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Where were you that day?


markomalley
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Since nobody else has started one,

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Myself, I was on Andrews at the time. My daughter had just been released from the hospital after having some pins inserted in a broken elbow after a playground accident. My wife was teaching at the nearby elementary school.

Watching the tube that morning, I saw the breaking news...daughter asked, "What happened Daddy?" My answer: "Honey, you just saw the world change forever."

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I was at work, and my coworker, who had a radio at his desk, told me something weird happened and there was an accidental plane crash in NYC. It was bad but didn't sound like terrorism. Then when the second plane hit, and the reports of the plane that hit the Pentagon and the one in Pennsylvania came in, everyone spent the rest of the day in shock. Actually the shock lasted for a few days at least, but it was difficult to work or do other somewhat meaningless things then.

A friend of mine had an interview in the WTC that day. She was running late because of an earlier hair appointment, so she was on the subway and managed to never make it to the WTC. A friend of hers and acquaintance of mine was less lucky. She survived, but had to spend some time in the hospital with burns and broken bones.

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I was at work at my shop which then was in upstate NY. My coworker and I never listened to the radio, mostly CD's but for some reason we had it on that day for one of the first times... We heard the first sketchy reports of a plane hitting the WTC-in one of those 30 second 'breaks" -It really didnt say much ...I was thinking a little Cessna or something..about 30 minutes later there was another interruption saying another plane had hit the WTC...I remember that the reception was bad, the reports unclear and the announcer near hysterical---WE didnt know what to make of it...I walked to the restaurant next door which had a TV and the entire neighborhood was gathered around the TV's, everyone had an incredibly shocked look, when I caught a glimpse of the TV it looked like a bad horror movie.

It took me awhile to adjust---I was in shock...I knew we would be at war, my concerns moved more toward friends and family who were in NY,then especially to my brother in Law who I knew was on a early AM flight from Boston to NY--I was very concerned about him -later I found out he saw the attack from the air and wasnt in one of those planes...

shut my shop down and went home (for a week), Lots of things changed that day

Edited by mstar1
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I had just taken my daughter to school and was working on homework at the kitchen table, news on in the background like every morning, mostly background noise.

Sat and watched for awhile and all I wanted to do was go get my daughter from school, travel to where my oldest daughter and her family lives, gather everyone up and just be sure I had my babies with me.

Called my Marine brother and woke him up instead since he was 3 hours behind me in time, then we just watched together until I couldn't stand it anymore and then I did go pick up my elementary aged daughter and kept her home the rest of the week to just be able to see her constantly.

Sunset memorial moment around our lake tonight...........

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I was sleeping on my friends couch. They woke me up and we went outside to see the city.

I think the Empire State Building is about 1/5 mile high. From that distance the black smoke was rising at least five times as high.

A few weeks prior I'd been fishing on a boat just south of Manhattan, looking at the towers. Didn't know it would be the last time I'd see them up close. Used to make deliveries up and down the towers a lot.

A year earlier I'd promised to take my brother up the towers "next year, this year we'll do the ESB". He still gives me crap for it. :biglaugh:

A friend of mine was gonna take a picture for me of the towers from city hall. One of the earliest skyscrapers could be seen contrasted with the two towers on either side. The sun was supposed to be at a certain point. I forget where. We were gonna do it "next month". :biglaugh: A few months after they fell I did find the shot I wanted for sale and bought it. It wasn't perfect but what could I do? :biglaugh:

course the towers were always under bomb-threats, so it's no surprise they fell. I used to get asked "Bolshevik, you have a delivery to the WTC today, there's a bomb-threat today, you don't have to go." . . ."Are you kidding? Gimme the package . . " :biglaugh:

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Was at home. My brother had sent a video of his recent visit (he lives overseas). Had been watching that and the video tape was rewinding. Flipped it onto TV while it was rewinding. There was this bizarre movie, flames and smoke pouring out of a skyscraper... I thought it was some movie with a bizarre plot. Nobody would make a real movie like that! The sombre voices made me suspect that in fact it wasn't another movie at all. Then the second one hit. I watched in shock and horror. The entire family group sat in stunned silence watching in disbelief. It was unreal.

But it was real.

My condolences to anyone who lost loved ones in this dreadful attack. Am especially sorry for any small or (then) unborn children who lost a parent whom they never had the joy of knowing.

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I was at work, and my coworker, who had a radio at his desk, told me something weird happened and there was an accidental plane crash in NYC. It was bad but didn't sound like terrorism. Then when the second plane hit, and the reports of the plane that hit the Pentagon and the one in Pennsylvania came in, everyone spent the rest of the day in shock. Actually the shock lasted for a few days at least, but it was difficult to work or do other somewhat meaningless things then.

A friend of mine had an interview in the WTC that day. She was running late because of an earlier hair appointment, so she was on the subway and managed to never make it to the WTC. A friend of hers and acquaintance of mine was less lucky. She survived, but had to spend some time in the hospital with burns and broken bones.

My experience was very similar (at work, co-worker with radio on); but as soon as the second plane hit, it was obviously terrorism, and my guess was Bin Laden (though many others thought Hussein).

Although I have several friends in New York, none were directly involved, though many of them had other friends who perished.

As an aside, it's also the anniversary of one of my fraternity brothers and his wife. I call them every year; it's a shame that their day is remembered with such sadness.

George

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When I think about where I was when news came of JFK's death, it seems like so very, very long ago. Maybe that's because I've been through so many profound changes in my life since then. This, though, seems like something that happened last month or something. Not literally, of course, but I think we're all familiar with the expression, "Seems like yesterday". But, yeah, I remember where I was. It was just another day at work until someone came into my shop and told me to turn my radio on.That was right after the first plane hit.

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I was teaching in a Catholic HS (all girls) and suddenly the TV was on and the Principal announced what happened and we watched.

It took a little while for us to come up to speed with what was happening. One or two of them saw the second plane approach and let out a muffled "oh no" or words to that effect. We were all shook, but as teachers, we all tended to think alike.

Although the school rules dictated no cell phones, the girls always carried them turned off in their back packs. Two of us teachers merged out classes together to free one of us to stand by the outside door where the girls could make their important phone calls. "Where's Dad or Mom". None of the upper Administration who were walking the halls chastised us for how we handled the important call situation...so we continued and some of us teachers even loaned out our cell phone to girls who didn't have them.

We lost 7 parents or uncles that day...but we didn't know it at the time. Because where most of the girls lived, many of them also knew "Jeremy" of the PA plane crash and that was difficult to deal with too.

On my way home I could see the smoke from the buildings because I live so close. After about a week we could smell it too if the wind was right (actually wrong!)

Because many of us were used to seeing the skyline with the towers, and all we saw was smoke....and because everybody knew somebody who perished that day....it took a while until most of us settled down. With so many constant reminders, it was almost impossible to move forward.

Of course I also think of Hills Bros who lost his nephew Brett when one of the towers fell.

Edited by krys
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That morning, I got up feeling really terrible, so I laid down and turned on my tv set. They showed one of the buildings with smoke coming out of it (for some reason the sound had gone out on my Dish Network), so I went to the store and asked if they knew anything about it. They didn't, so I went back home and turned the tv set off and drove to my doctor who sent me to the hospital.

Nothing was said. Everyone at the clinic was more concerned about my 30 BPM pulse rate. An ambulance picked me up and carted me off to Harrison. Still, nothing was said.

I was in the hospital in ICU preparing to have the battery replaced in my pacemaker. By then they had us all pretty loopy from the meds they gave us to kind of mitigate the tension since all the channels were showing it and we all had TV sets over the beds.

One older guy was raving about "pilots getting drunk and crashing into buildings". I thought it must be some sort of documentary about pilots and drinking or I'd gotten an episode of the Twilight Zone or something. Only thing was it was on all the channels except Cartoon Network, so I changed it to that.

I don't think patients there fully realized what was going on until the next day when all the talking heads were blabbering about it. I know I didn't.

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  • 1 month later...

Oh I will never forget that day. I was still in my little splinter group in Finlayson Mn. when it happened. Some of the ladies and I were processing tons of tomatoes and apples in one of the houses. We were all called outside for an important urgent meeting as the children were shuffled away. We were not allowed to watch tv or listen to the radio so none of us women had heard of course but when they told us I remember the horror that seemed to fill all of us.

Oddly enough it led us to a very scarey time for us. Victor Banard who was the MOG came that evening for a meeting with us all under a sheepfold. He was somber and we all followed suit in our behavior. He informed us that he believed it could be the beginning of many sufferings that were to befall us. He said he thought it quite possible that there would be a police, FBI or at least a raid from the people in town. He gave us at that time the oppertunity to leave or to stand on the word and to stand with him even if it meant death. It was a crazy night filled with fear bt also a confirming within ourselves that we would stand no matter what.

We were all encouraged to give what we had moneywise and the men went out and purchased all that we thought we would need including food, toiletries guns and ammo. Of course the raids never took place. I never did see the actual news coverages of any of it until I got out and until then I never did really ever feel sorrow for those people due to our own fear and determination to live ourselves all instilled by this MOG so to speak. So no I will never forget that day.

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Two planes crash into iconic buildings...

Three skyscrapers fall down...

People falling out of buildings, paper everywhere, ash everywhere...

About 3000 people killed...

Immensely brave rescue efforts from fire services, some of whose officers were also killed...

And VB in his Mog-paranoia says, "Look at me! Look at me!!! Gimmee all your money!!!! I'm the only one who can protect you!!!!" ??? :confused:

It's a bit of a de-rail but this thread seems to have stagnated ... anybody recently out (or even still in) remember the TWI response?

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