Where were you?

happybird said:

Yep, I was born in raised in Loudoun County, the next county west of Fairfax. We've been priced out of the area in the past 10 years, though. A one bedroom apartment there is now over $1000/month in rent. And it is such a shame- Loudoun used to be gorgeous country with farms and lots of open space, a place where everyone knew their neighbors. 'Don't Fairfax Loudoun' was a popular sentiment and a bumper sticker in the 80's and 90's, but it happened anyway. Now, Loudoun is packed with ugly McMansions and townhouses. It's sad to be unable to recognize the area you loved and where you spent your first 25 years. We've moved to West Virginia, but the development is starting up here, too.

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I was stationed at Ft Belvoir for training way back in the mid 70's and Northern Virginia was a wealthier area then.  Guys with families struggled if they didn't qualify for or were on the waiting list for base housing.  I remember people in DC and parts of MD called Northern Virginia the land of milk and honey.

Rick and I were in Myrtle Beach, SC. He had gone to a seminar. I went into a Christmas shop and the clerk in there was crying. I asked her if she was ok and she kept saying, "You don't know? You didn't hear??" and then she pointed to the tv. I took one look, walked out and went back to the hotel and turned the tv on. Rick came up to the room during a break and we just stood there in a hug. We couldn't believe it.

They were talking about the military being on alert and how the ships were patrolling our borders on the oceans. Our hotel was right on the beach and, if you looked way out on the horizon, you could see images of the ships patrolling way, way out there. Almost ghostly images. 

One of the things that I remember vividly was a video of an old woman in the Middle East. She was dancing and smiling and clapping her hands because the towers fell and because all those people died. And I will never forget how much I truly hated that old woman. I'm sorry. I know it's wrong. But that's how I felt. I hated her with every fiber of my soul that day.

I remember the video of that woman dancing.  What is scary is that the hatred that you felt is the same hatred that she feels for us.  Unfortunately there are extremists that will feed that hatred and take that hatred to a violent level.

Believe it or not; I was in a class on Building and Construction materials.  I didn't really know what had happened yet.  Not fully anyway.  But I still remember the professor saying the buildings would not fall and describing some of the ways they were constructed to withstand different damages.  I didn't know why my mother kept calling my cell phone when she knew I was in class.  For some reason it didn't dawn on me how close my step-brother's dorm was to the World Trade Center.  He had slept in that morning but he normally was out in that area on his morning run at that time.  The first plane hitting woke him up and he saw the 2nd.  He managed to walk out of the city and get to the house of a friend of his mother's in New Jersey.  I also knew someone who was on her commute into DC and witnessed the Pentagon being hit.  I never asked her for details.  She didn't offer many that I remember.  My step-brother was more open about what he saw.  

I was at work and word slowly started to spread. There was a television in the cafeteria that someone turned on and we all eventually ended up in there, watching it.

i was at home. i had the tv on, and pretty much watched the events unfold. i was just shocked, and horrified.

today i'm remembering all those who lost their lives, their families, and our courageous 'responders' -- police, firemen, our armed forces, and our leaders (in our government, and our spiritual leaders). God Bless America.

I was going to start a thread on the same subject and found this thread instead.

I heard on the radio as I got in the car to go to work that a plane had struck one of the towers. I was surprised, assuming it was a small plane that had somehow gotten off course. Halfway to work, the second plane hit the other tower, and like everyone else, I knew instantly that this was no accident, but a deliberate case of sabotage. I got to the rehab hospital where I worked, and the TV in the main lobby was turned on. I stopped to watch for a minute, and someone turned to me and said, "Who would do something like that?" I said, "Saddam Hussein or al Queda." He said, "Who?" No one at the time had heard of Osama Ben Ladin.

When I walked into my office, my boss asked if anyone was responding to the towers and I told her the NYFD was. Later, a coworker burst into the suite saying that the Pentagon had been struck. What a shock. We all definitely felt under attack. I kept calling my son, who worked at night, to leave messages to get up and turn on the TV. He never answered for me, but did wake up for his fiance, who worked in DC at the time. She was having a terrible time getting from the NW District to Alexandria, where she lived. Since I grew up in Arlington, he was familiar with the area and gave her alternate directions to get home. Normally, she would have gone past the Pentagon to get to Alexandria, but the roads were closed all around the Pentagon. My parents are buried in Arlington Cemetery, directly in view of where the plane hit the Pentagon.

At work, I got into the elevator with a young mother with a small child. She was shaking like a leaf. I felt so sorry for her. We held a prayer vigil for employees in the large dining room while the towers went down.

It was a shattering day I will never forget.

I know this thread is old, but I couldn't find a newer one. If there's a newer one, please move my post there. Thanks.

I was off from work that day on Sept 11, 2001. The day before was a very hard day at work (7am-9pm) and I was bone tired! I got up about 8:15 am and fed my kitties Sammy and Garfield, then got my coffee and headed to the computer to get my email on America Online. I had dial-up in those days which meant callers got a busy signal until I got offline. I didn't go to any chat room or else I would have heard the news there. I got off at about 10:15, and of course the phone was ringing. My dear mom was crying. She said "Turn on the TV; New York City is under terrorist attack!" Every word she said hit me in the face. I couldn't believe it. Only a few minutes after I tuned in, still on the phone with my mom, we watched in silence - except for the sounds of both of us crying - as we saw the second tower come down.

I watched and cried for about 3 hours, then I had to get out if the house. I went to a gas station to get my car oiled/lubed. One guy still works at that same station. On that day he was about 25 years old, so now he would be about 40. I've seen him recently when he did my inspection. He now has gray hair. Time flies.

Fifteen years is a long time, but I will never forget that horrible day.

I was off from work that day on Sept 11, 2001. The day before was a very hard day at work (7am-9pm) and I was bone tired! I got up about 8:15 am and fed my kitties Sammy and Garfield, then got my coffee and headed to the computer to get my email on America Online. I had dial-up in those days which meant callers got a busy signal until I got offline. I didn't go to any chat room or else I would have heard the news there. I got off at about 10:15, and of course the phone was ringing. My dear mom was crying. She said "Turn on the TV; New York City is under terrorist attack!" Every word she said hit me in the face. I couldn't believe it. Only a few minutes after I tuned in, still on the phone with my mom, we watched in silence - except for the sounds of both of us crying - as we saw the second tower come down.

I watched and cried for about 3 hours, then I had to get out if the house. I went to a gas station to get my car oiled/lubed. One guy still works at that same station. On that day he was about 25 years old, so now he would be about 40. I've seen him recently when he did my inspection. He now has gray hair. Time flies.

Fifteen years is a long time, but I will never forget that horrible day.

I was watching the news. I yelled at my husband to get up and turn his TV on. He asked which channel. I told him it didn't matter.

Same here. I asked mom what channel. She said "doesn't matter, just turn it on."

I was at work. We didn't know anything was going on as we were in a meeting and not listening to radio or anything. One of my colleagues was called on her cell phone, but she didn't think it was important enough to tell us.

So when I got home after work, my partner was watching tv and telling us all about it. He had been watching almost since news started on tv. He had seen the second plane go into the tower live on tv.

(I live in Europe.)

I was at work in DC. I was in my little cubby hole and I kept hearing excited voices coming from the lounge. There was a scream and I got up to see what was going on. There was a TV in the lounge and the second plane just hit the second tower. I was horrified.

They closed our building at 11:00 AM and traffic in DC was horrific. It took me 3 hours to get home in MD. While I was driving through DC I kept wondering if the White House or the Capital was going to be next. 

I am glad to see this thread come up today. It shows that America still has not forgotten that terrible day. One thing I remember is the shock I felt about what happened. Up until that day, I did not realize that people in the world hated America. I just loved this country so much, I reckon I thought everybody else did too. I will never forget how the Americans came together, supporting each other, helping each other, praying for each other and for the war that began and the soldiers who went to fight.. We need that spirit of unity again so much.

I read on FB that today's freshman class will be the first class to learn about 9/11 in their history books; they were not born yet when it happened. So for them, it is history. I find that weird, but, of course, there were people who weren't alive when it happened.