Where were you on 9/11/2001?

[jimmyz]

Caught the attack on TV. Then filled up the bathtub for drinking water and bartered some canned fish and powdered eggs to my neighbor for 24 rolls of toilet paper. I went around my neighborhood putting notes on doors about an emergency meeting at 7:00 PM that night in my garage to mobilize the Sandstone Commons subdivision militia and election of block commanders. Needless to say the people with swimming pools were the most popular attendees at that meeting. We rolled around in camouflage pants for a few days and nights until most got bored and quit. The urge for TGI Fridays happy hours and attending their kids soccer games overcame our only feeling of unity and safety. I still have firing slits cut into my wood shutters though... just in case.

Edit: I was awakened by a phone call from my Mother and told to turn on the TV, "they took down the towers!". Sat up in bed and watched in stunned silence until getting off to work where most of the company did the same thing huddled around a portable TV someone had brought in. I prayed that the initial death toll estimates were somehow wrong I remember. It was my generation's JFK assassination "you remember where you were" moment and always will be.

[eynon81]

-round about the first tower getting hit I was having morning sex with college girl-friend in the dorms. so I still associate 9/11 with victoria's secret black bikini panties.

-watched the second tower going down in a lecture hall full of very upset students. the American professor teaching in that room announced "that as many as 50,000 people have died, we are not having class today".

-my Chinese Chinese Professor still insisted on having class, and was confused by our lack of motivation. because Chinese people are autistic.

-No really, a Chinese Chem-Student-Prof still gave a test that day and didn't excuse a girl. from NYC. Who's parents worked at the WTC.*

-gathered in respected Prof's office to talk on the issue.

-went to gym.

-ate dinner with friends all speculating on what we would do in WW3.

-had night sex with college girl-friend because we were 20. she was still wearing the same panties. nice.

*He got in trouble.

[fstarcstar]

9/11 didn't really hit me as an individual until many years after it happened, but seeing all of the documentaries, voice recordings and everything else you can imagine has basically burnt it in my mind. I remember hearing a recorded 911 call as one of the towers collapsed and some guy is pleading for help and then starts screaming as everything around him crumbles tearing him to pieces. I know people die all around the world from multiple famines, shootings, etc, but seeing 9/11 was a completely different scale of loss and it will forever be in my mind. I saw it on a television from thousands of miles away, and I can only image how the people on the ground there helping or directly impacted have emotionally overcome the obstacles.

Its also a bad thing, that after the attacks despite the grievances of death, our country couldn't of been stronger, more patriotic and eager to help one another. You never saw as many American flags as you did those following months and years, and just the overall aspect of society was wanting to band together and fight. Democrat, Republican, left, right, black and white didn't matter (unless you were muslim you were screwed) It was a unique mentality that has only existed a few times for this country, but being able to witness it first hand was rather enlightening. We just have to be attacked in order to have it I guess.

[The Dharma Bum]

[Saz]

5th grade class. It was the beginning of the school year and our teacher usually left on the news after morning announcements. After the second plane hit she turned it off because a classmate was crying since his dad was on business in NYC. She turned off the lights and we just sat there in silence for about 2 hours. Parents picked up about half the class early, the rest of us played football until the end of the day.

[eynon81]

[NAB]

My girlfriend and I (now wife) were on an airplane flying from London to Bilbao Spain when everything was going down to begin a two week vacation. The towers had just fallen when I stepped off the plane and the British airways people came up asking if we were Americans and started telling us what was happening. My wife freaked because her brother lived in NYC and we couldn't get hold of him. Got hold of my dad and he gave me the entire lowdown. I pulled about $1500 in cash out of a bank because I had no idea what further was going to happen. Wasn't the best way to spend a vacation because I spent a lot of time watching the news. Second week we meet some friends in Ibiza which helped because we had other people to commiserate with (and blow off steam at a club one night). I saw the complete change in air security from before and after when I returned two weeks later. Went through a pretty intensive grilling in London on the way home I recall. Was kind of silly looking back.

I later found out a good friend from college narrowly escaped one of the towers collapsing because she worked at Merrill Lynch (forget which tower). She got out about 10 minutes before it collapsed.

[Dylan]

Captures the scene on the ground very well IMO.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b2c_1410464671

[Saz]

[broken robot]

9th grade, we were about to go on our freshman year field trip. I get on the bus and someone says "kamikazes" have attacked the twin towers, and I thought the way they said it sounded really strange. Then we get off the bus, field trip is cancelled and everyone piles into the auditorium. Before that though I see a teacher and ask how his day's going and he just says "not good." Again, I had no clue of the magnitude and scale of what just happened. We watch the towers burning and then we go to classes but mostly we just sit and talk. One person jumps the gun and argues that the US is experiencing blowback for its actions around the world.

Mom picks me up because all the "high rise" buildings in our Midwestern hometown have been evacuated. We go to a little Thai place in our small town, and then I just go back home and watch TV. One thing I'll always remember is they showed unedited footage on our local ABC affiliate of a guy filming the second plane hitting the towers and he's screaming "HOLY f**k." The news anchor just said that they apologized for the language, but I think at that point no one really cared about the FCC fines.

Afterwards needless to say my family was targeted as part of the massive xenophobic outpouring toward "Muslims" (note: we're not, we're just brown). I remember my dad and I standing in line at the cash register the next day and the person ringing us up just gave us the dirtiest look. Then the usual litany of "terrorist," "sand ethnic group member," etc. They were cases of attacks on individuals, and you definitely felt afraid at times. I'd say more than anything probably 9/11 contributed to my eventual radicalization as a Leftist. Fact of the matter is it became an excuse to create new restrictions and exclude communities of color, and the tragedy itself was quickly subsumed under the rhetoric of fighting the war on terror. I remember just how quickly in the days after the CNN headlines went from "America under attack" to "AMERICA GOES TO WAR" with the eagles and flags.

Again, little bit after once the war against the Taliban began, we were sitting in one of our study groups and our advisor handed us blank maps of the Middle East and South Asia. She then asked us to find Afghanistan. I always tell people this little anecdote noting that the way we Americans learn about geography is by bombing other places :/