9/11:Remembering that day ten years ago

I was a freshman in high school when it happened, having the diarrhea of my life in the high school bathroom.

What? You asked.

I was woken by my apartment-mate, all freaking out. I jumped on the internet and bam, all over the place... Seriously, what the freak is going on?

Screw it, I'm going to work. Maybe some answers there, since we had military guys there and stuff. They might know something...

Drove to work in kind of a fog, not many cars on the road that morning, gate security was intense, but I got in. A fair number of people simply didn't come in that day. In a knee-jerk reaction, our CO had us park the big stake truck in front of the front gate of our facility. No ordnance handling operations until we figured out what the hell was going on.

We ended up dong a whole lot of moping around and stuff at work, staring at the old TV set we had in the break room.

I kept wondering if the Army was going to call me back (I had ETS'ed out of the Army only 42 days previous) and hearing fighter planes scramble from Hickam AFB to escort airliners coming in from the mainland.

It was pretty surreal. And then I struck me, that this was going to lead to a hell of a lot of bad stuff.

I was in 1st grade. Our teacher didn't tell us anything, but kids were being called home one by one, I was just thinking "I hope im next!" and getting excited when they called me down. my dad picked me up in is truck, which NEVER happens so I knew somthing was up because he went too work a few hour before. He didn't say a thing the whole ride home. Got home, saw the towers burning on tv, my mom was on the couch with my little brother crying. After that I vaugley remeber seeing the pictures of what was still standing after they collapsed. And the Pope blessing the beam that survived in the shape of the cross. My dad actually wanted to be one of the first responders and actually got his company to let all the workers take there trucks to ground zero to help, but by the time they got there they were only allowing firemen and metal workers who were already there in. My town has a few memorials around now, a small one at my elementary school and one by a park that I see every day on the way to the high school.

I did't know anyone who was killed directly, but one of my second cousin's dad was a firefighter who was killed, and one of my mom's freinds lost a brother. my uncle was actually in them a few days before but not that day.

edited 9th Sep '11 8:16:25 PM by Joesolo

I know a guy who was boarding a plane for a business trip. He was in the bathroom or something, and missed the plane by ten minutes. It turned out to be one of the four planes that would be hijacked later that day.

The topic of this thread is limited, people: Remembering what you were doing when you heard. Derails and tangents into whether our response was right, wrong or otherwise don't belong here.

What did I just say? Why do you think that it doesn't apply to you?

I was in second grade when it happened.

I don't remember much, I remember seeing the towers collapse on TV, and our teacher started crying because her son was in the towers.

At the time, I was 25 and between jobs, with a bit of a nest egg built up so I wasn't out "pounding the pavement" for the next job right away. I was farting around on a MUCK (for you youngsters, think along the lines of IRC or an IM chat used for roleplaying), and lounging in the central general gathering area for lack of anywhere else to be. One of the regulars there announces the first crash. I didn't have TV reception up in my room, and at the time I thought it was another accident like the B-25 that crashed into the Empire State Building back in 1940-something due to fog. And then I found out it wasn't an accident.

What really freaked me out at first was that I had just recently finished re-reading Tom Clancy's Debt of Honor, which ends with an airliner being crashed into the Capitol Building during a joint session of Congress. That one was an empty aircraft, though, with only the pilot/perpetrator and the murdered co-pilot (who wasn't in on the idea, the pilot was doing it on his own) aboard. When I went to my usual Usenet haunts (one of which is alt.books.tom-clancy), though, I didn't want to mention the DoH thing, as it felt like I would've been trivializing the very real death of thousands of people.

Thinking back on it later, it's probably a good thing that I wasn't calling the shots at the White House. I would've had rather little problem with glazing Afghanistan with many packets of Instant Sunshine(tm). If nothing else, regardless of what one thinks of President Bush (and this thread isn't for that, so please don't get into it here), his restraint probably saved the US from starting down a long, dark road.

Another essay, remembering it, from someone just across the river in New Jersey.

I remember reading an article where someone sees a Blockbuster being open despite the 9/11 thing going on while one guy rents Dude Wheres My Car.

edited 10th Sep '11 8:16:56 AM by Psyga315

I know this is theoretically off-topic, but I have an interesting question for those of us who are old enough to remember:

What were you doing on September 10th, 2001? Do you remember what plans you had, what things you were going to do, what was on your mind, etc?

USAF@Funny you should ask when it was 9/11 I was in Washington DC because my grandmother was getting an reward for her efforts in helping children.Unfortuantly,we missed the ceremony and then 9/11 happened which made our visit longer.When I got back home my school talked more about the event.I remember also at that time I was angry at Bush for letting it happen;this was because I was very impressionable and my family was very democratic and hated Bush so it rubbed off me.

Yeah,its kinda of symbolic that my first time in our capitol it had to happen on that same day.So,I was also present when the Pentagon was hit.

edited 10th Sep '11 9:18:19 AM by joyflower

I don't remember, not because I wasn't old enough, but just 'cause I don't. All I know is that the 10th was technically the day the new Redwall book came out, but my mom had specifically said she'd get it the next day. Going to our favorite independent bookstore was probably the main thing she was going to do with her day on 9/11, but the attacks happened before that, when she had just finished up going on a morning walk with a former neighbor (one from where were previously lived) and heard about the attacks upon turning on the radio in the car.

Ok, that doesn't really answer your question. Sorry.

I planned to watch as many cartoons as possible on the cable until classes started that term. I was also trying to finish Zadig: a fool's errand: I didn't get half the jokes.