. The event I had been afraid of for 4 years actually happened that day.

 

I still think of it like it happened just yesterday. My birthday was the next day and that was the #1 priotority on my list as I headed into Religion class at 9:10 in the morning.

 

I remember everyone in my class staring into the window. Some kids were worried. Some were curious. Some were nervous. The moment I saw the first tower burning, the first thing I thought was a terrorist attack.

 

I tried to get that thought out of my head. "Maybe it was an accident. Maybe someone was cooking something in the microwave and the microwave broke and that was fire from the microwave." Then, I found out that it was a plane that crashed into the World Trade Center. My Religion teacher tried to calm us down by saying that it was probalby an accident. I tried to think that also.

 

She turned on the radio and that is when we found out that another plane had hit the other tower of the World Trade Center. We all knew it was no accident then.

 

The first idea I had was that it was Osama Bin Laden. I kept telling my friends that Osama Bin Laden did this but they kept saying "Who's Osama Bin Laden?" I thought they planted a bomb on the planes until I found out that the fuel for those planes was at the limit.

 

We headed into Social Studies class and one of my friends asked why would someone attack the World Trade Center? My teacher actually made sense with why the terrorists chose the Twin Towers. They represent American captialism. They are huge. Thousands of people work there. It's the World Trade Center. We went on with the lessons but now lots of kids were being picked up.

 

Then, the saddest part of the day happened. While walking into Science class kids were saying that one of the towers collasped. I couldn't believe it. The World Trade Center, my favorite buildings in New York, gone?

 

When I got into class, my Science teacher, who was already in tears, told us that the Twin Towers were gone and that we would cancel classes for the rest of the day. Everybody just stood there. Silence for 40 minutes. All we could see from the 3rd floor window was dust from the ruins. I was afraid this was the end of the world. I would die in school.

 

The principal came over the loud speaker and told my Science teacher that her sister had gotten out of the Twin Towers just in time. Her face lit up with joy. I just doodled. Alot of kids doodled the twin towers.

 

We got back to homeroom as kids kept getting picked up. My aunt took me home and that's when I found out that the Pentagon had been attacked also. I wanted to watch the news and that is when I first saw the Towers collasping.

 

They kept showing the planes attacking and the towers collasping. I kept changing the channels and almost every channel reported on this. I saw a map locating Pennslyvania, Washington, and Baltimore and mistaken that for what they had also attacked. I called my mom and my father and my friends to see if they were okay.

 

I went on the internet and kept thinking about what I would do if I could get my hands on Osama Bin Laden. My aunt didn't know who did it but I let her know.

 

Later in the afternoon, I went to my grandmother's house where my cousins were already there. They had the T.V. set on CNN and they kept showing coverage.

 

It was just a somber day especially when they showed Ground Zero for the first time. The smoke from Ground Zero could be seen from my grandmother's house.

 

My mom was stuck in New Jersey and had to stay in a hotel and so I was stuck there. As I slept that night, the images of the Tower's falling kept replaying in my head.

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Guest DrTom

I was on my way in to work when I heard about the first tower getting hit. I had gone in late thay day to make a stop at the bank in the morning, so it was just past 8:45, and I was more than halfway there (I'm normally there by 8:30). The initial report was that a "small plane" had hit one of the Towers. A tragic accident, I thought, but an accident nonetheless.

 

Shortly after I got to work, word came down that the second tower had been hit. A bunch of us walked into another building, sat down in the conference room, and flipped the big screen to CNN. We saw the horror unfold, and replays of what we had missed. The planes that hit the towers were obviously large; this was definitely a terrorist attack. I remember my left hand clenching a white-knuckle grip around one of the chair arms, and my right fist trembling in rage. I was sad, I was horrified, but mostly, I was very, very angry. I still am.

 

We saw the rest of the day unfold. The Pentagon being hit, people jumping from the WTC and choosing a quick, certain death over a slower and more painful one. I saw the news conferences, the stunned reactions from all over the place, the unquestionable courage of the rescue workers, and the beginnings of a groundswell of patriotic pride.

 

None of us got a lot done that day. The conference room was filled past capacity before long, and I imagine the same was true in the other buildings, also. We were all told to stay home the next day (I work for the government on an Army installation), so I was glued to CNN and Fox for two straight days.

 

It wasn't until a week later that I found out that someone I know lost someone in the attacks. A buddy of mine was in NY that day, visiting his father, who was the Director of Security for the second tower. He spoke to his father via cellphone after the planes hit. His dad was going back inside to help with the rescue efforts. He never made it back out.

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Guest goodhelmet

i don't wake up early. being a bartender for 6 years has shaped my sleeping patterns. i go to bed late. i wake up late.

i awoke to my telephone. i answered it and my sister was screaming hysterically "we're being attacked. they took out the pentagon and the world trade center. they say the whitehouse is next. we're going to war." (screaming and crying all of this mind you). This is NOT the way i want to start my day.

 

So very NOT bright eyed and bushy tailed, i turn on the tv and see the 2nd plane crashing in the building. At first i was in shock. I seriously thought we were being attacked by a foreign country. living in a city with 5 military bases, initially, i was nervous as hell. i really thought a war had begun. i could also understand my sister's excitement but it is NOT the way you should wake someone up. after watching the news for a couple of minutes, i calmed her down and told her to call into work (she works at one of the air force bases). let's see if any more attacks take place before we make preparations. i went to school that day as hundreds of students swarmed around dozens of tv sets. some saddened, others pissed that school was not cancelled, all of us shocked.

 

9/11- what a miserable day.

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Guest big Dante Cruz

I didn't have any class that Tuesday until 11. I was asleep and my phone rings. I lean off the top bunk (my roommate was gone) and answer and my dad tells me a plane hit the World Trade Center. I just gave something of a shocked answer and hopped off the bunk and turned on the TV.

 

I sat there on the floor like a little kid, and the first thing I saw was a live feed as the second plane hit and felt my emotions just vanish. They didnt' come back for two days. I sat there. I couldn't believe it. I had been to NYC the previous semester. I had this spectacular picture of the towers, sunlight hitting just right...

 

As soon as I had that thought, the first tower started to crumble. Oh dear God, no... No... I watched, knowing I should have some sort of feeling, but I was just numb. No tears, just quiet. The second one fell... My reaction was similar to so many guys on my floor. We just watched in a stunned silence. I, like a fool, went to class. My Politics and Religion professor said we should "just forget about what happened for a while". Oh, I about lost it. I came thisclose to yelling about forgetting thousands of people dying over some FUCKING STUPID ideaology that has no real basis anyway.

 

When everything finally hit me on that Thursday, it hit me in a rush. I was praying. I had said (paraphrasing) 'Dear Lord, this has happened and we don't know why. This has happened and I feel like such a heel because I haven't felt a thing since I saw the second plane hit. Dear Lord..." and I cried. I cried and I cried and I cried. Why? Because it was so senseless and so digusting that so many people died for the barbarous whims of some towelheaded son of a bitch. And when I heard the story of the people that rushed the guy on the plane... I still shed tears when I hear the ending from one of Bush's speeches. "My fellow Americans, let's roll."

 

I'm going to bed. Maybe I'll feel better in the morning.

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