[OT] Sep. 11th was the day that I...

Sept 11 is going to be one of these days where everyone remembers where they where when they first heard the news.

I was at home, on my computer writing a module for a Conspiracy Horror game. I was only have listening to the radio in the kitchen when the announcer said they were getting reports that a plane has flown into the WTC in New York.

When I heard this, I laughed. I pictured a drunken cessna pilot getting lost in low cloud and smacking into the building. Heartless I know but back then, I could'nt concieve that anyone would purposefly fly a plane into a skyscraper. In hindsight, its a bloody obvious way of perpetuating terror.

I continued on writing. About 30 mins later, I overheard an announcer saying that a second plane had hit. I again thought of a small plane. Perhaps a sightseerer got too close and lost control.

I went into the living room and turned on the TV to BBC24. They were just replaying THAT image. The one of the second plane crashing. I was gobsmacked. I watched mesmerised as the events unfolded 5000 miles away in the states. Later that afternoon, I went to the weekly roleplay club held in town. The city just felt strange, people were walking around with a glazed expression on their faces and I listened as even more events happened over my walkman.

When I got to the club, that was all anyone was talking about. We gamed anyway. Of course at the back of our minds was the knowledge that 9/11 was close to events that we had portrayed time and time again in games.

Was sitting at my PC at work, like millions of Americans. Got an IM from a friend who told me what happened. Like millions of Americans I headed right to the CNN site, which was down.

The rest of the day was spent switching from various internet radio stations to different web sites trying to get the latest info.

Working in New Jersey, having gone up to the WTC numerous times, it was very weird. Folks in the office, people I knew, all wondering if they knew someone in the WTC. My cousin worked across the street in the World Financial center. My friends lived and worked in midtown - were they downtown today? My dad sometimes had meetings in NYC -was HE downtown? Gradually everyone came on the IM and let me know they were OK. We discussed. I have never IM'ed so many people as I did on that day. The PC was my connection, not the TV.

Than I realized:

A friend and I had planned a scavenger hunt in NYC two years previous. Our scavenger hunts were more than that, they were events. It was he first time, and only time we had done one in NYC. It was more of a "rally" type scavenger hunt, where you read a clue and have to figure out the next place to go. We generally had a theme with each hunt, to keep it interesting and to give the day a plot. The theme that year? Terrorists blowing up the WTC. Each team was a team of spies trying to stop it from happening.

We put clues all over the city. In Port Authority, in the NY publc library, on the bull down on wall street, in Rockefeller center, in CHinatown at Confucius circle. And yes, at the top of the WTC. It was then that I realized that one of thelast times I had been up there - and probably the last time any of my friends in the scavenger hunt had been up there - was that day two years previous. It left me dumbfounded. We had made a game of this, a mere two years pervious. Now it was no game. Now it was real. I had a sinking feeling in my stomach.

But the next day, something left my wife and I even more dumbfounded. You see - she had dropped off pictures to be developed on September 10th. We had forgotten what was on the roll, and it had probably been in the camera for months. The due date for the pictures was September 11th. Well, my wife didn't get there on the 11th to pick them up. She got them on the 12th. She opened up the pictures. The first picture was a picture of her and her niece - at the top of the WTC. Six months before - we had taken her niece to the top of the WTC. There were the pictures, clear as day. Their due date, 9/11.

You can see the pictures here:

http://robaustin1701.tripod.com

--*rob

I was the first person at work that morning. I had turned on the lights and unlocked the door, and just when I was turning on the postage machine, my boss Bob ran in and said "A plane just hit the World Trade Center!"

I couldn't figure out what he meant. Bob isn't the type to run around and shout things, so I knew he wasn't joking. We went into the break room and turned on the crummy little black & white TV with tin foil wrapped around it's antennas. They replayed the first plane smashing into the building. We were amazed...what was someone doing flying in that area? Was it an attack? It couldn't have been a freak accident...could it?

As we continued to watch, we saw a second plane hit the building. I thought I was going to be sick. More people starting showing up for work, and we all just huddled around this tiny black & white tv with crummy reception the whole day, watching it all unfold. Mind you, we live only a few miles away from the airport here in RI, so many businesses around us were closing down. (I work for a charitible non-profit org, so we didn't leave.)

A short while later, another plane hit the Pentagon, and another crashed. We were terrified...what was happening? And what would happen next? None of us got any work done that day, (I'm sure that was the case all over America...)

I remember going home and just clinging tearfully to my husband. Tragedies like that really make you thankful for what you have.

My husband's aunts were supposed to be flying back to CA, and TX and OH that day, so we were pretty shaken. My mother-in-law was at the airport with them, watching it all take place on the news! I can't imagine how sickening it must have felt to see that when you were about to board a plane. Of course, no one was going to fly that day, or for days later.

I remember being at work when we heard a plane over head for the first time after Sept. 11, and everyone just stopped...it was a scary sound to hear. Being so close to the airport, the airplanes sometimes sound as though they are landing in the parking lot. To hear that sound again gave you chills.

All I can say is that I can't believe it's been almost a year already. It's sad and scary, and my heart goes out to all those who have to grieve at the 1 year anniversary of their loss. Hopefully, they can take comfort in knowing that the world grieves with them.

I was just getting up (Pacific Coast Time) when my mom started screaming after turning on the TV. We watched in horror, and then I had to go to school. Meanwhile my family was calling our reletives, making sure they were safe. School was morbidly calm. All we did in class was watch TV, debate, whisper rumors (most of my classmates were convinced there was a 5th plane at larger), and watch the skys as the air traffic ground to a halt.

Living in the bay area, where there are 3 major airports, planes are a common, common sound. Those 7 days after the 11th were deadly quiet. When the planes started flying, I was almost afraid to leave my house.

My school started seriously cracking down on lax policys for disaster scenerios. We had a "lock down" drill, in case there were terrorists or shooters in the school. (it basically entailed the teachers locking all the doors and us hiding under our desks, even though every classroom has big clear windows along one wall.) We had an "emergency drill", a fire drill, and earthquake drill, etc. All within days of the 11th.

Our drills were basically pointless. Lowest bidder constructed desks were not going to protect us from an earthquake. No one would really stay calm in a fire, and no one would sit through a school shooting. But they were all the administration could do to protect us
The things men cling to in uncertain times...

That morning, last September, I woke up a tad late (normally I take an 8:30 am commuter train out of Boston, but I took the 9:05 instead). I got off the train, hopped into a cab, & gave my destination. The cabbie started his car, and looked at me and said, "I can't believe they did it! They bombed the World Trade Center!" I had no idea what he was talking about until I got to work (after the cabbie mentioned what methods he'd like to use to "get back at" those responsible.

At work, it was impossible to log on to any news sites (unholy server loads), so I stuck with online radio. My co-workers kept sending little snippets of news over our network email...I don't think anything got done that day. The bosses (around 3pm) said if anyone wanted to leave & be with their family, that was OK. I stayed.

Afterward, I saw all the oft-repeated tape loops, commentary, speculation, & polemics on TV, but didn't get much of a grasp of what TV was like that morning, until I stumbled on this site:

http://tvnews3.televisionarchive.org/tvarchive/html/index.html

I didn't lose anyone that day (I had 3 friends in NYC at that point--1 saw the 2nd plane hit the WTC from his office 8 blocks north, 1 who watched the collapses from the roof of his Queens apartment, and the third? He had just delivered some office supplies to the WTC (had parked his truck by the service entrance) when the first crash happened. He was hit by "debris" (he refuses to describe it) and lost his truck under the rubble). I still can't fathom how terrible this event must have been.

I was also at work. To this day I have a yellow stickie note taped to my computer with 8:46 and 9:03 written on it. I have thought of throwing it out many times, but just can't reach up and do so. I remember feeling the same sense of sadness and helplessness when I saw the Challenger explode. We knew people who worked in and near the WTC who got out alive. Many of their long time friends did not. Being a defense related employee, our computer net was shut down almost immediately to be locked down for some time after. Blind and virtually deaf to the outside world, we went through the motions to finish the day. That day I went home and kissed my wife and held my children close. Thanks to Chairman Kaga (rip) and others, I was able to get the non-spun version of went on that fateful day. Being a Scoutmaster at that time as well, I felt responsible to help the boys I was charged with some comfort in the confusion that followed. The camping trip we were supposed to go on 2 weeks later was cancelled for security reasons. We planned an alternate one closer to home, determined not to live in fear. I counseled them all not to be afraid. If they were afraid, be sure to talk to their family or someone else they trusted. They continue to camp and enjoy scouting. I have my family to hold tighter. And I am employed in a job that may help to discourage this kind of attack from happening again. Never forget or be afraid. Fear is the enemy.

At the time my family was living in a house on a little "farm" (in reality it was about 10 acres of pasture where a couple people boarded horses). I came inside around noon, hot and sweaty, after helping my sister groom her chesnut-colored Morgan-Quarterhorse cross, Wishbone, and sat down on the couch. My grandmother was visiting at the time, and she and my mother were chatting. My mother mentioned to me off-hand that two planes had crashed into the WTC (my brother had called from our other house, which had TV, and told her). I pressed her for details, of which she had few. I was pretty surprised, and I contemplated the possible responsible persons and the political ramifications for a few minutes. I dreaded the inevitable jingoism, bandwagon-patriotism and little American flag bumper stickers that were to come. Then I pretty much went on with my daily life, which in the summer involved vegetating.

Later that evening I got on the Net and filled myself in on everything. I was confused that so many people who were obviously completely removed from danger were so terrified. It seemed that a lot of people had lost their grip on reality. I kinda got to wondering why Americans were so angered by the deaths of 3000 people when most of them hadn't shed a tear to the million+ people who had starved to death in Afghanistan over the past few years, or the thousands upon thousands of people who die each year due to natural disasters in third-world countries.

September 11th was the day that I realized that to most of my countrymen, the lives of people from America are worth more than the lives of others.

My housemate banged on my door early in the morning (PST). He came in. He told me, "Both the World Trade Center and the Pentagon have been attacked."

I fell out of bed. I didn't understand. I thought a military force had attacked.

I went to the living room. I saw the south tower of the World Trade Center collapse. I might have collapsed, too. Hell of an image to wake up to.

I went back to the bedroom and woke up my boyfriend. The three of us watched footage of the plane crashing into the tower.

Then I called each of my two best friends. I woke them up; told them incoherently that the tower /fell/ and made them turn on the TV.

Eventually, my housemate and I both went to work. At work that day, I was numb-- I wrote journal entries and talked online with friends.

That night, my friends and I went out to dinner at an empty Japanese restaurant, where we all huddled together for comfort.

My friend Neil commented at the time that the two towers were heroes, holding up as long as they did. But that just made me want to cry more. I've always been attached to symbols, and like somebody else, when I was a child, I once failed to see the top of the WTC from the bottom because I couldn't crane my head enough without falling over.

I got in touch with my two aunts who live in New York City that I hadn't talked to in a handful of years. I'd thought I remembered my cousin was a fireman... turns out he's actually a cop.

September 11 was the day they took First Gundam off the air, because it was too war-like, and the Zeon forces were thought of as terrorists by the Feddies.(The worst thing that happened to me that day. I didn't know anyone in the towers or anything like that.)

Well, on September 11th, my wife and I had been married for exactly a month.

Before then, I always remember my parents and grandparents talking about how they could remember exactly where they were when they heard about Pearl Harbor or President Kennedy's assassination. Times, places, people around them, everything. On that morning, I began to understand.

I'll never forget that I was in the living room, watching Fox News before I headed out to work. I was tucking my shirt in and checking to be sure I had my wallet and keys. The news anchor was still speculating about an instrumentation failure or pilot error when the second plane hit. I didn't hear about the Pentagon or Pennsylvania until I actually got to the office.

Sometimes, things just never seem real on TV, even when they're on live TV. I'm not sure I'll ever accept the fact that I watched several thousand people die on TV, for real.