I was laid off on unemployment, and in the habit of sleeping until the afternoon, but something woke me around 9 am central iirc. Like it was a jolt to the collective soul of man

but the most eerie thing was my bro's recollection of his experience. he was working up in North KC not far from KCI Airport. they were on a roof, running natural gas lines to air handlers or something. they noticed multiple plans overhead repeating these circling motions in the sky. only when they came down for break at about 10 am central, did they find out what had happened and that all planes had been instructed to land at the nearest airport.

God Bless all the souls of lives lost

I too remember that NPR just wasn't as angry as they should have been.

The "remembrance".

I was on a small island, on Maui, living at the dormotories there. It didn't change anything what I was doing or thinking I guess. I was still going to burger king drive though for breakfast or the mall and after to the beach and some classes. Only that it was quite a bit odd in the coming days. Constant replays of the plane crashes over the coming days and month.

I researched the time of the attack: September 11, 2001; 19 years ago 8:46 a.m. – 10:28 a.m. (EDT) given that Hawaii is 6 hours behind New York I was either awake or sleeping. (I camt remember, It was almost 3 am there at the time of them first attack)

When watching the replay or the live footage I remember thinking this can't be real. First question was why would anyone fly a plane into a tower?? Second question was Why would it collapse? I'm still wondering if the knew it would collapse or if that was anticipated or just a side effect. The funny thing in retrospect is that nobody was talking about the reasons of this attack. (Or maybe they were but I didn't hear it or understood it)

I remember knowing nothing about the background of this attack. All I knew and was told it was terrorists.
Well terrorists I knew for sure! From the movie true lies with Schwarzenegger and other movies. So there was my understanding of the attack. Problem solved it was arab terrorists.

A few days later it was clear we were about to invade. The student dorms were all hyped up and wanted retaliation. "We are going in! This is war!" These were the words I can't forget. I remember thinking this can't be good.

Somewhat surreal

I was on holiday in Mijas, Spain with my partner. We got up and went to play pitch and putt. Had to walk past the bar where I noticed some americans being noisy, thinking it was a bit odd even for mericans but whatever.

Went to hire the clubs and eventually some staff emerged from a back room (where I now assume there was a tv) and got some odd looks and the clubs. Didn't last long as it was on the side of a mountain (no-one else about) and we we're crap and ran out of balls. Returned clubs, went to the bar. Bought margaritas, pulled up some chairs and sat down to see what everyone was watching on TV.

That's how I ended up sipping a margarita as it dawned on me that I watching people falling down the side of the building and the sheer horror of what was going on.

We had a guy at work that listened to the radio all day. I think mostly a news station. He would occasionally send out an email to everyone if he heard what he thought was some sort of breaking news.

His first email was that a small plane hit the world trade center. Everyone assumed that it was exactly that. Some guy in his little plane lost control or something. Some time later he sent another email telling us a second plane had hit the building as well. A few of us that worked in the same area started coming up with scenarios. One being the guy sending the emails didn't get his facts straight. The whole thing just seemed so weird at the time. We pretty much shrugged it off as somewhat of a nothingburger.

The floor upstairs had TVs and someone watching called one of the guys I worked with to tell him what was going on. We all rushed upstairs to watch. Eventually most of the building made their way up to watch the TVs, and stayed most of the day - witnessing both towers coming down.

I remember that day pretty well. I was living in San Jose at the time and driving to SJSU where I worked. I had tickets to weezer that night at the university event center and was playing weezer on the drive down. I would go in early to lift weights and I see the tv in the lobby with a split screen of the pentagon burning and the towers burning. The caption says “East coast under attack” at the same time they said they had reports of a plane crashing in Pennsylvania and car bombs going off in NYC. I was in a panic for an hour because my brother, father and best friend from high school all work in the city. I was calling all their numbers but couldn’t get through. I didn’t realize just the towers were hit (obviously the car bomb reports were wrong). Weezer canceled their show and SJSU shut down around noon. I remember almost punching a Malaysian student in the face when he smiled and said “it’s like a holiday”. They were estimating potential 20,000 dead at that time. I don’t think he meant it that way (his English wasn’t very good) so I refrained from hitting him. I was surprised how indifferent many students were but maybe it seemed so far away to them I don’t know. My uncle was FDNY and working that morning. His station was in Staten Island however basically the whole FD was called to the WTC. They couldn’t get their fire truck across the bridge because of all the backed up vehicles so they abandoned it and ran the rest of the way on foot. They had no PPE. He started having lung problems about five years later and finally succumbed to these problems this February. Three guys from his station died but none were on duty that day at his firehouse they were covering shifts at other stations. One was killed by a person falling on them who had jumped from the towers.

Side note one of my high school football teammates started showing up on cable news shows a couple years later he was working in the towers when they were hit and he was the only survivor of the attacks who then signed up to join the military.
I remember being very angry and telling my girlfriend I was thinking of joining the military myself but then President Bush went to WTC and did his famous megaphone speech. He didn’t ask anyone to join the military he actually said people should just go on living their lives as normal. I think he missed a recruiting opportunity there although he probably didn’t know that nation building and an invasion of Iraq were going to happen. I do give him credit for explicitly stating Muslims weren’t our enemies just the terrorist. I don’t think trump would have taken that approach.

This all checks out. Cell service was very disrupted in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, which made it difficult to get in touch with anyone who did not have access to a land line.

It sounds like your uncle was with a unit that was trying to cross the Brooklyn Bridge. In addition to the cars, thousands of people who were near the towers evacuated by walking across the Brooklyn Bridge.

Two other things I remember. First, there was a massive push in the immediate aftermath of the attacks to get people to donate blood, clothes, etc. There was a plan to turn several spots along the west side highway into triage units.

None of that turned out to be necessary. Very few people required immediate attention for traumatic injuries. Except for long-term lung problems, for the most part, if you were in the area when the towers collapsed, you either died or escaped unscathed.

Second, 24-48 hours after the attack, it was reported that the city had ordered 6,000 body bags. The total number of casualties was unknown at that point and people were very upset by the suggestion that 6,000 body bags might be required. Giuliani explained during a press conference that the expected number of deaths was far less than 6,000, but the city had to order enough body bags to accommodate the stray body parts that rescuers were finding. I can't imagine what it was like for rescuers to sort through that wreckage.

For people who didn't see it, it's hard to describe how much wreckage there was. The WTC towers weren't just the tallest skyscrapers in the city. They probably had the biggest footprint as well. They were massive. For a sense of perspective, think about how wide a 767 is from wingtip to wingtip, and then think about how small those planes looked in comparison.

I was deployed on the USS Boxer LHD-4. All of a sudden, all comms went dark. Everyone was wondering what was going on. Eventually the Captain got on the 1MC (speaker system) and explained what had happened, offered Chaplain services for those that were affected, and offered to assist in reaching out to loved ones that may be in the area.

We were scheduled to come back from deployment on September 14th. We thought we were getting turned back around, but we didn't and pulled in on time. That moment shaped the rest of my career as I went on 6 more deployments after that. The next 6 deployments were.....different.

I was a senior in high school I remember being in the senior lounge when I heard we had a bunch of video games set up so I remember hearing about it and having an all school assembly and being sent home for the day. Not that it matters what I was doing just one of those events that you remember precisely where you were when you heard the news. I feel like my parents and people describe JFKs assassination the same way they knew exactly where they were.

I remember after the assembly we went back to class momentarily and I had a British teacher trying to calm us all down as me and my friends all wanted to go fight a war that day. I remember her adamantly being against war. It’s almost like her worldly knowledge came through at that very moment she was right.

I lived about 45 mins from NYC so they sent everyone home in case anyone’s parents didn’t make it. Turned out 1 girl in my high schools father died that day.

My dad also had a close friend who was downtown that day and the story goes they found him uptown shoeless at a bar that night. I guess he had entered a state of shock or something.

My cousin was also FDNY and has some crazy stories.. basically he’s lucky he was in Staten Island, just far enough away, or he may not have made it. If he had gotten to the scene sooner like the closer ladders in Manhattan Brooklyn and queens he may not have been so lucky.

I have the worst memory, so details of how it unfolded for me are fuzzy, but I was 32 at the time; our daughter was turning 2 later that month so was at home with us. I think I had heard something about it, so flipped on the TV and of course was watching throughout the day in shock and horror as my wife went off to work.

Much more interesting is a story a friend I went to HS with shared today on FB:

I don't think he'd mind me sharing that, but I removed the name of the sub.

Perspectives one never thinks of; so many ways this affected people at the time.

Thinking of my American friends this weekend and hoping nothing like that ever happens again.

LOL

Can you imagine that being your take away from 9-11 ?

Poor dumb bastards.

I was at work. We watched the news at our desks. It wasn't as emotional as it should have been because I don't think anyone really had the sense that it was actually happening until later.

I'm posting now because I really didn't (and don't) feel like going back over all those emotions. It didn't touch me directly but it just seems like the country hasn't been the same since.

The fire station roster being decimated in Rocco's post was moving to me. Damn.

'It was the most photographed and video taped day in history' It did not move me so much at the time neither, but I realized something is different.

I was sitting in the back row of 6th grade science class when an announcement came on. I don’t remember what was said just that my elderly teacher lost all color in her face and stopped teaching. She didn’t announce class was canceled, just stopped. My school is about 40 miles from Logan airport where at least two of the planes took off.

I was at a desk the second row near the door talking to petiole turned around from the first row when another teacher came in. She told us to come to the library. My class was in the corner the library was on the other end so we walk to the library. There’s like two classes sitting, plenty of empty chairs and a TV set up.

Our class takes seats and within 10 minutes the second plane hits live on tv. No teacher makes any announcement we just sit there watching the towers burn. Eventually a teacher says if we need to talk to someone stand up an go somewhere. No one moves we just watch the towers burn. Then we watch them fall.

We stayed watching tv in the library until like 1:30 when they finally sent us home. My aunt works in the school system and I found out later they didn’t send us home until they contacted every parent to make sure kids weren’t going home to empty houses.

After a couple hours watching tv a rumor started to spread that a girl had her father who took a flight out of Logan that morning. Then like 30 minutes later a teacher walks up to the girl and takes her out. I honestly don’t remember what happened he was probably fine, i think I’d remember if he died.

On the bus home my friend and I decided to go fishing. I got home, I don’t remember anything about which parent I talked to about what, then walked to my friends house straight away. Basically dropped my backpack off and left. We got someone to drive us and had a great time fishing for like 5 hours until it got dark. That’s what I remember.

I was living in New Jersey and read that a plane hit the WTC. I figured it was some small plane with a special kind of incompetence. Then I read of the second one and knew it was something different and turned on the TV. I watched the towers collapse in real time. My thinking in that moment was that Bush's dogs of war would be let loose, and the US response would be worse than the original crime. But I had no idea how bad it would be -- a million dead in uninvolved Iraq, a 20 year war in Afghanistan. Then I picked up my son early from kindergarten.

Myself and my now wife were working in a Boston high rise and I just remember not being able to get any web-site to open, then before I knew it both of us were sent home. Then the scrambling began to make sure all my law school classmates - I attended in NYC from 1994 to 1997 - were safe, which amazingly they were.

My other memory was flying home from our honeymoon exactly a year later and having our flight be almost empty and never seeing so few people in the airports. That was almost more spooky than the day of.

Estimates of Iraq casualties vary significantly but the 1 million estimate you gave was from a small survey of around 1500 people and has been widely criticized. It was a lot, that’s for sure. And despite all the bloodshed only 26% of Iraqis preferred rule under Saddam (I imagine most of those were Sunni)

Great question and probably deserves an entire thread.

I'd also be curious as to people thoughts on what would the US response be to a similar attack today, considering the outcomes of Iraq and Afghanistan?

Where would the 31 member countries of the "coalition of the willing" be sitting (my guess, 2/3 would be out). The world has come a long way from 2001.

I was in middle school at the time in Maryland. We had different classes and I remember walking into history class and the tv was on which was unusual and the news talking about a terror attack and seeing the smoke rising from a scarred building. We were plenty old enough to understand what was going on, but not old enough to actually think through political ramifications or anything. Then I saw the second plane hit and was amazed. That was when I realized something crazy was really happening. Then they evacuated us from school- we were only an hour away from Washington DC.
It was the only day of my life where America was under attack on its own borders.

My cousins and aunts and uncles in nyc had friends, who I had met and hung out with, who died on 9/11.