24 years ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday

I was deployed to Camp Monteith, Kosovo in the town of Gnjilane. Kosovo is 6 hours ahead of NYC, so it was early-afternoon. I was the night shift NCO for my company. A couple of my Soldiers and I went to the movie theater on the camp to watch The Fast and the Furious, but it turned out that they changed the matinee movie that day to Bridget Jones' Diary. Since we had already paid for the movie, we stayed to watch it.(To this day, I can't watch that stupid movie, without thinking about the 9/11 attacks). About 25 minutes into the movie, I heard my CO's voice come over the hand-held radio that I had to carry saying "All TOC personnel report to the TOC immediately." (tactical operations center, for those of you unfamiliar with Army Acronyms). I turned to my Soldier who was sitting next to me and told him to grab his weapon because we had to go to the TOC right away. As I picked up my M4 and stood up, I noticed that just about everyone else in the movie theatre was leaving also.

We jogged to our company TOC. When we got there, we asked what was going on, and our CO told us that "America has been attacked. Hijackers have crashed planes into both of the World Trade Center Towers in New York and also another one into the Pentagon." They had the TV on in the TOC and the second tower collapsed right after I got to the TOC. I spent the rest of the time before my shift and my entire shift glued to the TV. They put a communication blackout into effect on Camp Monteith----nothing but official traffic on radios, phones, or internet. Things really changed after the attacks. Before the attacks happened, we only wore our protective gear when we went outside the perimeter of our camp. We carried our weapons without a magazine in while we were inside the wire and then put the magazine in the magazine well when we went outside the wire but we did not chamber a round. After the attacks, for the remaining 3 months we were in Kosovo, we wore our protective gear at all times, except for sleeping and showering. We carried our weapons with a magazine in the magazine well while inside the wire. We chambered a round as soon as we went outside the wire. I didn't know it at the time, but that set the tone for how I would spend the next 9 years


I will never forget what happened the following night after the attacks happened. The people of Gnjlane, Kosovo had a candlelight prayer vigil in remembrance of all the victims. Serbs, Croats. and Albanians, Christians and Muslims all putting aside their personal differences and expressing their sympathy for the victims and disgust for the attacks. That was truly a memorable sight to behold

I was repairing fence for a ranch just north of Bryan. Went to the truck at 0900 to turn the radio on for the morning sports talk show. I didn't hear or think very much about sports the rest of that day.

This is the JFK moment of our generation. Everyone will remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news.

I was walking with my girlfriend, now wife, to class and a friend of her call her on her cell phone to let her know. I sort of laughed it off saying something like "Someone has been reading too many Tom Clancy novels." and then went to class. After class I went to the computer lab by Commons and saw the videos and realized it was much bigger than what was shared with us by her friend. Later on we went to a prayer service.

I was driving to the Rec Center to work out, listening to 103.9. Bill Kaufman came on and said that one of the WTC towers had been hit, possibly by a small plane.

I lived in Bryan and was at the intersection of Villa Maria and Briarcrest. By the time I got to campus, he was reporting that it had been a jetliner.

As I walked into the Rec Center, I could see a large crowd of people in front of the big screen TV in the juice bar/cafe. As I was walking up to the desk to check in I looked over at the TV right when the second plane hit.

Classes were canceled, and I went home and watched the news all day.

There are people old enough now who ask, "what was life like before 9/11?". I tell them that there was a lot more optimism in America. That attack did exactly what those who hate America wanted it to do: demoralize us. I still don't think we've recovered.

When I heard a plane flew into the WTC I pictured a Cessna type.

Was a fish in the Corps at A&M. I was sitting in my room pretending to study or something when an upperclassman yelled that a plane just hit the WTC and to get to an upperclassman's room to watch the news. Figured it was a puddle jumper that got lost in the fog or something, so thought it was strange they wanted us to watch. Obviously that thought changed as soon as I saw the tv, then the second plane hit.

Like Slicer said, it's a day that everyone will remember what they were doing, before and after.

I was going on a jog with a buddy. Listening to Paul Harvey as I was about to get out of the car. Said a plane hit one of the towers. Exact thought, a small plane

Later as we jogged by a motorcycle cop and he asked if we had heard a second plane hit, I knew instantly

At work at the rec center. I remember seeing the second plane hit live on the air.

I was taking a nap on the couch in my dorm room after that morning's Aggie band practice before my 1st class that day. My ole lady suddenly flings the door open hollering to turn the TV on because we had just been attacked. Classes got cancelled and everyone that had a TV had underclassmen in their rooms watching the chaos unfold.

Was a captain for UsAirways. 2nd day of a 4 day trip. Departed LaGuardia for Buffalo 32 min before the first strike. Diverted to Rochester.

I worked at an equity trading desk and had many tvs on the wall. I was experiencing it "real-time" as they used to say with live scenes all day long. I had a colleague who worked in the World Trade Center for Cantor Fitzgerald that I talked to every week. I called him after the first report in disbelief, his phone number just kept ringing. Cantor was the company who I believe lost the most employees. I also remember friends traveling were stuck all over the country as the airline industry was scrambling for days.

I was dropping my stepson off at kindergarten and the 7:55 news on the radio mentioned a plane had hit the WTC. No other details at the time. I assumed that it was a Cesna or small plane lost in fog or something.

I then went to visit a customer and heard that another plane hit the other tower, I went home after that and watched the coverage.

I remember walking through the commons that morning after my first class and wondering why the TV rooms were PACKED with people. Stopped with a friend and we stayed and watched pretty much all morning. A memory that will never leave my brain

In DFW hotel, assembling my team to go to breakfast, then heading to the AT&T head-end to install switches and echo-cancellation equipment. One of my guys, who was always late to assemble, was sitting in his room, shocked while watching the 9/11 events unfold. I went up to get him and asked him to put a fire under it. He just sat there gobsmacked. I looked at his TV...and then the shock hit me.

I called my team upstairs and told them to park it in their rooms while I tried to get hold of our PoC. I couldn't get hold of them. Cell service was almost impossible. Me and another guy went to the customer and all of our equipment was put outside the head-end...we we're not allowed in...they shut it down. Less than a month prior, we were performing the same work at AT&T (Golden Boy) in lower Manhattan.

We were based out of Columbus, OH. Stuck in DFW for almost a week...no planes or car rentals available. I called my dad in Abilene and asked if he and my mom could rent a van in Abilene then bring it to Dallas. Mom and Dad pulled through and we had a long, weird trip back to Ohio. By November, everyone had pulled their contracts and we were looking for new jobs.

Strange and dark days...

I was 2 weeks into job in San Diego. That morning my alarm went off and the local rock jocks were talking about a plane crash. Small aircraft at first and then they said it was an airliner.

So I jump out and go to the living room to turn on the tube TV. I yelled for my roommates (I was always first up) and they walked out in time to see the 2nd plane crash

Not knowing what to do, I went I to work on the waterfront of San Diego Bay. As I was driving west doen the hill to the water I saw every Navy warship that could get underway hauling ass out to sea. Which they never do because of the wake they create.

Across from my office tied up at North Island Naval Station were 2 carrier, each has 2 reactors. On the north end of the bay is where the fast attack subs are, each with their own reactor.

Then it was called Lindberg Field and zero commercial airliners were moving and F-18s were flying figure 8's over the Bay and up to Miramar. You could hear the roar of their engines.

At this time the I ternet was not nearly robust as it is now and all traffic was basically stalled. So we just listened to the radio for updates. As we thought we were under attack I did not want to be 2 miles away from high value targets. Nothing got done and they kept us there all day.

On the drive home every overpass had people with American flags waving them.

Never forget. Screw the tinfoil crowd.

When I got to Zachry for my first class of the day (ENGR 212), a classmate told me about it. The classroom had Internet-connected laptops, so we spend the whole class trying to look up news online. All the sites were overloaded and took ages to come up.

Was working in the heart of the muslim district, the south end of Paterson, NJ. Also where 6 of the terrorists originated. Watched it unfold from the top of our building which faced NYC.

The tension in Paterson was enormous, but the mayor kept it locked down. Police everywhere, the mosque had 24hr guards for over one year.

A motorcycle group of about 50 guys were coming southbound down Rt 23 to Rt 80 on their way to Paterson to bash some muslim skull three days later, but the state police headed them off just short of their destination. It would have gotten pretty ugly there. Never made the news, but a friend witnessed it.

One odd observation, on Main St which runs right through the muslim district, I saw almost every shop had an American flag flying. It had nothing to do with patriotism. It had everything to do with hoping anyone looking to riot would move on to another place, kind of like lamb's blood on the doorways in Moses' time. But props to the mayor and police keeping things from getting out of hand.

Weird place to be the days following.

My entire career, I have been an early arriver to the office, typically getting in between 6 and 7 in the morning. That day was no different, although it was probably closer to 7 as I was in a carpool at the time. During our commute, we were blissfully unaware of anything going on because we weren't listening to the radio. So I get into the office, the American General tower at Waugh and Allen Parkway in Houston and ready myself for my day.

At that point I overheard someone else (not one of my carpoolers) say something about a plane hitting the WTC. My immediately thought is a Cessna or similar very small airplane. Another overheard comment about the crash, and I then remembered a story from the late 40s of a B-25 bomber flying through bad weather in NYC and crashing into the Empire State Building. Still, I'm not terribly interested in what's going on (which is odd given my love of aviation, particularly military aviation).

Finally, another gal comes in talking about having seen the jet liner crash into the WTC on TV before she left to come to the office, and I guess that really got my attention. I tried to pull it up on a website (CNN) but that page would not load. I switched to the Houston Chronicle's web site, where I was greeted with a photograph of a huge fireball blowing out from the WTC. Much of what happened over the next few hours is a blur now, but there are two things that I will remember for the remainder of my time here on Earth: (1) I was staring at a database schema that I had hanging on my office wall when I heard on the radio that the tower had collapsed - that schema is burned into my mind's eye, I can still see the column connections and constraints and all that database stuff; and (2) I called my dad and asked if he was watching the news - he said he was watching something else - I must not have had control of my voice real well, but basically yelled that he needed to turn Matlock off and turn on the news, we're going to war! That comment was heard by everyone around me and even resulted in some nervous laughter.

I have had a life-long fascination with all things WWII. It was on this day that I gained a clearer understanding of my maternal grandfather's hatred of the Japanese. I had a surface level understanding before 9/11/01, but on this day, I understood at a gut level. December 7 had resulted in him losing early years with his daughter, my mom, pulling him away from his young family because of treachery from a foreign nation. While I did not have to go kill Muslims as my grandfather had to go kill Japs, I believe I would have signed up had I been a few years younger.

I was sitting in a cafeteria at USAA in San Antonio where I worked drinking coffee. Surreal!

Working in Poplarville, MS working on a project. One of the guys came in and said someone flew an airplane into the World Trade Center. I remember thinking that someone must have flown a small airplane into it, because something similar had happened a couple of weeks before. We had a small tv at the office, so we turned it on and saw the second plane hit and the buildings come down. We debated what to do for the rest of that day, and around noon two of us decided to go out and get some work done.
The oddest thing I remember about that day was how all the cable channels went dark. We tried to rent a movie from the local video store, but the shelves were wiped clean.

woke up to alarm clock around 8:30 talking about world trade center being struck by planes.

i had been there two year prior but did not know what they were called. when the radio started talking about the Space Needle being on lockdown it made a lot of sense.

didnt call parents, just kind of watched the TV. Went to my 12:45 Oceanography 202 class and it had been canceled. watched TV rest of day.

,

My daughter, was the assistant to the secretary of HUD, called me asking if I heard of planes hitting world trade... while we were talking , she said dad hold on. About a minute later she got back on line crying and saying there's smoke coming from the pentagon I can see it from the window. I told to get somewhere fast. She called back in about 5 minutes saying a group of were headed to a guy's house which was fairly close.
Couldn't get a hold of her for about 5 hours when she finally called and said they were all OK.

First day they reopened the skies to fly I flew to DC to be with her. There only about 15 people on a plane that probably sat a 140. A defense contractor and sat in very back of plane so we could keep an eye on everyone.

Every September 11th at 8:30 am i call my daughter. Today made the 24th call

I was feeding my 2 month old, (fightin' aggie class of '23) and my husband called me. He said hey buddy, I think my deployment orders are about to change. (he was headed to south America).
They did and it was a busy, sad next 20 years.

What a horrible day. I was working at KSAT Airport when the news broke out. As a native New Yorker, l immediately tried calling my family in Queens, but for hours the phone lines were jammed and all I got was a busy signal. I will never forget the relief I felt when I finally got through to them but then the hurt l felt after the realization that thousands of my fellow Americans were killed in the attacks that day and things will never be the same.

Found out later in the day that my BIL, who works near Wall Street, had to walk home from Manhattan to Queens because of the traffic and closing of the subways and tunnels.

The silence at KSAT airport was so eerie.....it oddly made it difficult to focus.

I will never forget.

I will also never forget how, for the next few days, we all stood and prayed together, flew our flags, and grieved.

Polevaulter63 said:

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I was sitting in a cafeteria at USAA in San Antonio where I worked drinking coffee. Surreal!

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You had a great gig! I didn't know USAA had paid coffee drinkers.

I was headed into a company safety meeting.

I was at Ft. Hood. Watched the plane hit the second tower, shocked.

I was the GM of Freebirds on Shepherd/59 in Houston. I was driving in an turned on 610am expecting to hear sports news. My 20min drive in, I still didn't fully have a good understanding of what happened as it was mostly callers venting to hosts without much context. Surely I'm not hearing corretly that an airplane hit a building??? Got to the restaurant and opend up CNN. Was a slow, very silent, sad day.

Spent 4 1/2 years in Iraq and Afghanistan

Mourn those who died

But never forget that those who committed 9-11 are back in charge in Afghanistan.

The next 9-11 will be much much worse

Red White and Blue out images floating through my head

I remember it was clear and less humid, just like today....
Was listening to sports talk in Houston, John and Lance were interviewing Ken Hatfield.
I was turning left, they were going to commercial and one of the guys said hey coach turn on your TV.
No Coach Slocum on a mobile that day.
The station switched to the ABC feed .....

Slicer97 said:

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I was repairing fence for a ranch just north of Bryan. Went to the truck at 0900 to turn the radio on for the morning sports talk show. I didn't hear or think very much about sports the rest of that day.

This is the JFK moment of our generation. Everyone will remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news.

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I was working in my first job after law school at the US Department of Commerce, across Freedom Plaza from the Treasury Building and then the White House south portico.

back in that day one coworker had a black and white tv (!!) on her desk and showed me the first plane hitting. I said no way was that a "small private aircraft" as had been first reported.

back in the day before smart phones and IPHONEs, I had a portable discman AM/FM player with headphones.

I walked over to the White House because there was smoke coming up from the Old Executive Office Building (this was the Pentagon strike but blocked by other buildings from my vantage point)

at the White House the Secret Service were shouting for everyone to run away as another plane was inbound (this turned out to be an F-16)

this is what it looked like:



you can see one flip phone, old style camera, no smart phones.

I had to walk back to my apartment across the Mall to Southwest DC. that night there were armed HUMVEES all over. then the ANTHRAX attacks began at my local post office a week or two later.