September 11th memories

i was in the scariest place of all, on a plane over the Atlantic, he got word of what was happening when we where about 50 miles off of the east coast.........or plane was too land at JFK, but we ended up landing in Montreal, and had to drive all the way to Columbus Ohio........it was me and my younger brother, and we where coming back from visiting our grand-parents in Glasgow.....we where suppose to land in NYC, around 9:00am, and we did not hit the ground till around 1pm, my mother to this day says it was the longest 4 hours of her life.


Peace

The WikidOgre

Well I was commuting to campus with a women from my hometown. On the drive to campus we had the radio off and were chatting about politics, unaware of the events that were transpiring. When I got to class I saw all the students gathered around talking, then another student came into class and said "Well the towers have just came crumbling down!" It took me a minute to gather what was happening. When my professor, Dr. Friedenburg, got to class she tried talking for a few minutes, but then dismissed class as she was about to break out into tears. (She was from New York and had family living in NYC). After class was dismissed I went to the TV lounge in the student center. There I watched in horror, footage of people jumping to their deaths from the burning towers. Needless to say, I was in shock!

Chairman_Kaga said:

I was two blocks away when the first plane struck...saw it all. I blew out my knee dodging flaming debris and bodies. Walked all the way from southern Manhattan to the Bronx where I actually live (never mind the profile) on a blown knee, as all subways were shutdown...

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A moment of remembrance for the ENWorld Poster Chairman_Kaga, (whose first name was Peter, and who left behind a wife and unborn child), who passed away in an auto accident last month. His haunting words on this board not long after the attacks (he reiterated them in this thread here), will always stay with me.

May all the posters here remember him, too, on this day, and raise a toast for him.

The phone rang and it was my wife. She was watching the news and told me of the first plane. I hung up and searched the very clogged internet. Moments later the phone rang again, she told me of the second plane. I left the office and bought a TV and brought it back. All day we stayed at the office for who knows what reason and watched the news. 30 of us crowded aroung a fuzzy screen and spoke very little as we watched the towers burn and speculated of the who and why.

When he first tower fell the pain of reality really struck, the horrer, the multitude the death. Sorrow so deep I can't describe.

A week later I received a montoge of pictures in a power point presentation. I look at this every few weeks. I won't let myself foget, I won't let myself feel to secure, I won't let my anger die.

wow.

For a moment I hoped that Chairman Kaga was the victim of a hoax. His death, somehow, in a way I don't quite understand really has impacted me. We announced the imminent birth of our children at roughly the same time. Never spoke directly to him but replied to some of his threads. Stange how you can feel for someone you never met on a personal level.

Me one year ago:
My wife woke me up in tears. I told her to calm down that everything would be ok. I walked into the living room and looked at the TV. I just stood for about 4-5 minutes. I do not frighten easily, I worked rescue for the OKC bombing and the Tornado that killed nearly as many people a few years later. I spent 6 years as an Air Force fire fighter before becoming an ICU and ER nurse. I got scared.

The thing I remember most was staring numbly at the TV. My mind unable to calculate how long it would take me to drive directly to the site from oklahoma. Unable to calculate the odds of another attack. Unable to calculate the safety of my wife, my son, and my unborn child with me gone. Unable to calculate the sheer volume of the dead and suffering. Unable to imagine the numbers of fire fighters lost. Occasionally, I would make some movement. My pregnant wife looking at me. I knew, she knew.

By the end of the day my mind and body quaked with equal mixes of fear, a desire to do what I do best, anger, and ultimately helplessness at being so far from where I could do some good. I went to work that night and took some solice that I was helping someone, somewhere, even if it was not where I felt I needed to be. In the am of the 12th I remember tickling my 12 month old son and hearing his untainted laughter. It was nearly more than I could take.

Now I sit and I think of my children and how the Chairman will be missed by his.

I was sitting on the couch, watching the Australian news. Then the first plane hit, my friend and I were shocked, but only presumed it was an accident. The second plane hit, and we just stared at each other, utter disbelief.

Right then, I knew, this is the beginning of something I wish I would never have to live to see.

The Plane hitting the pentagon wasn't a real shock to me, I expected it.

I didn't expect, is of the plane coming down in shanksville. And not knowing it at the time, but the people on the plane, fighting back, knowing what happened, and choosing to crash in a field, than kill hundreds of others. Thats courageous, brave and inspirational. Thats human spirit. The one thing the terrorists gave us. The key to our human spirit.

I remembering crying at the sight, of the two towers falling, the pictures of the people in the tower, knowing they were going to never make it out, was too much......

I watched all night, and all day, I had to. It was all I could do, to honor those that had worked so tirelessly, and to the innocent victims, caught up in something much larger.

I feel sorry for New York people, I personally could no handle, the constant reminder, of what happened. The two towers missing, would be obvious, and it would hit me each time, i looked to where they once stood. I don't' envy you.

We made an American flag here in Australia, on Bondi beach. I was touched that America noticed this, and felt moved. It's the least we can do to support you.

All we can do is live

I was at work ...I live about an hour outside NY city..

When people started talking about it I immediately knew it was an attack of some sort..i just knew..especially when the second plane hit...

Anyway...the company I worked for at the time had about 400 Temp employees in those buildings...and many of the employees in my building had family down there...I talked to those employees all the time...In fact I had just got off the phone with one minutes before it happened..my company lost almost 50% of their nationwide business in matter of minutes...they let me go about 10 days after..it crushed them....

One story really shook me up and still does to this day...A young wife... she was the daughter of one of the ladies in my building...I worked with her...the daughter's husband was down there with their baby girl less than a year old...he was just going in to pick up a few pieces of paperwork from his office and then come home....Of course they never came home...the daughter of the lady I worked with ran out of her house screaming bloody murder after it happened...they couldn't find her for almost 2 days...she just walked around in a crazed stupor till she collapsed...

I've never broke down and sobbed like a baby in my life in front of people, especially people at work who I was not close with.....I did it for a week straight...

I remember exactly where I was, but not alot of the details of the day.

I work as a carpenter, and had started work late that morning for some reason. I turned on the radio in my truck just before I reached the jobsite to hear, instead of music, a network newscaster talking about an explosion at the pentagon and fire at the WTC. I never actually got out of my truck.

I waited at the site 20 minutes until my cousin showed up. He hadn't been listening to the radio, and listened to it, stunned, as we both sat in my truck. We had no interest in working, and drove back to my house, spending the rest of the day in front of the tv.

I found out later one of my cousins was in, not the towers, but one of the smaller WTC buildings that collapsed later. She escaped, and walked to NJ. She saw the bodies, and was near the towers when they collapsed.

Her sister works as a nurse in NYC, and ended up working in the morgue, working on the bodies as they came in.

Nell.

Sept. 11th 2001:

My job with EDS, at a local call center doing CST work for HP on their Photosmart products, had ended just a few weeks before on the 30th of August.

Although I didn't need to, I awoke early and placed a call to my girlfriend - kinda common actually, calling to wake her up before she went into work - and I turned the TV, more specifically to the news, which is something I very rarely watch.

I can't really stand hypocrisy, which at times the media has truly flowering in their mannerisms.

I saw the replay of the first plan, as I'm in Idaho so, thusly, Mountain Time.

Sometimes I'm still at a loss for words, not that they are hard to come to my mind and lips, but more that I still cannot truly fathom the depth of it all.

I do know, however, that there was no doubt, to me, that this was a terrorist incident - not only were the odds of two planes striking those towers, on the same day, to great, but the flight patterns really didn't support it.

In a way it was weird how that popped in my mind, it was very surreal to be watching the events unfold and then some piece of detached logic appear in thoughts.

One fell, then the other, and I just could not fathom any of it. Many of my thoughts were very rational, although one thought I had was a wish for super-heroes - which, to me anyways, came true since the fact that anyone could survive the attacks was proof, in my heart and mind.

I guess the pure innocence of childhood holds more wisdom then we thought, since it's then that we wish to be policemen and firemen, or person(s) if you wish, when we grow up.

I sat on the couch all day, just watching the news, and all night.

Part of me just wanted to be there, in the city helping out - heck, the whole reason I joined the Marines was to help my country - but I couldn't be there, the best I could do was witness this, donate when and what I could, and commit the whole event to memory.

It's not just to read about this in history books, or news paper archives, but to have actually lived in the time...it's just different.

Talk to someone who lived through the depression, as it is surreal to hear it from their lips.

Or someone from the WWII generations, when they talk about Pearl Harbor, it's battles, and the cost of it all.

Or to Jews that lived through the holocaust, again it's just different to hear it from those who experienced it.

None of those are truly the same, as suffering is so frustrating in it's ability to be comprised of varied flavors.

I'll admit that I cried, in fact I still do from time to time when it comes to these events.

Stories of the dead make me cry, as I can relate to those children who will grow up with only one parent.

Those of the heroes, living and dead bring tears to my eyes and pull at my heart. I'd like to think I could do what they did if I would have had to, in fact more so I feel if I had to that I will do as they had done, since it would be so tragic to ignore such a shining example of the 'human spirit'.

Basically I cried, I watched, I remembered, and I learned from that day.

People, regardless of ethnic origins, can be better then we normally are, as well as worse, because when you break it down to the simplest of factors we saw two things that day - the worst of us and the best of us. Period.

[edited for spelling errors and an addendum]

I watched TV all day after my husband called to tell me that a plane had flown into the WTC, which at the time meant nothing to me, I wasn't really sure what was in the WTC. Now I know what was there and I hope that there is a way for all the people who lost loved ones there to find peace and closure by knowing that those people who gave their lives have given patriotism back to our country where it had been before lacking, pride to all of us who live in this great country, and courage to fight for our freedom and face those who appose these ideas. God bless those heros and heroines, those who died so tragically. May we never forget them, no matter where we are from or who we are, a part of all of us was taken away on September 11th. I only wish I could give more than words to all of you. Act great, live great, think great, be great and always remember...Paladinwife