Your memories of September 11, 2001

Signed-In Members Don't See This Ad
edicehouse

edicehouse

Member
Joined
Jun 8, 2011
Messages
3,517
Location
Suffolk, VA
There are certain events you remember where you were when you found out. I think 2 that stand out to me are the Challenger Explosion and 9/11/01. (Which that was a Tuesday)

Even with the Hurricane heading our way my mind drifts back to that tragic day. I didn't have class that morning and I was off work, so I slept in. I woke up a bit later than normal actually woke up to my phone going off. It was an old friend calling to see if I was going to get activated (since I was in the reserves at the time). I call my unit and they are staying stand bye, expect a call soon to give us updates.
 
Signed-In Members Don't See This Ad
I was playing golf with my son in law in Georgia. My wife and I were visiting our brand new grand daughter and I was scheduled for a Navy reunion in Florida in a week. He was active duty Air Force and we had just finished the front nine. When we got to the club house we saw the TV that a plane had hit one of the towers. At that time it was thought to be an accident. After the back nine we came back to the club house only to realize what had taken place. I'll never forget what my son in law said to me, "I've gotta go". We headed home and two hours later he was gone to an unknown location. He spent 24 years in the Air Force and was deployed 9 times (6 years of his life). He doesn't talk much about what he did and saw but I let him know that if he ever needs too, I'm there and will help as best I can. I have a challenge coin from each deployment that he gave me and he brought back an Iraqi flag that flew over one of Saddam's palaces. He gave it to me as a gift. He also gave me a spent casing from an A-10 Warthog plane that he picked up in the desert.
 
Last edited:
My memory is quite different than most. I was driving from Ky to San Diego California. I left the day before. I had been on the road all night listening to cd's in the F-150 I was driving. That morning I tuned in to A.M. radio. I listened all day as I drove through Texas. Every station was Dan Rather or Tom Brokaw. I visually didn't see anything on tv until that night when I stopped in Flagstaff Arizona. Even after listening for 15 hours straight, I couldn't prepare myself for what I saw that night. There were alot of things that day that I still remember. One is the vapor trails of airplanes going in circles. At the time I had no clue why. But later I found they grounded every plane in the country. And it was them turning around. I also saw gas in places that were over $9.00 a gallon.
 
I had taken vacation to oversee a crew who was erecting a metal sided pole building that I would make into a garage. As I was walking up the hill to the house, my wife stepped out and told there was something on TV I would want to see.

When I got to the house, they were replaying the first plane strike, then went live to the fire. I just told the wife it made no sense a plane that size would strike a building that size. As we were watching live, you could the second plane coming around and flying toward the building. She said "what is that plane doing?" I said, "we are under attack". We watched the events unfold and the buildings collapse.

I walked down to make sure the crew knew what was going on and they had heard it on their radio. There was one young man I looked at said "you are registered for the draft, aren't you?" He replied that he was not but had a friend that and asked if I thought we would attack someone back.

I told him I thought we would go to war and it may be a long one in this day and age, but when finished the Middle East would be a different place than it is now.

Never realized how long it would all go on.


Sent from my iPhone using Penturners.org mobile app
 
Starting my day at the car lot, with breakfast and coffee, watching The Today Show. I watched it ALL. All the way up to, and beyond my normal bedtime. I was completely consumed with these events. Day in, day out. EVERY day, through Desert Shield, and Desert Storm. It didn't stop there. Such a helpless feeling I had. What can I do? I need to do something. Who would give a 53 year old a uniform and a rifle? Locally, I watched our Firefighters and Rescue units prepare to go to New York. Where ordinarily Hoosiers are less than significant.
 
I was in high school at the time, had just gotten back inside from football practice. As we're all sitting around clueless that anything had happened in study hall after morning practice, a coach came running into the room telling us that America had just been attacked by the Russians and it was likely the start of World War 3 (which was a terrifying thought for anyone, much less a room full of young men who had just registered or would soon register for the draft)... it took a US History teacher 2 periods later to convince anyone that no, we were not attacked by Russia, and no, it was not the start of WW3...

You're right, there are some events that you remember every detail about.
 
I was a senior in high school. Every morning I would wake up and watch stupid cartoons and eat my cereal before heading to school. That morning I remember the news cutting in and showing the smoke coming from the North Tower, at the time they said the thought it was a plane impact and probably a small single-engine type. I didn't think too much of it and headed off to school. I was always running late so I was surprised to run into my best friend in the hallway, he asked if I saw what happened - I was confused and didn't think the building fire was that big of a deal. That's when he told me there was a second plane, a fullsize jet, and that we were being attacked. I could tell you the exact spot that I was standing when I got that news. We sat quiet in our classrooms the whole day watching news coverage. I remember being really scared, especially as news came in about the Pentagon and Flight 93. I am thankful that it didn't continue beyond Flight 93, but at the time time it was impossible to know if it was the end or just the beginning. In many ways it was just the beginning.
 
I was a few blocks uptown (north) working from it, working at Morgan Stanley, it and thought it was a domestic (non-terrorist) accident. Went to Macy's on 34st to sleep until smoke/debris cleared. Finally persuaded a cop to let me take a train home - lost many neighborhood cops and fireman (male and female, canine). It has been 17 years and I still can't go back when I am in NY. Please remember this day when there are arguments over the best CA finish, accelerator, paper towels, how to use a skew, so and so's poor customer service, who doesn't like me, etc.. I have some pictures from that day on one of my computers that will end those conversations fast. BTW, I am keenly aware that this tragedy struck 3 cities, not just NYC.
 
Last edited:
Sept 11, 2011 found my self and three other fishing buddies in Alaska interior fishing the Noskagak river for King salmon.
This was a float plane fishing camp in the upper Noskagak where we could fish for Salmon and very large Rainbow .

Our float plane was to pickup us up on 12th, but no plane, 13,14,15 still no float plane. Our guide was trying to do the best for us but running out of food and booze, but we had fishing three time a day was getting old.
However on the 16th we saw our first float plane which dropped in to tell us of the 9-11 NY tower burning and the all air travel was stopped, however our plane was coming on 17th.

So on the 17th were departed for Anchorage for departing flight to San Franciso.

Our fishing was great but returning home to find out what happen was very sad ordeal.
 
When the Challenger exploded I was in the 6th grade. My computer teacher, My Doherty, rolled in one the of the school's TVs. We sat and watched the whole thing. Even as 6th graders, we understood what we just saw. Not one word was said during the entire class that day. On 9/11/01, I was taking my usual bus to work. A lady sitting some rows behind me yelled out, "Oh, my God! A plane just flew into one of the Twin Towers." I didn't learn about the second plane till I was at work.
 
I well remember. . It was 8th wedding anniv for my oldest son and his wife.

Because of the time diff to the west coast, it happened before I left for work. . A friend phoned to tell us to turn on radio. . Immense shock and disbelief.

I didn't turn on the car radio on the trip to work ... didn't want to hear any more at the time.

Just an unbelievable cloud over the whole day. . Listened to as much as I could take when I got home.
 
Last edited:
I was sitting at my desk at work. We always had the TV on in the background, more for white noise than anything. As system admins, we were having a discussion about how access to our "Secure" government backed network was being given to a foreign power. The boss was facing the TV, and just stopped talking...

It took a minute before we all turned around. No more work was done that day, no calls answered, no doors answered, no IMs answered. We all spent the day, and most of us stayed after our shifts so as to not miss anything.

Two months later, access was granted to companies in Egypt, India, and South America.

Go figure.

To those that were lost, WE WILL NEVER FORGET!
 
Last edited:
While my partner and I were on patrol, I asked him to stop by the local post office so I could ship a package to my son whom lives in Canada. When I got back in the car, he said, the USA is under attack. I started to laugh at him till he turned the radio up.....I just had chills going up and down my spine.


GOD BLESS the soles who gave it all
 
I posted the below note on IAP 3 years ago. I still think of the events each day even though I'm long out of the warfight now. God bless and protect those that are our nation's "sheepdogs"...the defenders of the defenseless.


"Interesting topic. I've retired twice. Once as a federal agent. On 9-11, I was five years into my second career as a fed, this time as the Director of Emergency Services for a very large and diverse federal facility on the east coast. That morning I had just finished a meeting concerning security requirements for a facility that had weapons grade nuclear materiels within. I walked out of the meeting and was pulled aside by a member of my intel section who told me about the first plane. I returned to my office and turned on the TV. My secretary stood there with me as we watched the second tower get hit. She teared up and said she just didn't understand why someone would do what we watched. A few minutes later my boss (roughly equivalent to a town mayor ) came to my office. As we talked I brought senior staff (police chief, fire chief, etc) into the office. It was clear our nation was under attack and we were now players. As a federal facility, we shut down roads, air traffic, boat traffic (we had waterfront property) and nothing moved without approval. An absolute nightmare for the 10s of thousands of people that lived and work on our facility. Not to mention we were on the glide path between NY and DC and had things that if hit by a plane would have impacted the whole mid Atlantic region. Lots of sleepless nights for me for a while, but had been blessed with more than 600 cops, firefighters, EMTs, 911 dispatchers and support staff that really stepped to the plate. Our lives and the way we had done things changed forever that day. I attended a fairly high level meeting in DC a few days latter with federal counterparts. Some of us were sent to NYC the next week. One of my most prized possessions is small glass vial that contains debris from Ground Zero. It will forever remind me of those that were lost and those that gave their lives trying to save others."
 
I was on board the Kennedy. It was my very first day at sea. We skipped our work up and headed straight for the gulf. Ironically, my last cruise was on the Carl Vinson, where I got to be apart of throwing Bin laden's ass overboard.
 
I was driving back to one of my two Day Care Centers (Administrator/owner) after dropping some K-4 kids off. I believe it was a bit after 9 AM.

This was in the suburbs of Cleveland, so we had a local concern for plane #4, not identified until later. But, I had children from local FBI (we knew of them), probible CIA (we knew.. but didn't know of them), and Local Police agents (we knew of them)... We got calls VERY early - within minutes of the first plane. All they cared about was their children.

We had had banned any TV's in the building a few years earlier for teaching quality, so we had no way to view what was happening. The entire building, 9 staff (teachers) and 55 children were transfixed on the radio the rest of the day. Very stressful as we had parents calling every hour to check if their children were safe. I stayed at that center all day, but had 95 children and 26 staff at a second location. All emergency protocols for evacuations were tested before 11 AM at each location.

I have to say that the day was very surreal. The children were obviously aware that the teachers/adults were worried about something. While all went well, many "children pick-ups" were especially heartfelt that evening.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom