Ustwo

Five years ago today I was driving down I290, listening to sports radio. I was listening to Murph and Fred, and ironically I started listening to sports radio back in 2000 for the main purpose of not listening to political talk after the 2000 election.

I was on my way to downtown Chicago in my 3rd year of orthodontic training.

It was a clear day, though there was still a bit of fog in the air. It was about 7:35 (thats the time I remember, I am not sure) when they announced that a plane had hit the world trade center. My first thoughts were that it was terrorism, but at the time they were only my own, the news guy said it was an accident.

They weren't sure what size plane, or what sort of damage was done, only that there was a fire.

Then they announced a second plane hit. Now I no longer thought it was terrorism I knew. The radio announcer, a sports guy, seemed at a loss to put it together on air. The feeling was 'something is happening and I have no idea what.'

Well I got to class that day a bit early for some presentation. I spoke with the head of my department and told her that there was an attack at the world trade center. She seemed sort of confused, and she didn't have a lot of chit-chat personality so just sort of nodded at me, but she is pretty smart and I am sure she started looking it up on the Internet.

I have to admit I told her about it in something of an excited tone of voice, something important was happening after all, and it didn't sound too bad at this point. I've had it referred to as the 'monkey reflex' even though we are in fact apes. While most animals will run from the first sign of danger, humans like to see what all the rukus is, which sounds counter survival, though I have a theory on it which need not be presented here.

Well I forget what the presentation was about, something dry and technical no doubt and still the gravity of what 9/11 was becoming wasn't known yet.

I leave the presentation half way for a bathroom break and the cute Hispanic girl at the front desk who we were friends with as a class tells me that one tower has fallen. Now this starts to sink in, but I return to class. We get out and she and the other girl at the front desk tells a group of us that both towers had fallen and that they are canceling our patients for the day and closing the school.

The school closing really told us the gravity of the situation. While most schools seem to close at the hint of a snow, UoIllinois only closes for national disaster level events. Back when I was an undergrad we had an icestorm that took out power for half the city (this being UIUC) and left about 6 inches of solid uncleared ice on the sidewalks and roads. TA's couldn't get to classes, professors couldn't get to classes, kids trying to get to classes looked like they were in a MASH unit from all the injuries due to trying to walk on ice, but the school stayed open. The Chicago campus was much the same way with the only closing anyone could recall being due to the historic 1968 Chicago blizzard.

Telling us the school was closing meant things were 'bad'.

Well freed of patient duties and having some time, we of course did what anyone would do. Checked the internet for news. I recall thinking that the planes had to have been rented or leased, as it would be much easier to use a charter jet, and one report said that they could see no marking on the planes. The horror of the use of hijacked planes still had not hit me as reality. I argued with someone that point, I was sadly very wrong.

One thing we all assumed at the time and didn't know, but still had no doubts was this was a Islamic terror act. Why we all assumed I'm sure you could have many theories on, but regardless, we knew. My program had a large contingent of Muslim students, mostly paid for by their respective governments. I could tell some interesting stories about them, but for the most part the girls were very nice and the guys were either very nice or total assholes. Most of the assholes were cordial with the faculty and fellow students, not friendly but not jerks either, but they were complete jerks with their patients and the staff. I'm assuming its a cultural thing dealing with servants, plus our patient pool didn't come from the upper, or even middle class but were mostly lower middle or recent immigrant families. Several of us offered to give some of the girls rides home, for their protection, we were not the only ones who would assume it was Islamic terror and it seemed the prudent thing to do being the women were all obvious with their head coverings, also they being women, were not allowed to drive in their home country and had to take public transportation. We were told by the asshole guys that they had it taken care of. What I didn't learn till later was that it would be unseemly for them to be with a non-Muslim male.

So I leave the school and the first thing I looked at was the Sears Tower, I, and about a million other people were wondering if something was going to happen there. I drove home listening to the still confused news, constantly glancing back in my rear view mirror at it.

I get home an turn on the TV and see my first real time pictures, plus replays of the explosions. I watched and kept watching. Some of the more famous talking heads seemed at a loss for words, without a script they didn't seem to do that well, others seemed to shine and still others were speculating wildly. I mostly ignored them all just listening for details. There was this and that false report about firefighters rescued, people trapped, and who the V.I.P.'s were on the aircraft or missing in the towers. For some reason this really really annoyed me. All these people dead, it didn't matter to me at that point if they were a CEO or a bus boy.

Then they showed the pictures of people jumping to their deaths. I didn't see this pictures until the evening or late afternoon. For the first time, and I'm getting slightly misty eyed even now writing this, I cried at something I saw in the news. Seeing a couple, I don't know if they were married, lovers, friends, or just two people who didn't want to die alone, jump hand in hand is what turned me from horror to tears. They say they won't show those pictures again since it would cause 'hate', they have a point but still I think everyone should see those pictures at least once. There is more at stake here than politics.

I needed to do something, and I knew what would help me as there was nothing I could do but watch in horror. I downloaded amazing grace on the bagpipes, an instrument I have a fondness for and was made for such occasions, I think I listened to it 10 times that night.

I don't recall what I did the next day, or the next, I can't remember if they school was closed the next day or not, but I do remember that day, I always will.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

maleficent

that was beautifully written.. nicely done...



5 years ago and 24 hours, and it would have been five years ago had it not been for a foul up in corporate travel, I stepped off united flight 93 on my way to Australia for a business trip.

9/11 itself I was in a hotel room in Chatswood, Australia, outside of Sydney, totally jetlagged and not really sleeping... I was sort of dozing when the television station iw as watching cut in to the american news.. and it took it a bit to register -i thought i was watching a disaster movie... wasn't a movie though...

took about a day, for info to reach me, but i found out that I lost my best friend of more than 30 years, who i'm sure people are sick of me talking about, as well as about 15 other people that I had close working relationships with...

The first day, I left the hotel and walked over to the customer, stopping for coffee in a little shop... the store owner heard me speak and asked me if I was an american... Yes. He came back from behind the counter and hugged me and my entire trip I don't think I paid for anything in the shop...

I got to the customer and settled in at my desk - my computer screen up to CNN or whatever news page Ic ould find... the president of the company I was at came down to my desk (now I was doing technology stuff, I had no contact with the president at all) and asked how I was... He gave me a private office, and access to a phone, where i could make as many phone calls as I needed... I was in contact with my office during all this, and I got asked the questionif I wanted to come home.. .well the airlines had other ideas there were no flights... period... and my sense of responsibilty said the customer paid a ton of money to fly me down there, i was there to work... the president of the ocmpany said to me that they'd reschedule the trip not to worry about the cost, and if I wanted to go home, they'd find a way to get me there... Big corporation caring so much - let me just say I was floored...

I ended up staying.. because there wasn't much to go home too... and the compassion of australians was extraordinary... i've travelled around the world - and i've never felt more at home than i did in Oz... One afternoon, i was out walking, and i had on a baseball cap to protect my hair from the hot sun... it was my tried and true ny yankees cap... goes everywhere with me... i had more people come over shake my hand... try to hug me... give me small tokens... and offerings of prayers... I am not a warm and fuzzy person.. most people would descibe me as cold... but other people weren't put off by that...

there were afew moments of amusement when i got to go home... the big one being was a big deal was being made out of hand chekcing all carry on luggage and no "weapons were allowed. I had a pair of tweezers confiscated for being dangerous, my keys were questions for sharpness, but the 6 inch swiss army knife that was attached to my key chain was completely missed...

When I was back home, a few weeks later, I had called corporate travel back to book a trip to the UK... and i got put on hold for a very long time... whent hey finally came back.. the story was - they had me (and 4others in the company) in the killed on 9/11 file.. and had to ressurect me... They still had me on that united flight...

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Ch'i

I was only 13 years old, but it still had the same effect. I was shaken awake by my brother who told me to come with him. My family was gathered around the TV and I then saw what they were watching. The rest of the day I was more angry than anything else. I still had that "who could do something like that?" line of thought, and at that age, was naive to current politics. I just didn't understand why.

777

Has it really been 5 year...

At that time, I had recently quit school at ITT Tech. I was studing electronics, and it took me a few years to realize that that's not what I wanted to do with my life. In search of some direction, I had decided to join the US Air Force. During the physical, there was one question that determined my fate for the next four years. One question that I knew the answer to. One question that needed to be answered a dishonestly. One question: Do you have asthma? Yes or No.

I had spoken to the recruiter about what I wanted out of the Air Force. We chatted about possible career paths as a civilian once I server my term. Score huge points on the enterance exam. Everything was open to me. We also spoke about my medical history. As a kid, I had asthma, like a lot of other kids these days. Although it didn't bother me at the time I was finishing high school, since I was in track and field and wrestling, Sgt. Black recommended that I answered "No" on that one question. It would remove a lot of red tape in the future.

I answered yes instead.

And so begins the red tape, and man, how long it is. I went to a repratory specialist down the street. His job was to condust a test to determine whether I had asthma, and if so, to what degree.

The morning I was scheduled to take the test, we turned on the tv, and saw what was left of the Twin Towers.

...

To this day, I'm still not sure what that day ment to me, if anything at all. I had rescheduled the respratory test for the following week, and failed. No entry into any branch of the Armed Forces, do not pass "Go", do not collect $200. The only effect it had in my little geeky life, was that Red Alert 2, a computer game, would be delayed to change it's box art, since it depicted the World Trade Center on fire. All tv shows and movies seemed zealous or fearful to show the Twin Towers in any way, and were working to have them removed digitally. The Spiderman 2 movie trailer, wear the helicopter of some bank robbers is caught in a giant spider web between the two towers, was never seen again.

And I still don't know why I said yes...

__________________
"I don't know that I ever wanted greatness, on its own. It seems rather like wanting to be an engineer, rather than wanting to design something - or wanting to be a writer, rather than wanting to write. It should be a by-product, not a thing in itself. Otherwise, it's just an ego trip."

Roger Zelazny

Craven Morehead

I work out of my house, was talking to my boss on the phone when he asked if I heard anything about a plane hitting the WTC. I didn't. For some reason I envisioned a small single engine private plane, a Cessna. Finished the conversation, walked into the kitchen to get another cup of coffee and turned on the TV to CNN. Just as they showed the video of the second plane's impact. My knees buckled. I will never ever forget that feeling. Or that moment in time. The extreme sadness and sense of loss was overpowering.

Ace_O_Spades

Death does not really phase me... I wasn't phased by the death of my grandma, or really by the suicide of a friend, or really by the three other tragic early deaths that happened to people I knew in highschool.

I must be the coldest most insensitive bastard in the world. I sympathize with those who lost loved ones, but really, the day meant absolutley nothing to me at the time.

I went to school, did my work, went to football practice, went home, did homework, ate dinner, went to sleep.

The only difference between now and then is at the time I supported Canada's involvement in Afghanistan. Since the USA all but pulled out, that has changed.

I'm not really sure why I posted this... I'm not trying to slight anyone who might feel sorrow or sadness for the day.

Take your time to remember your dead.

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Feh.

Lady Sage

I was in the basement of the Fairlawn branch of my bank for a continuing education class... When they let us go I went to my mothers house and we sat dumbstruck waiting for the phone to ring. You see my cousin worked in the pentagon and we were waiting to see if she made it or not.

Never will I forget that day and never will I stop hoping for the ultimate pain and suffering for those behind it.

NoSoup

I was in school at the time.

More specifically, I was sound asleep in my 2nd period math class. I remember the principal making the announcement that there was a terrorist attack on the WTC. I lifted my head from my desk, still only semi-concious, and thought perhaps I was having a terrible dream - until I saw my classmate's faces.

I left school shortly after and went home and watched the news the rest of the day. I can clearly remember how horrific it was watching the towers collapse.

As far as how I felt as a result, it was really quite surprising. I'm pretty anti-military, and yet when the sun set on the 11th, I was seriously considering joining up. I quickly realized the impact of what had happened, but in all actuality, overestimated - apparently by a lot. I thought the World would be different somehow, but it is amazing how quickly some people forget...

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I have an aura of reliability and good judgement.

Just in case you were wondering...

highthief

I was at the gym when it happened, finishing my workout, but didn't hear about it until I got to my car and turned on the radio. As I was home that day I spent much of the morning relaying info to my wife and friends at their office about what was going on.

My emotional reaction? I felt bad for what happened and the people who died, but perhaps because I'm not a New Yorker I didn't get the "my world is falling apart and I'm never flying again" feeling.

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Si vis pacem parabellum.

greytone

I was about to get into the shower to get ready to fly home when my sister told me about the news of the first plane. I came downstairs and watched the morning news with her and her month old son (the reason I had come to visit). I was sure it had been a small plane. Then the second plane hit. That was when I turned to her and said "The world just changed." I wondered how the world would be different for my nephew than it had been for me.

Terrorism had always been something that happened overseas. Now I think we have again become too complacent. There are evil people in the world. There always have been and I am sure that there always will be. There is no completely safe haven.

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I was there to see beautiful naked women. So was everybody else. It's a common failing.
Robert A Heinlein in "They Do It With Mirrors"

politicophile

I was in Spanish class when my principle announced that there had been attacks at the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. My first thought was that a major world power had launched a surprise attack on the United States and nuclear war was likely to follow. I suppose you could write me down as one of the few individuals who overreacted to the initial news reports. I remember thinking about which one of my family's cars had the greatest fuel range, in the event we needed to leave town in a hurry.

They set up televisions at several spots throughout the school and I spent the next five hours or so watching the towers collapse over and over and over again. At the end of the day, my father drove to school to pick me up. To his immense relief, I already knew what had happened. He had been thinking all day about how he was going to break the news to me.

9/11 was the day I understood why my grandfather, to this very day, hates Japan. While I was aware that 9/11 and Pearl Harbor were two seperate events in different contexts, I had a new appreciation for Americans who had lived through that tragedy.

__________________
The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. ~John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

Elphaba

I remember every minute of the day, after my husband called to tell me to turn on the news. I watched the constant video loop of one plane crashing into WTC followed by the collapse of both buildings. I watched for days. I watched our president, whom I had previously mocked, and for the first time saw him as truly presidential.

To this day, I will avoid seeing video of those towers falling; just thinking about it causes a deep twisting in my gut.

One year later, my mother and I did our best to keep my father out of pain through the afternoon of the 10th into the morning of the 11th. I won't talk about that night, but in the morning I told my father that it was okay to move on. His breath slowed and stopped shortly before 9am.

My mother must deal with the greatest loss in her life in conjunction with one of the memorable losses of our nation. She is reminded by the news at least a month ahead of September each year and has dealt with that renewed sense of loss and loneliness for four years. I am unable to separate the two in any way, because the immensity of loss is both personal and national.

Yesterday, we held our first "Dad's Girls" day, for the sole purpose and need of a mother and three daughters to share the best of the first man in our life.

I believe or maybe simply hope that many people today are celebrating the best of those they lost on 9/11/2001, or have stopped for a moment to remember...there is so much to remember.

Pen

Zeraph

I was 16 and getting ready for school at the time, the first was already hit, then I saw the 2nd plane hit. I was more amazed and shocked than horrified; that was the first historical event I had been old enough to witness so I didn't know how to feel about it. Most of the poeple around me didn't seem that troubled, so I think I reflected that. I just realized now that I was somewhat cheated, it was a chance for the young me to learn something, but school went on and most teachers basically ignored it (most didnt even check for updates). Which was really wierd now that I think of it.

spectre

I was getting ready for class when I got a call from my aunt about the first plane, I turned on the news in time to see the second one hit. At the time, my mom worked in the Sears tower. I went to school, but kept calling my mom every chance I could to make sure she was okay. Nothing was really said at school at the time, so I didn't know if anything had happened there, and since I couldn't get through to her, I was really worried.

__________________
"Fuck these chains
No goddamn slave
I will be different" ~ Machine Head

snowy

I had gotten up early that morning; I had cut my finger badly at work the night before and my mother wanted me to show my father before he left for work himself. I couldn't go back to sleep, so I got up and settled in with her to watch television. We were watching NBC when they cut in with the news that a "small plane" had hit one of the towers of the World Trade Center. The information came in sudden spurts, and the picture grew clearer and clearer. They focused on the gaping hole in the tower, and we watched while live on TV the second plane flew into the other.

It was unsettling to say the least, and the image is definitely burned into my memory.

I remember what I ate that day, how I felt going to work that night, and how my friends and I all arranged to meet up that evening to sit and talk together.

I can't believe it's been five years.

__________________
If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Spotila

I was 15 at the time. In New Zealand time the attacks occured early in the morning on september 12th so I was still asleep. I went to get breakfast upon awaking, my step father called and told me to turn on the tv. I saw the twin towers burning, but was in a rush to get to school. People talked about it most of the day at school, I don't really remember the evening. Most probably watched the news till bed time. Being a skyscraper fanatic made the day even worse :~

analog

I was in the coffee shop thing that's attached to the bookstore where I was attending college. Someone had changed the overhead musak into the broadcast from abc (whichever one had katie couric and matt lauer). We heard that a plane had impacted into one of the towers. Astonished, the cafe became very hushed as we listened, but people still walked around and read their magazines and such... and then the second plane hit. The room froze. No one moved, spoke, made any noise of any kind for what seemed like a very long time...

In reality, it was likely only 10 seconds or so, and then the room suddenly sped into a frenzy. I saw some people still frozen, some looking bewildered, and others like myself were heading straight out the door, forsaking any class we may have had (which I did, scheduled to start in 10 minutes).

I went straight home- to my parents home, not my apartment at the time... It was only 15 minutes to get there, and with every minute that passed, the roads got more and more congested, and the drivers increasingly more frantic. I walked in and sat down in front of the tv; my mom of course had it on already. I sat and teared up a lot as I watched them replay the footage over and over of the planes hitting the towers...

...soon, the first tower collapsed. Holding myself together was difficult. Then, the second tower collapsed. I only held myself together because if my mom saw me lose it, she'd lose it. I stayed there for another hour, watching things unfold and fighting back tears.

When I got back to my apartment, my friend (and roommate) was already there, since he'd had the day off from work. We exchanged a quick hello and found out how long we'd each been watching, then I went in to my room and just cried hard for a while (20 or 30 minutes, I think, I have no idea... wasn't too long).

When I walked back out into the living room, I sat down and watched peter jennings for his entire 48-hour-long broadcast following the disaster... I had a lot of mountain dew in the apartment, and that's all i ingested for those 2 days. It helped keep me awake to watch things unfold on the TV, and I simply had no desire to eat. I was not hungry. I was practically catatonic for those 2 days. I didn't get up from the couch except to get more mountain dew or go to the bathroom- literally.

I didn't find out until a few days later, but I could have lost my uncle... I didn't know that he regularly held meetings in the towers with his company, but that day was not a day for him to be there. I'm glad I didn't know that, because I'd have gone insane waiting to find out if he made it...

Even after those first few days, I was still glued to the TV news for a week or two while things continued to happen. I didn't lose anyone I knew personally, but I felt an incredibly deep and intense sadness... sometimes, especially in that first day, while I'd be sitting motionless and silent, i'd just have tears streaming down my face as I watched horrified. No sound, no sobbing, no nothing... just a stream down my face.

Marvelous Marv

I woke up to hear the TV louder than usual. Walked into the kitchen and my wife told me what had happened. I watched the video a few times, got an odd, queasy feeling, but went to work.

Saw clients all day, one of whom was highly upset. It seemed to upset her that I wasn't more agitated. She is worlds apart from me on the political spectrum, and she asked me if I knew what "jihad" means. I said, "Of course I do. But this took so much planning that whoever did it has pretty much blown their wad. They're going to have trouble doing anything else for awhile."

I continued to have that odd, surreal feeling all day. While the shots I saw of people jumping to their deaths affected me, I had been a little hardened by deaths I viewed when I was in the military, so it didn't really change anything as far as how I felt.

What really made me think we might have just entered into a war was when I saw fighters flying cover over the pentagon. I just didn't think I'd ever live to see that.

__________________
"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money."
Margaret Thatcher

The_Jazz

I got to work early that day since I was supposed to fly to San Antonio the next morning for 3 days of insurance hell. My computer was all jacked up, so I was on the phone with one of our IT people when someone came in my office and told me that a plane had crashed into one of the towers. The IT person and I talked about it while she was working on my computer trying to get it to print, and we thought it was a small plane that maybe got lost in fog or something. It wasn't until 15 minutes later that I could go into the kitchen to see what was on TV. One of my coworkers was thinking that it was a small plane, but as soon as I saw the hole, I knew that it had to be a jet at the very least, although I thought that it might have been a regional one since I didn't have a very good idea of the size of the buildings.

I was back on the phone with IT when the second plane hit. One of my assistants ran into my office to tell me what happened, and I hung up the phone to get to the kitchen. When I watched the replay the first time, I knew that it was terrorism, although in the first couple of minutes I thought it was domestic crazies instead of foreign ones.

At the time, our office was a block from the Sears Tower, and there were all sorts of rumors flying around about what was going on there. I had some good friends/business associates working in offices there, and one called me when they were being evacuated since we had a big deal cooking at the time. She was already outside and we started talking about what would happen to the insurance marketplace and whether or not it would kill the soft market we had had for 12 years. In fact it had done so, and over the next few months I worked harder than I ever had before.

At 10:00, we started sending people home, and the phones started ringing off the hooks with clients and vendors wanting know what we were doing. By 11:30 it was just me and my boss trying to triage as many deals as possible while military jets flew over downtown. It was scary. At 11:30, our CEO called and got me. He basically told me I was fired if I didn't leave the building within the next 5 minutes and that I needed to take my boss with me. We left and ended up going to El Jardin by Wrigley Field because of their margaritas (1 will get you drunk, 2 will make you comatose). We had lunch and margaritas, and I went home to my apartment to try to get my head straight. It was a beautiful day in Chicago, and quiet like a early Sunday morning in the middle of summer, only broken up by military jets streaking overhead. At 3, a friend and I went for the longest run I'd been on in 6 years and just talked about what happened and possible responses. It was an absolute pleasure to leave my cell phone at home since it had basically been ringing nonstop from 11 to 3.

Crazily enough, my first date with my wife was that Saturday afterwards. I remember telling her at the beginning that regardless of how it turned out, it would always be memorable because of the week's events.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

stevo

I was sleeping. I didn't have class that tuesday. I heard a loud bang on my door and my roommate's voice yelling for me to wake up. I could tell by the sound of his voice that there was something going on. I walked outside my room and looked at the TV. There was 1 tower standing and smoke everywhere. My first thought and words were "They finally got us." The rest of the day I don't remember as well as most people I know. I just remember getting together with my friends. Watching the tv a lot and going to the shell station for a pack of smokes. I remember how I felt. I remember the television. I remember the footage. I remember talking to some people. But I don't know if I slept for the next 3 days. I was pretty affected. Within the next few months I had called the air force and army, neither would take me "permenately disqualified" I felt helpless on 9/11. I felt pretty helpless then too. After the first few months I avoided most coverage of 9/11 for the next 4 1/2 years. How many times can you see the planes hit the towers? But I did watch the documentary on CBS the other night, the one about the firefighters - I believe it aired a couple months after 9/11. That was good. real good.

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"If I am such a genius why am I drunk, lost in the desert, with a bullet in my ass?" -Otto Mannkusser

roachboy

this is strange...a collection of flashbulb moments.

i remember hearing about the first attack on npr as i walked into the penn book center.
i remember standing by the front desk, listening.
i remember that there was alot of shouting coming across the broadcast which contrasted oddly with the complete silence of the other people who were also in the store, who were standing quite still.
i remember that we were looking at the radio.
i remember thinking: "the chickens have come home to roost"
i remember feeling nothing.

a few hours later, i was walking about the student union, through a maze of large-screen television screens surrounded by large groups of students and others who were staring saucer-eyed at the loop of the second trade center collapsing as it began to play over and over as it continued to play over and over. i remember looking at peoples' eyes.

i remember thinking that the people who are working at the networks are traumatized and the repetition is a way of trying to get control over the trauma. i remember thinking that i had never seen television traumatized before.

i remember sitting in a tavern at about 5 that afternoon and watching a tv set mounted on the wall over the bar, watching the loop still repeating. i remember thinking about j.g. ballard.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Charlatan

I was in Stockholm, Sweden. I had just finished my last meeting scheduled in the city and had the rest of the day off to wander. I spent most of it wandering the Old Town. At one point I noticed a small Internet cafe and wandered in to check my email (this was before I had a Blackberry or a Treo).

As I sat reading my email, I happened to overhear a couple of American backpackers next to me and l glanced over to see that there were looking at the now iconic image of the two towers with smoke billowing out of them. I joined their conversation. We speculated that it had to be a joke or some sort of marketing gimic for a new Jerry Bruckheimer film (I actually said Bruckheimer's name and was amused to see others had made this same connnection later).

I quickly started Googling on my own computer. It was real and was no joke.

I wasn't sure what to make of it at first and then it started to hit me. What if this isn't an isolated event? What if this is just the first wave of attacks?

I quickly left the cafe and jumped into a cab back to my hotel where I flicked on BBC World and called my wife back home. In those days, her office was across the hall from mine. She and all my co-workers had seen the entire thing, live. I was just happy to hear her voice. I didn't like being so far away. It made me feel helpless... what if there were more attacks? How do I protect my family when I am thousands of miles away?

I couldn't stay alone in my room that evening. So I went downstairs to the lounge to have a beer and watch the footage in Swedish with a bunch of other's staying in the hotel.

The last thing I did before going to sleep was turn off the TV. The first thing I did on waking was turn on the TV.

The next day I had to fly to London. I remember shifting between being very calm and feeling wierded out as I boarded the plan. The flight was a quiet one. The one interesting thing was that because we weren't allowed to fly over the core of London, we had to fly around and were afforded the best view I have ever had of London from a plane.

After that, I was stuck in London for the remainder of the week as I had a few meetings to attend and no flight were going to North America.

On September 13th I had a meeting with a client. As we started our meeting it was interrupted by a national moment of silence to remember all of the Brits that had perished in the Towers. It was an odd moment to say the least. Not the least of which the three of us in the meeting were all a bit teary by the end of the two minutes of silence.

I was never happier to fly home and see my family.

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fresnelly

I was working for the Opera Company as a driver/buyer picking up supplies and hardware while the set was being put into the theatre. I spent most of that day in the van on the road.

I listened to Howard Stern broadcasting live from Manhatten in the morning. There was real panic and fear in all of his crew's voices. They were doing their best to find out what the hell was going on and stayed on well past their usual end of show, taking calls from all over.

Everytime I returned to the theatre with a load, I'd check the TV in the backstage lounge where everyone was gathered. I remember the downward slope of that day: How from early on when I assumed it was just some out of control cessna that first hit the tower and then just got worse and worse as the day went on.

I was alone in an industrial area of Brampton when the towers fell. That was the worst. I was so upset that I pulled over for a long time.

To this day, I can't watch any coverage or documentaries, and certainly not any of the movies. As it is I can barely read this thread. Thinking about it just tears me apart.

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hotzot

I was sleeping. (I work nights). My wife told me all about it when I got up around 3 PM.

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Cynthetiq

I can't even write in detail about what happened to me that day... I was in Times Square I was managing 15 people as they trickled into the office. I had people on elevated trains telling me that they can see the towers billowing smoke. Skogafoss' mom called to say she was fine and that she was in the Deutche Bank building across the street. I had TVs on 20 people in the call center freaking out. I went outside to see the ABC jumbotron when the first tower fell. I stood confused as to why they would demolish the building... I then realized that it wasn't something that they could have done in such a manner so quickly.

Skogafoss' mother was nowhere to be found. I worried that I would have to help her find her mother's remains or console her about her mother's death.

I didn't think about how I felt that day, and it still pains me today. I had to be strong for the people I managed and those other managers who looked to me to keep a cool head.

I still have to mourn for that day and the heavy losses. Skogafoss' mom eventually turned up... but not after describing some horrific events that unfolded and she didn't even have the "dust clouded" look that many did. Somehow she was protected by an angel.

excuse me...

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raeanna74

I was fixing breakfast. I rarely watched the news in the morning but that day I had happened to turn it on. My daughter was in her highchair eating blueberry yogurt (funny how you remember small details), and when I saw the first tower burning I wondered what kind of movie it was. Suddenly I realized it wasn't a movie and called hubby in to see. He thought the same thing as I did for a split second and when he saw the date and time on the TV we stood there for what seemed like an hour as we watched the 1st tower crumble and then the second. I saw the people running in panic and covered in dust and though "How can this be happenin here in the US?"

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frogza

I was on my way to work. At the time I was a marketing consultant at a marketing firm that catered primarily to stock brokers and financial planners. When the radio announcer said that a plane had hit one of the towers it felt like I had been hit in the stomach. I was torn between pulling over and speeding to work to call my clients and friends.

When I got to the office everyone was standing around with the radio playing, that's when the second plane hit. Everyone in my department knew someone in the towers. Some people where crying, others sat stunned with their heads in their hands or staring blankly into space. My third call of the day was supposed to be to a man who I considered a friend. Whenever I called him he was very upbeat, kind and intelligent, I always looked forward to my calls to him. He was killed that day, a man I had never seen but was my friend.

At about 9:00 am two televisions were brought in and we watched the second plane crash into the building over and over. We listened as the announcers strained to explain what was known at the time. When the camera focused on people jumping from the buildings I had to leave the room, it was too close to me.

I called my wife and asked her if she had heard what happened. When she said yes, we both sat on the phone saying nothing, there was nothing to say, nothing seemed appropriate. I told her that I was supposed to be on the phone with my friend. I told her I didn't know if I would talk to him again. We cried together over the phone.

The next week another friend/client killed himself. Some of his close friends had worked in the towers and died. He was already on shaky ground emotionally when the attack came, it didn't do it directly but the attack killed him as well.

dlish

being in austalia, it happened about 11.30pm on the 11th of spetember. since i strated work early, i had been in bed for about 30 mins. i hear phone call for my brother and some noise outside my door, but i was too damn tired to get up and see what the problem was. i get up at 6am the next morning to see dad up watching tv.... his only words were..'did you see what happened'..the he turns and watches in silence.... i didnt know what to feel.

being muslim, i had hoped that this heinious act had nothing to do with islam. i kept denying it to myself that, this act could never be an act of a muslim. a real muslim would never attack innocent civilians. islam forbade the killing of innocent civilians in times of war, let alone in times of peace. i remember arguing with my boss at the time that this couldnt have been done by real muslims... he must have thought i was a total nutcase..he probably still does...

i remember driving to work, calling my friends, listening to the radio in the car and at work. there was zero productivity that day..but there was zero productivity everywhere... that day i got introduced to talk back radio.... and it was the day that i got introduced to hate-filled rednecks who needed a scapegoat in a country a world away from USA.

in the following days, i had family members abused, sworn at, vilified, run off the road, had people swerve at them while crossing the road, and told to go back to their own countries. ironically, my family have been here more than 40 years. my wife was abused on the train on the way home from uni, she came home in tears, abused for doing something she did not commit.

yes, 9/11 did change a lot.. it changed the world..it changed the arab and muslim world as much as the western world... but we rarely speak of hiroshima or nagasaki these days, and i believe that one day the same will happen to 9/11....

5 years later and im still confused about 9/11. something was done in the name of islam which was to the detriment of muslims. a day doesnt go by that i dont think about that day.. it definately changed the way we live.. even if it is australia.

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