Sly Bald Guys Forum
Various Non-Bald Discussions => General Discussion => Topic started by: warhawk on September 04, 2008, 08:28:00 PM
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hello fellow chrome domes: i can't believe that it will be 7 years since the 9-11 tragedy. i always say a prayer 4 the victims & their loved ones that they left behind. i will never 4get where i was during that tragedy. i remember like it was yesterday. at the time... i was at the barbershop (pre-sly) & everyone was "glued" 2 the tv set. that's when we witnessed the 2nd plane crash into the other tower. we R in "shock" & disbelief. it was like watching a movie only it was real. i was "glued" 2 the tv the whole day & when i saw my wife... i immediately hugged her tight & i called all my family & friends 2 let them know that i loved them.
so... how 'bout U? where were U during 9-11? do U remember it like it was yesterday? also... 2 my sly brothers who do not live in the good ole USA... what were your thoughts of that day? what's your story?
WARHAWK O0
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Yes, It is hard to believe that it will soon be 7 years since that day. I remember it like it was yesterday. At the time I was working for a national transportation carrier. I was alway in the office early and had been at my desk for a couple of hours when the office began to stir with the news of what was happening. I just remember the sense of helplessness that we all felt and the uncertainty of what was going to happen next.
It is very hard to believe that we have come 7 years forward from that time. It really will be a day that I will never be able to forget.
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I was at work. My grandmother called and told me a plane had hit the big building in NYC; I kept asking which one. All she had picked up was that it was the big, tall building next to the big, tall building (the only humor in the day). About that time, my manager's wife called. He came out and switched the monitor to TV Mode. We all stood watching it in shock - and in greater shock as the second plane crashed into the other WTC tower. Reports started coming in about the Pennsylvannia and Pentagon Crashes. It was unreal.
I remember on one of several calls that morning, my grandmother saying, "This is Pearl Harbor Day all over." (Her generation's 9-11). She later called back and said. "This is worse than Pearl Harbor. The men at Pearl Harbor were in the military. They knew of the dangers of war. These are innocent civilians at work."
We closed the offices at noon and went home. Atlanta streets were eerily quiet. I spent the day glued to the TV.
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I worked for The Sports Authority Corporate Finance in Fort Lauderdale, FL
In the background I had a little radio tuned to NPR news every day....news that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. I assumed it was just a major screw up by someone in a private plane.
Then it all started to unfold. NPR was broadcasting live from the Pentagon when that plane hit....THAT was FREAKY...you could hear it in the background...and the reporter flipped out
.....it was then announced "America is under attack."
Dark day, man
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I was an ower/operator of my own truck, and I had just woken up in Alturas California........I turned on the radio and heard it as it happened......I was glued to the radio all the way to Portland Oregon. I arrived at Portland that evening, and turned on my TV. and watched the news........I cried that night.....Will never forget it.
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Senior year of high school...statistics class
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I was in Indianapolis at Riley Childrens Hospital where we had my son Logan up there running some test on him. I remember sitting next to my wife at his bedside and looked at her and said..we have been here for 3 days and I am going stir crazy. If something doesnt happen soon Im going to go nuts. Just then we get a call from my mother in law and she mentioned to Kris that a plane just crashed in NYC. So we flip on the tv thinking it was just a freak accident. We were watching in disbelief when suddenly we see the second plane hit. I remember my self feeling helpless and what was going to happen next. We just couldnt believe what we were watching unfold right before our eyes. After a few minutes when they said they were grounding all planes I had walked outside to the patio area and it was amazing, in the middle of INDY you could actually hear the birds chirping and the sound of all the airplanes coming in. It was an amazing sight to see how fast they landed all those planes in a instant. A day we will never forget.
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I was working at Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta. The only TV we had was in the waiting room and there had to have been 50 people crowded in there. It was after I got off at 4pm and got home that I was able to watch any TV. My wife and I were expecting our first baby in December and I remember rubbing her tummy and wondering what kind of world we were bringing our child into.
I left the hospital at 4 and you wouldn't believe the traffic. There was NONE! It was like midnight on Sunday all the way home. All of the skyscrapers in Atlanta had emptied and rush hour was at like 10 am. On the way home, I drove by the Atl airport and there were planes parked EVERYWHERE. I mean everywhere. It was just surreal. I cried so hard that afternoon and night. Couldn't sleep, just glued to the TV.
Still makes me sad :'( and angry >:( to think about it. People say they can't stand to watch it, but I think we all should watch it to remind us that there are people in the world that don't like us very much.
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I was at Discount Auto Parts Venice Fl, I was the store manager and One of my customers and friend came in and told us what was going on, we didn't believe him until we turned on the radio. It was horrible and a very helpless feeling fell over me. Then I got very angry after all the news about the guys that did this knowing I had seen them at the local clubs.
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Oh dont lie Nomad....you were playing hookie that day and you thought your boss was out on a rampage looking for ya..
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Oh dont lie Nomad....you were playing hookie that day and you thought your boss was out on a rampage looking for ya..
I could only wish I was playing hookie
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It was early afternoon here in Germany. I was sitting at my desk in the office, when a colleague told to watch the news. I couldn't believe it and it was impossible to go on working. I returned home, switched on TV, and it was like a horror film and I cried. Some years ago I had spent some days in NYC and I was on top of WTC, moreover I've spent 2 months at Washington DC. Now all comes back. It was a nightmare for me and still today I can't support it when they repeat on TV the attacks on the WTC in NYC.
I feel with all of you in the USA and not only me.
best regards to you
Volker
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I have always wondered what the other countries thougth about it...and how they reacted. Everyone thinks it just happened to us, in all actuality....it affected everyone world wide.
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I have always wondered what the other countries thougth about it...and how they reacted. Everyone thinks it just happened to us, in all actuality....it affected everyone world wide.
I really think, if not but for a brief moment, the entire world was American. This entire sphere was suddenly composed of all New Yorkers. We were all in Pennsylvania. We were all in DC. The world suddenly became much smaller.
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much smaller. i sometimes sit back and wonder...which was worse...9/11 or the JFK Shooting
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much smaller. i sometimes sit back and wonder...which was worse...9/11 or the JFK Shooting
BOTH :(
WARHAWK O0
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I think I mentioned this in the past but I'm a 9/11 survivor.I was at the scene when it happened.Luckily I ran and didn't stick around to see the buildings come down.It will always be a horrible nightmare for me.I'm still in therapy as I have lost all intiative to travel. In the beginning I couldn't even have sex as I was so dead and numb inside.I'm retired now and live the simple life and that's the way I want it.Yet there are still people who love to travel and for the life of me I can't understand why.I wish I could turn back the clock to when I was a kid.It was a better world back then.People are worse than animals today.I hope those bastards rot in hell for what they did.
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Glad to hear you made it out ok. I could not imagine being a person standing there when all of that happened.
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hey don: i'm glad that U were able 2 survive & share your story with us. hope things get better 4 ya each & everyday.
WARHAWK O0
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I will never forget where I was. I was the Manager of Quality Assurance for Computer Associates and had just finished packing my bag and loading it into my car as I was scheduled to fly to Long Island from Sarasota, FL that afternoon for a week of meetings at CA HQ in Islandia.
I turned on the radio and I heard someone talking about a plane crashing into the WTC so I went back inside my house and turned on CNN. Well of course I witnessed the rest of that tragic day unfold right there.
Needless to say I did not go to Long Island for another week. Additionally I had a cruise to the Bahamas scheduled for the 10th of October.
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I was an ower/operator of my own truck, and I had just woken up in Alturas California........I turned on the radio and heard it as it happened......I was glued to the radio all the way to Portland Oregon. I arrived at Portland that evening, and turned on my TV. and watched the news........I cried that night.....Will never forget it.
You were in my neck of the woods...well, near where I grew up in Redding.
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I was here in Chicago doing my medical residency and post-call after being up all night working on the very busy oncology floor at the hospital. We were rounding on all of the patients, room by room, and I would always turn off the TV set at each patient's bedside while we examined/evaluated them.
I was soooo tired, but I remember seeing a smoking building on every screen right before I switched it off. It just didn't register to me.
Then, when I saw a group of 25 people huddled around the small TV in the waiting area down the hall, I started to pay attention. But, the patient care came first. It was so hard to concentrate on work. After the Towers started to fall, and news of the other plane crashes broke, things went up for grabs.
We were told that the Sears Tower was potential target, and downtown Chicago was being evacuated. All hospitals were put on alert, and everyone in our hospital was designated "on-call" for disaster duty. It was a very gut-wrenching day, and when we were allowed to go home from the hospital that evening, instead of going home to sleep, I stayed up all night (after already being up 36 hours) watching all of the live coverage.
I was incredibly fatigued, but totally compelled to watch in horror. It seemed like every hour brought new stories...new pictures...new video...of the most tragic event I'd ever seen.
It remains, to this day, my most incomprehensibly horrific memory.
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I was in a rental car driving past the Air Force base in San Antonio, TX. As I was driving by 8 fighter jets took off right above my car. I remember thinking "they must be having an exercise." Well, 5 min later when I got to Time Warner Cable I entered the lobby of the office to find the entire staff packed around the wall of TVs. Someone told me that a plane had just struck the WTC. Not but a min later we saw the second plane hit.
I will never forget that entire week of my life. I was away from most of my friends and family and stranded in TX due to the grounding of the jets. I'll never forget the way people treated each other that week. It was one of the most amazing things to me as it proved that deep down people really are good. All differences were set aside and for that week it seemed like people understood what life was about. Even at the airport when I finally was able to get a flight home, I had to wait 5 hours in the security line. Yet, people weren't yelling, or getting pissed off - they were dealing with it and helping everyone out.
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I was getting off work when the news hit. At first we all thought it had to be some mistake. An accident. By the time I got in my car another had hit! It was obvious then it was no accident. What a terrible day. The next few weeks we walked around in a daze. I remember a few nights after 9/11 the power in the neighborhood went out totally. Some young kids went outside and started lighting off fireworks. They got their asses bitched out on the street by a neighbor. Everyone was tense. No-one wanted any suprises especially not loud bangs in the dark.
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much smaller. i sometimes sit back and wonder...which was worse...9/11 or the JFK Shooting
I remember them both.....I was in the 7th grade in school when a fellow student came running in saying the President had been shot....school shut down... and I was working in my office when it came over the radio about the World Trade Center and later the Pentagon etc.....Both events were pretty chilling..
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I was at work at the JHU Applied Physics Laboratory in Columbia, Maryland. I heard a woman that works down stairs come into our office and tell the woman in the cube across from me that two planes had hit the twin towers in NY. I thought I heard wrong..... I knew right away that it was an attack.
I immediately called home and had my wife turn on the news....she hadn't heard yet. I asked what she saw and she began crying.
I went down the hall to where we have some conference rooms with TVs. The rooms were packed wityh people watching. As we watched, one of the towers fell. Many in the room began weeping uncontrollably while everyone else was just stunned.
Then news of the other planes going down came. Our facility is very large and about 40 miles from the Pentagon. We are a Space and Defense contractor so a lot of people were scared that we might get attacked. Many people rushed out of the buildings and headed home.
A man named Ron Vauk, an employee at our facility, was killed at the Pentagon attack.
I stayed until the middle of the afternoon and just watched news non-stop. When I finally headed home I remember the very eerie feeling of not seeing a plane in the sky (we are not far from BWI airport).
When I went home I held my wife and son for hours and wept. I called my Mom and wept with her on the phone.
Shenksville Pa. is only a couple hours west of where I live. I've always wanted to go there to pay my respects but I cannot bring myself to do it.
On a positive note I remember driving to work the next day and seeing all the signs of Patriotism every where. Flags and messages in people's yards, on over passes...everywhere. I remember there being a full size pick up truck next to me on the road to work. He had mounted a huge American flag in the truck bed and it was flying briskly in the breeze as he drove. I looked over at him and gave him the thumbs up.... he yelled to me "f**k them bastards! We ARE America!" It gave me chills.
Even to write this post is very difficult.................
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On a positive note I remember driving to work the next day and seeing all the signs of Patriotism every where. Flags and messages in people's yards, on over passes...everywhere. I remember there being a full size pick up truck next to me on the road to work. He had mounted a huge American flag in the truck bed and it was flying briskly in the breeze as he drove. I looked over at him and gave him the thumbs up.... he yelled to me "f**k them bastards! We ARE America!" It gave me chills.
Even to write this post is very difficult.................
Amazing to see the patriotism in this country after that. If anyone had wondered what it was like to be an American, if they didnt catch it during that time....they never will.
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I was working in the home office. The Lovely Mrs. Schro had turned on the TV and shouted for me to come upstairs. I thought something was wrong with her. I just sat there and watched the TV in shock and amazement. Outside of me, the real estate group I work for is all based in Manhattan. Not knowing NYC geography all that well, I thought that our entire group had perished. I was finally able to get ahold of them to find out everyone was fine, but we did lose several work colleagues, which is nothing compared to the husbands, wifes, mothers, fathers, friends and children that were unjustly taken from the US.
Tragic.
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....Not knowing NYC geography all that well, I thought that our entire group had perished.
Holy Crap
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Holy Crap
Didn't that old guy on Everybody Loves Raymond always say that??.....LOL
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i was in Pre-cal in my sophmore year of high school, and we were taking a quiz that i had no idea what i was doing. The teacher next door to us came in our class and told us to turn the TV on, that something very bad just happened. What alarmed us before we saw the TV was the large amount of jets in the air (my high school was 5 miles from Richmond Intl Airport in Va) and the teacher from next door was never serious about anything, but he was dead serious then. Later i had NROTC, and thats when we saw the second plane hit. Our instructors were a Master Chief and a LT CDR, and they both were red in the face and fighting tears. The whole day, and for a while after that was completely surreal. I can only imagine what it was like for those acutally there.
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I work for a defense contractor. Our Director came out of office and told us about a plane crashing into the WTC. So about 20 of us crammed into his office to watch CCN. I still can't describe the feeling of utter helplessness and sadness that I felt. I made it home without crying, but fell apart when the Buckingham Palace band play the Star Spangled Banner. Peter Jennings seemed like an old friend that stopped by the house to tell me about the events.
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I was getting ready for class and like always had the news on the tv, I saw the first plane had hit and soon thereafter I watched as the second hit. I don't really know how to describe what I was feeling, but it was more than obvious that we were being attacked. I went to class expecting everyone to be talking about it, no one said anything, it was crazy. Not until later that afternoon did anyone else even speak about it. I can only assume I was in a class full of people who definitely didn't start their morning watching the news.
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I was just finishing getting ready to go to work and came out of my bedroom and saw it on the TV. My wife was watching speechless and finally told me what was happening. We were watching when the second plane hit the other tower and she pointed at the screen, mouth gaping wide open. About 5 minutes later I told her she could stop pointing at the TV. It was such a shocking thing to witness. I just spaced out like I did then when I was watching it live. It's unbelievable that some idiot would do that to innocent people.
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I worked two jobs, second shift and third shift so I was still asleep when the planes hit. I was woke up by the phone ringing off the hook. I didn't get off the couch to answer it, instead I turned on the TV to drown it out. The first building had just fallen as I turned on the TV. At first I thought it was a movie on TV and turned the channel. I relized what was happening after every station was the same.
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I was working 1st shift at our local sheet metal plant when one of the engineers came downstairs and told us what was happening. When I got home that afternoon, I hugged Mrs. BW, and we cried alot. We both stayed glued to the TV.
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Our daughter, Bekah, had just turned 2 (she turned 9 today, actually).
I remember a horrible emptiness and dread thinking, "OMG...what kind of a world is this that my little girl will be growing up in?"
Anyone else have kids 8 to 10 or so who had that thought or feeling?
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I remember a horrible emptiness and dread thinking, "OMG...what kind of a world is this that my little girl will be growing up in?"
Anyone else have kids 8 to 10 or so who had that thought or feeling?
Alex is 8 and Nicole is 10..................yes.
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Going to pick up the wife at the auto dealers where she was dropping the car for service. I was going into the hospital for a back operation the next day and she wanted to get her car serviced before I would be on "no driving" orders for a month. I picked her up, then as we were going down the street on the way home, the second plane hit and the thought of "accident" changed. Then home to sit and avoid movement to relieve the pain in my back, and watched the scene develop. It was almost a relief the next morning to be sedated for the surgery. Recovering in bed, I was unable to see anything else on the television except the tapes and live coverage for a week. I was drugged and it was like a really bad dream through the fog of Vicodine SE.
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Our daughter, Bekah, had just turned 2 (she turned 9 today, actually).
I remember a horrible emptiness and dread thinking, "OMG...what kind of a world is this that my little girl will be growing up in?"
Anyone else have kids 8 to 10 or so who had that thought or feeling?
Rob-
My son was 4 years old at the time and I remember having those exact thoughts.
I couldn't stop holding him and praying to God to make the world better for his generation....
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I think anyone with children no matter the age was wondering what kind of world have we created for them.
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I remember watching it 'live' on television, because some tourist was filming or something and the actual impact had been caught on camera. It was unreal to me at the time: like something in a movie. We get so used to seeing special effects etc in films that it just seemed like 'Oh, yeah, so what - another special effect' - it was really hard to believe that what we were watching was real.
Then of course it began to sink in. A terrible tragedy. I just kept thinking what it would have been like, not just for those in the towers but especially those in the plane before it hit: knowing they were going to die and not being able to do anything about it.
My heart goes out to all those who lost people on that terrible day.
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As I've said in an earlier thread on this subject, I was there that day about three blocks away.
You can find the post if you like. I will not go over it again.
And Robmeister, yes I remember the feeling you mentioned like it was yesterday. I had an eight month old daughter at home on that awful day, and I wondered if I would get to see her again. Imagine the thoughts going through my head. A horrible, helpless feeling indeed.
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My wife was pregnant with our first child. I just rubbed her belly and prayed for a safe world. I was also so scared of the world we were bringing our child into.
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I was working security on the graveyard shift that night/morning... this one girl came in and asked if I knew about the plane crash. I told her no, and she told me that a plane hit the World Trade Center. I still remember... I said what? like a Cessna?" and she said "No, an air liner!, Isn't that cool!"
I wrote her off... this girl was a well know tweeker, but somehow managed to pass any drug test, so I figured she was spun out.
Well, I got home & my girlfriend at the time had the news on with one of the towers burning. I asked her if that was the plane crash, and she, "Yeah, see they are replaying it."
I told her no, that's the other tower because this one is still burning! She said, oh my god and started to cry! That was when my cell phone blew up!
See, I was a Fire Team Leader in the Marine Reserves. Within 5 minutes of that second hit, I had everyone and their mother from my squad calling. We all figured by the afternoon, we would be activated, and off to kick some @$$ and take some names.
After I got everyone calmed down, for whatever stupid reason, I went to school! My first class, the professor walked in and said class is canceled. We can stay and watch the news, or we could go spend time with our family. My phone blew up again... My Platoon Commander telling me to stand by to stand by.
I never really sat and watched the coverage that day, only caught bits here and there. I never saw the towers collapse as everything unfolded (saw the video replays who knows how many times after). I never felt anger, or sadness. Honestly, when that second plane hit, I became "robo-marine" by shutting off my feelings and being "numb". Yesterday, MSMBC replayed the NBC news coverage from beginning to end. That was the first time I had ACTUALLY seen how chaotic thing were that day. It was actually the first time I had ANY feelings about what happened. I cried, I became angry but most of all... It made me appreciate what I did in Iraq in '03 THAT much more!
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I can't believe it's been 15 years! :o I was in high school at the time. I was returning from gym class and was cutting through my school cafeteria to get to my next class. The cafeteria had a TV, and a few teachers were watching it. As I was passing by, I overheard one of them say the World Trade Center was one of his favorite buildings in New York. I did not think much of what he said though. When I arrived to my next class, my science teacher had the TV on and told us what happened in New York as well as Virginia and Pennsylvania. I could not believe what I saw! We did not do any work, and the same applied for the rest of my classes that day. My math teacher told our class she had not felt this impacted since JFK’s assassination in 1963. I came home and watched the continuing coverage of 9/11 on TV with my family. I remember every channel covered the unfolding events except Disney and Nickelodeon. One of the pilots on one of the planes that crashed was from the town next to my hometown; it was crazy! The following days and weeks were nothing like I’ve seen or felt before. There was a lot of devastation and fear, but there was so much unity and loyalty across the nation. September 11th to me is that one day in my lifetime I felt changed everything in America and the rest of the world forever. Though the nation overcame the tragedy, nothing was ever the same again.
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i ususally try to avoid coverage of 9/11 anniversary activities, at least on the day of. just too hard for me to think of all those that were lost that day, and especially havein such close ties to people who lost friends and/ or family that day. My step brother was living in nyc at that time, working for one of the theaters on broadway. Police had them locked down in the basement of the building for safety for like 3 days after. My best friend from college lost a cousin in the towers. Most disturbing for me, however, is that my s/o lost a friend in the towers, and if not for a well timed power outage in his apartment that caused him to miss his scheduled flight, he would have been there himself, likely on the observation deck at the moment of the attacks. thats why i am posting next day.
Anyway, i divergevfrom the actual topic of this thread. where was i on that day? Well i was actually just waking up as the news came out of the second tower being hit, and it became apparent the events of the day were not accident. The news had not yet broken of the planes that eventually went into the pentagon or the field in shanksville after its passengers heroically tried to take back control. I remember watching all that unfold on tv as i got ready for work. But b my initial first notice of what was going on, was my alarm waking me that morning to the mornig dj that i often listened to back then saying a second plane had just crashed into the wtc in an apparent terrorist attack. i flew out of bed, turned on the tv, and watched in horror as events unfolded, news of the scope of the attacks came trickling in, and worst of all, seeing the second tower collapse live as the reporter i was watching stood on the roof of a nearby building reporting on the first tower falling, then right behind him, down went he second tower. i was horrified! watching that, knowing i was seeing so many people die, live on my tv. probably one of the scariest momoents of my life. as i drove to work, my mother called saying she had been sent home as the building she worked in here in phoenix was closing for the day by police order. as i recall it, at the time that call was made, it was unknown yet how many planes had been hijacked, and there was fear also that key buildings in major cities might be bombed as well. well mom worked in the tallest building here in phoenix, so the fear was that if the attacks were to hit all major cities as was beleived at the moment, then her building would be the one hit here. then i finally got through to my dad and step mom, to ask about if they ha heard anything from my step brother. that was when i learned he had been locked down in the basement of his broadway theater. not much work got done that day at he auto parts store i was working at back then. understandably, we were all spending much of our time watching news coverage. next day we returned to buisness as usual, though with a rather somber tone for several days.
my feelings on the events of that day were of mere reverence for the heroic acts of the nypd, nyfd, and other first responders for a few years after. then i met my s/o, and learned of his story of that day. now each year on the anniversary, i spend the day being thankful for the events that prevented him from being there and becoming one of the victims, while also consoling him as he fondly remembers the friend he lost.
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My wife and I were living in a fairly remote house in northern Wisconsin and I was listening to a guy named Tom Clark on WPR. It was a call in show and I don't remember the original topic. Some guy called in and said something like "that's all well and good but what does it have to do with the World Trade Center bombing?" I couldn't figure out why he brought it up because the one I remembered was the car (van) bombs in the garage in 1993. So Tom Clark tells everyone to hold on because word is coming in. I literally ran downstairs to the family room and turned on the television just in time to see the second plane fly into the building. I could see that the other tower had already been hit and I knew that the defecation had been tossed into the fan.