9-11-01 Remember...

[TomCat]

Remember when you first heard of the unspeakable acts of cowardice and treachery:

1) Where were you?

2) Who were you with?

3) How did you feel?

1 & 2) I was in a real estate law class and about 10 am, the director of the school came in and made an announcement, we had been in class since 8 am, so we didn't know. he made the announcement before lunch, so that we were prepared for what we were about to see/hear on TV or radio when we took out break at 11 am.

3) Like most others, I was speechless, deeply saddened, and almost instantly angry.

Let us never forget those who died, those who they left behind, and those who perpetrated this act against our country. May God help the victims go on and find peace and may those who caused it never rest as they are hunted down and finally brought to justice, in this world or the next. May they rot in hell.

[damagedangel]

1. I was at work, in our small break room

2. Around 40 other coworkers were stuffed in the break room with me

3. I was utterly shocked. At first I couldn't believe that it was happening. Then of course the sadness of just the sheer amount of lives lost set in.

[Brenda Starrr]

1) Where were you?

2) Who were you with?

I was with my dad at Wal-Mart

3) How did you feel?

I thought he was full of shit at first. He can be VERY off-the-wall. It wasn't until I went into Burlington Coat Factory when I found that it was true. One of the girls that works there was refolding the same shirt repeatedly and sobbing. Just....sobbing Her dad was in one of the buildings. When I got home, Wayne was watching CNN with tears in his eyes. We spent the entire day watching CNN.

I was just so sick over it. I lost a friend in the Pentagon. He had so much promise. My friend, Andy, saw the plane crash into the Pentagon. We were both friends of Joe. I'm still sick about it.

[soothsayer]

I was at work but on a break in my car listening to the radio. Drew and mike were talking about a plane hitting one of the twin towers and I thought to myself, was it a small comuter plane? They didn't give any details so I thought some prop plane must have hit it. I went back inside and everyone was freaking out. It was then that I realized it was not an accident.

[phee]

I was at my apartment getting an extra copy of a key made.

Alone

*shrugs*

[The_Dark]

I was at home, sitting on my couch, watching CNN where I stayed for 3 days without moving... Dad finally came over, turned my TV off and made me go have a cup of coffee with him.

[soothsayer]

The drive home from work that day was errie as hell. I lived near Metro and on any other day I would see dozens of planes in the sky but that day, nothing. It really did put a fear in me.

[Mizstomp]

I awoke eariler that morning to a horrible nightmare.

I told my sister not to go to school, that I just a had one of my feelings.

Dad wasn't home, so we just skipped.

I woke up around 11am, to a woman on the tv, saying America is under attack, 3 buildings have been hit, and one crashed in the ground, fire smoke, dead, dead dead. I woke up terrified. My nightmare came true.

Me and my sister were just in shock, I was out raged. I was pissed.

I am still pissed.

[Scary Guy]

1) Where were you?

Home, just waking up and comming down the stairs from my room.

2) Who were you with?

My parents

3) How did you feel?

I went back to bed because I knew I'd be hearing about it non stop for the next 6 fucking months. Little did I know... heh.

[Fierce Critter]

1) Where were you?

At home, in bed, in our apartment in Wyandotte. I can't remember how I learned about it and turned on the TV - whether I got a call from Jon, or if I just happened to turn the TV on and saw what was going on. I came into the story after the first plane hit, and saw the 2nd plane hit the 2nd tower pretty much live, then everything afterwards - I stayed in bed and watched TV all day.

2) Who were you with?

I was alone. At some point I talked to Jon on the phone.

3) How did you feel?

Sick, and scared. Riveted. And scared for Jon. At the time, Jon was working in a shop plunked down, oddly enough, in the middle of a very Arab residential neighborhood in Dearborn. There were already reports of some violence erupting there, so I was afraid he might suffer as a bystander. They let the guys go home early for that same reason. I think Jon got home about 3:00. We watched TV for days afterwards.

Today, Jon can't watch any of it play out on TV anymore, or look at pictures of any of it in books or magazines. He won't watch news or documentaries about it.

I am morbidly fascinated by it. And I hope never, ever to have to see anything like that ever again.

[EvilEve]

where were you?

on this particular day, i was in school. just getting out of p.e. when the classes were changing, and i heard something on the radio in our gym class about a plane crashing into the Trade Center buildings.

who were you with?

i was with no one in particular. a bunch of classmates, teachers, and whathaveyou. everything stopped that day.

how did you feel?

i was numb. i was just numb. it felt like it wasn't even real, like something that you would see in a movie, and think nothing else of it. it didn't make sense. i was dumb-founded for the remainder of that day. the only other thought that i had was that lots of other people have had this happen during their lives. did they feel this way when they found out?

[DarkVampire]

Where?

At home. I usually did not watch tv in the mornings but something kept telling me to turn the tv on and watch it. I flipped through the stations and I think it was the Today show, which ever one is based in NY, and they said a plane crashed into one of the towers. So I watched it for a while and out of the sky another fucking plane crashes into the other tower. It blew me away at what I saw.

That's all I'll say on this...

[Lilith]

I was at home on the computer in a chat room and i saw a comment about it in the chat room. I turned on the Tv to see the first tower smoking and i rember thinking who the hell missed That while flying, then i saw the second plane hit live on tv and i thought OMG we are going to war. I tried to wake up lestat but he was grumpy and did not get the point untill i wnet back and told him some one had hit the pentagon. I then went and got my kids from school. I was terrified had no idea what they would hit next adn with me at the time living maybe 2 mile from selfridge i was more then worried. I just felt sad and sick and my security bubble had popped.

I cant forget.

Lilith

[kellygrrrrrl]

I was at work, working on an insurance policy for a guy in a local band that is well known.

After I was done, I looked onto Yahoo! News, and saw a picture of the World Trade Center on fire, and my boss was up front watching the TV we had. I came up and we were both watching in awww just staring at what was going on.

Since I was at work, I really was oblivious to the full impact of this even until I got home and watched the whole thing on TV. I then realized what had happened. After watching the President speak that night, I cried for hours. Confused, Sad, Angry, mixed emotions.

This event will be engraved in my mind forever. The pictures and sounds will never be forgotten.

[Lilith]

I aslo remeber we were heading to a friend house a short while after it happened and we had to drive past metro airport, omg the sounds of the planes and seeing them up close made me soo sick, i started to tear and get all up set again it was horribale. Then i felt silly to fell that wya about planes right atthe airport when i was not even in NY or even seen first hand how the planes hit everything. It effected i think every one even those miles away from the actualy sites.

[Kit Kat P]

at home calling my then husband(a survivor) working at the pentagon w/in seconds of it happening and watching the televison switching the picture over to the pentagon and seeing his side of the building on fire w/ a huge hole

[saechalyn]

I was in Rockefeller Center, where I worked at Barnes & Noble. I didn't actually know what had happened for a really long time. None of us did. I was manning the information booth when my customer got a call on his cell phone, started screaming and crying. We all thought, wow, poor guy. Someone must have died. Yeah...someone.

The customer didn't tell us what happened, just ran out. Then we saw people outside looking up. New yorkers NEVER look up, we see the buildings all the time, looking up is a sign that you're a tourist. We asked our manager if we could go outside and see what was going on. She came with us. All we saw was smoke first, thought it was a fire somewhere. Stood outside looking for a minute or so then went back in to work.

Someone came running in, screaming, They're bombing the world trade center!

They? They who? Is this a joke? We had no TV, but someone had a walkman in his locker. No one knew what happened. There was a lot of standing around, waiting. Finally they decided to evacuate us. We still thought there were bombs.

Walking uptown, people were pouring out of office buildings. Some people didn't know what had happened was any big deal and were just excited to have the day off from work. Some were panicking.

Rumors, rumors, rumors like you would not believe. Planes were dive-bombing all over the country. The white house was hit. The president was missing. Air force one had been shot down. The pentagon was obliterated.

Then someone, on a cell phone: "GONE??? WHAT DO YOU MEAN, THEY'RE GONE?? HOW CAN THEY BE GONE??? How can the twin towers just be gone?" New Yorkers, we love our buildings. They are part of the family, a fundamental part of the glorious chaotic fabric of this wonderful city. We didn't believe it- all these crazy rumors couldn't be true, could they?

Strangers passing strangers their cell phones. Do you have a signal? I think I have a signal. We were far enough away that there was no running, no panic, no chaos, just bewilderment, shock and fear as we made our way through central park and uptown. We saved the buses for those who couldn't walk. Long lines at the deli, what if everything closes down? Do we have enough water? No one was allowed on or off Manhattan. "My apartment is full of coworkers I barely know!" said the woman in front of me in line. I was buying cat food.

Two teenage girls standing at a payphone both screamed MOM!!!!! into the receiver at the same time. They had just found out their mother was alive. All of us walking by spontaneously broke out cheering.

The sky ahead was bright, blue, clear, beautiful. The sky behind us was gray, and there was an awful smell in the air, wafting all the way uptown. It occured to me that this was the smell of burning bodies. I threw up. My roommates were both safe. Everyone I knew was safe.

I didn't have a television at the time, so I didn't see the images until a long time after. I didn't want to see. What I did see, what is burned into my memory forever, are the photocopied MISSING signs. They wallpapered the city. I passed a picture of a woman taping up a picture of her husband, a firefighter. "I know he's dead," she said. "I just wanted him to be up here. I wanted everyone to see his face...to know that he was there."

A few weeks later I went down to see it. "Ground zero" they were calling it; made me so fucking mad. Made it sound like some kind of action movie. It's not hollywood people! My city was raped. My home, my country was violated. But when I got down there it did look like hollywood. Fine gray dust everwhere. And just...a hole. They wouldn't let us get very close. That was fine, I didn't want to.

The national guard was everywhere...they looked so... young. Just kids, who should be going out on dates and not worrying about anything more serious than college entrance exams. I wanted to bring them cookies, or call their mothers and tell them they'd raised some brave young men.

I made my way back up town, for the first time I knew what it was to be truly grateful to be alive.

[Draco1958]

I'm glad this is typed instead of spoken. I always get choked up to the point of tears about this and right now, my voice would crack and the tears would fall. I was on temporary layoff from my airport shutle job at Metro. Slept in that day. A friend called telling me what was going on. Spent the rest of the day watching the tv, crying and screaming that those responsible should die slowly and horribly.

So 1) I was home, 2) alone, 3) sick to my stomach, literally.

I am not a violent person but even today, give me a weapon and hand me one of the people responsible and I could hurt them and hurt them and HURT THEM and.........................

Sorry, sometimes I let my emotions rule. A late actor friend was jogging in New York a few blocks from there. He saw one of the planes but didn't think much about it till he heard the explosion.