Where were you on 9/11?

[Thucydides]

I was doing KP that day (as I had for too many days to count ). I heard rumours of the towers being hit by an airplane in the morning, but I had dismissed it at first, as it sounded like something out of a bad movie. It wasn't until the afternoon that a sergeant came in and explained everything that happened and that the base was now on threat-con D. That afternoon I was able to see the news on the TV in the dayroom. Watched the news for roughly an hour before I went to my room to go to sleep. Once I knew it was true, the rest was just details, and the bullshizer I was doing was fricken exhausting. Nobody went anywhere for a while (I don't remember how long), so I believe that it meant I was off KP the next day...

[Solver]

I am probably extremely stupid, but I first thought of the Petronas Towers in Malaysia for some reason...

[Rasbelin]

Don't worry, Solver. You were like me when Estonia was sunk in 1994. First I thought it was a catamaran that had sunk, but several hours later on I recognised the whole story when I read the extra edition of Ilta-Sanomat (English: Evening News).

[Shi Huangdi]

I was in 5th period AP European History class. At the start of the period, the teacher announced what had happened that the two towers had collapsed. We talked about it for that class. We were evacuated from the high school because it was right near DC- many of us had parents who lived near DC, and they had extreme difficulty getting out of the city because everything was shut down, including the heavily relied on subway system. We got off of school for the next day, though I was unable to do much but watch the news and Post on Apolyton for that day and the next...

[Zoid]

I sat in a meeting when someone ran in and said that terrorists had crashed into WTC. My first thought was "Whoa! Payback time!"

[Chowlett]

It was lunch-time over here, and I'd just finished singing for Lord and Lady St. Leven on St Michael's Mount in Cornwall with the cast and chorus of Patience, which we were rehearsing that week. I remember one guy got it through on txt message, and I checked on the Orange News service (which took ages to get through to, and evntually just told me that we were scared Canary Wharf was next).

As we walked back along the beach, I remember seeing a sunbather pick up her mobile, read it, and suddenly look shocked, ad I thought - she's just heard. For the rest of the day, I fielded and sent out txts to folk, as I was in a car with the news on for most of the day.

[Heresson]

Well I think I was just back from my holidays and playing my comp when my father told me to look back for a while because a tower in New York is burning. I thought "big deal"
and "cheap sensation" and came back to my game.

[Traianvs]

I came back from school that day (thank god that's over for me now ) and immediately i got like 10-20 calls from friends of my parents asking me if my parents were alright and all, in the beginning i didn't know what the hell they were babbling about but then i turned on the tv...
it was pretty funny, because my parents, and one of my 2 sisters were on a trip to NY (for some congress or something, my father's a cardiologist), and even funnier was that they visited tha twin towers just the day before they were wrecked

pretty lucky for them they didnt go visiting the twin towers early in the morning

its a small world ey, everybody has something or someone involved with the whole thing... me too as you can see

[Jac de Molay]

I had crashed my honda in a pretty severe wreck that morning. By either sheer luck or divine providence, I had buckled my seat belt. I don't know what would have happened if I hadnt.

Between crashing cars and crashing planes, I took a year off and hid in the corner of the nearest bar, drinking away the darkness til it bleeds daylight. The mayor of new york said in today's paper that we should grieve today and grasp tomorrow. So, I think that's what im gonna do.

Dave

[GePap]

I was asleep in my apartment in NY when it begun. I woke up, went to the bathroom. While there I hear my mother leave me a tense message. I tired to call back but could not since the phone system in NYC was very unrelaible that day. I went to make breakfast. I friend of my mother finally got through and asked me if I was safe. I had no idea why he would ask me, and then he mentioned that he was watching it (he didn't mention what 'it' was). I went to turn on the TV. Since I didn't have cable at home, the first channels I tired were not there (the North tower held most local transmitting facilties for NY's TV stations). I finally changed to CBS, who was still broadcasting from the Empire State, just in time to see the North Tower fall. After that, I steyed watching the news, switching over to Radio (the first time I had listened to radio voluntarilly in years) when I got sick of CBS's coverage since it was the only TV statation I had.

[Dom Pedro II]

I was in my high school history class. Suddenly, almost at 9:15, a teacher came into the class and started whispering to my history teacher. My teacher then got on his cell phone and tried calling someone. We had no idea what was happening, and we were like "what is it??"

And he said: "They've taken the World Trade Center! They've bombed it with airplanes!"

Now, immediately, I'm thinking military jets have bombed the building, which is basically a virtual impossibility with our huge navy and air force.

At that moment, the bell rang, and we were getting up to leave. Everyone except my friend Mike Della Barca. I said "Mike, what's wrong?"

He looked at me and said "My dad works there..."

I went about my next few classes. Nothing. I mentioned it to my english teacher, but he had no idea what I was talking about. Second period, I heard nothing. Then at the beginning of third period, this was around 10:00... I heard a teacher said "The whole top twenty stories are gone!"

I went to her and said "It's true then?" Her response was "Get away! I'm having a conversation!"

I went inside my third period class and asked Mike if he had heard anything. By the good graces of God, 18 of his family members who worked in the buildings had all gone to the funeral of another co-worker that morning! To think, one completely unrelated death could have saved the lives of so many people!

In my next class, reports were filtering in. Some factual: the buildings had collapsed. Some completely unfounded: the Sears tower, the State Department were both gone, and more planes were taking off from Teterboro airport and as many as 8 more planes were in the air on their way to unknown destinations.

In my next class, chemistry, the class looks out over I-95 that runs to New York. It was empty. About twenty minutes into the class, something like 75 ambulances came down the road on their way to the city.

Lunch time. We went outside and watched the smoke from the burning buildings, but we could not see the buildings themselves. Of course, all of our classes and lunch had merely been time to reflect on what had happened.

In my English class after lunch, I got into a fight with my teacher, Mr. Reeves, who said we should irradicate 1,000 of "them" for every one of "us" they kill. And this kicked off a huge fight since I was explaining that to kill a thousand of one terrorist's countrymen in not only ludicrous, its just unfair. I said, he could only promote such an idea, if the next U.S. bomber that hits a civilian target in another country that he and his family willingly give themselves up as some of the thousand Americans to be killed for the one life lost abroad.

My mother came at that moment. I panicked. If my mom was there, it was because something had happened to my father. He worked in the city, and he was uptown, but for all I knew, he could have gone to meet a client downtown. There were a thousand reasons for me to be worried, but it was mostly the reasons I couldn't think of that had me scared on that long walk down the hall. As it turns out, he was fine. Physically anyway. From his vantage point on the 35th floor of his building, he had a clear view of everything: the second plane hitting, he heard the first plane fly over head, he watched the people jumping from the buildings, and he watched them collapse.

He didn't come home that night. There was simply no way for him to. My mother was completely shaken. When I got home at around 2 PM, I got my first glimpses of the horrors of the day. I fell on my knees in front of the TV screen and just wept. I'll admit it. I watched the news all that night. It seemed like hours past like minutes, and yet, it seemed like the longest of all days....

When it was all sorted out, a class mate of mine lost her father, the only FBI agent killed in the WTC. He ran into the building to save as many people as possible. He had gotten out with then first collapse happened, but he didn't get out of the second one in time.

My 6th grade teacher lost her son. He worked for that company that lost 700 of its employees. The name escapes me at the moment. My friend lost her cousin who was recently married I believe.

A month later, I was up in front of 1500 people delivering a speech trying to give people some idea what it must have been like to simply live another day and then to have it change so dramatically. We never see those moments that destroy how we planned our lives to go, that change everything. I felt it was a good speech. Of course, how could it possibly ever give you the genuine feeling? Hopefully, we won't have to find out...

[JtheJackal]

My period 3 English class was about to start when 2 people came in and said terrorists had crashed a plane into the World Trade Center. At first I didn't believe it, but I soon realised they were being serious. We asked to turn on the TV, but the teacher (who had just been told by another teacher) said the TV in her room didn't work. The bell rang ang a girl came in and heard us talking and seemed so confused because her father worked at the WTC. There was some talk about where in the tower he worked. Was it the upper or lower part? But she left to go call her mom. She came back crying, her father was okay, but obviously she had been really scared. (Her father remained okay) After bearing the class with a desperate need for news the bell rang and a ran to my next class. I asked my visually distrought teachers if the TV worked. They said yes, but wait for she could tell all the students what had happened. Someone ended up turing it on anyway and I'll never forget what I saw. The towers on fire. Than I saw the footage of the plane crash into the second tower. Shocked I all this footage. Then it went to live coverage and there was all this smoke and I read the caption "Tower Two collapsed". I went "What? Tower 2 collapsed?", searching for signs of the second tower. Someone said acting like it was obvious "Do you see it?"
I mumbled something about the smoke obscureing the rest of the tower, then they went to footage of the Tower colapseing. That 110 story building with 10000 employes that was there all my life had completely colapsed. After that I completely lost it, its bascially a blur. The second tower colapsed, the Pentagon was hit, a plane had crashed in PA, everything was closeing down. It's still inconciveable.

[CapitanGarlic]

Driving to school. Plain and simple.

[Ninot]

I was on the bus towards school when the first two planes hit the WTC.

But i didnt hear about any of it untill around 10:30 that day. Rumours were spreading around french class about, and i quote "there is a fire in the twin towers". Honestly, our school did a very poor job of informing us in the first few hours. The Principal came on the intercom system, and announced "There has been a great trajedy, and our thoughts go to New York". No word yet on what kind of trajedy.

When I finally got out of class at roughly 11:20, what must have been half the school population was gathered around 3 TV sets.
None of us could believe what we were seeing. By then, CBC was showing the skyline of NewYork, minus two big building, and with alot more smoke.

None of us had a real clue of what was going on untill lunch. After lunch, a teacher with some thought for us let us listen to a radio all period.

A surreal day I will never forget, and which I hope is never reproduced.

Never Forget.

[Method]

in school. lunch. some people came back to school after lunch and told us. nobody believed them . then we checked cnn.com in computer class only to find:

AMERICA UNDER ATTACK
Terrorists attack WTC