what are your memories of 9/11?

mine:

i was in computer class in high school when news of the first plane hitting world trade center. everyone assumed it was just a biplane, some moron who didn't know what he was doing.

we turned on the news in my next class and watched as the second plane hit the other tower. thats when people started freaking out. later on when word began to spread that a plane hit the pentagon, it got bad. we were a high school with a lot of kids who's parents worked at the pentagon, on the hill, etc. then rumors started going around about multiple car bombs on the mall, state department going up in flames (my dad was working there at the time) and it was a complete mess.

my mom finally was able to come pick me up (all the major roads in DC were shut down)... we got home and you could see the smoke billowing out of the pentagon from a few blocks over. it was surreal.

then my mom breaks it to me that as she was being helpful and cleaning out my car she found my birth control and then we had to talk about me having sex

9/4/2011 10:02:12 PM

I was sleeping in a little late that morning, and TKE-Teg walked into my room and was like "DUDE, an airplane just crashed into the World Trade Center!". I immediately envisioned a light civil aircraft, like a Cessna or Piper or something, and kinda mumbled something like "That sucks", then went back to sleep. A few minutes later, I heard him still talking about it. I think I remember him trying to get me to get up and turn on my TV, and I remember thinking "Fuck off, Pat, why do you care about this so much? Go away; I'm trying to sleep."

At some point, I realized more about what had happened, and I jumped up and was glued to the TV.

9/4/2011 10:11:31 PM

I was in PE my freshman year of college. It was a walking warm up around downtown Raleigh, and the girl who usually walked with me was late and she finally caught up to me. She started telling me about how on the radio she heard that a plane hit one of the twin towers. I told her that it was most definitely a small craft plane, that the pilot's instruments must have malfunctioned and it was an accident. When we got back to the gym, the tv in the lobby was turned to the news and it was a live shot of the smoke coming out of the first tower then we saw a big 747 type of plane come in to view and then hit the second tower. It stunned us into silence.

Our PE teacher made us go into the classroom that was in the same building and start doing work and we weren't allowed to talk. I was getting anxious so I just got up and walked out 5 minutes later and went back to my dorm. Everyone was sitting in the commons room watching the tv listening to the news, then someone came in and said everyone had to go to emergency chapel.

We get there and the place was packed. Everyone on campus was in the chapel. And for an hour or two people talked about how scared they were and we listened to reports on what was going on. Then a few of us got into my car and drove to the red cross to donate blood.

9/4/2011 10:19:00 PM

I was sitting down beside a friend in the big lecture hall in Nelson and she said "did you hear someone flew a plane into the WTC?" I laughed and said "what kind of idiot doesn't see a building that big" thinking (like a lot of people apparently) that it was a small, single-engine plane or something. Class went on as normal and when everyone left people were piled into one of the common areas of the building following what was going on.

I left and went back to my girlfriend's apartment and we watched the news for hours until we got to the point that it was too much to watch anymore and turned it off for the day.

Definitely the "Where were you when you heard JFK had been shot" moment of our generation.

9/4/2011 10:20:54 PM

I woke up hungover in my frat house thinking that there was a bad movie on tv, as I went to shower, and turned it off. I turned the tv back on to find something to watch as I got dressed, and realized it was for real.

[Edited on September 4, 2011 at 10:34 PM. Reason : ]

9/4/2011 10:31:08 PM

I was in High School, sophomore year. My dad is a pilot and just flew up to his base in LaGuardia that morning to report for work. Fortunately, he works for US Airways / Delta. I was a little concerned. At first I thought this was going to be WW III. I was retarded being "excited" about something like that. Looking back on it, I'm glad it didn't impact my family too badly. My dad just got out of the Marine Corps a year before and they sent him a letter stating they may recall his retirement and reinlist him, forcing him to fight in the war. I didn't think they could do that and fortunately they didn't. He was furloughed shortly after 9/11 because of his seniority in the company... It seemed to work to his advantage though as he got hired by another company that had more to offer. Sure it was a tragic event, but I'm really tired of hearing about it every September. Time to move on and let it go (imo). You don't keep hearing about Pearl Harbor every December (well, some people might).

[Edited on September 4, 2011 at 10:43 PM. Reason : .]

9/4/2011 10:39:06 PM

Quote :

"Definitely the "Where were you when you heard JFK had been shot" moment of our generation."

See also: Challenger disaster.

(or am I a different generation? )

9/4/2011 11:21:24 PM

Yup, you're old

9/4/2011 11:25:24 PM

Not old

[Edited on September 4, 2011 at 11:26 PM. Reason : ]

9/4/2011 11:26:37 PM

Came back to my dorm after my 8 o'clock class and bfast in the dining hall. Playing on the computer when my friend AIM'd me and told me to watch the news. I watched as the North tower fell.

The crazy thing is I planned to see some HS friends in NYC this wknd and didn't realize until I booked that I'll be flying back on 9/11.

9/4/2011 11:29:58 PM

I was in E-101 building towers out of straws and seeing which group could build the tallest tower to hold a coke can without falling. seems somewhat ironic now.
I then went back to my dorm room and my roommate had on the tv and told me that a plane had flew into the WTC. My first thought was "Holy shit! This is like something out of a movie."

9/4/2011 11:37:26 PM

Much younger than most here...

I was in 5th grade. We had a substitute teacher that day. We had a bathroom break, must have been around 10:00. There just so happened to be another class in the hall at the same time. Their teacher had the news on in their room and they were telling us about it but I didn't really know what to think, except that it wasn't good. My friend came back and told me that plane had crashed into the "Polygon". Our teacher wouldn't let us the news for whatever reason. When I got home from school that day one of the first things my mom said was that this was about to be "World War III".

9/5/2011 1:01:14 AM

I just got out of the huge lecture class at COM and I noticed a professor rushing a TV (one of those that you push) in one of the offices and some people gathering around it. Didnt really think much of it so on to the atrium to eat. They have those TVs there and I saw everyone standing around looking so I looked, was in total shock for a bit, nobody really talking...was very odd being the atrium.


I dont remember where I was when Challenger blew up.

[Edited on September 5, 2011 at 1:13 AM. Reason : w]

9/5/2011 1:08:28 AM

I was in the 4th grade. They wouldn't tell us anything, so I found out after I got home. I had never heard of the WTC, so I didn't really know what to think.

9/5/2011 1:09:28 AM

Sophomore year at State. I woke up, and one of my friends on AIM told me someone crashed a plane into the WTC. I thought he was lying. I went to bowling class that afternoon, but the instructor let us watch TV, bowl or go home -- whatever we decided to do (which wasn't really that much different from any other day in that regard).

That night, my roommate, who didn't drive, hassled me about taking him to find an American flag to display in the apartment. He was shocked and outraged when we couldn't find one.

9/5/2011 1:11:08 AM

iop1

I was a freshman in high school. Ironically enough we were in social studies for the first plane impact and didn't know about it, where the teacher heavily emphasized keeping up with current world events. Class change you could feel something was up, people were just running around and it was not a normal day. Got to my math class where a TV was mounted from the ceiling and people were surrounding it, watching. We didn't do anything during class and just watched TV, I believe. By then it was too late to see the second plane hit the towers (class changed at 9:20am). That or eventually we decided to do some work but the TV stayed on...can't remember. Man my memory sucks about that day. I do remember that after the Pentagon got hit, I was all "Hey, first they hit NYC, then DC...they're moving down the coast!" and freaked some people out

I don't remember much of the rest of the school day. Lunch was full of people being patriotic, saying they would join the military and all that.

I lived on base at the time, but it was in Defcon 4 (max without being complete shut down, w/e) so it was incredibly difficult to get on base. Traffic was horrendous and the buses were either going to be very delayed or banned from the base, so I walked from school to the main gate. My dad was in the Marines at the time (duh) and met me at the gate. You couldn't just show your ID and walk on base, you had to be met there by someone and escorted on. I got frisked by a female marine (I remember that part ) and Dad dropped me off at home afterwards or something.

My dad had been on track to retire a year or so later and didn't have his plans messed up at all.

9/5/2011 1:33:35 AM

i was in sophomore year of HS, in spanish when the attack first started, we had no idea... then we were in trig, and this one kid who was super brainiac doing his own math independent study online course dealio told our teacher. she put on the radio.

then we heard a rumor (via radio) of a bomb out side the state department (before towers fell). the kid who told us what was up was a semi social-outcast, and he's all "this is awesome"... never before have i ever wanted to beat the ever loving shit out of someone.

though, i knew who did the attacks before i heard any media report. It was weird. I heard something on NPR maybe a month before about Osama Bin Laden, and al qaeda and their responsibility for the 93 bombing, the USS Cole bombing, and the embassy bombings in kenya and tanzania... I turned to my friend i sat with in class, and was like "$5 says its this bin laden fucker i found out about". two minutes later on the radio the media pointed fingers that way.

At lunch some kid asked me if i thought they were coming here (to our small town in NC). And i'm like you're fucking retarded.

anyway, then i was in computer class and we were supposed to be working, the teacher told us not to read the news. it took forever to pull up news stories, photos, anything. but i remember the first picture i saw... it was of papers, ash, and dust all over the place and a lone soul straggling down the street.

last class, i dont remember what I was in... which is odd.

Then i got home, i guess i didnt go to cross country practice. and was amazed that every channel had coverage, and what ones didnt stopped their coverage and told people to put on the news. I had no intention of not being glued to the news. but I still marveled that absolutely nothing else was on. I probably watched the news for a week straight.

in early october, we were slated to fly up to NYC area for my uncles 40th birthday party. my mom didnt want to go, but we did anyway. I'll never forget flying in at night and seeing the work lights and smoke coming from ground zero. or how we had a little extra security in raleigh, but when we landed in newark it was like martial law. I went to the Giants game that sunday. as we're pulling in, the money taking parking attendant guy had a radio on. he was like "WE JUST STARTED BOMBING THOSE MOTHER FUCKERS!"

monday we flew out. i sat in the airport, and stared. just fucking stared at the hole left in the lower manhattan skyline.

I have a vivid memory as it is, but that time period is particularly vivid.

9/5/2011 2:06:01 AM

I was asleep in my frat house, and someone pounded on the door until i woke up telling me to turn the TV on because some shit went down in New York.

I remember asking WHAT CHANNEL? to which he responded ANY OF THEM.

The next few hours were pretty much everyone in the house watching the events unfold on TV as we watched in stunned disbelief.

9/5/2011 9:31:57 AM

Senior year I was walking through Sally Port between New and Old Barracks when a guy named Magnus told me a plane had hit the WTC. I laughed and thought, "what an idiot." Then I felt bad because I figured a half-dozen or so people were dead. I walked into my econ class as the second airplane hit. That pretty much shut down our day. Virginia State Police guarded the entrances to post and I'm pretty sure we had a meeting in Jackson Memorial Hall that evening.

9/5/2011 9:33:37 AM

I thought everyone was going crazy because it was the day Jay-z's album The Blueprint dropped

9/5/2011 12:54:43 PM

alarm clock went off, no oldies, just news, hit snooze, went off nine minutes later, hit snooze, and realized i heard strange things, turned the radio on and sat and listened for a while trying to figure out what had happened. then realized i could turn the tv on. sat there for about an hour before i realized i was missing class, threw on my pe clothes, ran to the gym, saw my teacher and he told me to go back to my dorm. another hour went by before i realized my mother was supposed to be touring the pentagon with some group that day. called her, she missed the tour because one of her tellers was sick. her tour group saw the plane hit the pentagon, they would have been inside but they were running late.

9/5/2011 1:03:28 PM

I was in US History in high school. Somebody came in and whispered something to our teacher who just started crying. We ended up watching the coverage in every class the rest of the day. People were freaking out since we were near Fort Bragg and everybody thought they were going to be a target too.

9/5/2011 1:10:02 PM

I was in freshman year of State, sleeping in at 505 Sullivan because I didn't have class until 12 that day (was a Tuesday). My roommate's friend kept calling the room repeatedly even though roomie was out at class, and I answered angrily like "damn bitch, what do you want, I'm sleeping!" She said "the world's ending, Jesus hates us for our sins, turn on the TV!" and then started freaking out. I turned on the TV and saw the smoke pouring out of the towers and was like "the fuck?"

Went down the hall really confused to 503 where some guys I knew lived, and we all just watched the TV confused for hours, before finally understanding the gravity of the situation. One guy just stood their slack-jawed in his towel for 2 or 3 hours.

Then I flipped out because a plane went down outside of Pittsburgh, and I tried calling my parents but the phone lines were jammed,
but learned it was in Somerset Co. and calmed down a little.

Went wafting on the Eno later that day with the Scholars Program....everyone was really downcast, but what else were we supposed to do? Continue watching CNN and flipping out? Totally surreal to be gliding down a river and this national disaster is going on.

What a strange, strange nightmare of a day.

9/5/2011 1:32:43 PM

Got an IM about a plane crashing. Ignored it, went to class, got out, saw a fuck ton of people watching it on TV in the atrium.

9/5/2011 4:15:32 PM

7th grade...teacher got a phone call regarding what was going on and turned on the tv...we watched for an hour or two before the principal decided no one should be allowed to watch because parents were calling in saying they didn't want their children to see any of it.

my dad was flying from france to jfk to clt that day...remembering how awful i felt not knowing where he was at...was given permission to use the teacher's phone to call my mom to make sure he was safe. he ended up having to stay in france for another week.

spent the afternoon during our library time talking about it. everyone thought it was Eric Rudolph. I didn't know who Eric Rudolph was because I wasn't in the US in the mid 90s.

[Edited on September 5, 2011 at 4:42 PM. Reason : .]

9/5/2011 4:40:14 PM

Yes, eric rudolph simultaneously piloted four planes... and made it onto a plane despite being on the fbi's top ten most wanted. Some people... no sense.

9/5/2011 4:45:25 PM

it was my freshman year at state. i didn't have class that day until 6pm & had gone all the way back home the night before for a dentist appt. i woke up & turned the tv on to the today about 5 minutes before the first plane hit. i was still groggy & thought maybe i had accidentally turned to a movie channel or something. i was stunned. i called my dad at work & told him to turn on the tv. i watched tv until i had to get ready to go to the dentist, went there, straight back home to watch tv some more. went back up to raleigh to go to class.

there are some young ppl & some old ppl itt.

9/5/2011 5:23:43 PM

oh, so you saw the coverage before the first plane hit? "we are reporting from the world trade center. nothing to see here."

9/5/2011 5:28:51 PM

huh?? i turned on the tv to the today show, which is normally on at that hour. they were talking about food/clothes/other news/etc and 5 minutes after i turned the tv on, they started talking about the plane hitting the first tower.

[Edited on September 5, 2011 at 5:44 PM. Reason : tower]

9/5/2011 5:43:58 PM

no i figured... just the way you wrote it implied that the coverage had started before the first plane hit (and therefore you saw the first plane hit the tower)

9/5/2011 5:52:54 PM

Quote :

"Yes, eric rudolph simultaneously piloted four planes... and made it onto a plane despite being on the fbi's top ten most wanted. Some people... no sense."

1)We were in 7th grade, friend
2)He could have had others carry out the attacks
3)
4)

9/5/2011 6:19:11 PM

i don't see it that way at all, but okay...

9/5/2011 6:28:01 PM

I had just gotten back from class right after the first plane hit. I walked into my dorm room and my roommate was watching it all unfold on the news. I sat down and started watching it too....

We were both thinking "was this an accident? or.....". Then BLAM.... the second plane hit. We were both thinking "holy shit" then. Then reports started coming in about attacks on Washington, DC. I immediately called all of my family in DC to see if they were OK.

9/5/2011 6:30:23 PM

I walked into the student center to get some print quota and thought it odd there was a tv on a card in the lobby. I stopped to look and watched the second plane hit. My mom called in a panic since State has that reactor and told me to leave immediately. I went to my friends' house and watched the towers collapse. I remember the prevailing thought that everyone had was "What's going to happen next?"

As for Challenger I was 4 and in the hospital with something they guess was spinal meningitis. My parents said that I cheered at the explosion but then started crying when I realized what actually happened.

9/5/2011 7:04:37 PM

^^^^ different MO, man. It sounds like a ClassicMixup

^did you leave per your mothers instructions?

[Edited on September 5, 2011 at 7:22 PM. Reason : .]

9/5/2011 7:21:15 PM

sleeping in wood hall - friend knocked on the door to wake me up to tell me to turn on the TV because of the craziness going on

9/5/2011 7:28:49 PM

We were told to stay inside because our school was near a high-priority possible target, the reason they gave was that "the fields were being fertilized". My Dad worked 5 blocks from the WTC and my mom had us pulled from school early in the day because of that.

9/5/2011 7:41:59 PM

Sleeping in Bragaw Hall. Roommate immediately comes in the room, turns on the lights and the TV, and starts changing out of his ROTC gear. I mumbled a very stern "what the fuck are you doing," which was followed by a "You're going to wanna be up for this. We're under attack."


The rest of the day was a blur. One of my professors, Dr. Middleton, didn't cancel our American History course. When I showed up, he just began the lecture as if nothing had occurred. I left - and then dropped his class.

9/5/2011 7:47:44 PM

I also vividly remember the months afterwards driving around DC and having fully armed national guardsmen (i think) and there being tanks on some of the street corners. it was like a military state here.

with national airport being closed for 6 months (i think it was that long) i remember the first time i heard a plane flying over again it scared the shit out of me.

9/5/2011 7:54:06 PM

Quote :

" One of my professors, Dr. Middleton, didn't cancel our American History course. When I showed up, he just began the lecture as if nothing had occurred. I left - and then dropped his class."

Freedom isn't free!

9/5/2011 7:56:27 PM

I was at the orthodontist getting my braces worked on when it happened. I was a freshmen in high school at the time. As my dad and I left all the receptionists were crowded around a tiny tv watching the coverage, we didn't really know what was going on. Once we got in the car and listened to the radio it was pretty surreal, we didn't know what to believe and the coverage was pretty spotty. By the time I got to school it appeared nobody in the school had been made aware yet, they made an announcement soon after.

9/5/2011 8:12:12 PM

I was in 10th grade, in my AP World History class, and the principal came on to make an announcement (she perpetually sounded drunk). She informed us that there had been an accident, and not to worry about it at all. For the rest of the morning, the teachers were forbidden to turn on the televisions in the classrooms, or to talk about it (for fear of frightening the students). By lunch time, my Mom had gotten wind that we weren't being allowed to see anything, and called the school to get us to come home. My sisters and I road home, listening to what sounded like the end of the world on the radio. We spent the rest of the day planted in front of the TV. The next day, most of the rest of our classmates were still in the dark to what had actually happened.

9/5/2011 8:47:45 PM

I was on my Honeymoon in Mexico.

9/5/2011 8:55:47 PM

My mother was flying from Newark that morning. Her plane was boarding while the hijacked plane from Newark was taking off.

She had seen the first plane hit and had called me from the runway on her cell phone. Like Duke, when I turned on the news I thought some damn fool had crashed into the tower by accident. I watched the second plane hit and the fireball that exploded on the back side of the second tower. Such destruction didn't look like it was possible...the towers were so massive in comparison on TV that I had initially thought the second plane was some sort of first respond-er plane.

I ran into my roommates' bedrooms to wake them up. One was from NJ and the other from NY. They both tried to sleep through my initial "come here and look at this, a plane hit the tower", but I started yelling for them when I saw the second impact.

We spent our day in my bedroom, glued to a 13in TV when we had a massive entertainment center downstairs. In the shock of it all, no one had thought to move. I remember remarking on how you could see the circles around Dan Rather's eyes getting bigger as the night wore on into September 12.

9/5/2011 9:39:11 PM

It was my freshman year at NCSU, and I was living in Carroll hall. I didn't have class until the afternoon on Tuesdays so I was sleeping in. My roommate and most of my suitemates did have class early so they were all gone . I woke up to my dorm room phone ringing, and it was my friend Jeremy who I had lunch plans with that day asking if I had seen the news yet and that shit was going down. I switched it on and it was just after the first tower fell. That was that...glued to the TV for the rest of the day.

9/5/2011 9:43:24 PM

I was a freshman in high school in Economics class and we were talking while waiting for the bell to ring. Mr. Crabtree turned on the news, as usual. Then he started yelling for us to be quiet and listen which was very out of character for him. Mr. Crabtree never yelled. I started watching the t.v. and was listening to the anchors speculate whether or not it was an accident or an attack. And then second plane hit and that ended all speculation. The bell rang and I went to my next class.

I think the rest of the day we just watched the news and a lot of kids went home early. People were afraid they would fly a plane into a nuclear power plant and we'd all be fucked. I also remember MTV being very depressing and no TRL for a while.

9/5/2011 10:00:18 PM

11th grade, was skipping school playing counter strike with a friend when people starting saying planes hit, during the game, turned on tv and saw everything else unfold

9/5/2011 10:23:56 PM

Saw this link pop up on one either an AP or Newseum Facebook feed, and I've been watching it off and on all night: http://www.archive.org/details/911/day.

You guys may have already seen it, but in case you haven't, it's video clips from a lot of networks starting an hour or so before the first plane hit and going on for several days. Kind of surreal re-watching and seeing some of the initial reactions as people tried to sort out what was happening.

I'm going to share this with the high school journalism class I teach.

9/5/2011 10:41:14 PM

wow, watching some of those clips still gives me goosebumps

9/5/2011 10:54:35 PM

Same here. I watched the CNN clips at 9:03 (at the moment the second plane hit). It was definitely a strange feeling seeing it again in its rawest form, without the post-attack attempts to contextualize. Just a reporter sharing the sense of terror and shock with the rest of us as the events unfolded.

9/5/2011 10:57:52 PM