September 11

I recently had a friend ask what September 11 was like. And that’s when I realized that he was just a baby at the time–like, maybe a year or so old and would have zero recollection. 

If there’s one big memory, it was everyone coming together if even for a brief moment in time. 

In reply to David S. Wallens :

For better or for worse, I don't recall very much.

I was only 6 at the time, but I do know that my world changed a lot in the following months and even years.

I was in Calculus class, senior year in high school.  They stopped class.  Eventually let us leave for the day if we felt we needed to.

I remember, vividly, a girl I had a crush on saying "I dont get what the big deal is" or similar.  I just kinda looked at her.  She and I were friends, she knew I was going into the USAF when high school was over (and it had been the plan for months)

It was a weird day.

That was right around the time my wife and I got married.  It was jarring.  Seeing the highlight of the Manhattan skyline destroyed in that manner, the huge loss of life, was very unsettling. 

We are reminded to "Never Forget," but I feel that we as a nation are complacent and blind to the very real threats presented by our enemies.

In reply to Colin Wood :

I was at MCRD (Marine Corps Recruit Depot) San Diego, beginning my second month of boot camp. 

The Depot directly abuts the San Diego airport, with only a fence separating the two facilities. As a recruit, listening to various aircraft take off and land at all hours quickly becomes a part of the background noise, providing an ironic backing track to the sounds of military discipline and large formation drill. 

The strangest thing of the morning for us was the eerie silence that resulted after all flights were grounded. Later, our Drill Instructors pulled out a television and had us watch the breaking news for about an hour. 

The events of that day led directly to the three tours I did in Iraq, the loss of more close friends than I care to remember, and the shameful throwing out of all the progress we made by an administration more concerned with political points than with helping the Iraqi people recover from the damage of over 4 years of active war. 

Yes, 9/11/01 was a life changing event for the whole world; no, no one seems to remember the lessons we learned that day. 

I'm taking a course called Advanced Historical Writing right now and each of us had to identify an event or time period in history about which we will work through the semester to write a research paper proposal.  One of my classmates of "normal" college age wrote that he was going to choose 9-11 and then mentioned that it had happened before he was born.  It clicked for me right then how the defining moments are so different from generation to generation.  Those of us that were of adulthood at the time have this visceral reaction to the mention of those events that is almost like a micro-reliving of that day while those people that only know of it as a thing that happened have a completely different context.  Not to say that one is more valuable than the other or anything like that, but it was to me anyway, an interesting observation.

9-11-14 my daughter was born!

I was a junior in HS in the middle of typing class when the librarian stuck her head in our classroom to tell us about what was going on.  We turned on the classroom TV and about 5 minutes later, our chronically angry principal came over the loudspeaker and told everyone to turn the TVs off right now.  Nothing to see here.  Go back to our learning as God intended.  I remember being absolutely jarred for the day and a long while after. 

I was in elementary school and remember that something felt off that day. The teachers didnt say anything to us while it was all happening and I only remember finding out once I got home and my Mom told me there was an attack. Some of the news coverage from that day is burned into my brain and is something I wont ever forget.

I was driving a truck at the time. People would get on overpasses and wave big American flags and we'd all blow the air horns and wave. I guess if we need to we can still come together?

I've probably posted about it before, but here's a rundown of my day. I remember every detail like it was yesterday.

I was in my sophomore year of attending a local college, and since it was a Tuesday, I had the day off from classes. I didn't have work that day, so I planned to go to the junkyard in the morning with a friend (fellow GRMer Pseudosport, aka Greg) and go to pick up the new Slayer album at Newbury Comics (remember when albums came out on Tuesdays?). I got up and sat down with breakfast at the family PC, fired it up, and went to the AOL homepage to check my email. And that's where I saw that a plane had hit one of the towers. I immediately grabbed the phone and called Greg and ran downstairs to the family room to turn on the news. Greg did the same at his place. After we turned on the TV and were talking about what a horrible accident it was, the second plane hit right there on live TV. 

That is when everything changed. It was not an accident, it was an attack. My heart sank and I felt sick. And the History major in me made sure to sit and watch it all. 

We sat there dumbfounded on the phone for a long time, watching the whole thing go down, and talking about how messed up it was. And then reports that two other planes were out there; and one hit the Pentagon while the other crashed in PA. It was surreal, and we had no choice but to sit and watch. Then, we both realized that the planes had come from Logan Airport in Boston. Were any of our friends and family on the flights? This was WAY too close to home. Having a friend on the line to share the feelings with was helpful and validating as I navigated the shock of the whole thing. 

Ultimately, after watching the towers collapse, and after checking in with family and friends to see if they were safe, we both decided we needed to get our minds in a better place and we went to the junkyard, specifically Everett's Auto Parts in Brockton, MA. There really is zen in the junkyard, as we all know, so taking a stroll would help both of us take a break from what was happening. 

Except, it didn't. 

On the way there, there was no music on the radio. It was all news broadcasts on every station. And when we got to the junkyard, every radio in the place was tuned into the same news broadcasts. No one in the yard or office spoke. It was eerily calm, and the normal chaos of crushing and cutting up cars was pushed aside. 

After that, we decided to get lunch and hit up Newbury Comics. If you've ever been to New England, Newbury Comics is a chain of stores that has music, clothes, collectibles, and yes, comics. It's a great place even today to grab a record, a funny bumper sticker or fridge magnet, and a cool collectible. And they are always blasting cool music, usually some flavor of Punk or Metal. But that day, it was the news, just like everywhere else. It was yet another reminder on how serious things were that day. Even super hip, cool-person-central Newbury Comics was playing the news. And yes, I bought Slayer's new album God Hates Us All that day. That title was too odd of a coincidence for me not to buy it. 

After that, I dropped Greg off. We both wanted to be with our families. After checking in with mine, I spent the rest of the night glued to the TV, absorbing everything. 

Like David said above, the feeling of unity and solidarity that we had immediately afterwards was one of the best feelings. It devolved very quickly after that, and the country couldn't be further apart now on a lot of things, but that one moment was special. I hope it doesn't take an attack to get us all to feel that way again. 

NermalSnert (Forum Supporter) said:

I was driving a truck at the time. People would get on overpasses and wave big American flags and we'd all blow the air horns and wave. I guess if we need to we can still come together?

I'd been in class for nursing school and left  during break to get home and check in with my National Guard unit.  At 10:30 am I had the interstate to myself and there was a biker standing on an overpass waving a huge flag.  He must have been one of the first to do so.  It was a surreal moment in time.

I was at work, and I shared an office with a Navy vet who was a couple years younger. I walked in late and the first thing he said was "dude a plane just crashed into the World Trade Center." There was no info on the size of the plane at that point, and I thought Cessna. Someone dragged a TV out of the conference room and we got to see the aftermath of the second plane going in. All we talked about for the rest of the day was how to thwart a hijacking with the stuff that you'd have access to on a plane. I used to travel a lot with work. You'd better believe I had my eye on every motherberkeleyer on every one of my flights for many years after that.

also found out on 9/11/01 that my niece had Leukemia.

My wife was 6 months pregnant with our first, and I remember thinking "what kind of world are we bringing this baby into?" 23 years later, and I still don't know.

I was driving to a job site listening to the radio describing the first plane. Then the second plane hit, and I realized it was no accident. I watched both towers fall.  I was horrified.
 

My cousin worked in Tower 1.  His subway was inbound when they collapsed. The power to the subway cut off when he was 1 block from being under the tower. He walked out of the city that day to NJ- it took him nearly 9 hours.

My wife grew up in a NY neighborhood with a predominantly Italian makeup. There was a lot of  camaraderie among neighbors and support. The volunteer firehouse in her neighborhood responded.  She went to school with all those guys. None of them survived. 

I lost a lot of people that day.
 

By the end of the day I had gathered my crew together and we began making plans to shut down my company and head North to help with recovery efforts. After a few days we realized we would be an additional burden to the efforts if we went, and we canceled our plans.

My mother lived about 30 miles away in NJ in the house I grew up in.  She could smell the smell of the destruction for 6 months afterward.

For years I noticed when a plane flew over a bit too low.  I still do.

AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:

I was at work, and I shared an office with a Navy vet who was a couple years younger. I walked in late and the first thing he said was "dude a plane just crashed into the World Trade Center." There was no info on the size of the plane at that point, and I thought Cessna. Someone dragged a TV out of the conference room and we got to see the aftermath of the second plane going in. All we talked about for the rest of the day was how to thwart a hijacking with the stuff that you'd have access to on a plane. I used to travel a lot with work. You'd better believe I had my eye on every motherberkeleyer on every one of my flights for many years after that.

also found out on 9/11/01 that my niece had Leukemia.

My wife was 6 months pregnant with our first, and I remember thinking "what kind of world are we bringing this baby into?" 23 years later, and I still don't know.

I was in 6th grade.  People knew I was interested in planes, so they asked me about it...I thought the same thing.  Then we heard about plane #2 and we all figured it out.  We had electives first thing in the morning, so no TVs on.  When we got to homeroom, the edict was out to turn the TVs off and proceed as normal.  Homeroom teacher could barely keep it together, so we basically just talked the whole time.  

Didn't see anything about it until I got home.  

I was ...21? On my way into work. I never listened to the radio, always had a selection of burned CDs from limewire. Walked into my slave wage job at the mall and the cookie lady (who always hooked me up with the good icee) said something about one of the towers being hit by a plane. Everyone was pretty nuh uh about the whole thing- almost dismissive. Got to work and and they had it on the radio in back, and that's when the second tower got hit. It was super surreal, the radio almost didn't believe it. We were open for a few hours that day before they shut us down wholesale, and trying to maintain a sense of normalcy and customer service while knowing some crazy E36 M3 is going down was nearly impossible. I was sitting there the whole time saying "people go the berkeley home you don't need shoes right now". I had the next five days off for vacation and spent the entire time glued to the TV. 

Junior year of high school. I was in english. The teacher told us she wasn't going to turn the TV on. Half the class walked out to other rooms. I was just so confused why she refused to give us any info.

I was Freshman in college and woke up in my dorm watching the replay of the first plane hitting the towers. As I was watching it the second one happened and it felt surreal like a movie. It was horrible, classes were canceled. At my Dad's work they were on lock down, and there was talk that a plane might be heading towards them, but it turned that particular plane had a issue and was not involved. While it did bring people together there were some friends of mine that were unfairly judged, for what some people thought "looked like the enemy".

John Welsh said:

9-11-14 my daughter was born!

9-11-05 for mine!

I still won't watch it happen. I lost a best buddy and two other friends that day. 

I was making sales calls in Little Rock, Arkansas and I was at my first customer and his wife called to tell us about the Pentagon.

I called my rental car place and they said to take the car home so I drove all day to Chicago.   Illinois State troopers all over the place on I57 - such an awful day.

I was on a motorcycle trip with a buddy. We'd ridden Deal's Gap in the morning and stopped in Tellico Plains, TN to get fuel at about 10:00 AM. The gas station attendant told us what was happening, as best as he knew at that point. We found a little restaurant and spent the next hour or so in the kitchen with the staff listening to the radio. After quite a bit of effort I was able to get through to my wife who relayed a message to my buddy's wife that we were OK. Not knowing what else to do, we rode the Cherahola Skyway and started meandering toward home. We weren't yet sure what to expect in terms of being able to travel. ~700 miles straight home was a long ride on our dual sport bikes - especially with a lot on the mind. 

Re: remembering. My place of employment does a remembrance event each year at the flagpole in the courtyard out front. There are several thousand employees on site. There were fewer than 50 outside this morning. 

I was in college in California. Got woken up by a phone call from a friend. He just said, "The Twin Towers are gone."

My brain could not compute that.

I think I went in to classes but no one tried to do anything. Everyone was just kind of milling around and my first teacher was like, "I'm not going to even try today. Go home."

I cried a lot that day. Sometimes with another person who I didn't even like. We bonded in our grief.

Try explaining to a kid that by there were no airplanes. Nothing was in the sky by the end of the day and for days after. As someone who is a pilot, and lives near O'Hare, there are so many aircraft airborne, that you become jaded and don't even notice.

So when that all stops, it's very, very quiet.