Go | New | Find | Notify | Tools | Reply | |
| No ethanol! |
I can recall being drawn further into the news being fed to us that Tues morning. As the day went on what we knew was heartbreaking, and what we didn't know yet seemed worse. Wednesday I was outside, and everyone was home, barely any traffic, no contrails in the sky, and it was eerie. The world was going to be different and we did not yet know how. ------------------ The plural of anecdote is not data. -Frank Kotsonis | |||
|
Knowing is Half the Battle |
I was a Junior in a small college in Northern Missouri, I was a dispatcher for the campus cops and had worked the 2300 shift the night before. I got home and went to sleep as it was all unfolding. I woke up around noon or 1pm and got on my computer and saw all the goofy ads on Yahoo that looked like some new Michael Bay movie advertisement when it was pictures of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. I came out of my room and my roommate got home and didn't believe I knew nothing about what had happened, I turned on the TV and that was the rest of my day. I didn't have a cell phone until a year later, I can't remember if we had a land line or what, but my parents were on some trip in Ohio and their flight got cancelled and they rented a car with some other people to get home. I forget all of the details of their journey, but I didn't know about it until later that evening or days later. I remember that day and seemingly every September 11th afterwards in Missouri and Iowa being the most beautiful day, cloudless sky, crisp beginnings of cooler fall weather beginning just that week. The silence of no airplanes and then for a long time afterwards everyone looking up when they heard an airplane. I always look up when I hear an airplane because I think the are cool and always wonder what type of airplane I am hearing is, but when every single person looks up...in Northern Missouri, away from any strategic terrorist target whatsoever. Every car with an American flag sticker, or magnet or whatever on its back window or trunk or tailgate. The American flag ribbon magnets, then the camo flag ribbon magnets, then the yellow ribbon magnets, etc. How united our country was, the last time I recall it being anywhere close to that united was when I was 10 years old and the Gulf War was going on. | |||
|
| Member |
Thank you for this, Para. I was 30 years old and had just finished the graveyard shift at my former police department. I was home and sawing logs. I was a military aircraft nerd and everyone knew it. At around 9:55AM, I got a call from one of my buddies who was a detective in CID. He said, "A plane just flew into the WTC." I was so sleepy. I just wanted to be left alone. I said, "It's not the first time. Probably a drunk Cessna pilot." I hurried off the phone so I could go back to sleep, but sleep didn't return. I decided to get up and check the news. When I saw the first gaping, smoldering hole, I knew that it wasn't a Cessna. Too big. A few minutes later, when the big United airliner hit the south tower, I knew it was commercial, likely a Boeing, and likely full of people. In that instant, everything changed for me. Stunned silence. Off-the-charts anger. All I could think about then, and what I still think about 20 years later, is the horror those passengers must've felt flying so low over the city. I'm afraid they knew. I hope they didn't. Two things still stand out to me after all these years. When President Bush visited the WTC site and had his arm around the fireman as the crowd chanted, "USA! USA!" President Bush said, "I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you! And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!" I had never been more proud of my country and my president than I was at that moment. Back then, I lived about 75 miles west of Memphis and large volumes of east-bound Fed Ex cargo planes would fly over my house at about around 12,000 feet on final into Memphis. At night, you could just see trains of Fed Ex planes going over my house into Memphis. When all flights were grounded, it became just dead silence. Full skies were empty. That was the strangest thing to me. | |||
|
| Member |
9/11/2001 I was working to protect Camp David as it received evacuated cabinet members. 9/11/2021 I will be working at Flight 93 National Memorial to help support family members whos loved ones perished as heroes 20 years ago. | |||
|
| Member |
I was a consultant, but I was home that day. Heard about it and turned on the TV. I was horrified to see what was happening. I knew right away that this was a terrorist act, an act of war, not an accident in navigation or anything else. I knew some of my colleagues were probably on planes that day. I called the home office in NH and asked where everybody was. The owner of the company was with a client in Florida. I told the office secretary to get in contact with him and tell him to stay off any commercial aircraft, which I knew would not be flying for awhile. I told her to tell the boss to keep the rental car and drive home from FL to NH, which he did, stopping to see other clients on the way. Another colleague was supposed to be on a flight from Newark, NJ to CA that morning and we hadn't heard from him and couldn't reach him on his cell phone. It turned out that he was sitting on a plane in Newark, NJ waiting to take off when he saw the first plane hit the north tower in NY. From what I can gather, local ATC authorities, apparently without any input from the FAA, made the decision to immediately put a halt to departures, and he saw the second plane hit the south tower 16 minutes later. His plane sat on the tarmac for quite a while before the flight was cancelled and passengers were disembarked at the gate. The company's other half dozen or so employees were all accounted for. While watching all this unfold on live TV, coverage moved to the Pentagon, which had been attacked shortly after the World Trade Center. This was very close to my home in northern Virginia. I drove close enough to the impact site the next day to see smoke still rising from the fires. In the years since, I've learned a few things. At the peak of the Cold War, there were over 200 Air Force and Air National Guard bases that had armed and fueled fighters with pilots nearby ready to scramble, with just a few minutes notice, to intercept enemy aircraft. By September 11, 2001, there were 7 such bases with fighters ready to scramble. Two of them, Otis in MA and Langley in VA, were in the North East Air Defense Sector, where all of the 9-11 attacks took place. Both launched fighters, but not soon enough to have an effect on events. By noon, the air was full of fighters, tankers and AWACS aircraft, but the attack was over. But not the war. The terrorist organizations who perpetrated these terrible attacks may have been thinned out a bit, maybe a lot, but they still hate us and everything we stand for. They're ready and eager to behead us one by one, if that is what it takes to achieve their evil ends. I hope we're ready. I have nothing but deep admiration and respect for all of the first responders, police and fire personnel, volunteers and all of the fire and rescue people who toiled around the clock to rescue any victims and eventually do their best to recover the dead. These brave people represent the second wave of victims, as many of them have suffered physical and psychological ailments while many others have died of injuries or exposure to toxic or toxic/cancer causing dust as they worked in the wreckage of the WTC. I likewise have great respect and admiration for the military personnel, at all levels, who took this fight to the enemy's front door. I hope we never forget what happened and the sacrifices made by so many in the years that have followed these horrific attacks. | |||
|
Member |
In those days I was in an aviation forum before work every morning. That morning there was a thread talking about a plane flying into the world trade center. The thread just didn’t sound real, but it got me to go turn on the TV. About a minute after I turned on the TV the second plane hit. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I’m sure I was late for work and was glued to the TV every night for a long time. I still watch a lot of the documentaries every year and hope that nothing like that ever happens again. --------------- Gary Will Fly for Food... and more Ammo Mosquito Lubrication Video If Guns Cause Crime, Mine Are Defective.... Ted Nugent | |||
|
| It's all part of the adventure... |
I was still active duty Air Force at the time, heading to work on the base when I heard about the first plane on the radio. Then the second, etc. Of course, I share many of the same thoughts and emotions that others have already mentioned — the shock, disbelief, horror, sadness, and anger — but what I fondly remember about that day that always gets me choked up are my neighbors. We had just PCS’d from Ramstein AB, Germany, to Davis-Monthan AFB here in Tucson, AZ, and had moved into our newly-purchased home in August 2001. Here in Tucson our yards don’t generally have grass; we have “decorative rock” a.k.a. gravel. We had purchased something like 13 yards of rock to cover our back yard (which was just dirt) and thicken up the front, and it was scheduled to be delivered on 9/11. The base went to 24-hour operations/12-hour shifts, and I volunteered to take the night shifts, so I was back home by noon and greeted by the trucks delivering the piles of rock. Since I was too worked up to sleep, and had to do something, I started spreading the rock using a wheelbarrow, rake, and shovel. My wife was helping as well. Then the incredible part happened…our new neighbors, whom we hardly knew, but who knew I was in the Air Force, came over to help with their shovels, rakes, and wheelbarrows. Fathers, sons, mothers, daughters. Many of these neighbors we only “knew” by just a wave in passing; we hadn’t even actually met them yet, but they came to help out the new military family. I eventually had to go back into work that night for my 1800-0600 shift. For the next several days, our neighbors helped my wife spread the several tons of rock all over our yard. I came home each morning and slept until early afternoon, and then would help as well for a few hours until I had to go back into work. But my wife and our kind and wonderful neighbors did most of the work spreading all that rock. I believe that for the neighbors, it was their way of “helping the military”, even if it was just me and my family; and it gave them something positive to focus on during that terrible time. I will always be grateful to those good folks. Obviously, the horrific loss of life is the single most painful part of our collective 9/11 memory; but for me it is soothed at least slightly by the actions of the heroes at Ground Zero, the Pentagon, and in the sky above that field in Pennsylvania. Their actions demonstrate the indomitable spirit of the American people and our collective compassion for our fellow citizens. For all those who lost their lives on that awful day, and those who later died as a result of the after-actions — may God bless their souls and give peace to their families and friends. Our hearts still ache 20 years later. We will never forget. Regards From Sunny Tucson, SigFan NRA Life - IDPA - USCCA - GOA - JPFO - ACLDN - SAF - AZCDL - ASA "Faith isn't believing that God can; it's knowing that He will." (From a sign on a church in Nicholasville, Kentucky) | |||
|
| It's pronounced just the way it's spelled |
It was the last week at a job and company I was happy to leave. They had moved everyone but me and one other guy to a different location, I was driving into work when I heard about a plane hitting one of the Towers and thought the pilot was either really incompetent or had made a terrible mistake. When I heard about the second plane, I knew it was an attack. I called my wife, who worked for Morgan Stanley at the time. She was watching the TV at their Chicago office. She had friends who worked at their NYC offices in the Tower, and was worried about them. It all hit me pretty hard, because she was supposed to be at the Morgan Stanley Tower offices that morning for a 9am meeting, but it had gotten rescheduled just a few days before. If that meeting had gone on as scheduled, she would have been in the Tower, and hopefully been one of those rescued by Rick Rescorla. I don’t remember picking up our son from school, I do remember sitting on the front step of the house, looking up and seeing no planes, no contrails, which is really odd for a city with two major airports. Our son was only 8, so we didn’t let him watch broadcast TV that week. At 41 I was way too old to do anything directly, at least as far as our government was concerned. I wish I was confident in the government’s response, but the longer it all went on, the less sense it all made. I do have the deepest respect for all of those who risked their lives, physical health and sanity in the name of making our country safer from terrorism. | |||
|
| Cruising the Highway to Hell  |
I was a communications tech working on Govt communication systems in the DC area. I was at a customer site and got pulled in the break room after the first plane hit, we watched the second and all realized we were under attack. I left that location and got calls from several agencies wanting someone there in case something else happened. The local radio Stations were reporting bombs exploding all over DC, all roads and all lanes seemed to be headed out of town, it was chaos. I got a call from Defense Protective Service at the Pentagon about helping to get radio systems back online. I told the Captain there was no way to get there, roads were blocked. He said hang on, then asked for my vehicle information and said standby. A minute or so later he said use whatever means you need to use to get here. I started heading that way, hit a VA State police roadblock, the trooper asked where I was headed, made a radio call and told me to get there if I had to drive on sidewalks, police had been notified of my vehicle information, just get there. When I got to the Pentagon, I met an officer, we loaded my tools and some equipment in his car and he took me to a tent. I get out of the car an looked up, I was about 100 yards or so from the impact point. I spent the next 5 days there working with first responders on radio issues and trying to help with interoperability issues. There is not a day that goes by, that I close my eyes and I don’t see visions from that day, or spell some of the smells from that day. It was truly an experience that can not be unseen. “Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.” ― Ronald Reagan Retired old fart | |||
|
| Member |
My memory of that day is still semi-clear, though it was a mundane day for me. I called in sick because I had slept poorly for like the 4th or 5th day in a row and I knew I'd be useless. My wife took our 2 YO boy (now 22 and in Israel) and my almost 1 YO infant to daycare while I finally slept. I was out. I woke up groggily, fired up the computer. And I remember this part clearly: the homepage news showed two pictures. They were fairly small. One was something about Britney Spears. The LOWER one was of a plane hitting the tower. I clicked on it, the screen froze, and my wife called... | |||
|
Member |
I worked at a new, huge Ames/True Temper warehouse in Carlisle, PA at the time. They're a one of the oldest manufacturers of lawn, garden, construction tools. When we arrived for work on the night of 9/11, the bosses had a before shift meeting. We were told that there will be no customer trucks loaded all shift. Instead we were told to load trailers with whatever we thought the rescuers at Ground Zero would need. There were no bills of lading, we were told to ignore weight limits, (within reason, of course), and we were told not to bother to electronically scan the cases of items going on the trailers, which is how we kept track of inventory & shipping. I forget how many loading bays we had, but they were all full, and when one trailer was loaded, it was pulled out, put on the road to NY, and another took it's place. We did that for 12 straight hours. I don't know how the company kept track of what was shipped, because there were no records kept. I do know that only the absolutely very best shovels, digging irons, crow bars, wheelbarrows, etc that Ames/True Temper made went to Ground Zero. The budget grade stuff was still there in the warehouse when we left in the morning. We were all still pissed off when we left in the morning, but at least we felt like maybe we helped out a little. ------------------------------------------------ "It's hard to imagine a more stupid or dangerous way of making decisions, than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong." Thomas Sowell | |||
|
| If you see me running try to keep up  |
A day that I will never forget, I was at work and somebody mentioned what had happened. Most of us went to the only TV we had at work and turned on the news, we could not pull it up on the internet due to so many people trying the same thing. It was surreal and too hard to comprehend. I was torn, I felt like I needed to go home and prepare for further attacks across the country. But, my employer would not let us leave work. For days all we did was watch the video and news reports. It seems like yesterday. | |||
|
Member |
I had retired from the police department and we had moved to our ranch in NW Florida the year before. It was my intent to be a gentleman farmer and breed Quarter Horses and Red Brangus cattle. I had built a breeding barn and run in sheds, and planted pastures and hay fields. I bought three beautiful mares, two with Doc Bar heritage, but had not completed the deal on the cattle. The breeding barn was complete except for the roof. I had just put 2100 fingerling catfish in our newly dug lake. I was still in the USAF reserve as an OSI Special Agent, and would do various assignments for them of a week or so duration from time to time. I had just received an assignment to give a classified threat briefing to a reserve air refueling wing based in the Midwest that was deploying to Operation Northern Watch in the sandbox. I told my wife it was my last trip of the year as I had to finish the barn roof. I flew to a nearby airport, got a rental car, and drove to the base. I met with the Intelligence shop and gave my briefing on time. It's not classified any more but the bell ringer in the briefing was the fact that Bin Laden had just moved his family to a place of safety. All indications were that he was planning an imminent attack against U.S. interests somewhere on the Arabian Peninsula. I completed my briefing and walked across the street to the Intel office to shred my classified and drive to the airport. As I entered the Intel shop I watched as the second plane flew into the World Trade Center. Command thought I knew more than I did and invited me to the command post. I had been informed that National Command Authority had ordered the fourth plane shot down. Then Flight 93 went down. Speculation that we had shot it down was rampant. My HQ told me I was being mobilized immediately and to get to my HQ ASAP. I drove my rental car home, packed a bag, and drove to my assignment. I spent a total of 6 years of the next 10 on active duty with assignments all over the world. My horses never got bred, the cows never came, and I had to pay someone else $25K to finish my horse barn. Like so many, my entire life, and the lives of my family changed in an instant. My wife had to take up the slack on the ranch. My eldest son was active duty on 9/11 and he deployed 9 times-he was calling steel in on AQ by Christmas 01. My son in law was a Marine and was with 1st MEF in Iraq. I think the patriotic spirit rubbed off and my youngest daughter is now career Air Force and my youngest son was a Marine. I don't regret a moment of the time I spent on active duty, working next to some of the finest men and women America has to offer. God bless our troops in these uncertain times. CMSGT USAF (Retired) Chief of Police (Retired) | |||
|
| Member |
I got off the subway on Dey Street about 30 seconds after the first plane struck to the North Tower. When I went up the stairs to the street, I heard people saying a plane struck the Tower. As I was facing the east side of the towers, I could not see the hole in the tower and at that point, it was not burning that badly. I start walking toward the Towers to see what was going on. I then watched about six or seven people either jump or fall from the North Tower. I remember two quite vividly, A man in a blue suite and a woman in a black dress. I stood there for about fifteen minutes and then the second plane came in. I saw the fireball and took off running toward Broadway and ducked around the corner of 195 Broadway, as I did not know how far the debris would fall. At that moment I knew this was some kind attack. I then ran to my office building about a block or so up Broadway. I went up to my office and told my staff what was happening and to get out and go home as I knew the city would shut down. I also said stay out of midtown as I thought that would be the next likely target. I then went downstairs back to the street. At that time people started to congregate on the street in front of my building. In that area there was an eerie calm as people stood there watching the buildings burn. I stood there watching with a few people that I knew. The fire in the South Tower seemed worse. I was looking directly at the fire line on the South Tower when I saw it lean ever so slightly east. I think I said, “holy shit it’s coming down” and the group took off running. I ran up Park Row and Centre Street and stopped at the Courthouse at 60 Centre. My thought at that time was 20,000 people just died. I remember the noise of the collapse very distinctly. The sound of a huge thunderstorm superimposed over the sound of breaking glass. The dust cloud seemed to be propelled up the streets and was thinning out by the time it reached where I was. At that point I felt a bit confused trying to figure out what to do. The obvious choice was to get the hell out of the area and go home. I was not thinking about the second tower coming down. I walked about a block to 100 Centre when the thunder started again. I turned and watched the second tower come down. There is more to this story. I kept my office downtown. I breathed in that very distinct smell for years after. Diagnosed with cancer in 2012. I’m ok now, but yeah, 9/11 affected me. ___________________________ | |||
|
| Get my pies outta the oven!  |
One of my wife's aunts was there in Tower 2 that morning and ended up walking down from the 78th floor. I can't even imagine the horror.
Link | |||
|
| Little ray of sunshine  |
I remember getting to work and hearing that a plane had hit a building in NYC. At first, the news wasn't clear about whether it was an accident and what kind of plane. We gathered in someone's office who had a TV, and it the whole scale and scope of what was happening became apparent. Somewhere around midday, they shut down our building, which was and is the tallest in Houston, and sent us all home. I had to find a ride home because I had taken a bus into work that morning, and the longer route commuter buses were shut down. When I got home, I continued to watch the news, of course. The fish is mute, expressionless. The fish doesn't think because the fish knows everything. | |||
|
| Political Cynic |
still angry after 20 years and watching tv today just intensifies it - the new Afghan Taliban government consists of several people that were GitMo prisoners and planners of the attack | |||
|
| John has a long moustashe  |
I was in class at the Colorado Sheriff's Training Institute when the Director came in and told us that a plane had hit the WTC. Like everyone else we assumed it to be a light aircraft. Soon after that he announced that it was an airliner. That changed the outlook. A work crew of Douglas County inmates took care of the grounds etc. and I saw a couple of them and said "Tell me you guys don't have a bootleg TV set up...". The guy I was talking to asked if we had a coat hanger and then went and rigged up a small TV in the maintenance shop. We all went in there and watched it unfold. The rest of the day was a wash and I mostly remember smoking a lot of cigarettes outside between TV visits, no contrails and a lot of calls from my wife who worked in the Sheriff's Office front office. | |||
|
| Muzzle flash aficionado  |
I was still in bed when the first plane hit. (I live an hour later than NYC and didn't go in to work early). My clock radio came on and instead of the usual music there was talking about the plane striking. I turned on the TV and watched. Went in to work and everyone was clustered around the only TV in the building. We were sent home in mid-afternoon. It was very clear when the 2nd plane struck that this was an attack by terrorists. I was angry, but there was little I could do. I did make contributions to several aid agencies who were supporting the work in NYC. flashguy Texan by choice, not accident of birth | |||
|
| Little ray of sunshine |
Which people are these? The fish is mute, expressionless. The fish doesn't think because the fish knows everything. | |||
|
| Powered by Social Strata | Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 |
 | Please Wait. Your request is being processed... |
|
© SIGforum 2024