September 11, 2001: Personal Stories 10-Years Later

Where was I?
I was standing in front of a television screen half way across the world watching my country, family and friends suffer.
I wasn’t there in person, but I was in heart, and my heart told me there was something very - very wrong - with what I was seeing.
I never returned to the USA after that - I probably never will.
Not until the truth is known.
If ever.
peace

On September 11th 2011, I was 10 years old. I had a day off from school as there was a teacher's training day, or something like that. I remember being at my Grandad's house and we had the television on. Then, there was a newsflash about a plane crashing into the Twin Towers. Being from Ireland and being only 10 years old, I didn't really grasp the significane of what had happened. I knew though that it wasn't good.

Across the road from my Grandad's house, there were 4 builders working on constructing a house. It was sunny I remember and they were out in vests and short sleeve shirts. They had the radio on in their car whilst working. I remember seeing them running to their car and crouching around to listen to what was happening. That alone stuck with me.

I won't ever forget what happened on that dreadful day. My aunt lives in Brooklyn and her husband was on a bus going to work at the time and the bus driver saw the plane hit Tower 1 - he swerved the bus around and drove away in a panic. I was in shock over a thousand miles away in Galway in Ireland - I can't imagine what he and all the other people present on the day felt.

RIP to all those killed on that day.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


I was in Santa Fe at home, getting me ready for work and my daughter ready for school. The phone rang - my friend Ruthe was almost hysterical, screaming "Turn on your TV. It's happening RIGHT NOW!" ...I saw the smoke and the towers but nothing made sense to me - not what Ruthe was saying or the news commentary. I didn't get it. ...When what was happening finally broke through my morning fog, my heart turned to cold stone. "Bush did this," I told Ruthe with absolute certainty.

I'm originally from New York but live up North now.. My sister called that morning, panicked, told me to turn on the news.. I thought it may have been an accident. Then the second plane hit and I said, "this is no accident".. Watched in horror as the flames grew, people jumped and knowing that my friend's husband (best friend's brother in law) worked at Cantor Fitzgerald. Never did I feel so far from home..

About 7 of my friends were in the city, in that area that day.. It was the longest day - watching TV, praying, crying, and continuously trying to call everyone. One by one I heard from them.. All but one. I finally got through and it was my friend, crying:

"They can't find him, no one's heard from him and we can't get through to him."

He didn't make it..

It was a horrible time.. A wonderful man perished. A family that I so love was shattered.. Nothing I did could help.. It was as if there was a hole in your soul so deep and so wide that you couldn't figure out what to fill it with. All those souls.. So many from my hometown alone, but multiplied and multiplied again.. I ended up in therapy for a year to try to sort through the pain.

Tomorrow they go to the 9/11 memorial to honor and remember him, and we bow head and solemnly remember him and all the others who perished that dreadful day.. May God ever hold them in the palm of His hand.

I was reading aloud the part of Reverend Parris in The Crucible in my high school literature class. A teacher came in and interrupted class, asking to talk to our teacher. Our teacher returned, visibly shaken, and turned on the TV in our classroom. We watched in horror as the second plane hit the towers on live TV. Many of the girls began to weep, and many of the guys, including myself, starting making comments about joining the military. Next I moved on to my computer class, and from there we continued to watch the live TV and I searched for information online about the attacks, about how many people worked in each building, etc. People in class really started freaking out when I found a source that as many as 50,000 people could be in the towers. Especially since within a minute of finding that info the first tower collapsed. I was the only one in class who called it. Everyone else said it would be fine.

The day progressed like everything was in slow motion. Hardly anyone at lunch had an appetite. The mood soon changed from angry to scared and hopeless. Nobody knew if more attacks were coming. Everyone was freaking out. This girl left one of my classes because apparently her dad was on business in NY and was supposed to be at WTC for at least part of the day. I remember that being pretty intense.

Shortly after lunch the school made the choice to turn off all the TVs. That really got us scared because we thought they were hiding something from us. Then unexpectedly school was let out early. I had to walk home because I was grounded for a couple weeks (which my parents quickly forgot all about). I grew up near a fairly big city and remember walking home how quiet it was. No jet trails in the sky. Nothing on my way home. The story was different out and about. My girlfriend called me to say that we should all fill up because she was at the gas station and they were almost out of gas. She also mentioned the gas was about $5/gallon, part of the price gouging that was later found to be illegal and the stations were all fined (gas back then was like $1.25, lol). So my family went out and got gas, then we loaded up on foodstuffs and water. We were STOCKED up.

The rest of the day we watched the news footage, watched the curious collapse of building 7. I remember scouring the web finding strange coincidences about the day. I also remember getting into an argument with my girlfriend about whether I should go sign up for the military. She was very against the idea. It all seems so bizarre to think back on it now, and I can hardly believe that a decade has passed. The events of 9/11 definitely shaped the man I've turned into today, especially since it occurred during such a pivotal point in a young man's life. I was trying to figure out who I was, what I would become. Learning about women. Forming my value system. It's incredible that I've made it this far seeing how silly I was back then. Since then I've learned valuable skills, developed a work ethic and responsibility, got married, and generally forged ahead in my own life.

9/11 impacted me in a big way. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if I'll ever know in what way. It just did. Some day my children or grand children will probably interview me about it for their class project, just like I interviewed my grandparents about Kennedy for a project I had. It is my hope that their kids will never have to interview them about something terrible that happened in their lives, but with the way things are going right now, I have a feeling my kids might have more yet to interview me about. That is, if I survive! But I'm hopeful.

I was in high school at the time. I had an off period and was sitting in the cafeteria with some friends. The principal came over the PA system and alluded to having a terrible announcement to make.

He announced the following; the world trade center had been attacked by crashing two airplanes into it, the pentagon had also been attacked and that the White House had been destroyed. My stomach dropped and I began to attempt to process what I was hearing. I was 15 at the time. Smart and mature, but 15. I couldn't process what I was hearing. I immediately got up and went to the library. As I walked in they were just turning the television to a news network. I sat on the floor in front of it and spent my afternoon there. At this point when they turned the television on, both towers had collapsed, the Pentagon had been hit and Flight 93 was down. Having been told that the White House was bombed, I was waiting for some time for some coverage on this or at least a visual. After about an hour I started to piece together that in the chaos of the morning and the confirmed and unconfirmed reports, that this was likely an error from the principal.

What I recall thinking to myself the moment I had a visual of the destruction on the news was that this was my JFK.

Even as a child, I was a student of history. I always had this deep fascination of what it would have been like to be alive at that time in history. The moment people found out, the days that ensued as grieving took place, in the weeks that followed as the world moved forward. I knew right away that in 20, 30 and 40 years I would be talking to my kids and other young people about what I was experiencing that morning. I can still remember the faces of the other students around me. Some of them emotional, others not really sure what they were looking at and others just absorbing it.

I haven't forgot a detail of that afternoon in 10 years. I don't anticipate forgetting any in the next 10.

I was in the 8th grade, and i had just walked into spanish class. We had a substitute that day. I walked to my desk and after everybody showed up he said "Did anybody hear about the Word Trade Center getting bombed?" Honestly, I didn't eve know what the World Trade Center was, I am from a small town of 360 in Oklahoma and things as far away as New York never really interested me much, ecept on New Years Eve. Anyway, nobody had heard about it being attacked, so we turned on the TV and put it on the news, that is when the second plane hit. We were all dumbfounded, and the school was pretty chaotic the rest of the day. I remember at lunch, Gas prices at the local stations had jumped from 98cents to $1.50, and they were climbing, we couldn't believe it, my mom had to check my brother out of school early so he could fill his car up before they ran out, there was a line about 1/4 mile long, it was really that bad.

I'll never forget that day...

i remember being a sophomore in highschool. it was 8: 00 in the morning, the teacher came in and said what happened, everybody was shocked, i was the only person in class. my first question was "what did the air force do to stop the terrorists?" to be honest my whole view changed. my views on the government, society, and what i was most worried about was i the only one who didn't buy it? i waited for some time to pass and i think it was around 05 when i first heard somebody say anything and it was a friend of mine who had theories of his own

I'm a high school CAD instructor and on the morning of 9/11, I walked into the school's front office and there was a fellow teacher running off copies on the copier machine. I said "how's it going Steve," and he replied "not too good, the Twin Towers and the Pentagon was just attacked. I chuckled because he was a history teacher and thought he was just joking around.

(I thought to myself the Pentagon, yea right. The largest military in the world, the Capital of the U.S., the leader of the free world and the main military strategy head quarters for the U.S. would surely be well defended by anyone wanting to attack us. He's got to be pulling my leg).

He said "no I'm serious, go turn on your lab T.V.!" I didn't have a class during that period so I walked into the faculty lounge and there were several teachers watching the event unfolding on the T.V.. Some female teachers were crying and I was just completely startled by what I was watching. The first thing that came into my head was, we were going to war.

Concerned parents were coming to the school and picking up their kids to bring them home. Students who didn't leave school found themselves glued to the T.V. watching the events unfold in the various classrooms.

September 11, 2001 was a day of bizarre horror and surreal beauty. The whole day was surreal.

On September 11, 2001 i used to live and work in Illinois, married to my American wife who worked at United Airlines (!) near O'Hare at that time. I am German, but at that time i was US resident and felt as American and patriotic as any American. I was working at a small internet provider as a software developer.

As was routine, we drove to work at that time in the morning and before my wife dropped me off at my work we stopped by this small coffee shop to get some coffee. I remember there was something on the TV about the WTC in the coffee shop but i didn't keep attention, i thought it was just some ordinary news.

3 Minutes later i entered work and my two co-workers immediately shouted at me whether i heard the news already, "a plane has crashed into the WTC".

I was baffled and immediately asked "A terrorist attack?" - and then i said something like "amazing"...but realized my choice of words..it was more meant like "amazed in shock". I still was not exactly sure what happened.

At work, we didn't have a TV but internet and some streaming radio/TV and i think my co-workers also had a radio on.

I quickly went to my desk and then checked all the news sites, CNN, yahoo etc. and the picture started to form. It was surreal....at this time no one knew what happened and you just saw that gaping hole in that tower and the smoke.
Most of the web sites just had videos and no comments, and i stared at the images/videos and the burning tower and my first thought was HOW ON EARTH can such a fire in a highrise be fought. I mean it's a difference whether a normal sized house burns or a skysraper 100s of stories high. How can they safe the people in there, what's happening with the people trapped etc..etc..?

To make this even more surreal there was this beautiful, blue Sky above New York...a day you cannot even imagine more clearer and more beautiful....and in front of that background those towers and that incredible smoke coming out.

So...it took a while to collect what actually happened, that it was a terrorist attack and a 767, not some small plane and no accident. At that time we also witnessed the second plane hitting the other tower.

I remember the net was EXTREMELY SLOW that day, it almost crashed and it was a pain to keep up with the news since all the news sites were overloaded.

At this time, my wife who worked at UNITED AIRLINES called me and she was totally freaked out and in tears. She had off that day but i think she phoned her friends who worked at the UA call-center, and it took them a while until it turned out that one of their plane was involved and it was a United plane which crashed into the other tower.

She felt like a personal responsibility and big shock because of that fact and was extremely upset about United being involved in it.

The rest of the day, there was no thought about work. ALL I WANTED was get off work and watch TV, instead of seeing all this online.
When i got off work, the whole air traffic over the states was grounded, living near Chicago O'Hare this is indeed odd. Everything was in a really eerie state later that afternoon, i remember we went to Target and bought something and everything was unusual quiet and weird. Arriving at home i then re-watched the events on TV.

I was still in the Marine Corps, just got back from a deployment to 29 palms. I was taking a nap in a crypto vault when another Marine said "oh man, a plane just hit the World Trade Center". We had it streaming on the Internet in disbelief. I immediately knew that it was an act of terror Middle East style. My thoughts were confirmed when the second plane hit.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord
I was in the same place where I had heard about Waco, Oklahoma bombing, Flight 800, Princess Diana, and so many other tragedies too numerous to mention, so what was one more. We had become numb from hearing of so many.I was also in that same spot when the Diamondbacks won the world series but sitting up instead of lying down. It has been a strange but mysterious unique parade of catastrophic events...always listening to some t.v. host come on with breaking news...at all hours of the day. I wonder if there is a connection...some hurricanes happened as well, and I suppose if one wanted, one could find a newspaper which could list all these horiffic events...just getting used to it now. But I have since moved from that location so there will be a different association from now on...Oh, and yes, JFK, jr. also died in that same time period along with Richard Nixon and his mother Jacqueline Kennedy...

Life on the planet is dealing with birth and death...death seems to shout it out in the headlines when it is unusual and unique. Time to stop becoming so hysterical about these events...they seem to be a matter of course.

I turn 24 today. It was a tuesday , my 14 bday , a half a day at school. My teacher said i know you are all concerned about the bomb ....she said bomb. We didnt have a tv so i had no idea what she was tlkin about, until my next class period.

People were blaming random nations and people thought it was fake for a long time. Every channel blasting it over and over and over again and i just wanted it to stop.

How stupid do they think we are?! builldings imploding on themselves within an hour of being on fire then #7 in a similar fashion?

Witness said it sounded like someone was flipping switches and detonating explosions. The people responsible will pay.

I was in school (7th grade), sitting in history class, when there was a knock on the classroom door. One of the administrators looked worried and he called my teacher outside of the classroom to tell her what was going on.
Then she returned to the class, looking just as worried as the admin, and told us we were all going to congregate in the church (it was a private Catholic school). So we went over to the church, speculating on what could have happened. Most of us thought that it was on account of the priest who the school was named after, and that he died. (He was in ill health at the time).

Anyway, when they told us... a few students got extremely flustered since their parents had left Logan Airport that morning.
But out of all of us, only one student had parents (her father) who happened to be on that doomed flight.


As for me... I honestly wasn't really that affected by it. I felt like I should have been, since everyone around me was obsessed (even for months after), but I was pretty indifferent.
Then again, I was indifferent towards most everything around that age.

I was working on an old elevator 15 floors up in louisville.
I went downstairs for a drink and the security guy said did you here about the plane crashing into the world trade center.
I said no.
I went outside and wondered around to a crowd of people watching a big tv displayed from a bank.
I stood there in disbelief and watched as a second plane hit.
I looked above the sky line,fearing a plane would hit one of those buildings.
I called my wife to make sure she was ok,left work to go pick up my 3 year old at daycare.
My thoughts were on the people who were on those elevators,and my fellow union brothers trying to help those that may have been trapped.
Then tower one came down,and my heart dropped.

Where was i? i was in an american rehab institution, hoping n praying this was the end of the world... no matter how bad it really was, but i like i said before, this has been long overdue, im sorry to u people, but the bullying of this nation has to stop,. we are not the best nor the only people on this earth, sooo many of u think u are

I remember as a South African I was 15 years old. I got home from school and made my lunch and as I have ADD I've learnt the only way to do things is jump in as had to study for a maths exam the next day and as I turned on my radio I heard them talking about some building falling over and mentioning it was on tv. Then probably the whole day I was in awe of this event. Seeing one of the biggest snuff videos of all time seeing hundreds of people dying instantly over and over and eventually leading to the death of thousands.

I still get angry when people deny it happened, or that it wasn't commercial airliners. People died and may God bless their families and the people of New York and emergency workers. These wounds will never heal especially with revenge. Sacrifices had to be made and still are with the boosted security almost too much at times, but if its to prevent future events like these I'd support it completely.

Originally posted by steve95988
Where was i? i was in an american rehab institution, hoping n praying this was the end of the world... no matter how bad it really was, but i like i said before, this has been long overdue, im sorry to u people, but the bullying of this nation has to stop,. we are not the best nor the only people on this earth, sooo many of u think u are

I was going to say something,but stopped myself.
get well.

My "personal story" is that I knew something didn't smell right. A LOT of people died needlessly. I do have to say I never noticed building 7 at the time but I did notice how sensational the network coverage was. In my heart I know that 911 was an attack on us. Not from Muslim extremists who's passports were found in rubble ON THE DAY of the attack..it was from us....duh

Isn't it amazing how well the policework worked that day, post-event - I thought it was an episode of law and order. It was very neat and tidy. Seems a lot like the bin laden burial at sea...."heres what we did to beat those guys" - not bad eh? The more I learn about the world we live in the more I am trying to be the best slave - a sad time to live in. At least we have something the slaves didn't - they did not have guns. In our near future it will be a crime to NOT have a firearm.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord

I was working at the public library in my hometown in PA as a bookmobile librarian. The library had three bookmobiles that served different areas and demographics. The one I drove (a converted "bread truck") served the senior centers, retirement communities, and nursing homes. It was an awesome job and I had fond friendships with many of the regular customers I saw each week.

The library didn't have enough space to keep the bookmobiles parked at the library, so they rented parking spaces for them a couple of miles away at a factory in an industrial park. My first stop of the day was scheduled for 9:45am. I was just turning into the parking lot at about 9:10am when the announcer on the local radio morning show I had been listening to abruptly stopped the music and broke in with a frantic report that two commercial jet airplanes had crashed into the twin towers and that it was likely an act of terrorism.

Trembling and instantly sobbing and sickened, I parked next to the bookmobile and called the library on my cellphone. I kept getting a busy signal or the phone would just ring without anyone picking up. Finally after about 8 attempts, one of my co-workers answered. It was a very difficult conversation. Just as I would start to speak, so would she. Neither of us was making sense. Finally we stopped talking for a few seconds and calmed down enough to understand each other. Yes, the library was going to remain open and I should go ahead and make my scheduled stops with the bookmobile. And then I suddenly remembered that my supervisor, who I was close with, had a younger sister who worked at the WTC. At this point, I think I started almost wailing. My co-worker, who had also started crying again, told me that the library director and a couple of other staff members were taking her home and were staying with her while she waited for news about her sister.

I then called my sister and my parents who lived nearby to tell them to turn on the television and told them I would call them again after I got the bookmobile on the road. I turned on the rarely used radio on board the bookmobile to the only station it received, an AM talk radio station. They had switched from their normal broadcast program to a live news feed from the street near the WTC (think it might have been NBC). With the radio on, I proceeded to drive to my first stop for the day.

I remember hearing about the Pentagon, live, as it happened, while driving down the road to that first 10:45am stop. At that first stop, I remember clasping hands with my dear bookmobile friends and holding onto each other as they stood there with me and listened as Flight 93 crashed and the towers came down. I remember the tears streaming down the faces of the Seniors who I saw at my stops that day. At some point at that first stop, I remembered that a dear college friend of mine worked in one of the towers at a financial services firm and that another dear college friend worked at a clothing store "across the street" from the WTC. After that first stop I am aware that I completed my rounds for the day, but the remaining details are blurry. The one thing I do remember clearly was hearing my bookmobile friends at the different stops tearfully repeating the same words over and over: "This is your generation's Pearl Harbor." And they were all so grateful that I had kept my schedule and showed up that day for the sheer sake of the normalcy of it.

My supervisor's sister survived. She worked on one of the lower floors of the South Tower and had been there for the earlier attack in 1993, so she decided not to take any chances and left of her own accord immediately after the first plane hit.

My friend who worked in the North Tower was a fearful and nervous person by nature, and he was so shaken by the crash of the first plane into the South Tower that he decided to get out of the North Tower before the second plane even hit it, before anyone even knew the second plane was headed for the North Tower. Back in college, we used to tease him about being a scaredy-cat and a worry-wart, but his overly anxious nature saved his life that day. He is one of the few survivors from his firm which was on a floor above the impact zone of the second plane.

My college chum who worked across the street at the clothing store had called in sick to work that day. As it turns out, she had spent the weekend at her parent's house across the bay in 'Jersey and was playing hookey to spend another day there at the beach.

I will never forget that day. Despite the pain we all experienced as we witnessed what many thought might be the end of the world, and admidst the horror, devastation, and unfathomable loss, there were miracles that day in NYC, DC, and PA.