Oh…. I joined the military 2 months after the attacks, and left that August. Yes, I was tricked.

I was legit walking up next to a one night stand. Turned out her dad was FDNY so I couldn't get a morning round in.

Watched the morning TV news as usual, and there was nothing going on. I showered and did my morning routine, and then I started driving in to work. Listening to the radio, I was confused at first because I thought they kept talking about the 1993 bombing. Suddenly realizing what was going on, I turned back around to see what was happening on TV.

I eventually got into work later in the morning. Someone had a portable TV where I saw the second tower collapse. No one really did much work that day. The company had already announced layoffs, and the actually layoffs wound up cutting much deeper. The company had just hired a former CIA guy to handle corporate security, so he ratcheted up on-site security (it was already elevated due to the pending layoffs).

I know I mowed my lawn that evening. I needed a mindless task to occupy my thoughts for a time.

I also remember all the crazy rumors and chaos that followed. The Anthrax attacks, and people running to Mexico to buy antibiotics. I remember some people coming back with baby doses of a kind of antibiotic that would probably not work against Anthrax, even properly dosed (forerunner of horse de-wormer). I also remember people being afraid of going to the State Fair, which I thought was absurd.

Cinco Ranch Aggie said:

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So I tried to get onto CNN.com for the news (first "news" site that occurred to me). I couldn't get on. My browser tab just sat there with one of those circles running, which was because that server was overloaded with requests. I then opened another browser tab and went to the only other "news" site that I could think of, chron.com for the Houston Chronicle. That one popped right up.

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Yeah, that early incarnation of the web pretty much slowed to a crawl that day. I think CNN resorted to posting information in a plain format resembling a 1980s BBS just to preserve bandwidth.

I was airborne when it happened. I found out when I landed in Huntsville, AL when I saw a HUGE crowd gathered around a tiny 6 inch black and white TV at the shoe-shine stand. Had no idea what was going on until after we landed and I got off the plane.

Dorm 11

At work when my daughter who worked at HUD in DC called around 8:30. She td me two planes had hit world trade center in terrorist attack. While we were talking she told me to hold on. She was away from phone for about 2 minutes . When she got back on she was crying saying there was a big black plume of smoke coming from the pentagon. A lady across the hall who could see the oentagon had called her over to see it. I tried to calm her as best you can over the phone. She said dad I'll call you back. Fifteen minutes later she called saying they all had to evacuate and that she would be going with a small group to a coworkers place on the hill. Told her to stay in touch. For seven hours I must have called 20 times but to no avail. Finally she called me saying she was back at her place which was only two blocks away from the pentagon. I remember there were no clouds in the sky but also the silence. I could usually hear traffic on I-35 but not that afternoon.
First day you could fly I flew to DC. On plane that probably held 120 people there were only 15 people including myself. Spent a week there with her.

I was living in Manhattan at the time, but was in Edinburgh, Scotland for work on 9/11/01. I had gone out to lunch with coworkers and not long after that was on the phone with my boss. Someone else in the NY (Midtown) office told him a plane had hit the tower, but it sounded like a small plane accident. I turn to tell the people around me the story and see people pouring into the break room that also had a TV.

I could see the smoking first tower on the TV, so told my boss this had to be more than a small plane, hung up and got to the break room in time to see the second plane hit live. There were lots of gasps and upset Scots and someone said, 'now we know it is a terror attack'. As one of 2 Americans in the room, I proceeded to get very emotional and pissed off and loudly said, 'we are going to hunt down and kill every last one of the m***** f****** that did this!!'. There were some shocked faces in the room.

Fast forward to that Thursday night. I was scheduled to fly back to NY on Continental with a short layover in Manchester and as of that time, international flights were still grounded. Thank goodness for early internet, because I could stay in the Caledonian Hotel for as long as needed then come back, or take my chances that I'd get to Manchester and end up sleeping in the airport for 3 days, but I was able to find our that the redeye from EWR to Manchester had left, so I assumed that meant I would make the return back.

I was never so happy to be delayed 6 hours for a flight in my life. The airport was full of people sleeping everywhere, then strangely there were empty seats on our flight.

I took a cab from EWR to Manhattan and got the view of the rubble and smoke plume from the helix approaching the Lincoln Tunnel. That is burned into my memory forever.

Had just walked into work (at the zoo). Saw the video from a little black and white tv. Still feels like it happened yesterday.

I was in kindergarten at the time, I remember my Mom coming and picking me up early from school and then watching it on TV for the rest of the day. I was still to young to really understand what was going on.

Fall semester my senior year at A&M(2019) I was taking a financial planning class that had about 25 other students in it on 9/11. Walking into class that day I thought we were going to continue learning the finer things about building amortization tables in Excel. My Professor walks in and you could tell something was off. When class starts he tells us to put away our laptops and notes because he was going to tell us a story about the second day of his first job out of college as as stockbroker in NYC halfway up the South tower of the WTC. That date was 9/11/2001.

Hearing him tell story of feeling the North Tower getting hit and having no idea what was happening and then being in the South Tower when it got hit was one of the most impactful things I have ever heard. Him talking about passing the firefighters going up the stairs while he was going down knowing that they never came back brought the whole class to tears if they weren't already. He made it out of the south tower 10 min before it collapsed and told us about all of the glass falling and watching people getting hit with debris.

Hearing a first hand account of 9/11 was not what I thought was going to happen that day but I'll never forget that day in that classroom.

Air Traffic Controller. We thought it was a small single engine plan until we saw it on TV. After that, sheet hit the fans for a few hours. in less than 2 hours, the skies were cleared except for AF1 and a couple of escort fighters. From there, the world knows the rest of the story.

Living in San Diego 2 weeks into a new job. Woke up to the radio DJ's chattering about a plane hitting WTC tower. Couldn't figure out what it was, then they said a 2nd one hit. I stumble out to the living room and flip on the TV and I'm standing there shocked. I yell at my roommates to get the f_ck up and they stumble out pissed. And then the towers fell.

Not knowing what to do, I drove into work. At the time I worked on San Diego bay, just south the of the airport, and east of the air craft carrier berths. As I'm driving down the hill to the water I'm watching every Navy ship that can get underway hauling ass around North Island. Usually they just putter out to avoid making waves for all the moored boats, not this day, they were MOVING. I'll never forget that.

We didn't have a TV in the office but someone had a small radio. Boss' wouldn't let us go. All commercial aircraft were grounded and it was usual to hear jets landing. Silence.

What we did hear and could see were F18's flying figure 8's above the airport, carriers, North Island Naval Station and the Navy berths south of the Coronado bridge. When we knew they were using commercial jets to hit targets I was getting super uneasy about the 2 aircraft carries 2 miles away. Each has 2 nuclear reactors, and the sub base was maybe 8 miles away.

No one got anything done that day and we all knew the world had just changed. Roads were empty driving home and on a pedestrian overpass there was a guy just waving our flag, those on the roads were honking as they passed.

I had been in bed for a hour or so after conducting a swing shift (1400-2200) as the NORAD Air Warning Center Commander in Cheyenne Mountain AFS. My wife busts in and says, "Get up. You need to see this". She had the news on and told me an aircraft had flown into one of the trade towers. I initially assumed it was an accident, but as we watched, a second one flew into the towers. I said "****, we are at war!" and called my boss and said that I could be back there in 30mins (I was living on USAFA at the time). He said "No, stay home and get some sleep. You need to be rested and they are closing down access to Cheyenne Mountain." Needless to say, I was up several more hours watching it develop. When I drove in at @1300, the road was blocked off and all the Security Forces guys were in full battle rattle with armored response vehicles. Every car was checked and no one but military got in. Both Peterson AFB and USAFA were shut down.

In the Air Warning Center, we were in the process of executing Security Control of Air Traffic and Air Navigation Aids (SCATANA) and working the various air defense (AD) sectors and Air Route Traffic Control Centers (ARTCC) to clear the skies over North America (NA). By end of shift, there was not a plane in the sky except combat air patrols (CAPS) and emergency responders. We had gone from a peacetime AD posture with 16 fighters (12 in US and 4 in Canada) to cover NA, to over 360 fighters available, over a dozen CAPs continuously airborne along and multiple AWACS orbits. In addition, the AD Sectors where linked in via radio and Joint Tactical Information Distribution System (JTIDS)/LINK 16 to Aegis cruisers and Patriot batteries in various locations. Anything that flew w/o permission was intercepted. All commercial air traffic inbound to the US was flight cancelled, turned back or diverted elsewhere. Anything that did not acknowledge and cooperate had a very high risk of being dead.

Intel briefings, held at the beginning of each shift, indicated that the Russian **** their pants when they saw how fast we went from peacetime posture, to a wartime footing. All the above was done within 12-14 hours after the first aircraft hit the towers.

Talking with a friend at H2O fountain outside the Chemistry building. A mutual friend came running up saying a plane had hit Rudder Tower. I scoffed it off saying we would see smoke and hear sirens.

Walked into class, the professor came in, somberly told everyone the first tower was hit, for everyone to go home, and turn on the news. Got back to my apartment unknowingly as the second plane was hitting the second tower.

My roommate was playing madden; I was frantically trying to explain to him what was going on, and we needed to turn on the news. He couldn't believe what I was saying, and telling me to leave him alone. He finally relented and flipped over to CNN.

We sat there not saying a word; trying to comprehend what we were seeing live...then the towers fell.

Still gut wrenching to this day.

It's clear that 9-11 altered the trajectory of a lot of folks lives.

But also reminds me of the quote by author Cormac McCarthy,

"You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from."

I was a freshman at A&M, sleeping in because my POLS prof for my 8am class was in London and had cancelled class. One of my friends called me and told me to turn on the tv.

I turned it on just as the second plane flew into the tower. My roommate was in class, and her mom was working at KPMG in NYC. She wasn't able to get in touch with her until that night.

My afternoon POLS class was at the Bush School. The prof (whose name I don't remember) opened class by saying he didn't know what was going on and didn't want to talk about it, and if you wanted to keep watching the news, feel free to go.

I got to work a bit late as my wife and MIL's flight from Newark was the last flight out on Sept 10th. I had sent them up for a trip while I watched the kids over the weekend. Newark had a fire and also some storms so they didn't take off until almost 11 EST. Got them home after 3am and slept in some. Walked into our trading floor and folks were saying a small plane had crashed into the North Tower and I'm thinking I should have stayed home and slept in cause nothing was going to get done that day, I'm old and was working when the WTC were bombed so I knew day was finished even if it was an accident. I logged onto my Bloomberg and messaged a trading friend who's office was at 61 Broadway with windows facing the towers - he said it was a commercial jet and not a small plane. I picked up one of our direct lines to one of our Brokers - Eurobrokers and was on the phone with them while watching the 2nd plane crash into the south tower. Phone went dead as the plane took out their floor. Phones stopped working and cell service became almost impossible to get calls into NYC. Bloomberg worked fine and was able to connect with most folks not in the towers. My buddy at 61 Broadway messaged saying they were leaving their building after the North Tower fell and he told me exactly they route he was going to take and if I didn't hear from him in the morning to tell his wife what we discussed. The South Tower fell while they were on the street. I went to several Chase Banks to get cash - they never hold very much - as no one knew what was going to happen. Our neighbors came over and kids swam in the pool and we drank 8 bottles of wine. I got a phone call at 4m from my friend that they had made it to their Cape house. He has had a cough ever since that day after breathing all the debris. Lost a lot of people I knew that day. Ironically I was in North Tower at the end of July closing at the time the largest deal for our company on the floor the 1st plane went into.

I was in my garage working out. I was listening to Howard Stern and Baba Booey said a plane had hit the World Trade Center. They first thought it may have been a small plane. Our radio station ran Stern live, starting at 3:00. They restarted the show at 6:00. They would go to commercials around 5:38 and never go back to live, they'd just continue with commercials until 6:00. They went to the endless commercial right after Baba Booey made the announcement, so I didn't hear anything else about it. I went in the house when I was done and saw the towers burning on the TV.

Our Little League fields were close enough to the McCarren flight path that we could hear the planes. It was weird going from takeoffs and landings as close in time as they can be to complete silence in the sky.

I later learned Barbara Olson was my Aunt's cousin.

I was in my apartment off Southwest parkway getting ready to go to class. Saw the newd alert of a plane crash on the AOL home page. Turned on CNN and watched the second plane collide.

Took the shuttle to go to campus and they were playing the news over the speaker. A girl sitting nect to me was crying, I asked her if she was okay. She said "we are going to go to war with Iraq", "I told her it probably wasn't Saddam but Osama bin Laden."…. We were both right.

In the Zachry building, for my first class of the day, ENGR 212 . One of my classmates told me that a plane hit the WTC. The classroom had laptops, so we went to check the news online. The news sites took forever to load, but we finally saw a photo of BOTH towers on fire, and knew that it was deliberate.

Our prof gave her lecture as usual, but I didn't pay attention to it.

C@LAg said:

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That was back when CNN was awesome.

Wall-to-wall coverage for days.

My ass was on the couch most waking moments for several days

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Every single channel was covering it. Even the entertainment channels like MTV had switched their feed over to parent news stations. I suppose stations like HBO still had movies on, but regular cable was 100% coverage of the attack for more than a day. It was nuts. I remember the BBC having some good coverage too with the world reaction.

I had an 8am comp sci lab that morning. I took the bus to campus and someone told me a plane has hit the WTC. Like many others I didn't think much of it because I assumed it was a small plane. I tried to look up the news but the web was super slow and I couldn't get any news sites to load. After the lab I took the bus home and by the time I was able to check the news both towers were down.

I don't think classes were cancelled that day I still went to a class later that afternoon. I went but I was still in shock.

I was between classes...second period had just finished and I had third period conference. I heard some chatter in the hallways about planes hitting buildings, so I tried to get on the PC in our math office to read some news, but that wasn't happening due to servers being overwhelmed. Fourth period I had a study hall, so I turned on the TV for them. It was during that class period that one of the towers collapsed...when people say that it looked like something out of a movie, but was as real as it gets, that tower collapsing on itself was just that. I literally could not believe what I was seeing.

The rest of the day I managed to keep things as normal as I could, with limited success. Kids were checking out of school at lunch and throughout the rest of the day.

After school, called my mom and a couple of friends, then went to a co-worker's house to watch the news and try to absorb what had happened. It was one of those times when I didn't want to be by myself.

In a day that was filled with such immense sadness, the one thing that I can't even begin to wrap my head around is what must have been going through the minds of the people that were trapped above where the planes hit the towers...going from initial bewilderment to "is there a way down?" to "there is no way down" and realizing that you're going to die and die very soon, it's just a matter of how. That to me is the definition of terror. I'll never forget seeing the people jumping to their deaths.

It also feels like the last time the country truly came together, even if it was only for a brief time.

Hard to believe we're coming up on a quarter-century since the attacks.

Maybe OT but staff can delete if they choose.

The Hubs is/was a firefighter. It was never about steel being burned through, it was steel being weaked and stretched wiht high temp, fueled fire temps that made them fail.

Fuel load was way too high and the fuel load in the planes was way too high. Thoese firefighter, men and wome. knew they were likley going to die but they went in anyway. To try save anyone they could.

I will always give the max numbers of prayers to them and familes and friends.

Sadly, the type of fireproofing they used played a role.

According to one engineering show I watched, they used a type of blown fiberglass, kind of like that loose stuff in our attics that they just blow in.

When the planes hit, the rush of air with them blew that proofing off of the girders in places, exposing the steel directly to the fire.

If they had used the more expensive cementatious proofing, it would have mostly stayed and the towers likely not have fallen.

Freshman year of HS, speech class. Was very sad about a plane crash until the 2nd hit. Then we knew what was going on. About half the kids got taken out of school early by parents. Those of us that stayed watched the coverage all day long. My mom let me stay but was crying when she picked me up at 3:30.

My wife was in elementary in Dallas. Her mom got her and her siblings out of school and went to their east Texas lake house

Wehner building on west campus, watching on the little tv's in the hallway

Just started grad school at OU. Was driving my jeep to class listening to 'you ain't just whistling Dixie'. Beautiful day just feeling good. Walked to the grad class a few minutes late and opened the door. Nobody was in class. Like a movie scene out of the corner of my eye I saw 40 or more classmates crowded in the graduate lounge watching the little tv we had . Standing next to a fellow classmate and Ranger my clammates said a small plane hit the tower. I immediately said that's too big a hole for a small plane and what **** pilot hits a building on a clear day? Didn't make sense. Maybe they had a stroke or heart attack…then all a sudden I see a second plane fly into the frame and hit the second tower. Ranger buddy and I both said our lives just changed forever.

In my life no event had more impact on my future than that day. Went from a guy likely to get out of the military to a guy that stayed in as a career. Still pisses me off to think of the people jumping from the towers.

CDUB98 said:

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Sadly, the type of fireproofing they used played a role.

According to one engineering show I watched, they used a type of blown fiberglass, kind of like that loose stuff in our attics that they just blow in.



When the planes hit, the rush of air with them blew that proofing off of the girders in places, exposing the steel directly to the fire.

If they had used the more expensive cementatious proofing, it would have mostly stayed and the towers likely not have fallen.

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When planning they probably never imagined a jet liner hitting the building. We were so naive and safe. I miss those days

I was buying a speargun in Palacios, TX. That's when I heard about it.

Muy said:

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Driving to work in Las Colinas, listening to The Ticket that stopped to air the news of the first plane. Then damn near pulled over in shock when they screamed the 2nd tower was hit.

Got to the office and we watched the news in a board room. Since we were near DFW we were asked to leave the office and go home.

Our 2nd son was born 6 days earlier and when I got home my wife said we needed to take him to the ER. He has thick yellow tears show up that day from jaundice, so we spent the next couple of days by him at the hospital. It was actually a complete distraction for us.

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The ticket's broadcast that day is still easily findable online. Gordo not being typical gordo is something to hear. That and Jerry talking about plans they already had in place to prevent terrorism at old Texas Stadium

Combined Arms and Services Staff School at Fort Leavenworth. We were about two weeks away from graduation at the time. Classes got cancelled that day and we were confined to the barracks for several days until they sent us back to our duty stations.

I was getting ready to board a plane in Harrisburg, PA. Ready to board in 1 minute when a security person drove up and motioned to the pilot to shut the engines and then spoke to the pilot for about 2 minutes. Pilot explained why the flight was cancelled because of a "bombing in NYC". Lady standing behind me was from NYC and fainted when she heard the news. I was able to get a rental car and spent 6 days in PA before getting a first flight to Phoenix.

I had resigned from a leadership position the day before for a better opportunity. Obviously 9/11 the next day was a shock beyond comprehension for everyone. Selfishly, I had second thoughts since I knew the coming months were dark.

I was in my office on the project site of the now Gaylord Texan in Grapevine, TX. One of the guys on staff ended up going home to pickup a tv to setup in our conference room so we could all keep up with the news throughout the day. For the rest of that day and many days thereafter, the skies were quiet over our job site which sat in the direct path of one of DFW Aiport's runways. It was just a surreal moment in time since air traffic was a constant thing over our job everyday up to that point.