I was at high school, in german class. There was a TV in there for the daily little news things they used to make us watch, so when the coach said that the WTC had been bombed (that was an idea that had been floating around before we found out what happened), we basically spent the rest of class watching the news. The whole rest of the school day was like that. I don't even remember if we did any real learning that day. All the ROTC students couldn't wear our uniforms that week, and a drill meet that weekend was delayed. Essentially they didn't want anything military-like to go ahead until the scope of the threat was known. We may or may not have watched the second plane hit -- I don't remember if it was live or a recording of the first plane. I do remember well the sights of the buildings falling down and all the debris and dust flying out.
Driving to work on the radio. Being on the west coast I first heard after the building came down. 34°18'14.51"N, 118°28'0.21"W
I was at school. I was around 10 years old that year and I didn't even know that it happened until I came home.
I was in bed in my Midwestern city, oversleeping. Because I was running so blasted late, I kept the radio off (never have watched TV in the morning). Didn't start my drive to work at my city job till well after 10:00 AM CDT, and the car radio was tuned to a Christian station that ran canned programs. At 10:30 as I was taking the ramp off the throughway, a news announcer-type voice came on saying both the Twin Towers had collapsed, the Pentagon was hit, and no one knew where President Bush or Defense Secretary Rumsfeld were. Well. The 10:30 AM program featured a preacher who liked to give ripped-from-the-headlines sermons, and his broadcast always started with some real world scenario. For a minute I thought this was just his typical. But if so, would his intro guy use Bush's and Rumsfeld's real names? I quickly switched to the all-news station and heard it was no scenario, it was the grim truth. Moreover, a fourth plane had gone down in central Pennsylvania, and, the word was, at least 10 planes had been highjacked and were targeting government buildings and monuments across the country. Our city hall is one of the tallest in America, and I was more than half sure that one of those jets was homed in on it. Our city hall was evacuated, just in case. The building where I worked was farther out, so we weren't sent home. We got little or nothing done, though. Most of us were in and out of the conference room watching the coverage all day long. Those of us who were Christians held a prayer circle out in the parking lot at noon. Since I'm ordained I was asked to do a reading, and chose Psalm 46, which, if you look it up, you'll find is soberingly appropriate. One thing I remember telling a colleague (and I wish I'd been wrong), is that the attack was sure to give our leaders of both parties the excuse to formulate a lot of new rules that would infringe on our liberties. And so it has turned out. Patriot Act, anyone? It may sound strange to say, but when I got home that evening I found out it wasn't as bad as I'd thought it was. Yeah, you heard me. All day long I'd been watching replays of the towers coming down like a moldy banana being peeled and reruns of Mayor Giuliani saying how 50,000 people worked in them. I was convinced that they'd collapsed as soon as they were hit and no one got out at all. Thank God it wasn't so. That night I was on to usher a concert by a Welsh male voice choir, sponsored by our local St. David's Society. For awhile the organizers considered cancelling it, but what were we going to do with all those Welsh guys who had come to sing? So the show was on; only, the humorous and operatic pieces were traded off for hymns and anthems--- many of which the audience sang along with. I'm so glad I went, even though it was a little weird for me to be spending the evening of 9/11 dressed up like a proper Siân. If I hadn't been there I would have been at home alone watching the TV and worrying myself sick. It was awful enough as it was.
On 09/10/2001 (US Calendar) I had a vivid nightmare about 'The 50p Building' in Croydon collapsing and I was shielded from the blast by McKenzie Phillips, woke up, went to school, it was a Monday. After school, still haunted by that vivid dream, I took a bus from Haling Manor to Croydon then changed to get another bus to Crystal Palace park, so I could look at the London skyline, to double check none of the buildings were on fire. Then the next day 9/11 happened in NYC and I remember my dream and my trip I took it upon myself to make the day before - Still wonder how that happened to this day, but it did. 9/11, Tuesday, 2001, I left school early that day, my last period was P.E and it was offsite and I was old enough to have my options and I chose bowling so went bowling next to my school across a field; class ended half hour early that day (big deal for a 14 year old)... I went to town, bought a £20 cassette/radio Walkman from Argos, an Alba I believe (or Panasonic)... I tuned into the music stations on the radio with it, hearing people like Shaggy talk about the World Trade Centre, but I wasn't really paying too much attention, so, 6 pm, I arrive home, put on the news, and the penny dropped/I realised what everyone was talking about on the radio, and it wasn't the name of some new album or something. ... In August 2001, tickets were planned and booked to go to Philadelphia, I was 14, tickets were like £400 a piece, for November 9th 2001... Then 9/11 happened and American ticket prices were halved to like £200 and the flight I went on in November was almost empty. That was the first time in my life I ever left England, and because it was the 9th of November 2001, I looked back years later, and it dawned on me, I had went to America 09/11/2001 (in my native calendar randomness).
Just bringing this back for those who have joined the board in the last year and who may want to share their memories.
I was a seventeen year old girl and at a history lesson when someone had told me that they had seen it on the news moments ago. Probably in the common room where there was a TV. To be honest I hadn’t understood the magnitude at the time he told me. Lots of shit happens on the news, so I reacted like it was another drastic thing, as opposed to like it was something that would trump all other news items we witness on TV everyday. Afterward I watched the event myself, and the building’s collapse was an image I did not know would be impregnated on my mind many years later :-0
Precisely where I am today. Different chair, different computer, same desk, walls, floor and windows—in my all purpose art/writing/waste time room. Hard to believe its been almost two decades. Harder to believe we're still fighting the war with no clear mission, no real plan to reduce or eliminate terror on US soil or anywhere else. 20 years later, 3 administrations, and we are still flailing about, flexing our muscles, and accomplishing nothing but wasting money and lives. Terrorists around the world are probably laughing their asses off as The Great Satan gets ready to commemorate that day. I honestly don't know if I advocate for stronger military measures or grander humanitarian actions. I do know that pussy-footing around the way we have been, and did in SE Asia, Korea, and dozens of other hot spots hasn't done squat to make this a safer or better world for anyone. Could a better question be, "Where will you be on the anniversary and what will you be doing after?"?
One of the attorneys and I sat together in the conference room watching events unfold. We were getting ready for trial that week, but I said, "I can't think of a single important thing I should be doing." She said, "Me, either. We're at war with someone- we just don't know who."
