Where Were You On 9/11/01?

[August]

Originally Posted by Oberon

I was not a particularly big fan of Mr Bush at the time and I figured that it was most likely someone protesting against his presidency.

Just curious Oberon about what you didn't like about Bush given that he really hadn't been in office long enough by that time to have made much of an impression one way or the other.

[FIREWALL]

As I think this threads posts might get a bit emotional. so, we should be a bit more sensitive to those here that lost friends and\or God forbib family members.

I don't think Jumpy meant anything uncareing. He just posted where he was at and his situation.

As I said this topic Emotions are kinda Raw.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by August

Just curious Oberon about what you didn't like about Bush given that he really hadn't been in office long enough by that time to have made much of an impression one way or the other.

One has to remember I was younger then, and more under the sway of the fuss that the left kicked up around the time. I was also more left-wing back then than I am now so I was inclined to believe what people around me said about Bush (or Dubya as we all called him back then) and the trouble that he was going to cause for the world and (more importantly for me) to the environment in terms of wild animal protection.
Of course, two thirds of what was predicted about Bush never happened and the rest was spin, and looking back on it now I realise just how much hyperbole there is about US presidents both left and right. Up until the 2000 era though, I had no internet and thus the emotion behind US presidential choices didn't really effect me because I had no real connection to the States.

The benefit of hindsight, eh?

[jumpy]

Originally Posted by August

Just teasin ya brother!

Originally Posted by FIREWALL

As I think this threads posts might get a bit emotional. so, we should be a bit more sensitive to those here that lost friends and\or God forbib family members.

I don't think Jumpy meant anything uncareing. He just posted where he was at and his situation.

As I said this topic Emotions are kinda Raw.

Quite so.
Maybe I was a little terse before; sharpness of tongue has always gone hand in hand with lack of sleep, but there you go.

Apart from the whole sight being, well, what it was, the most odd thing about all of it was some footage from inside one of the shops/cafe places on one of the streets leading away from the buildings - the camera showed people running in the street outside, driven before a huge cloud of dust, blown on the wind of the collapse, like the people outside were actually a part of the advancing cloud, like some human vanguard of the ruin... and the view through the window swiftly fading out to opaque darkness, with the occasional half realised object suspended in the dust rushing past the glass accompanied by the dumbfounded noises of those taking shelter behind the counter at the back of the shop over the grinding of concrete and steel.

I'll certainly remember it for that.

I don't feel any deeper connection with any of the people there that day - I guess I did not know any of them, and for that I'm kind of glad... who would not be glad, after all, to escape such a trial of loss?

I suppose it is difficult enough to fathom the intent behind such a thing from half a world away, let alone have to feel the events of that day on a more intimate and far reaching level.
I could say more, but I don' think it necessary.

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by Oberon

I was at school. At first I thought it was a small Cessna which caused minimal damage to the tower.

We think alike. When my driver told me a plane went into tower one I thought a small plane made some serious miscalculations. When he said another plane hit the second tower it got my attention that this was more than minor incident.

[sharkbit]

My wife and I played hooky from work-we went to see the Broncos and Giants play at Invesco field the night before on Monday Night Football. I was still in bed when my wife got up with our 5 month old daughter. She starts yelling my name and runs in saying airplanes had hit the WTC and Pentagon and the WTC had collapsed.

We pretty much stayed glued to the tv all day watching and rewatching the video. It was so hard to turn the tv off that night and go to bed.

I freaked a little bit after I heard at least one of the planes had come from Boston. My sister was supposed to fly home with her husband and friends out of Boston that morning. I called my mom right away and said she was fine. They were lucky-they hadn't returned their rental car yet (they had stopped at a museum that morning) and were able to keep it and the rental company allowed them to use it to drive home to Denver.

I work for an aircraft charter company, so of course we had all of our aircraft parked for a couple of days. However, one of our airplanes was allowed to fly blood, FEMA members, and some supplies to New York before any civilian airplanes were released to fly. I talked to the flight crew after they got back. They said it was pretty uncanny flying along with no other radio traffic on the radios and being the only civilian aircraft flying. They also said they could see the smoke from NYC from about 200 miles out.

Sad day for all.

[kiwi_2005]

I remember seeing the first clips of it on the TV and saying to myself some idiots have just gone and woken the sleeping giant.

[Penguin]

I was working that day. We got the news about the plane that hit a WTC tower and continued. We were filming a guy in a, aehm penis costume when we got the news about the second plane.
It was clear that this was in no case an accident, so we called the shot off, not the right day for filming guys in weird clothes. We watched the news, mostly silent, even the most cynical guys were speechless when the towers collapsed.

In the evening my bff came over, as she was quite upset and didn't want to be alone this evening. We drank tons and talked and speculated, both having a very uneasy feeling and worries how the fool in the White House would react, kind of a pre-war hunch.

Later during the night, rocket attacks on Afghan camps were shown - does anybody remember this? We felt as if some retaliation already started.
I got sick of the continious loop of the stock prices on the news channel, while watching the pictures of this day, so I put Gaffa tape on the lower half of my tv.

The next day at work our boss told us that the production is on halt and he did not know when or if it starts again but we would be paid as long as the money was there, for the next 2 weeks.

[Stealhead]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

We think alike. When my driver told me a plane went into tower one I thought a small plane made some serious miscalculations. When he said another plane hit the second tower it got my attention that this was more than minor incident.

Did they really say in detail the type of plane?Like I said in my post the local AFN radio DJ actually did say "a small private aircraft"(this probably just before the second plane hit when we where hearing this on AFN) only which resulted in my friend and I commenting on poor or confused piloting skills.When we saw the Tsgt with the THREATCON DELTA placards the idea that it was related to WTC was pretty far from our minds we at first thought it was another attack on a military target some where like the USS Cole (which it also turned out to be) so we weren't even thinking of the World Trade Center at first thanks to the incorrect first report.I guess it depended the media outlet.

From Penguin "Later during the night, rocket attacks on Afghan camps were shown - does anybody remember this? We felt as if some retaliation already started."

I am almost certain that you must have been seeing some old news footage of the cruise missile strikes that where done in the late 90' early 2000 after USS Cole and the embassy bombings.A very "special" unit that does "special" things had a building near my old shop on base if something would have happened we would have known.I can say that some "special" guys started showing up at the "special" place on the 12th and they had long hair and wore civilian clothes and one had been in Somalia back in 1993 with Delta.

[Buddahaid]

I was away from home at a training facility near Madison and had to wait a couple more days to get a flight back home on the following Sunday. Others in the class were going to drive ridiculous distances out of fear of flying but I figured that was about the safest flying I would ever do. I ended up being one of about ten people on a wide body heading back to SFO.

The weirdest part of this whole thing was the next few days when absolutely nothing was in the air. Very surrealistic and surprising in that it was so noticeable.

[razark]

Originally Posted by Penguin

Later during the night, rocket attacks on Afghan camps were shown - does anybody remember this?

I remember hearing the reports, along with denials that the U.S. was involved.

[Bilge_Rat]

I remember that in the interval between the first and second plane, TV commentators were speculating that a small plane may have hit accidentaly. No one had seen the first plane hit and no one was sure what had happened. I was watching CNN.

Any doubt was pretty much dispelled when the 2nd plane hit, you could see right away it was an airliner and it seemed to happen in slow motion. I remember I could not quite believe what I had seen and even the CNN news anchor were speechless for what seemed an eternity, although you could hear voices gasping in horror in the background.

I have to admit even after all these years, I still get a bit choked up thinking about it....

[Penguin]

Originally Posted by Stealhead

From Penguin "Later during the night, rocket attacks on Afghan camps were shown - does anybody remember this? We felt as if some retaliation already started."

I am almost certain that you must have been seeing some old news footage of the cruise missile strikes that where done in the late 90' early 2000 after USS Cole and the embassy bombings.A very "special" unit that does "special" things had a building near my old shop on base if something would have happened we would have known.I can say that some "special" guys started showing up at the "special" place on the 12th and they had long hair and wore civilian clothes and one had been in Somalia back in 1993 with Delta.

interesting, yes this could have been to illustrate earlier strikes. IIRC - and I was quite non-sober - they said later that it was some inner-Afghan fighting, between different fractions. But it just came back to my mind when writing down my memories of this day, have to check it out again. We watched NTV - if you remember this station, the only 24h news channel we had at this time, and a real lousy one - I can imagine that they used stock footage to bring some dramatic "news".

[Platapus]

That Tuesday, I was a contractor at a TLA facility. I was supporting the wargaming and simulation division. Tuesday mornings I was on my way to the team staff meeting. I passed one of the monitors in the hallway and saw one of the towers on fire.

"Man, that must suck, I hope they can get the fire out" I thought to myself as I hurried to my meeting.

Shortly after the meeting started, we heard the "rumour" that an airplane had crashed in the first tower. Shortly after that, we got word that a second had crashed so this was no accident.

Now the weirdness started.

On 11 Sep 2001, the TLA facility was having an exercise. During such exercises, selected people are given scripts to use. For example at 10:05, a participant needs to call into the exercise desk that they "smell smoke in stairwell 14". That type of stuff. It helps the people running and evaluating the exercise.

It is only natural to involve the people who work exercises such as the exercise and simulations division. One such person was in our staff meeting. After the second plane hit he got real quiet. In his hand was an index card with his script. At 0945 he was supposed to report "seeing an airplane crash into one of the towers" of the TLA facility.

Needless to say, the staff meeting and the exercise was canceled.

Creepy to say the least. I think he still keeps that index card script.

[mapuc]

I was at home, playing games on my computer, when my doorbell sounded. I yelled at the person outside, that the door was open and in came my little sister.

-I have tried to contact you by mobil and ordinary phone
-Why
-haven't you heard what's happen in New York!
-No, have been playing for the last 2-3 hours. What is that has happened in NY?
-Turn on the tv.

I turned the tv on and my sister gasped
-Ohhh my good both have been hit, she almost yelled.
-???
-When I turned my tv off, only one of the Twintower had been hit.
- To get updated, I searhed for information on the teletext and on the internet.

Many thoughts went throug my head and I was watching tv all night long


Markus