Remembering 9/11: Where Were You? Share Your Story.

I was driving toward the pentagon that day, saw the shadow fly over me and then saw it hit the building. I had to slam on the brakes because a lamp (one of the tall ones, like in a parking lot) came flying from somewhere and landed on the hood of a taxi 3 or 4 cars in front of me. Most of us just stopped and stood around with our jaws open, a few people kept driving. This was before I had a cell phone so I never took any pictures. The thing that sticks in my mind the most was the light pole laying on the taxi, a few feet further back and it would have landed on the guy's head instead of his hood.

 

now that you say that, i realized how young long this has been going on.. elementary school was so carefree until that day... now this nation is in everyone's business. i just wonder ow the world would be if this never happened...

 

Some backstory.. I had been laid off at the ISP I worked for in Arizona as they had filed for bankruptcy - it was the "Dot Com Bust". With my prospects in IT low given this I changed my career over to education and took a job teaching college courses out in Portland OR. That was in late February 2011. I had never been there before.

On the morning of 9/11 I'd been hiking with my dogs in Forest Park (the largest urban forest in the country) and was driving home to get a shower and head off to school to teach my class. I had a 1988 Toyots xtra cab then.. the radio broke from music to the announcement. I couldn't believe it. It had to be a joke. Seriously?

When I got home I turned on the TV and no shit it was real. I cried and cried. I was so upset. It couldn't be happening. My best friend lived and worked in New York, her whole family did. She meant the world to me, was she alright? What was going on. How many were really dead? It was horrific.

I had to go to work that day. I wanted so bad to call in, but I was a teacher. A leader. I needed to be there for those students. Those that would show up - what if they hadn't heard yet?

Our school cancelled all classes, and I sat there in the room and spent time with the three or four students that did show up, we prayed together. We cursed, we freaked out. We held out hope.

Lesson learned: We are far more vulnerable then I'd ever suspected.

Lesson Learned Since: We are willing to compromise our freedoms and our values to preserve our way of life, for an en-creased sense of security. Too bad. We suck at being scared. It doesn't suit us.

We need to wake up. We need to remember American lives are on the line every day protecting ours. A war is going on, a forgotten war.

My best to all our servicemen and women. We owe you a debt of gratitude. The least we can do is remember and recognize your service and sacrifice.

My Best.

 

I was walking to my car after leaving morning pratice when everyone was asking us if we heard what happened. We had no idea since we were in the pool at 6 when it happened

 

This^ I remember the "good ole days" until I was about 9yrs old, the all ive heard since is war.

 

All I can say is, wow. That's about as close as you can come without being in the building. Geesh.

 

I was in the 5th grade. My parents woke me up and told me to watch the news. (Hawaii's 6 hours behind NY, so it was still early morning) They told me never to forget what I saw, and that it would lead to much bigger things, that would define my generation.

It never hit me till I was older that that day thousands of kids lost their parents, people lost their brothers and sisters, sons and daughters... And they were all completely innocent, hard working, and oblivious as to what was about to happen.

Then, a few years ago I watched a Kevin Cosgrove's 911 phone call on youtube, and I decided to join the United States Army...I had been walking the line on the issue, but the vid compelled me to join.
(Now, I'm going through the ROTC program at the University of Hawaii at Manoa... Planning to go to a 19 series MOS (armor/cav) )
http://youtu.be/JbOzSeu6sJA


I'm just gonna throw in that if 9/11 is a sensitive subject that you not watch the video. It moves me to tears every time, and I was only 12 when it happened.

 

Beautiful story. I hear ya'. Thanks for sharing.

 

God I feel old , I was 33 and having lunch in a pub when I saw it on the news

 

I had never heard that call. OMG. That brought back all the emotions I had ten years ago. Oh, Jesus.

 

I was 25 still doing auto body full time. I lived 5 minutes outside NYC/giants stadium with my parents.I was at work 20 miles away.my boss made us stay until 5 that day.it took over 3 hours to get home cuz all highways were closed off.only police fire trucks and ems were allowed to use them. Remember walking in the door and my dad is yelling at me for some stupid shit and I was like WTF WE JUST GOT ATTACKED AND YOUR COMPLAINING ABOUT ME NOT TAKING OUT THE TRASH.if you went to the top of our town you could see everything perfect.the police blocked the top of town for days cuz of all the smoke.people had to keep windows closed.

 

I was in English class my senior year of high school when someone came in and said a plane had hit the first tower. At that time we just thought it was an accident and went on with class. Til I got to my second class it was evident what was going on and we just watched the news coverage the rest of the day in my other classes.

 

I was at work and was in a training class that morning. Our trainer had mentioned that a plane had hit the Trade Center and didn't elaborate. Don't know if he didn't know the severity of it or if he was waiting for me to ask more or what. I just blew it off at the time thinking it was like a little private plane and didn't think that much of it. By the end of my training session, went back to work just after the second plane had hit. Another co-worker mentioned it and I was like WTF? 2 planes just happened to crash into the TC at near the same time? Still thinking it was small planes. She informed me it wasn't small planes but passenger planes and I immediately knew something was going on. Shortly after my workplace had set up a tv in the breakroom for all to watch. Eventually had heard about the Pentagon and by the time I went into the break room, the first thing I saw was about the one in PA and was just in complete and udder shock and disbelief as were my co-workers I'm sure. Shortly after saw the footage of the fisrt impact and it sent chills down my spine. I will never forget that day, the somber feeling that everyone had, the drive home from work and how not one driver was aggressive as the usual drive home, you know, in a hurry and all. I could just see the looks on everyone's faces that said the same things I was feeling. I know this word has been used so much about that day but it was all so surreal.

Never Forget!

 

I have a twin brother who doesn't even like to talk about 9/11. He was in the WTC two days before meeting with HBO execs. They took him to lunch at Windows on the World. He has pictures he took from atop one of the towers just two days before.

 

I was only 21, a Lance Corporal in the Marine Corps Reserves, and a Sophomore at Texas Tech University. I was in some stupid Art class I had to take as an elective, when someone came into the classroom and told us a plane had crashed into one of the twin towers. Since we had a TV in the classroom we turned it on to see what what was going on, and at about that time the second plane crashed.

...class was dismissed.

 

I was an Army Colonel serving as a division chief in Army Strategy, Plans and Policy in the Pentagon.

My office suite was 3D450 - the section struck by the plane, third floor, second ring in from the outside. I had been watching the CNN coverage of the World Trade Center and walked out to my boss' office on the E ring after seeing the second plane hit to make sure he was aware it was an attack and not an accident.

I had returned to my office and was sitting at my desk with several of my staff standing behind me when the plane struck. I immediately knew what had happend and got up from the floor and yelled for everyone to evacuate. Within seconds, the fuel that had washed up over the E and D Rings detonated blowing in the windows and pushing flames along the ceiling. Fortunately, we were in a renovated area and the glass was safety glass so we had very few cuts. An overpressure system pushed the flames out giving us vital time to evacuate. Our floor had dropped significantly and there were several holes opened but it was still passable.

At that point, time seemed to go into slow motion and everything I did and every decision I made seemed to take a long time. My instincts told me that the plane had hit to the left of our suite (facing the Pentagon looking at the E Ring). As I turned the corner out of my office into our work area I checked an interior escape door for heat. It was warm but not hot so I popped it only to be faced with a wall of flames. I closed the door and guided people out in the other direction and into the corridor and back towards the A ring.

I slowly walked out, taking time to physically check every cubicle and desk to ensure everyone was evacuated. When I got to the corridor, it was filling with smoke out towards the E Ring. I helped people evacuating back from those out offices for awhile. At some point a woman I worked with told me that she had not seen several of her staff and the last place she had seen them was in their offices on the E Ring. I ducked under the smoke and ran out to the E Ring. Both Lee, the woman and a young Army civilian, Jeff followed me. Nothing braver. We got to her office and ensured no one was there - it had been pretty much destroyed by the impact and dire but was clear.

The floor was buckled but OK. We remained on the E Ring checking offices and helping people evacuate, along with several other people, for perhaps 10 minutes. At that point, we were trying to kick in a jammed door to an office on the outer wall of the E Ring when a secondary detonation occurred - i think it was the helipad fuel tank. That explosion caused the floor to ripple in a wave and ceiling tiles and lights began to fall. I yelled for eveyone to get out and followed as they crawled back along the corridor and out of the smoke and fire.

From there, I evacuated back into the center courtyard of the Pentagon, noted that emergency personnel had begun to respond and decided I needed to find my staff and ensure they were OK. It took hours to account for everyone but having finally done so I sent them home and then found my way to the Metro and then hitched a ride since my car was in the Pentagon lot adjacent to the impact area.

It wasn't until later that day that I realized that the plane had literally gone under me. And, within minutes of our leaving the 3rd floor E ring area after the secondary detonation, the upper two floors crushed down onth the 3rd and collapsed unto the fire. That was the second time I lucked out that day.

I lost friends and co-workers and later found out that two people had been killed in the office where we had been trying to kick in the door. The plane's tail breached their office wall and fuel poured in killing them instantly when it ignited. But, I will always second guess evacuating when we did. While I know there was nothing I could have done.........

This picture was taken about 10 days after the attack. It is the view I had when I turned the corner out of my office that day. You are looking towards the E ring and can see where the windoes were blown out and the wall collapsed. We had gone back in to try to secure our TS safes but the engineer with us determined that the floor was too unstable so we left pretty quickly.



That's my story.

 

I was working for a cellphone company in CT and we went for a team building trip to NYC two weeks before. We ended our day in the bar at the bottom of one of the towers, joking and laughing with this woman bartender. Don't know the name of the place, it was near the subway and was all expensive wood on the walls, bar, etc. Nice place. I remember going out to get onto a bus and standing at the base of the towers and looking up made me dizzy. Amazing view from the top. I was 28. Two weeks later, in a conference room the morning meeting got interrupted and a guy came in, turned on the tv and we all stared in disbelief. My chest actually ached. My girlfriend at that time was flying out of Logan for a business meeting herself. Obviously no way to get ahold of her. Scary day. I will never forget seeing that second plane hit, it was so vivid and yet fake at the same time.

 

I was out helli logging. We were grounded first thing in the morning. It took till 6pm that night to get permission so they could get the riggers off the hillside.

 

I was a junior in college, hung over from the night before. i woke up and checked my computer and my mom had IM'd me a billion times. I didn't believe her until i tried to get to any news web page and they were all so slow. I finally got on msn and found out it was true. I went to one of my classes and instead of class we watched the news unfolding on TV. We watched one of the towers collapse live. It was a very surreal moment. I couldn't believe it was happening.

 

This is exactly why I wanted to start this thread. This is history... our incredibly tragic and brave history... and we should never forget. Colonel, thank you for sharing, Sir. God bless you and those who were in the Pentagon.

Again, thank you for sharing, Sir.