Where were you when you heard?

[2008f450]

Just turned on the TV to get weather. Saw second plane hit live. I actually thought it was a movie trailer for a minute or 2. Then the reallity hit. Got to work and watched towers fall live. Also saw Challenger blow up live on TV. 2 days I will remember for as long as I live.

[bjl913]

11th grade at Thunder Ridge HS in Highlands Ranch... On my way back from the bathroom. Saw it through a window to another classroom.... Came back into my room and got yelled at by the teacher for pushing the TV to the front of the class while they were reading the Illiad by Homer... (outloud by the way. god bless our school systems! LOL). Nobody reprimanded me for disrupting class. Imagine that.

The next day I dropped out of HS. The 13th was my 17th B-day. I signed an infantry contract for the army on Oct. 1st. Left to Ft. Benning for basic on Jan. 6th. The rest is history. G

God bless everybody we lost that day, and every damn soldier, marine, airman, and sailor that is fighting for what is right EVERY day!

~Ben

[jerrymrc]

I was at Ft Carson. Walked into the break room to see the second plane hit. Our Col came in and said to get back to work and turn that shit off.

By the end of the day it was a mess because they had shut the place down with mile long lines to try and get in. Then the bright ones closed the schools on post telling everyone to come get there kid..... My bosses wife spent 4 hours in line to pick up there kids from school.

[Dinosdeuce]

I was DZCO for practice jumps into Falcon stadium. I just called drop approved when the pilot told me to stand-by. I waited about a minute and transmitted again, got aonther stand-by. I'm thinking WTF, is he just BS'ing with some one on the radio. So again I transmit and this time he says we have to RTB ASAP. I'm a little agitated at this point. I get in the truck and head back to the squadron to find out what's going on. It didn't take long.

ATC was going crazy trying to get all aircraft on the ground as quickly as possible and they weren't fooling around. Got the tv turned on and saw the 2nd jet impacting.

A significant emotional event that I will never forget.

[hobowh]

I was in bed, roommate knocke on my door and woke me up jut in time to see #2 hit.

[gnihcraes]

wow, some of you are "young" ha ha... making me feel old now.

just arrived at work, co-worker said a "plane" hit the world trade center... Huh, ok. I'm thinking small private plane... then after a bit got the real story as #2 hit, then they started shutting down work thinking we were the next "target", so we closed up all locations. Including places that would never have been a "target". Stupid waste of money. I even said I'll stay behind and keep things running, but was forced out by management. Go figure. IT/Government.

kc.

[Great-Kazoo]

driving to dmv for plates. the news was vague regarding what was going on, but it didn't sound good. took 2 hrs to get through to family back in NY. 2 cousins were @ work in tower 1. one of them remembers someone pulling him off the floor as it was collasping under him. next thing he knew he was standing in midtown. he had no idea how he got there. my BIL's sister was missed her train, caught the next one 15min later. as she's walking up the stairs from the subway, she see's something fall about 20-30 feet from her. she looks up as the 2nd plane hit.
my neice drove across the 59th street bridge as they were trying to close it to traffic.
my brother was home sick,, tower 2 took out the center of the building he worked at,they never found his partner or any of their desk.
I took our daughter and mother to ground zero Dec, 8, 2001 to see what was left of buildings i remember watching them build. A comment our daughter made reflected the irony of it all. She pointed to an OPEN For Business sign, and said. Only in NYC could there be so much carnage and yet a beauty shop was open for business

my sister said during that day emergency vehicles were roaming the streets all around the island speakers blaring , for everyone not an emergency responder to stay inside and off the streets.

[DD977GM2]

I was staying at my then GF apartment near Leetsdale and Illiff. My Dad woke me up and I watched the 2nd plane hitting. I then called my daughters Mom and said Im coming to get her and heading to the mountains to our cabin. My Dad was packing up and locked and loaded. Well at the intersection of I-25 and Evans, some gal rearended me and seperated my shoulder and gave me a concusion when my head went through the back windshield. My GF came and followed me to my Dads and I was glued to the TV the rest of the day. I dont remember much since my concusion etc, but I do know the rage in me and the desire to be back on my ship in the Med and the deisre to head straight to the Red Sea or the Persian Gulf and launch some of my "Birds" on the cocksuckers responsible for this.

[68Charger]

Saw it on the news in the morning- watched the 2nd plane hit, and at that point realized this wasn't any accident- so I better got to work.. heard about the Pentagon on my way in... (have about a 45min-1hr commute)

not that I could do much to help people there- I just new it was going to be chaos at work, since I worked on a financial network for a major telco..

most of our customers are stock brokers- spent the next week joining a conference call at the beginning of the day asking "what can I do" and just hacking away at technical issues all day.. until the stock market opened on the Monday following 9/11 (that day was a Tuesday, and all stock markets were closed the rest of the week.. even though we were technically ABLE to open markets on Wednesday- it was the right thing to wait)

the story of Cantor Fitzgerald was talked about on the news today- that particular one really rings with me, I was up late Sunday night turning up a redundant circuit to their sales office in CT, since all of their trading was done from the their offices in the WTC.. so they had a fully redundant network connection going into the 1st trading day post 9/11. There was a story about the CEO that happened to not be in his office when the 1st plane hit because he was dropping off his daughter for her first day of kindergarden- otherwise he would have surely perished.

I remember the people working in Manhattan that worked their asses off to get things as much back to normal as possible- I volunteered to go there, but planes were grounded for days, and they wanted me one the phones to work issues... but it's the first responders that deserve our respect for how they dealt with the situations..