Where were you 12 years ago today?

[Mister Sin]

I was a Junior in High School. I remember it all so vividly, almost like a movie playing in my mind. More detailed than any memory of my life. I can even remember what the people around me were wearing. We were in the same spot we always were before school, on the first floor by the concession area, we had to arrive early if we wanted to get a decent parking spot. I remember all was normal, then somewhere around 8 am , A friend of mine named Kyle came and told us the news....News that turned out to be completely untrue, as of that moment, no one knew what the hell was going on. He told us that "some idiot pilot wasnt paying attention and flew into the world trades center, then another guy who was following did the same thing", I remember thinking, thats the damn dumbest thing ive ever heard. I assumed he misunderstood the info, but being a 16 year old kid, i didnt really give it to much thought. I remember reporting to my first class (American History). The principle came over the intercom and gave a speech and basically filled us in. TV's were wheeled into several rooms, they had several in the library, as well as the gym. Basically the entire day, we were allowed to roam the school and be with friends while we watched it all unfold. I remember being in complete shock, as this was the worst thing that had happened in my lifetime, before that it must have been the OKC bombing. But i also remember getting pissed off several times as i saw people crying. I was young, and wanted to be such a hard ass and it made me mad to see these people crying, who knew no one that was hurt. I felt like the tears that fell that day, shouldnt belong to us. They were meant for those directly effected. Looking back, i can see how closed minded i was. I still didnt understand the full magnitude of the situation...and i wouldnt for a few more years. It wasnt til i joined the USN that I truly understood what patriotism was, that i truly understood what that day stood from. That i FINALLY understood why all those people were crying....So today....May we all think back to that day, and what it meant. May we all offer up at least a few thoughts of those who perished, and may we all smile for an extended period of time when we think about the day that son of a bitch Bin Ladin was shot in the face! Hooyah!!!

 

[Memento]

I was a kid in fifth grade. I actually watched the second plane fly into the Towers. I heard the lady on the newscast scream "Oh my God!", and I saw my mom cry, and I knew that something really terrible had happened. I knew that people had died. And while I still went to school, the teachers didn't teach class; instead, they just let us watch the Towers fall. Even though I had never heard of the Twin Towers before that day (thanks a lot, American education system), there was still a massive sinking feeling in my heart, and I felt like I was falling along with them.

I'll never forget that day. Never.

 

[Ramhusker]

I was in the hospital that morning holding my newborn daughter (Happy 12th Birthday girl!) as the news spread to all channels. As I was holding her, the second plane hit the second tower. At that instant, I knew this was terror and more was to come. Just as I had resigned myself to the fact that the worst was probably over, the 1st tower came down. I think that is when shock hit me. I could not believe that mammoth structure had given up. All I could think of then was please get those people out of the other tower because it seemed inevitable that the other one was to follow. By this time, my wife was screaming at me to turn the TV off. She was distraught with the thought of what kind of world had she just birthed a beautiful little girl. So, after trying to change channels, which of course at that moment simply didn't work, I turned the TV off and went walking the halls of the hospital. Anybody that has spent any time in a hospital, as a patient or visitor, knows that it is a pretty somber environment, but this day, it was surreal. It was if time was standing still, like after an explosion, when everyone is concussed from the blast. Everyone, I mean everyone, doctors, nurses, patients, visitors were all standing around or roaming around in a stupor.

It definitely is a moment I will never forget and geared me up to go to war that instant. I was ready to go back to duty and take the fight to whomever even knew how to spell Bin Laden. Our nation stood as one for a good spell after that and if the call to arms would have been sounded, you would have seen volunteers by the droves.

 

[bluecoconuts]

I was back in Ireland, but I remember watching it on TV even there. It was just before noon when the first plane hit, and just after it when the second one. Knowing that my family was planning on moving to the United States in a few years my teacher sent me home so I could talk with them.

I was 13 at the time, and I wasn't really sure what was going to happen with the United States and if that would change us moving there. Watching everything unfold I felt sympathy for the United States, and worry (One of my family friends had moved to New York a few years before and the father was a volunteer firefighter for NYC. I didn't know at the time but he was a first responder, but he was able to get out before the tower collapsed) both for those there and if there may be more attacks coming elsewhere. My father told me that yes we were still going to move and that America would likely go to war with those who did it. I remember saying "Then I will fight with them" which of course worried my mother. Later on I could hear my dad talking about how she shouldn't worry, by the time we got there the war should be over (little did they know) and I would probably go other routes.

It was a different experience for me, as personally I had very little connection with the United States, but I felt it was an attack against humanity targeting innocent people that had nothing to do with anything, and it angered me a bit. Moving to the United States my desire to serve never went away, and I just loved the country even more after being there. About a month before my 17th birthday I went to the recruiting station and told them I wanted to join. They kind of laughed a bit until I told them I wanted 11X-Ray Option 40, and they knew I meant business. Joined on my 17th birthday and did exactly what I said I'd do years before.

 

[Mister Sin]

All good reads....also, didn't know you were Irish.

 

[brokeu91]

I was still an undergrad that year living in an apartment near my parents house when I went to a local university. My parents had a work out area in their basement with free weights that I used. I was working out down there before class when my dad told me to come upstairs. At that time the first tower was hit, we were watching the news. We were both thinking (as was most news outlets) that it was just an accident. I was about to go back downstairs and finish my workout when the second plane hit. Both my dad and I said "holy shit" at the same time. We both knew what was happening.

My school didn't cancel classes and I had a biology lab that day, so I couldn't skip. When I left the two towers fell and there were reports of Pentagon getting hit and planes were still in the air. I was afraid that by the time I got to school more would have went down (turned out the plane in Pennsylvania was still in the air when I left). When I got to campus everyone was just walking around like zombies. We were all in total shock. It turned out that my lab professor had a brother who worked in the Twin Towers and he ended up dying. He came into the lab crying and canceled. The whole day was surreal.

 

[MTRamsFan]

I was at work. I remember walking off the elevator and people were stunned and expressionless. Someone told me what happened and I immediately went down to our NOC center, a couple floors below where my office was, and watched the television monitors. I was shocked and sick to my stomach. I remember hearing someone telling us that they had suspended all air traffic across the country and saw a small airplane circling around the city and heading back to the airport. At one point someone thought it was headed for our building and people started to panic. Once the towers came down, we were told to go home and be with our families. All I did the rest of the day was watch the reports on TV. Even as far away as I was, I felt like I lost family and friends. To this day words can't express my sorrow for all those involved. God bless those affected by this tragic event.

 

[-X-]

I was on my way to work with another guy, and Howard Stern reported it live on the radio we were listening to in the van as it was happening. We got to the City of Miami Beach convention center to work on some escalators and just dropped our tools off to find a TV and watch what was happening. The whole place was stunned, obviously. Very surreal experience.

 

[had]

I live in Los Angeles and had been laid off from a job just before September 2001. I got up about 6:45 AM, shambled around, then turned on the computer to look for job ads. I used to have msn.com as my home page, and sh*tty dial up connection, and the msn home page would not load. There was this picture of the towers in flame, and a headline: Day of Terror.

I thought it was a new movie. But the page just would not load. I guess it was the traffic, and my lame connection speed. So I turned on the TV. And there it was. I spent the entire day glued to the television. The jumpers. The first responders. The people sprinting away from the dust cloud.

I remember that night, a bunch of senators / representatives of the house gathered on the steps of the Capitol and sang God Bless America. I lost it. I cried like a freakin’ baby.

A girl I knew had moved to NY to go to Columbia University in fall 2001. I flew to NY in November 2001 to visit her, and to visit the site. I went down there. You couldn’t get close. There’s this little church right smack in the middle of the financial district, just a couple blocks from where the towers went down, and that’s about as close as you could get. I couldn’t say if I’m right, but it seemed to me that everywhere you looked down there, where the towers fell, you could see ash. Ash in the crevasses between bricks on the church, ash in the nooks between the sidewalk slabs, ash on the sills of windows, everywhere you looked, if you were looking for it, ash. And I thought about how that ash was, in part, the flesh and bones of the dead who were never found, who went down in those towers.

Then the day before I was supposed to fly back to LA, a plane went down in Queens, or Long Island. Anyone remember that? It freaked me out, and I ended up renting a car and driving back to LA. I remember especially driving through the mountains of Tennessee. Beautiful country.

Great post, El Juggernauto. Thanks for sharing.

 

[DR RAM]

I was working at a Southern California airport at the time, my job was to track aircraft, and manage our tracking systems. We had several flights going to, and coming from New York.

It was a day that I will never forget, from seeing it on live TV, just before I walked out the door to get to work, to huddling up with station managers, and other airport managers. We grounded all flights and closed the airport. I helped some of the airlines track down some of the planes that they thought were lost. I will NEVER forget. Both experiences were profound.