At my job at SUNY Empire State College. A student came in with the news from his car radio, so we wheeled the TV into the reception area and tuned in. I had the same reaction as Yo Momma: when I saw the images, I said “This wasn’t an accident. We’ve been attacked.”
I was still in the Army, we had just finished up doing PT, it was volleyball that morning, and on our way back to the barracks Villalobos pulls up in his car and said: “They are attacking the World Trade Center”.
We were watching it on TV in Jackson’s room, and I remember several of the guys getting all pumped up and saying that we were going to war with Iraq. That afternoon many of the soldiers had made up their minds that we were heading to Iraq.
Later that day I played Starcraft.
I was working in a restaurant prepping for lunch service that day. A woman that I had worked with at Windows on the World Wine School called and told me what happened. I didn’t believe her, I thought she was joking. She just kept calling and telling me all the stuff that was going on, but, I didn’t believe her until I saw the crowd of people lining up down the street to give blood.
I still regret not believing her and continuing to prep for the lunch crowd that never showed up that day. I went home and watched the News for about three days straight. The restaurant was closed for the rest of the week.
I still have photos of myself and the people I worked with there looking out the window on the top floor with a helicopter flying by…
Just got out of work and was listening to Howard Stern when the first plane hit. He immediately said we are under attack but he was told that it was a small, private plane and his show went on. Then the second plane hit. As I pulled off the expressway I could see the Towers burning.
I had just returned to my dorm from breakfast after 6am football practice. One of my buddies IMed me and said some dumbass just crashed his plane into the WTC.
I went into our common room and there were four or five guys sitting there watching it all on CNN. The second plane hit about 2 minutes later.
I spent the rest of the day with my jaw dropped watching TV. I can’t imagine what it would have been like to be in the city on that day.
I was in a 6th grade classroom that they hustled all of us into (about 130 kids) and watching it on one of the local news channels.
Sophomore year of HS, our English teacher hadn’t shown up to class for the first 20 minutes and when she finally walked in she didn’t say anything, just walked to the TV and turned it on. School wasn’t canceled but all we did in each class was sit and watch the news, saw the 2nd plane hit live and everything.
I was in Kosovo getting ready to reenlist for my 2nd term in the Army. We were all sitting around waiting for a General to show up, and the TV was on in the recreation area. Some dude sprinted out of the phone room and turned the station from a movie to the news, and we threw trash at him 'cause we thought he had turned it from the comedy flick to an action flick.
I though “Damn, the special effects are looking damn good on this show”, and then we suddenly absorbed the reality that it was real. The first plane had just hit moments earlier. I was glued to the screen, and witnessed the 2nd plane hit live on the air. The news chopper caught several seconds of the plane before it hit!
A couple hours after all that happened, and the towers had fallen, I stood in line and reenlisted with 7 or 8 other guys. It was intense, 'cause I knew I was signing up for 4 years that would be spent in war.
I was a Sophomore in college. I woke up about 9:00 for my 9:30 class. As I was eating my breakfast, I looked at the TV (my Dad left it on every day when he left) an saw the smoke pouring out of the building. I’ll never forget seeing that first thing in the morning.
As I drove to school, I remember hearing the people on the radio making fun of “how could someone be so dumb to fly a single-propped airplane into a building?”
I went to class as normal and on the break, the prof came in and said “both towers fell.” There was a confusion. “What do you mean both?”
He repeated it and sent us home.
We had a bomb threat the next week and the whole college shut down.
I remember being in bed going between being asleep and half-awake. One of those twilight zone type feelings. I was having this nightmare that we were under attack of some sorts.
When I realized that the source of my nightmare was my radio alarm clock going off, I ran out into my living room and turned on CNN. Saw what was going down, and saw the towers fall.
The weirdest thing I remember was living very close to Luke Air Force base, and after all civilian aircraft had been grounded, hearing the fighter jets hauling ass up in the air all hours of the day/night.
I was working construction in charleston, south carolina. My crew and i were putting storm drains in for an old votech school that was being converted into apartments. Anyway, the general contractor pulls up in his pick-up truck and was yelling we’re under attack. Couple minutes later i tuned into howard stern on the radio and he confirmed the WTC had been hit.
I left work as soon as i heard that cause my brother works in the city and wanted to call and make sure he was ok. Turned out he decided to stay home that day cause he was feeling sick. I went over to a friends house the rest of the day and watched the evnts unfold for the rest of the day.
I was a freshman in high school and was in science class when a girl came in and told us the news. I spent my free periods watching TV and then the dean of students came up to me and asked me why I wasn’t in art class (small school). I told her I was watching TV. I ended up going to art class late so I wouldn’t get in trouble and the art teacher gave us crap about how the day must go on. I get shivers just reading this thread.
I live relatively close to NYC. A lot of cars remained at the train station overnight.
I was getting ready for school, and my cousin called and told me to turn on the TV, that a plane had crashed into the WTC. I watched for a few minutes, went to school, and all four of my classes were canceled that day by my teachers.
Everyone at school just sat around the TVs at the student union all day and in all the buildings and just watched the events.
I was living at home again after college, doing some bodyweight exercises in the basement before going to work, and I heard them come on the radio to announce that a plane had hit one of the towers. I was like “huh, how the fuck does that happen?” So I went upstairs and told my dad who was eating breakfast, he flipped on the news in time for us to watch the second plane hit.
Jr. year of high school. I live in Bergen county New Jersey, about a 5 minute drive from the George Washington bridge. Our marketing teacher comes in and says “a small plane hit the world trade center” of course the immediate reaction from everyone was “what a shitty pilot”. A few minutes later we find out that 2 commercial jets had hit the towers.
I turn to my buddy and say - “Osama Bin Laden did this”(I’m a big enough of a Poli Sci geek to have known who he was pre-9/11 as a jr in high school).
Buddy says: “who the hell is Osama Bin Laden”
I say: “trust me by the end of the day you will know”
They kept us in school for the rest of the day but class was pretty much non existant. Football practice was cancelled so we got the team together at our captains house to watch film but it quickly turned into a CNN watching session.
Shitty day. My town got hit pretty hard, we had 11 deaths in a town of just over 10,000, 3 of them were from my street.
I was sitting in my first hr biology class in 10th grade.
I was in Kaiserslautern,Germany due to catch a bird back across the pond to see the family on the 13th. One of my soldiers came and got me and told me “I’d better take a look at what was happening back on the homefront”
All the airports shut down, my Threatcon was immediately elevated to D the entire post shutdown we barricaded ourselves in and nobody was allowed to enter nobody to leave for hours until we got news from upper echeleons.
None of us could believe it, it was quite surreal. I was with a lot of Ny’ers and everybody was frantic calling home. I managed to make it back to the states on the 16th. Never forget it
6th grade math class
we all went into the gym and they talked to us
this thread reminds me of that lame ass “where were you” country song about 9/11. i think south park ripped on that country-music fuck for writing some crappy tear-jerker about terrorism to make some money.