September 11 2001

[Pingu]

I was working at home when my proofreader called and told me to turn on the radio. I immediately thought it was payback for some CIA messing in the Middle East about which we were kept in the dark. Nothing has happened since to change that first impression.

I'm driving back from the post office, and it's all coming across on the radio, and I'm in shock, and I slip into this funk of adrenaline and clarity, and I'm looking at the sky and the big buildings around me. And I sure as f*ck ain't thinking about the damn CIA.

[Scottathew]

I was a senior in high school. I was a student aide at one of the elementary schools and when I was about to drive back to the high school I ran into my mother in the parking lot who was walking her dog. She told me about the WTC and the Pentagon.

I still have no idea how my mother could know this news and take a casual dog walk instead of being glue to the TV to watch a horrible chapter of history be written.

I had classes at a different high school in the afternoon and they canceled those so I went home.

I was glued to the Fox News channel and became a republican for a few years because of the patriotic brain washing they used, but in my first presidential election in 2004 I voted for Kerry.

[lilpup]

Was driving into work listening to an NPR station reporting on the first hit. At the time they still didn't realize it was a full-size plane. I didn't think that much of it because I knew about the bomber hitting the Empire State Building in 1945. At work we almost always had the tv on in the customer waiting room and, since business had been slow for some time [[why I know the attack wasn't what nose-dived the economy), the guys were hanging out watching the coverage - then the second plane hit and we all realized it was no accident. In my office I kept bouncing around the internet while doing my paperwork. The most informative site turned out to be a Broadway oriented site based in Las Vegas. Many of the usuals on the site were NY or East Coast including [[!) the daughter of a Boston Logan airport air traffic controller. She kept relaying his messages, including that they were pretty sure the planes were out of Logan [[correct) and that right then [[after the Pentagon hit and all flights were grounded) one major aircraft was unaccounted for. After the crash in PA was confirmed and the towers collapsed the board turned into a huge message relay center for people trying to find others as well as status updates of what was going on in NYC. The board moderators allowed the board to service this way for days afterward until things started getting settled down. It was honestly the most informative site online - miles ahead of the news outlets because of the immediate reporting [[much like DYes in that way).

Later that day I checked my email and saw a subject line like "Well, we might as well celebrate anyway" thinking it referenced the day's events when really it was a joke card sent earlier from my brother - September 11 is my birthday, you see.

[Jimaz]

I was at work in Phoenix, alone since I was the early bird of the group so I missed the actual real-time events. Another early bird friend arrived to convey the news to me about the first plane. Since we worked closely with airliners and Boeing, I assumed he was preparing me for yet another black box analysis the company would have to do to assess any component failures that might have caused the crash.

Then he said "No, no. This wasn't an accident. There was a second plane flown into the other tower. This was deliberate."

It was difficult to concentrate on anything else that day.

The absence of air traffic over the following days was eerie.

[EMG]

The absence of air traffic over the following days was eerie.

Not to offend, because of course the circumstances were morbid, but I did APPRECIATE the lack of airplanes and helicopters for that week - being within the Scottsdale Airpark flight path it was a "welcome" acoustic break! Too bad it couldn't be repeated - under happier circumstances of course!

[d.mcc]

Not to offend, because of course the circumstances were morbid, but I did APPRECIATE the lack of airplanes and helicopters for that week - being within the Scottsdale Airpark flight path it was a "welcome" acoustic break! Too bad it couldn't be repeated - under happier circumstances of course!

I remember going to Ford Field in Dearborn with my then girlfriend, and just lying there on the big hill, watching the sky in the afternoon, and thinking of how nice it looked with out all the air traffic.

[Magnatomicflux]

I was working security at Essex Engine Plant. The shipping clerk had a little office across from us and he had a TV. We watched the whole thing play out and I'll never forget the sinking feeling when the first tower fell. Then I though "someones country, clearly, is about to be wiped off the face of the earth" At the time I was working with a guy of Arab decent named Dean, and we had got word they were sending all the employees home. As we waited out at the gates to let them out I looked over and his eyes had tears welling up in them so I asked him what was wrong. He said that he was upset because he knew exactly what kind of bullshit all us other non-arab people were going to put him, and people like him thru for......how long? I mean, this guy wasn't all broken english, don't understand ya foreign either. He was as homegrown as any of us, but he knew because he was brown he was now a target.
That held true the following morning, as him and I were posted at the gates to check peoples bags on their way in [[Ford was scared they would be targeted LOL!) Anyways.....yup, all these jerk offs were coming in and just staring right thru him, they'd say good morning to me...but not him. At the end of the shift, same process for the next shift coming in, only this time he was circled, yelled at, and unfortunatly spit on by not one, but at least a dozen people. I was standing right next to him...noone spit at me. Sad. I proud that he stood his ground though.


I think one of the weirdest and most memorable things for me, the day of.....was the huge amount of planes landing at Windsor airport. The follwing day, it was the lack of air traffic in the sky. The only sign of life in the sky were the tell tale semi-circle contrails from orbiting fighters.Occasionally a pair would land at Windsor for fuel and take off again full throttle. I would normally think it was awesome having the jets in....but when you're watching these fighters who are actually in a defensive mode instead of normal patrols, and they know just as much as you do about who dun it.......scary.

[Papasito]

I was at work at a Chevrolet dealership when it happened. I caught a glimpse of the early reports from the TV in the customer waiting room. At first, people weren't sure if the first tower was hit by a missile or what, but when the 2nd building was hit, people saw the plane and figured out what was happening. I was pretty awestruck, trying to grasp the reality and the weight of what was happening, but unfortunately, my customers were more interested in whether or not thier oil change cupon was still valid, or if they could get a free rental, than they were about the towers being hit.

To this day it still pisses me off that people can be so insensitive that the world could not stop for just a few minutes to acknowledge such a life changing tragedy.

[sirrealone]

I was making a visit to a potential client trying to drum up some business, and when I finished up, I went out to the car and had Drew and Mike on. Both towers had been hit by that point, but what they were saying didn't make a lot of sense. First, they were describing the impact of the 'second plane'. Then I heard something about the World Trade Center and a bombing and I couldn't figure out why they were talking about the attack from eight years ago and wasn't that a car bomb? Then they mentioned something about a 'commercial jet' and kept repeating that and it took me a good few minutes to realize that was the same as a 'passenger jet'. Finally, it hit home that they were talking about now, today.

My condo was only about fifteen minutes away so I drove home and turned on the TV to see the scene. I was watching NBC I think and they were describing the scene. I'll never forget how there was suddenly a big cloud of dust that obscured everyone's view and the anchor talking about 'something just happened, maybe another bomb of some sort' and it took probably 30-60 seconds before the dust cleared enough where people knew that the dust was from the tower collapsing. Until then, I'd been thinking 'I wonder how long it will take to fix this'. After that, I thought 'Everything just changed.'

The immediate aftermath: I remember how members of Congress came out and sang 'America the Beautiful'. I remember how you couldn't find an American flag on a store shelf for weeks after. I remember getting cut off a lot less in traffic and seeing and seeing extra smiles or acts of kindness from strangers. I remember being proud of our president for taking charge of the situation. I remember people everywhere wanting to give....give blood, give time, give money, and give love.

The long-term aftermath: IPoliticians and partisanship got worse than ever. The flags got packed away and people seemed to have less pride than ever of being Americans. Everybody got back behind the wheel and into the selfish, me-first habits and the smiles for strangers dried up. The president lost the faith of everybody and lost his mind at the same time. And we all went back to the business of our own worlds, keeping strangers as strangers and putting suspicion before compassion.

In the end, it was a sad, sad day in our history, and while was a good thing that we were collectively able to go back to our lives, the fact that we passed up on the opportunity to keep some of the closeness that existed in the days and weeks after, that still makes me sad.

[MizMotown]

I was sleeping and was woken up by my apartment manager in hysterics yelling, "the US is being attacked, turn on the news." Jumped up and turned on the tv just in time to see the second plane hit. What a surreal moment that was! Ended up driving to work and remembering the somber look of people's faces driving down the road as they listened to their car radios. Almost eerie calmness of not quite fear but unknowing. Made it to work and basically just sat around with co-workers watching all the news reports on a little black and white tv we had in the office. Went home and made a few stops, tv's and radios on everywhere. There was nothing else you could even try to force yourself to do but watch and listen to the news reports. No planes flying. Definitely a strange moment in time.

[Downriviera]

I was watching CNN that morning. When the first plane hit, they were speculating that it could have been an accident. I knew better, and it was confirmed when the 2nd plane hit. The sight of people jumping from the towers really affected me. Bin Laden said the reason for the attack was that the US has troops on the ground in Saudia Arabia close to the holy site of Mecca. More than 90% of terrorism in the world is due to occupation of land. I'm still troubled that we have not gotten him yet.

[Islandman]

I was on West Broadway on my way to work. I worked at Chase Manhattan Plaza at the time and got to see everything that occurred about a mile away. Never made it to work that day, and spent the next few weeks at my buddy's loft in Brooklyn with about 20 of our friends. It was very difficult to communicate out to the world that you were ok, with most of the cell towers being located on the 2 towers.

The next month or 2 in NYC was surreal, to say the least. Soon after that, my company was bought out, and I was forced to move back to Detroit.

[oladub]

I was at work. The daughter of a fellow employee phoned in suggesting we turn on a radio. I was on the road most of the rest of the workday listening off and on to public radio trying to piece together what was going on. When I came home after work, I affixed a US flag to my rural mailbox and turned on the TV.

[MCP-001]

Other than stepped up screening at airports and at the courthouse, I am trying to think of any one of my "rights" that has been eviscerated.

I don't know who deleted my earlier post, but no matter.

Hemrod, I highly recommend that you read up more about what is contained within the US Patriot Act.

You're right, aside from what you see up close and personal, there is a lot more going on behind the scenes that most people aren't even remotely aware of.

From Section 213: "sneak and peak" searches, where the government can literally break into your home without a subpoena, search for "evidence", and then leave as quietly as they came in, to Section 215: actually having the audacity to request individual library records. You would never even know that they were there or looking in on you.

Another example of the violation of our rights is found under Section 505 of the Act. The federal government can literally go on a fishing expedition for financial records. Either your personal records, or from other sources. You can read more about this from the obviously progressive mouthpiece: Businessweek.

Items such as warrant-less wiretaps are still there. Are your conversations to your family and friends or even your voicemails being monitored by our benevolent government?

No one can say for certain, because our own government feels that you don't have the right to know. A FOIA request was submitted in September 2009, but the DoJ has yet to release all of the information requested.

If you don't see those as blatant violations of our Fourth Amendment rights...then I actually feels sorry for you.

[Ravine]

I was at work. After the first tower was struck, I brought the news to the two women with whom I was working, and they barely acknowledged my report before jumping right back into the gossip session which I had interrupted.
A couple of hours later, after the reality, and import, of the incident had travelled around the building, one of those two women was one of the ones bawling the loudest about how we should be allowed to go home because our building was potentially a target for additional attack.

[Stosh]

I was at work. Of course, they never let us go home. Or stop working for that matter. Caught glimpses on the breaks, and witnessed the first tower go down live, as well as the first reports from the Pentagon crash. That's as ingrained a memory as JFK's assasination was for me.

[d.mcc]

I don't know who deleted my earlier post, but no matter.

Hemrod, I highly recommend that you read up more about what is contained within the US Patriot Act.

You're right, aside from what you see up close and personal, there is a lot more going on behind the scenes that most people aren't even remotely aware of.

From Section 213: "sneak and peak" searches, where the government can literally break into your home without a subpoena, search for "evidence", and then leave as quietly as they came in, to Section 215: actually having the audacity to request individual library records. You would never even know that they were there or looking in on you.

Another example of the violation of our rights is found under Section 505 of the Act. The federal government can literally go on a fishing expedition for financial records. Either your personal records, or from other sources. You can read more about this from the obviously progressive mouthpiece: Businessweek.

Items such as warrant-less wiretaps are still there. Are your conversations to your family and friends or even your voicemails being monitored by our benevolent government?

No one can say for certain, because our own government feels that you don't have the right to know. A FOIA request was submitted in September 2009, but the DoJ has yet to release all of the information requested.

If you don't see those as blatant violations of our Fourth Amendment rights...then I actually feels sorry for you.

Like most people I have brought similar points up to, "If I am doing nothing wrong, why does this affect me?"

[jcole]

I was at work on the 10th floor of the Ameritech/AT&T building with the windows looking out to the east. Even though we were far away from New York, we felt like sitting ducks, and TransUnion would not let us go home. They released all of the employees in Chicago and Austin, but not us. Maybe we should have gotten the hint; they closed our division a year and a half later.

[Papasito]

The immediate aftermath: I remember how members of Congress came out and sang 'America the Beautiful'. I remember how you couldn't find an American flag on a store shelf for weeks after. I remember getting cut off a lot less in traffic and seeing and seeing extra smiles or acts of kindness from strangers. I remember being proud of our president for taking charge of the situation. I remember people everywhere wanting to give....give blood, give time, give money, and give love.

The long-term aftermath: IPoliticians and partisanship got worse than ever. The flags got packed away and people seemed to have less pride than ever of being Americans. Everybody got back behind the wheel and into the selfish, me-first habits and the smiles for strangers dried up. The president lost the faith of everybody and lost his mind at the same time. And we all went back to the business of our own worlds, keeping strangers as strangers and putting suspicion before compassion.

Perfectly stated.

[ja!mz]

Love him or hate him, the statements Bush made on the rubble pile the friday following the 11th were great.."The people that knocked these buildings down will hear from all of us soon"...we were all so united at that time...

[Ravine]

Love him or hate him, the statements Bush made on the rubble pile the friday following the 11th were great.."The people that knocked these buildings down will hear from all of us soon"...we were all so united at that time...

Not so great was his failure to identify the people. If Osama bin Laden & Co. had not claimed responsibility, Bush would have been in the dark and stayed there.
I'm not sure that it is possible to be a great patriot without having any brains.
The self-indulgently macho chest-pounding is typical of primates, however, so it was not surprising to see that chimp of a President engage in it.

[Meddle]

To this day it still pisses me off that people can be so insensitive that the world could not stop for just a few minutes to acknowledge such a life changing tragedy.

Didn't change my life in the least.

[Meddle]

I still have no idea how my mother could know this news and take a casual dog walk instead of being glue to the TV ...

Appears she was a responsible adult.

I don't know who deleted my earlier post, but no matter.

Seem to be a lot of holes here. Interesting that in a discussion about freedom and rights and attacks thereon.

[Gannon]

Like most people I have brought similar points up to, "If I am doing nothing wrong, why does this affect me?"

You can only say that because we remain in stasis with a relatively benign government.


Let me know what you think when society breaks down from money and food shortages, and all those little cameras popping up at every intersection become eyes for lockdown. Same with every wireless internet security camera that has been installed...there is a REASON certain frequencies have become outlawed with them. They all have a 'backdoor' that the government can access to make them live at any time...again more eyes.


Big Brother wasn't IMPOSED in Orwell's 1984, it was welcomed in by the very populace whose collective spirits were later suffocated by it. We are sitting proof that his warning was valid, today. The flatscreen that monitors your life is now strapped to your hip.


Am I worried? No. Aware? Very much so.


I am not interested in reliving the horrors of 9/11, although I remember that day as if it were yesterday. We've had nearly a decade to heal. The reminders served up are NOT designed to encourage healing, they are specifically created to pick that wound WIDE open once again. Why was that image of the jumper put up here?!


To yank all of your triggers. Get you anxious again. Make you WANT the government to step in like some calming parent to make the nightmare vanish.


The shadow government IS the nightmare. There were no 19 Saudi hijackers, no magic passport that somehow landed in an FBI agent's hands at the foot of the WTC buildings. There is no way any foreign national could make NORAD stand down for 2.5 hours [[but Dick Cheney could...and did). Bin Laden denied any involvement at first, but for some reason the Bush family still got his family members gathered up and flown outside the country...in direct violation of the FAA's No Fly rules imposed on everyone else.


Too many holes in the official story, but it sounds way too much like the declassified documents describing the Joint Chiefs of Staff's 1962 Operation Northwoods to NOT be anything but a False Flag operation.

Read that link and wake up from your slumber.


We were all duped on that fateful day by members of our own government hidden and protected by the whole Top Secret culture that President Dwight D. Eisenhower tried to warn us against in his famous exit speech.



And yes, I know I'm likely on yet another list for saying all of this publicly. But it is the whole truth, and I will never stop repeating it. I am unafraid.


Sincerely,
John

[sarge]

I was in the bathroom shaving and otherwise getting ready for work. My wife, who was already on her way to work, called and said she was listening to the Howard Stern show and that they were talking about how a plane flew into the WTC. She asked me to turn on the news and see if they were joking or telling the truth.

I turned on the TV and told her it was legit. We were talking about whether the crash was an accident or an intentional act when the second plane crashed, removing any doubt.

We spoke for a little while longer and then I drove to my office in downtown Austin. Almost no work got done that day. Instead, most of us who did show up were huddled in my boss's office watching the color tv that he rarely turned on. We all watched the towers fall and couldn't believe our eyes.

We also didn't know when it would end as speculation was rampant. We heard of the pentagon crash, the Pennsylvania crash, and a host of other speculative stories about other potential targets. We were relieved when it appeared to finally be over.

I sent a few emails to a friend who was working in NYC at the time to see if he was ok. I was happy to receive his reply later that evening.