I was 27 at that time, and in between moving from Texas to Washington. I was in Arizona at my Dad's house when it started. I was in the shower and he said a plane hit the trade tower. I asked what kind and he said he wasn’t sure.
I got out of the shower and we stood there watching live TV when the second plane hit. He simply looked and said that is terrorism, mentioned a guy (bin Laden) who I had never heard of, and said those flights had a lot of fuel, the towers will weaken and fall (Dad is a building engineer). He left for work.

I sat glued to the TV in shock as to what had happened. I still have copies of The Arizona Republic for the few days following 9/11.

It still gets my eyes watery when I sit and think about what happened that day.

As posted earlier, everything I ever needed to know about Islam, I learned on 09/11/2001.

I was 10 in '63 and remember a similar response when the President was shot. Even though my family members and neighbors were not his supporters, everybody in the country pulled together for a time. The shock felt similar but there was nobody in the end to strike back at.
9/11 created a similar bond for a while. Realistically, anyone now under 25 or so either wasn't born or was too young to fully appreciate what was going on and how unusual this was. Many of them have served in the subsequent wars and may have a very good understanding of where these people came from but the rest mostly just see these photos and stories and can't really grasp what an event like this really means to those that lived through the event.
Many people (including the perpetrators) believe that we Americans have become soft due to our lifestyle and comforts and couldn't react like earlier Americans had to when facing adversity. The people on flight 93 proved them wrong. When the situation became clear, they reacted with complete disregard to their own safety and did what they knew had to be done.

Never forget, roger that.

I was stationed in Europe at the time. An airwing of USMC aircraft had just landed at the airfield. After a few minutes of figuring out what was going on, all the aircraft took off for the ship and she got underway immediately, setting sail for the Middle East.

Rest in peace my dear brothers who were working at the Pentagon command center and lost their lives that fateful day; Ed Earhart and Michael Flocco, We will never forget!

On 9/10/01 I had recently retired from the police department and moved to the ranch with every intention of being a gentleman farmer and horse breeder. I had just stocked my lake with several thousand fingerling catfish and was in the midst of building a horse barn. The fish were doing well and we had the trusses and rafters up on the barn. I was enjoying early morning rides along the trails on Gracie or Blondie and life was pretty good.

I remained in the Air Force Reserve as a Special Agent in AFOSI. AFOSI's mission is criminal, counterterrorism, and counterintelligence investigations. I had called HQ and advised them I had a little extra time for special duty and they frequently sent me one place or another for a few days or a week or two to do interviews, conduct threat briefings, protection details, and various other things. I think they also wanted my grey hair in certain circumstances.

If you did not know, following Desert Storm, the US Air Force flew continuous combat air patrols over Northern Iraq to keep Saddam Hussein from attacking the Kurds from the air. We continuously had Airmen deployed to the Middle East on a combat footing for 10 years before 9/11. On 9/10/01, they were sending me to a reserve base in the Midwest to conduct a threat briefing on 9/11 for a Wing that was deploying to the Middle East for their rotation in Operation Northern Watch. I told my wife this would be my last trip of the year as I had a barn to finish.

All the deploying Airmen were in the auditorium for the classified briefing. One of the things I told them was that Osama bin Laden had just moved family members to a place of safety so the assessment was he was getting ready to do something on the Arabian Peninsula. Boy were we wrong about the target. Most of the people in the room had no idea who Osama bin Laden was. I had done a lot of research on bin Laden and there was very little information available and even fewer people who knew anything about him at the time. That was about to change.

I walked across the street to the SCIF planning to shred my classified and head to the airport and home. As I entered the SCIF the TV was on and I watched the second plane fly into the World Trade Center. Well shit, there went my barn building plans. I was immediately bombarded with questions from local command on what I knew, which was very little. I did know that Chaney had ordered the third plane shot down, the F-16's were scrambled, and then the plane went down in Pennsylvania. There was a lot of head shaking and disbelief until it was verified that we had not shot that plane down. I called my wife and I recall saying that this war would last 25 years or more and I hoped the American people had the fortitude to see it through.

I could not get a flight home of course so I drove my rental home on the way to my HQ. I had less than 24 hours at home and then was off to my duty station, which was Reserve Command HQ. I was there as force protection advisor for 16 months and observed the guard and reserve build to a wartime footing. It was chaotic, but relentless and powerful. The Guard and Reserve brought a lot of unique skills and experience to the fight and it brought tears to my eyes to see the level of patriotism that they and the active duty folks displayed in that chaotic time. Everybody wanted to get into the fight. There was competition for seats on the aircraft to get to the war. Unit commanders were wrangling to get airlift for their outfits to bring the fight to the enemy.

My life was drastically changed as were the lives of so many when those planes hit the towers. I could not go home to finish the barn roof so I had to hire someone to do it and that cost a lot of money. My wife was left to manage the farm and construction projects, which she did with aplomb. But my story was not unique. We saw similar experiences of Guardsmen and Reservists being played out thousands of times all over the country. Pilots left their civilian airliners and climbed onto their C5's and KC135's within days. The unseen personal commitment and sacrifices of these warriors brought into focus what it means to be an American patriot.

Active duty military were disrupted as well. But we had learned the lessons of Viet Nam and Desert Storm well. They were ready, willing, and lethal. My oldest son was an active duty Forward Air Combat Controller who was in the fight in Afghanistan within weeks. (He has done 9 combat deployments since 9/11). My youngest son joined the US Marines. Our agents were on the ground ahead of deploying units within days to assess the threats on the ground. Some deployed so quickly they had nothing but their weapons and what they could carry in a bag. You could see and hear and feel our war machine ginning up. The power was awesome. Civilian support was the highest since WWII. The American patriot was pissed and somebody was going to pay.

From 9/11/01 until April 2011, I was on active duty for more than 6 years all tolled. I traveled all over the world and as a senior NCO agent had the privilege of leading and/or interacting with hundreds of active duty, Guard, and Reserve members who were doing their best to carry out their mission. People from all walks of life, religions, races, backgrounds, and education united to serve a common mission. It was one of my greatest privileges in life to serve with these magnificent men and women. I was sad to retire 8 years ago but it was time for me.

In recent years I have come to fear how the younger generation would respond when we are attacked again. And rest assured, we will be attacked again from somewhere. I would like to believe that a new generation of patriots will rise up to do their duty. In the meanwhile I intend to teach my grandchildren the importance of service above self, sacrifice, and patriotism. And that they must never forget!

I was stationed at Ft Drum, NY at the time.

I was quite pleased when they perforated that POS in 2011 who was behind the attacks on our country.

HayesGreener,

First off, thank you for your service, as well as all the others that have served.

Also, thank you for sharing your story. It was great to read and I really appreciate you sharing it.

I was out of work at that time.
I don't know why I turned the TV on that morning, I never turned it on in the morning. But I did, and few minutes later the second hit occurred.

I'll never forget, and I'll never forgive. God might, but i won't.

And amen.

The Bible says that I should forgive, well it hasn't happened yet. If (that's a huge if) I ever do forgive, I will never forget.
Everything I need to know about Islam I learned on 9/11. YES!
HayesGreener, thank you Sir and God bless you and your family.
Rod

I was down in Manhattan working at my MED device sales job.

I went to the Yankees Redsox game the night before which ended up being a rain out and had dinner at Carmine’s in Times Sq with my best friend. I drank to much and woke up a bit hungover and went to my meeting which was near Lexington and 23rd.

I was sitting facing away from a playing Tv and I’ll never forget my customer turning white and saying to me “ I think you need to leave, look at what’s happened”.

I had a car so the odyssey began, Midtown was gridlocked, it was hot and there wasn’t much cell service. After what seemed like forever I bypassed a saw horse and got onto the closed FDR drive and drove up to the Willis Ave bridge and cut through the BRONX to 95 N. My lasting memory of that drive was that there was literally no one on the roads driving Up through CT to Ma.

I grew up in NY, my father is retired NYPD and some of my best childhood memories are going with him to the WTC and China Town for lunch. I’ve probably been to the top 25 times.

#Neverforget.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: liner,

I was a cop working night shift and was asleep when my GF called and woke me and told me to watch the tv. Got a call from my mom then my reserve unit called, I got activated over the phone...spent the next few months pulling security at an obscure CG base..

I still get mad when I think of all those people who died, I still cry.

And I will never forget.

quote:

Originally posted by RHINOWSO:
Wow, what a day. I don't allow myself to think about it often - after this post I will likely avoid the topic as long as I can.

Fate was such that my unit deployed shortly after 9/11 and we were able exact a large measure of retribution against those savages, which was very cathartic personally.

It doesn't make up for it, but having seen first hand what we did, I know they reaped the fucking whirlwind, which they never expected.

Thank you sir.

I was getting ready for work in Boardman, OR clear across the nation from the Twin Towers.

I worked as a federal security officer (armed) at the Umatilla Chemical Weapons Depot.

My mom called and asked if I had seen what happened, and told me to turn on the TV.

I saw the second plane hit, told my mom thanks for calling, and proceeded to get myself to work.

When I got to work the Depot was on lockdown, but as I was oncoming shift for the security department I was ushered out to our arms room to check in and draw my gear. Graveyard shift was very mad that they weren't being allowed to go home when all of dayshift (my shift) arrived. We used the Graveyard shift and Day shift to have double coverage of all of our posts and patrols until Swing shift came in early to relieve the Graveyard shift. We started a 12 hour shift with seven day a week coverage so that we could have our patrols and posts doubled.

When we let people resume their duties a few days later(we also had contractors on site that were building the weapons incinerator) we went on 100% vehicle searches for all incoming and outgoing vehicles. Within a few days we had a National Guard Unit augmenting our security, but we stayed on 12 hour shifts for months after 9/11.

at 13:00 Pacific Daylight savings time me and one of our sergeants drove the M-113 APC (armored personnel carrier) down to one of our most used gates and set it up with the M-60 on the turret. That APC became one of our posts that we had to man.

Even though I was completely across the country from where the attacks happened I still felt the effects deeply.

After the attacks we took our ton containers that contained Mustard agent and moved them from the pole barn they were in to some empty underground storage igloos without making the treaty notifications... we notified the treaty after we had all of the Mustard agent moved and had the international treaty inspectors come post haste to verify nothing was missing.

The last of the chemical at our site was destroyed in October 2011, we declared non-surety in January 2012, and the Chemical Depot as we knew it closed 12 August 2012. The Depot is now a National Guard training area.

I will never forget.

I left the house this morning and got several blocks on my way to work. I had to turn around and go home...

My flag flies today. I REMEMBER

Remembering my Brothers and Sisters. Cops and Firemen who gave all that day. Pic pretty much sums up my thoughts today.

I remember it like it was yesterday

hardly a day goes by when I don't remember

I was in NH and my parents were down from Canada, we were out playing golf and I remember looking up in the sky and seeing contrails making u-turns and heading north - not just one but a few dozen.

No idea what was happening, until we got back to the car and had the radio on, a fast drive home to get the tv turned on - just in time to watch the first tower collapse

when they closed the border, my parents had to stay a bit longer and we got a phone call from my brother telling us about the problem at Halifax Airport

my dad (who ran six metro hospitals at the time) called the Red Cross and had my brother open up his house where about 30 people ended up camping out until they could be relocated to better accommodations. When my parents finally got home the house was spotless.

I'll always remember, I'll never forget and I'll never, ever forgive

I can’t forget and don’t want to forget.

First of all, thanks to BigSwede for posting the transcript of the cell phone calls between Tom Burnett and his wife, Deena from United Flight 93. Very moving.

I guess we’ve all posted our individual recollections of that morning before. Once again, here’s mine.

quote:

I was driving north from Rifle, Colorado to a Forest Service training session in Steamboat Springs. I left very early in the morning and was listening to a music station when the first plane hitting the north tower was reported. Initial reports speculated that a "light plane" may have "crashed" into the World Trade Center.

At some point I switched over to NPR and listened as the story unfolded during my drive to Steamboat. It still seems surreal driving a quiet highway at sunup out West as our world changed forever.

God Bless America

Beautiful page header, para

"There are certain men born in this world, and they’re supposed to die setting an example for the rest of the weak bastards we’re surrounded with.”

Refers to Rick Rescorla. If you have not heard of him, he won a Silver Star with the Seventh Air Cav in the Ia Drang Valley (e.g., there is a picture of him on the front cover of "We Were Soldiers Once and Young"). He was chief of security for Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, and got their people out of Tower 1. He didn't make it, he went back in to check on others...

Good article about him here: https://www.newyorker.com/maga...real-heroes-are-dead