Where were you on 9/11?

[Kwiz]

In light of the upcoming five-year anniversary of the attacks, where were you when the news reached you?

For me it seems like this all happened a long time ago - a mere five years gets inflated when it's a whole third of your lifetime. I was in fifth grade, at an elementary school here in northern California, and didn't actually hear about the incident until after 12:00 noon Pacifc time. Later on I found myself rather angry that my school withheld the information for hours - although they must have been confirming the news before letting it out to the students.

I remember our teacher leaving the classroom suddenly, and chatter started ensuing. When she returned, she was accompanied by a school administrator who started drawing diagrams on the whiteboard to get everyone's attention. She kept having to repeat that this was serious, that a handful of commercial airliners had been hijacked and flown into both the World Trade Center in Manhattan and the Pentagon (my school apparently wasn't aware of the crash in Shanksville yet). It was pretty surreal at first; I kept having this dull feeling that today would mark a notable turn in history, but my joking classmates actually made me laugh once or twice.

When I got home and saw the CNN footage being re-run, I was absolutely bewiledered and unsure how to feel. Later that night, the mere concept that someone could be insane enough to self-righteously fly a loaded 767 into a massive building - to devote their life to the planning of such an attack - made me break down and cry.

[Random]

Art class ;P
The next day we all drew postcards of it. Being young tykes, all our postcards were gory. Three quarters of the class got detention to redraw a more tasteful version.
edit: including me

[羽之助]

First year university, at breakfast. The cafeteria ladies were talking about how some buildings in New York were on fire, hit by a plane; my friend and I said "They're still drunk from the night before" and continued eating.

[MeneerDijk]

I worked at a computer-company at the time. I was at a client together with my boss. We were installing network printers when my friend called me on my cell. He sounded a bit panicy and was telling me about planes hitting buildings. I had a WTF? moment. There was no radio in the office i was working at, so we just kept working. On the way back we turned on the carradio and heard about what happened. That evening i came home and turned on CNN. ME and my mom kept watching it for the rest of the evening.

[Cool Bones]

I remember it only because everybody keeps talking about it. I was sleeping at school and the secretary said in the intercom with a panicked voice that two planes crashed in the world trade center then I went back to sleep.

[Citizen]

English class. I was asleep. I got woken up when the TV got turned on. I looked at the TV, saw what was going on, decided I wasn't interested and went back to sleep.

[Jon885]

music class. some girl started crying, because her baby was in daycare. she must've thought terrorists were attacking every city in the US.

[Spaatz965]

I was living in Orlando, Florida at the time and telecommuting out of my house. Had the Today show on in the living room. Wife and young son (was born that May) were around and about somewhere. TV caught my attention as I was walking from my office to the kitchen for a coffee refill. Spent the next three hours or so trying to get a hold of co-workers in western New York to make sure they were aware of what was going on...that and watching in morbid fascination...

[DizBukHaPeter]

I was in my 6th grade world history class, 2nd period when the announcement came up on the pa system, it was pretty brief, by the time we heard all the attacks had occured. So throughout the day parents came to get their kids, but my parents couldnt be bothered to get my outta class, so bummer

[fa11en87]

I was at home sleeping. My dad was watching tv and told me what happened. I just went on and got ready for school.

[sakana]

My mom worked at the school that I went to at the time and so I didn't have to take the bus. We were listening to the radio on the way to school when I first heard about it and I didn't think that it was anything big. The DJ made it out like it was a small 4 person plane.

When I got into my classroom the TV was on. That's when I first realized how serious it was. Our teacher told us a little about it and pulled out a map to show Afghanistan and all of that stuff.

My sister is a year older than me and was in the middle school. The administrators decided to say nothing about it except to the kids who had family involved in it.

[Kwiz]

So throughout the day parents came to get their kids, but my parents couldnt be bothered to get my outta class, so bummer

You know, what bothered me most about the immediate aftermath was that people were actually so scared of another terrorist threat that they could justify pulling their kids out of school. I know of one guy in my fifth grade class whose mother kept him at home for a week.

[seiji]

Eleventh grade. Chemistry, if I recall correctly. We were in little groups pretending to do some generic assignment when we suddenly noticed the teacher wasn't in the room. Someone went out in the hall to look for her and came running back saying some planes flew into the twin towers and exploded. Now, considering half the population of my town is employed by one airline or another, it's perfectly understandable that the entire school was freaked the fuck out. We turned on the tv and were trying to get past the school's closed-cable system when the teacher came rushing back in, turned it off, and told us to get back to work.
Uh-huh.
Then the bells rang for class change, and everybody ran for their next class in hopes the teacher would be out of the room and they could watch five minutes of news to find out what the hell was going on. I happened to have the "cool" Spanish teacher, so we abandoned lesson plans, posted sentries, and tuned her boombox to news radio. We learned the planes were United, and all the Delta kids breathed a huge sigh of relief. The United kids whose parents were currently out flying...well...

One of my good friends just sat there in shock. We eventually found out that her mother, a United flight attendant, was actually scheduled to be on one of the hijacked flights, but traded schedules at the last minute with a friend.

I don't remember anything else until I got home and watched CNN for two hours straight.

[Nebosuke]

I was in my dorm. My roommates were in the habit of watching the morning news while getting ready for classes, so we happened to be watching the whole thing live from the first reports of hijackings. I remember hearing someone scream in the dorm building when reports (and later actual footage) of planes hitting the WTC came in. Some of the students were from NY and had friends/relatives working in the WTC. It all seemed very surreal.

[Shamu]

I was fighting off morning sickness and trying to get ready to go train horses. I was watching NBC news and standing in front of the tv, when the second plane hit. Being pregnant at the time, I panicked and tried to get my (now ex) husband to stay home from work with me, but he couldn't. I spent the rest of the day watching the news.
Then I remember later in the day, that I had walk the dogs, so took them out, kind of in a daze from everything that had happened and looked up to see AirForce One going from the bunker in Nebraska back to D.C. (I lived in Illinois at the time) and the only reason I knew it was the President was because there were no other planes/jets allowed to fly at the time and the path would have been just right. It was really eirie. Freaked me out even more. Not sure why though. The horses never did get out that day, but there was a horse show the next day that they decided not to cancel to "show the terrorists we weren't affraid" and everyone just kinda sat on there horses like zombies. No one really felt like being there, even the horses seemed to pick up on the attitude and weren't performing very well.
It was really odd and everything seemed so quiet for days. No one seemed to want to do anything but watch the endless coverage on tv of the aftermath.
I wrote in my daughter's baby book a few days later, a letter to her explaining what happened when she was "in mommy's tummy" so she can read someday about what happened and how things changed after that.

[Soli]

I was in 3rd grade, I think. In gym class at the end of the day. The guidence counsler was going around telling us that people were blowing up a school in washington. :( They didn't get their information right.

Later that night I was sent to my room for making too much noise while my parents were trying to watch the news. Pfft, their fault for getting me a noisy present!

[Jetsetlemming]

8th grade english class. A student came in and told the teacher, and we turned on the TV and watched cable news until class was over, and did the same thing in the next one. We all went home early at noon because of it. We didn't hear about the crash in Shanksville either, though that was really fairly close (about 1/2 an hour away) to my school.

[Neon Pink Shoehorn]

I was in Latin class when i heard about the world trade center, and on the bus to music school when I heard about the Pentagon, which worried me... my boyfriend's uncle was working there. They found out later that the plane that had crashed there hit the building squarely where his office was. There's a memorial for him at the High School here.

I had gone to Austrailia about a month and a half before the attacks; the first leg of the air journey was Flight 175, Boston to LA. I checked later, It had the same tail number. I had the ticket stub framed, but I don't display it...

BTW, none of the planes used on 9/11 were 747s, the two that hit the WTC were both 767s, and both the one that crashed into the Pentagon and in Penslyvania were 757s.

I guess, that's all I have to say...

[Druid]

Hmm? Well, I was sleeping. And then me Stepmum came downstairs and said that we were under attack. It was...strange.

[Mittens]

At home, watching TV. I thought it was a movie. When I realised it was real I was like 'Holy shit, this footage is da BOMB'. Morbid Fascination (as someone above me said).

I know its really fucked up to say this, but I love watching that footage. Its so surreal, I still find it hard to believe it happened. Simply the scale of the whole thing was of magnificent proportions (and I love daydreaming about catastrophies happening in biblical and planetary proportions, so I spose that shows why i like the footage)

[Kwiz]

BTW, none of the planes used on 9/11 were 747s, the two that hit the WTC were both 767s, and both the one that crashed into the Pentagon and in Penslyvania were 757s.

Whups, guess I never confirmed what model line those United jets belonged to. OP edited accordingly.

[Druid]

Hmm...But every now and then I get a large desire to destroy those who planned this...to behead each and everyone, and watch them fall. It would be such a wonderful thing to watch all of their stations fall burning to the ground, to hear across the airwaves that all of their great leaders, those doing the work of God, were disappearing one by one. To see every last member cower in their homes, contemplating if they would be next. Ahh, but we can dream can't we? Got to worry about the little things for right now, I suppose.

[trckstr]

I grew up in a town in NJ about 30 minutes out from the city, so a lot of people from my town worked in NY. In fact there's a stretch of highway on a hill where you used to be able to see the twin towers. I was in AP Chem senior year of high school when another teacher came in and said she heard a plane hit the WTC. We really didn't react much at the time because we assumed with was a small cessna since the only thing we could find online were 2 line blurbs saying a plane hit the WTC. We didn't even for a second imagine it would have been a hijacked jet. Then the teacher came in again and said another plane hit the WTC, and we started wondering WTF was going on. I went to my next class still not knowing that passenger jets were used, but my photography teacher said we should ignore the news and just have class as usual. It wasn't until 4th period calc that my math teacher told us what was going on, and threw on cnn just in time to see the first tower collapse. I spent 5th period lunch trying to reach my aunt who worked in the WTC, but of course no one was getting through to anywhere with the amount of people trying to make cell phone calls. My parents called me later in the afternoon to let me know she was fine. Some of the students drove out to that stretch of highway during lunch and said all they could see on the city line was a ton of smoke. After school I decided I needed a distraction and went running for a couple hours, but whereever I went I was reminded of what happened. I would see people out on their lawns trying to call family, or the first few trains arriving that were finally allowed to leave NYC and bring people home. The next day I found out five people from our town died in the attacks. One of them was my friend's dad. It was all very surreal at the time, and even now I'm still saddened, confused, and angered by the whole thing.

[tweek.3867]

I was in seventh grade homeroom. It was all extremely hush hush at first, but finally at around 11:30 they pulled everyone into their homerooms and discussed it with their classmates / teachers. About a quarter of the school was picked up early by their parents, and we didn't do anything for the rest of the day, just talked. I guess they were just worried most of the kids wouldn't understand what happened and wanted to make sure everyone knew (it was middle school... younger kids, for the most part).

[TommyA]

I was on the phone with the ex, telling her how I was getting rdy for a job interview that morning and then my mom told me a plane accidently crashed into one of the towers, so my ex turned to watch it too. I was walking between my kitchen and my room while on the phone and I hear my ex and my mom yell and scream at the same time! I run to my tv because they weren't making any sense and all I can see and hear on the news is chaos. Then I make out from a news announcer that another plane just hit the OTHER tower! I became glued to the TV during this time. I still did my interview and rushed home to get back to TV. During that interview, there was a TV on next to us so we could be updated. Weird interview, but I got the job...

My boss called me to say to stay home because I worked near Disneyland and across from Anaheim stadium, and they evacuated those areas. I just went home and read websites and watched the news until like 2AM 9/12. Scary day indeed...

[Plekto]

At home. I was astounded that the emergency people were running into that mess. There was no way they could deal with it, and it was pretty obvious what was most likely to happen once enough of it had burned.

But yelling at the TV for people to get out of there kind of does little good. Sigh.

[bay]

well its odd every gen seems to have its tragedy... this city sux not anyway near safe but supposed great place to live hmm odd im saying what they wanted... meant darn bureaucracy die!


P.S. no insult intended but i'd say what matters is how one reacts to these things not merely where your physical being was at a point in time..

[Mechs]

I was at middle school. I didn't find out about it until I got home around and saw my mom watching the clips of the first and second plane hitting the WTC on CNN.

[Josh]

I was in 7th grade. 2nd period Science with Mrs. Calhoun. I had heard about it right after second actually, but I didnt believe it at all, and I actually joked about it with some other friends who didnt believe it either. Then I got home and my mom was watching TV and she explained it to me. I was pretty freaked out, I mean, really. Must've watched 3 days worth of news before I went to sleep again.

That was the first time I had cried since I was in the 3rd grade and the last time I cried since. So sad.

[erbiumfiber]

I grew up on Long Island and watched them BUILD the twin towers (no one called them the World Trade Center). When the planes hit, I lived 8 miles from the Pentagon. Had the day gone as planned, I would have had a celebration at work for the two patents of ours that issued that day, then driven exactly past where the plane went into the Pentagon on the way to the Patent Office. There were TVs next door (cable company) and we watched from there. The Washington area was TOTALLY FREAKED OUT. My daughter's school handed out rosaries and they prayed until their parents picked them up.

My mother is a teacher's aide in a Northern VA school and when she heard the news that the towers had fallen, she told them they were mistaken- the twin towers don't just FALL.

I could see the smoke from the Pentagon from my mother's condo building.

My ex-husband lives 1/2 mile from the Pentagon and works at a nearby highrise.

Many people from my town were on the plane that hit the Pentagon.

One kid in the local schools lost BOTH parents that day.

The local paper was filled with obituaries for weeks.

We were pretty devastated because our deep ties to NY and living 8 miles from Pentagon ground zero.

[CrazyAce86]

I was in eighth grade. Just ten days earlier I had lost my grandfather, so I was already an emotional wreck.

That day was a Career Day, so my entire class went to the local American Legion to check out different careers. I was wandering around by myself when the radio guy announced that he had just heard that a plane had crashed into the WTC. He didn't know what kind, so we all just assumed it was a small plane, since that's happened before. (Not WTC, but other buildings in NYC.) We just looked at each other for few minutes, then went on about our business.

When we arrived back at the school, everyone was quiet. I may have gone to a small school, but SF was never that quiet unless something really bad happened. There was about twenty minutes left of the period, so we all went to those classes and were excused from being late.

It was my math class. It was tiny, and since most of the class had been out (it was various grades, but mostly eight), no one was doing any work. My teacher had turned on CNN for everyone to watch. I sat down, looked up, and was immediately greeted with the towers falling.

I was worried about my father, a truck driver who was on the Jersey side of NYC. Later that night we got ahold of him and he told us he was on his way home, completely fine. All day that day, though, we kept watching the towers fall. I remember everyone just looking at each other, wondering. Who did this? Why? Now what? What do we do? What can we do?

I think it my family a little harder, because a good many of them are volunteer firefighters. After we learned about 343, we just broke down. My father has a book commemorating them. I can't look at it without crying.

Ironically, I'm listening to "Shine Your Light" by Robbie Robertson as I type this.

[Yachiru]

I was at home watching dragon ball Z and then all off a sudden the tv screen changed into a news channel and I saw a plane fly in to a building and heard screaming people. I couldn't believe it and thought it was a joke from DBZ-hating parents and then I started to switch channels and the news about the WTC was everywhere. At that point I started realising it was for real. I kept watching CNN and Dutch news Channels untill my mommy got home from work and grocery shopping.

[Jetsetlemming]

They interrupted the normal broadcasting for the news of the wtc attack? I don't think they even did that here.... >_>

[Yachiru]

They interrupted the normal broadcasting for the news of the wtc attack? I don't think they even did that here.... >_>

They did it here in the Netherlands.

[Spaatz965]

Touched base with my wife last night...need to revise. She had turned on the weather channel...they interrupted TWC with footage of the twin towers. That's how we originally found out. Then switched to a network and watched morbidly.

[Cherub Rock]

I was in weight training class, first period I believe. We had on the radio and they mentioned it but we did not know what happened and honestly, no one cared. I sort of had a vague idea that something happened, but all I knew was World Trade Center. I guess it was too loud for us to hear, and I think someone put on a CD so we never caught the end of the news.

Then I got to my advanced Chem class with my really tight ass teacher. Someone told me what happened and I said we needed to watch the news. She wouldn't let us. So I ended up notreally figuring out what happened until lunch, and I didn't see it till the end of the day.

[The Republic]

I was in my dad's car on the way to football practice in the morning in 7th grade. I remember I heard it on NPR, and told everybody in the locker room that something serious happened. Several other guys soon showed up late, too, and confrimed my story. I went to German 1st period and we watched the TV in there for a few hours then I guess we went home. I do remember fighting back tears when the tower 2 collapsed. I was, probobly, just barely mature enough to handle it.

[setrict]

I was at work doing my morning routine of webcomics, slashdot, and fark.com. When I went to fark the most recent headline was a newsflash about the first plane hitting, with just a few comments. I thought it must be a joke, but then I turned on the TV and found out otherwise. I spent the next few hours watching the events unfold on TV, and via the fark comments. The world just kind of stopped. I didn't have any customers that day, and only a couple of calls.

[4letterwords]

I was in 9th grade in Algebra class taking a test about something stupid... I cant really remember if I watched the News in that class or the next, but I know I got an A on the test.

[Icer]

I was in grade 8 in English class and then in our next 2 periods the teacher let us listen to the coverage on the radio

[ellie]

It was during morning Break, sophomore year in high school. I was walking through the halls when I saw my friend Will. He told me that someone had bombed the twin towers in NYC. I was just like, WTF? I entered my 3rd period classroom, which was an advanced geography course. Our teacher told us what had really happened. He also explained that there was a "media blackout" at our school and all of the schools in the county, and that we were supposed to turn off the TV and the computer. He knew the importance of it, though, and locked his classroom door and turn the TV on for us. We were watching as the 2nd plane hit.

After school, I went downtown with one of my friends. We went to our favorite coffee shop, and sat outside and drank lattes and talked about what happened. It was such a beautiful, crystal blue day. It was so surreal to us. I was wearing a navy blue shirt with a beach scene on the front, and blue and red sneakers and blue jeans. That was real to me, but it was hard to accept what had happened to the USA as real. It was too far away.

We went back to my house. We sat on the brown sofa in the parlor, we watched CNN. My dad came home, he sat with us. We watched all night, although it was basically the same thing being repeated over, and over.

[PiccoloNamek]

I was at home sleeping. My mom woke me up and just after that I saw the second plane hit live.

[Pierrot le Fou]

I was a senior at college, and I had fallen asleep watching CNN like a good little Poli Sci major should. I woke up at around 9 for my 11:20am class, only to see one of the twin towers spewing smoke, and just in time to see the second plane collide with the second tower. I wondered if I hadn't actually woken up yet, because it was just so surreal. I was in Hartford, CT, and so many people there had relatives in NYC and the WTC, and it was horrible. People kept trying to call through to NYC to reach family, but couldn't, blind panic, people sobbing all across campus.

Utterly awful few days. Since I was in mostly poli sci courses, we'd just talk about it in class. Don't know if that helped at all.

[harper]

We had just finished 1st hour at 9:15 when I found out from a student during passing time that a plane hit one of the towers. I turned on the tv and we watched the coverage for a good part of the morning during my other classes. I think we went ahead with regular lessons during the afternoon since there wasn't any new information, but it was a fairly somber atmosphere.

[NERD]

Was in an art class, I don't remember if I watched the second plane hitting the twin tower live. The class was talking about how this event would be one where we would go back and recognize it as the moment a part of our reality changed abruptly, like JFK/MLK/Lennon assassinations.

To this day it's hard for me to recognize this event in its entirety- because of people still not able to recognize the cause of the event, as evidenced by numerous conspiracy theories, not to mention the effects caused by 9/11- be that politics, religions, and so on.

[Agent Vesago]

I was watching Incredible Hulk reruns on the Sci-Fi channel when it happened.
I went to bed shortly after and found out about it when I got to work that night.

[Psychochink]

I'm apparently a terrible cynic. I turned on the TV after the first one hit and saw the second one. I never thought it was an accident - my first reactions were "I'm surprised it's taken this long" (for a major terrorist attack, not the WTC specifically) and "The U.S. is going to use this as an excuse to go to war."

Am I a heartless bastard? Perhaps. It's kind of like the plight of poor, starving kiddies in Africa - It's half a world away, I can't really muster up much empathy. Oh, I might sponsor a child through World Vision, but I can't say I really care all that much. Same for the WTC, my immediate thoughts were of the political ramifications.

[DrMikeWolf]

I was in 6th grade in English when the principal called the teacher out in the hall. My teacher came back with a constipated look on his face and told us that one of the WTC had had a plane crashed into it. Being from Louisianal.... a half the class replied with, "What's the WTC?" My teacher sighed and told us to not worry about it. Well, I knew what was going on and decided much mind to it and went back to picking at the guy in front of me. After half of the school was checked out by their parents all of the faculty decided to not give us any work, so we just watched the news in every class and watched in shock as one of the towers came tumbling to ground. On a lighter not, it was pretty fun day, we got to chill outside for about 2 hours. Better than being inside doing work..

[seiji]

I've noticed that a lot of people who heard that airplanes crashed, but didn't hear what kind, assumed they were small prop planes, while all of us whose parents work for commercial airlines immediately assumed they were passenger jets, and people with Air Force connections (and those of us airline kids whose dads were military pilots before they went commercial) thought of military jets. Interesting.

[erbiumfiber]

I'm apparently a terrible cynic. I turned on the TV after the first one hit and saw the second one. I never thought it was an accident - my first reactions were "I'm surprised it's taken this long" (for a major terrorist attack, not the WTC specifically) and "The U.S. is going to use this as an excuse to go to war."

Yeah, I figured we'd head to war as well. But never in a million years did I think Bush would use it as an excuse to attack Iraq. And I'm pretty cynical. However, it was clear by about mid-2002, not having found Bin Laden, George Bush's tiny little attention span had been pulled towards something else...

[sushi]

I had just come home from school and turned cartoons on but the news broadcast was on instead. They kept replaying the planes crashing into the towers.

[ruaidhri]

Where was I? Blinded by the illusion of security. Like everyone, I got up in the morning and started my day. While at work someone stuck their head in my office and told me that a plane had hit the WTC. I didn’t think we were under attack from terrorists. I honestly thought a small plane had hit the building. I continued working in my office with the door closed.

Then, I decided to take a break and check what was happening with the small plane. I signed on to CNN and my false security evaporated in an instant. I left my office for a conference room that had a TV and found it crowded with employees all watching the horrible events unfold. There was shock, tears, fear, anger and calls for retribution.

It was hard to work that day. I had so much to complete that I couldn’t spend my entire day watching the news. Perhaps the work somewhat calmed me as it forced me think about something else.

This wasn’t my first time in communal shock. I was too young for Pear Harbor but I can so remember the shock and sorrow of President Kennedy’s assassination. I knew John Kennedy from the 1960 election. I knew his family. I was so idealistic and hopeful for the future. I was in the Coast Guard when Kennedy was assassinated and everyone was walking around with tears. Then, within a few years, so many assassinations followed that it woke me to the realities of the world.

But, I forgot while the majority rules, all it takes is a few to change the course of history. A few terrorists attacked America. Then, unable to locate and punish the primary perpetrator, our President did something I never expected. He attacked a sovereign nation in an area of the world where it may be easy to win a battle but impossible to win a war.

Today, I don’t feel at all secure.

[Zolmaster]

I'm from South Africa and I remember I came home from school in grade 12, and hadnt heard anything about it. Then my sister and mother were glued to the TV and I wondered wtf was going on. So I sat for about an hour watching the events being replayed on CNN. My last words after bitching and complaining about the US going to war and that someone was going to get fucked up.

"War, huh, good god yowl."

Then I went upstairs and played games for a while thinking about how my world might be changed by events thousands of miles away from me...thankfully my life was not directly effected by the attacks. Almost makes me glad to live in South Africa...well we might as well be a warzone anyway crime being as bad as it is here.

[Vic_Rattlehead]

I was on my way home from school. I think I remember phoning some of my friends and telling them to put the news on etc.

It's really strange how this shocked the world at such a level. I guess in some respects, there is still love around the world when it comes to the mass murdering of innocent hard working individuals.

: off topic :
I mean...did anybody outside the UK even care about the London bombings?

[Black Dog]

I was in American history class. When suddenly another teacher came in and said a plane had crashed into the WTC. At first I just thought it was some jackass that didn't know how to fly.

After class, I went straight home with my friend to watch the news. CNN and CBC for the next few hours.

[setrict]

I mean...did anybody outside the UK even care about the London bombings?

Here in the US we had a lot of media coverage of the London bombings, and people here definately paid attention. There was a lot talk about how much the cctv cameras helped in identifying the people responsible, and respect with how the situation was handled (aside from the poor guy who got shot mistakenly).

I think people in many countries take notice of tragedies like the bombings because they can directly relate to the event. It's the same with the recent crash of the Russian jet where people here mourned the loss of life not necessarily because we knew the passengers, but because we've all flown or had friends and family who fly and can relate in some way to the event.

I'm not sure whether it's love or empathy, but atleast it's not hate or apathy!

[Tibs]

I was at school. I heard it on the radio in a card shop. I can't remember why I was getting a card, but It's probably someone's birthday coming up that I've forgot about this year.

Woops.

[Jetsetlemming]

I mean...did anybody outside the UK even care about the London bombings?
Yes. The Madrid train bombings as well. I know a couple people from Spain personally that had family in Madrid, and didn't hear whether they're loved ones were ok for a day after the bombings because of the confusion and panic. :(

[Orclover]

: off topic :
I mean...did anybody outside the UK even care about the London bombings?

Actually yea, everybody I knew in Austin was pretty pissed off and empathetic to the London bombings, I tipped a few British paypal accounts here in there with "buy a drink on me" telling them to have a drink on me.

Madrid bombings, not so much. In the Spanish bombings the spainiards actually caved in and were swayed by it. The idiotic govt of course labeled the wrong people for probably the wrong reasons and thier voting public were all too ready to vote in sympathizers to the people who just bombed them.

I would personally go to war to bail out the British (or Japan) if needed, but screw spain.

[crow-kun]

P.S. no insult intended but i'd say what matters is how one reacts to these things not merely where your physical being was at a point in time..True, I was in math class doing work though. Which to be honest was more important to me. I'm pretty indifferent to matters involving death no matter what the scale or who it is, probably because I conditioned myself to believe something like this can happen at anytime anywhere to anybody. It was pretty much the same during the Oklahoma City bombing. I was in Elementary school at the time I grasped how serious it was but didn’t care in the long run.

[Treayn]

Well i was in the 6th grade at the time, the whole grade was hanging outside in the courtyard for recess. About 15 min into it, the sky turned dark grey and stuff was floating around us, ash and debris from the towers. Now as nice little 6th graders, our thoughts were, "wtf is this shit, it burns" and the adults rushed us inside. Later my history teacher told us about it. It wasnt surreal at the time, as i was too young to care, but it's ironic since my sister was working in a place called Great American Coffee, or so i think, in the lobby of the WTC a few months before the attacks. The sky was soot grey for at least a week.

[Roxie]

I remember everything about that day. I was a freshman at GSU and living at The Village (the suite like dorms we have here, the 96 Olympic Village). The sky was a cloudy, with a threat of rain, and it wasn't hot.

I woke up at 8:50, a little earlier than usual. The radio show was all laughs and jokes. I doozed off and then woke up again when I heard the alarm in their voices. The announced the first plane had hit the towers. I was shocked, but we were all still sure it had been an accident.

I went to take a shower.

I got dressed in my favorite outfit at the time. My purple "Beware of Girl" tank top, my burgandy 3/4" sleeved zip hoodie, and some light wash, nice fit jeans.

When I got back to my room, the second plane had hit and by then we KNEW it was no mistake. I went out to the living room (I had no tv in my room at that time) and it was on the news. My roomate Christine was on the phone and wasn't paying me any attention.

I got a bit crazy (inside) when I heard that a plane hit the pentagon. I was so sure we were at war. The radio dj's where just as distraught and confused as I was.

Here I was, first year of "freedom", living in the big city, ATL, home of CNN and the CDC. I was scared.

Some how I pushed along and I started walking to class. Right before I was aobut the cross the bridge, the announced the tower had collapsed.

I stopped walking. I couldn't go any further, my legs just wouldn't do it. I just sat down and looked the sky with my hands over my mouth. I just couldn't imagine.

You see, me and my highschool's marching band had just gone to NY in May of that year. We visited the financial district, but I couldn't recall seeing the towers, even though I'm sure that I did...to this day I still can't remember ever seeing them with my own eyes.

I got to class and sat down. Everyone was stunned.. The streets where full of ppl. I had no cell phone at the time. People where rushing around the halls, people where crying. You could other ppl just had no idea what to do.

Our professor cancelled classes. The University was shutting down. Atlanta could be a potential target and they wanted everyone out.

I remember being back at the dorm, trying to arrange to get to my family. There was confusion about who would take me (I had no car), where I should go (to my sisters or my mothers)...We finally got it all figured it out and I asked my roomate for a ride to the train station (which wasn't far at all, but I wanted to get there faster)...she dropped me off two blocks away cause I guess she felt she couldn't just make a u-turn, oh no, bitch.

Anyway.

I got home and watched some of the footage with my mom. When they said ppl where jumping from the building, I just couldn't do it. I got on the internet and tried to connect to #mIRC and it was stop and go...

I remember curling up on my bed...and I must've gone to sleep.




: off topic :
I mean...did anybody outside the UK even care about the London bombings?
Yes. There was lots of news coverage. It was definently a big happening and was on the cover of all the news papers, news magazines, and was the top story for a while. In fact, I know we still have the issue of Newsweek that has that as their cover story, "The London Plot"

I even tracked down my ex-b/f. He lives in London and I wanted to make sure he was still breathing, he didn't apperciate that though. :bang:

[Nannou]

i was asleep

pretty much the whole day

didn't find out until the next day >.>

[seiji]

Here I was, first year of "freedom", living in the big city, ATL, home of CNN and the CDC. I was scared.
Oh yeah, us too. As soon as the second plane hit and we knew it was no accident--not that any of us ever believed it was an accident, knowing how much time commercial pilots spend in training every year--we started thinking about how we were in a suburb of a city containing the headquarters of a major airline and a tv broadcasting empire, a vault full of biological weapons, and assorted military bases. Being smart, silly, and scared, we started fantasizing about other likely targets (Atlanta, of course), missile ranges, payloads, accuracy, current weather patterns and probable fallout regions...

[Decade]

I've always had the coldest memory of September 11 because the cruel irony of the situation was to horrible for the reality of what was happening.

I remember the exact clothes I was wearing, where I was sitting in my Senior English class and who I was talking to. And then I made a joke about the Sixth Sense and said "I see dead people." Then literally, right then and there, we were told that America was under attack and we were able to watch a live video feed of the World Trade Center.

Honestly, that memory has never left me and I feel a strong chill every time I think about what I said and what happened only seconds later; it was horribly, horribly cruel.

[Hitokage]

Eighth grade, English class. I remember watching it on that weird in-school program.

The smart kids (like I) ran down to the Art Room which was the only place with cable. We just sat in this time room (about 40 of us) and watched it most of the day.

I remember crying at some point.

[Roxie]

The next issue of Newsweek was all about September 11th (of course), and there where lots of pictures...including one where (I swear) you could see someone hanging on to building..

But what really got me was the picture of the financial district we visited. It got me b/c I remembered this statue in the courtyard we saw of this business man. It was a great statue. We looked inside his briefcase and there was paper, a calculator, etc...afterwhich we went to get some lunch.

In that Newsweek, there was a picture of that court yard on that day.....the courtyard and that statue where covered in ash as if there had been a heavy snowfall.

It was a huge point of reference for me.

Afterwards I started having dreams of being bombed in my dorm room...it really doesn't seem like 5 years at all..it feels liek yesterday.

[Kass]

Less than a mile from the Pentagon. Trying to walk out of the District because transportation was shut down. Running in terror when US Park Police came running after us yelling to get away from the bridges and buildings because another plane was headed for the capitol. that plane eventually crashed in Pennsylvania, only about 15-20 minutes flight time from DC.

[Kannon]

I kinda feel bad about how little it meant to me that day. It's literally changed every day in my life afterwards, although I live half a country away.

I had just graduated from my technical training in the Air National Guard in late July, and was re-enrolled in classes at the University of South Dakota (Vermillion). I was renting my Mom's basement at the time, and working at the local Polaris distribution center. School had just started 5 days earlier (the 6th, really late to me as the previous year I went to school at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln, which usually starts mid-August) and I had gotten up to get ready for class, and turned on the TV while I was getting dressed. I usually don't watch the news, so it was odd that I actually left in on a news channel, and in my mind as I saw the burning tower was, "Oh, somebody hit a building, that's too bad" (actual empathy, not sarcasm).

I went to class as usual, and sat there waiting for the professor to start as I noticed everyone around me was murmuring and chatting, and getting louder and louder. I really had no clue as to the magnitude of the situation. Eventually our Professor started up the projection TV and had it on the news. We watched for a few minutes before turning it off and talking about it for a bit, and were eventually released, classes cancelled for the rest of the day.

I went to class as usual for the rest of the week, still oblivious how this would affect me. During the week I talked about it off and on with family, them all realizing this could affect me in a great way, depending on the governments reaction, and if we had a country to blame and go to war with (which we obviously didn't).

Finally on Sunday, I got a call from my Chief stating I needed to report back in Lincoln for duty. A quick day of packing and a four hour drive later, and I was working 12 hour shifts at our base. Ever since here I've been, working full time at the Lincoln Air Nation Guard base (not counting my deployments). Orders are just now ending the end of this September, and I either am being deployed to the border, or over seas for a year to two years, after which I'll be back in school. Yeah, changed my life more than I ever thought it would at the time.

[blue ameko]

I had to do some counting to figure out which grade I was in at the time... but I was a junior in high school. I was in my Human Physiology class, which had just started, and we were supposed to be taking a test, but our professor forgot the scan-tron sheets. He wandered back to the teacher's office to get them when he apparently caught what was happening on the small TV in there. He returned to our room about ten minutes later and, as he was a military man prior to being a teacher, turned on the large, big-screen TV in the class (we used it to watch moves and also to follow disections) to the news channel, so we could watch what was happening. Our test was cancelled and we just sat and watched the news for the whole class.

I remember thinking that this was surreal, but I didn't know anyone in New York at the time, so it didn't really make an impact to me then. Now? Now, I have friends all over the world (thanks to this lovely internet) and I'd be terrified if something like that happened now.

I think we went on with class as usual in most of my classes, but a few allowed us to sit and watch the news, at least for a while.

I knew when it happened that it would be a "where were YOU when the planes hit the twin towers!" kind of moment, just like when Kennedy was shot. Looks like I was right.

[Stephy]

Hm... 8th grade while in Science class. It was announced over the loud speakers and the whole school was informed at the same time. I don't remember anything after.

And oh did I have such A BAD DAY on yesterday of the anninversery! :'(

[Riinuka]

I was in 7th grade, heading from Athletics to English... When we got in to class, the school was put on lockdown and all communication devices (including the P.A. system) were shut off. Because of this, the office staff used a few trusted students (me included because I knew all of the teachers, and was/am a teacher's pet) to go around to each class and tell the teachers what had happened...

[Roxie]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdD6op0l2jk

"We have not forgotten 9/11 Mr. President. You Have."

[Kannon]

Excellent speech.

[Beowulf]

I was a sophmore at West Albany High, I was just about to walk out the door to the bus stop when it came on the morning news. I was late to school.

[Trump]

I was asleep =(

Well, more dozing really. A friend IM'd me over AIM and I heard it and got up in time to see the first tower fall.

[SlickWilly440]

I was a freshman in Highschool in Texas, in my English Class listening to some talk show radio when all of a sudden they reported 2 plans hitting the towers. At first I thought they must be joking, then I was like what is the World Trade Center. Then thoughout the day, every class we watched the coverage on the news.

Then we heard that the School in Crawford, Texas was called off for the day because of a possible Terror attack (Bushe's Ranch is in Crawford).

Then I remember thoughout the whole weeks, nothing but on going coverage on the attacke 24/7.