As I drove into work this morning listening to NPR, I remember doing the same thing 17 years ago. Reports were just coming out about the first plane hitting the WTC. As the morning progressed, the second plane hit and the word spread. No one was talking about work. Then we were all sent home where I sat in front of the TV with my wife to watch the day unfold. Two co-workers from my work site never made it home; they were on AA Flt 77. I pass by their memorial every day in the hall when I come into work. The repeating images of the planes hitting the towers and the towers on fire and collapsing are burned into my memory; just like those of the failed Challenger launch in 1986 (I was a sophomore in college). I’ll never forget this day.
Have another one, you mother****er.
That’s all. Have a nice day.
I remember being up late the night before and ignoring phone calls. Finally my wife woke up and answered the phone in the living room and her screaming for me to wake up and look at the TV. I think I watched cable news channels about 22 hours straight that day trying to make sense of it all. I was living in Fort Lauderdale at that time so the anthrax thing up at Boca Raton wasn’t that far away. Definitely different times…
As has been said many times, never forgive, never forget.
I was at Ft Benning on the rifle range when it all went down. The Drill Sergeants pulled us off the range and we had a Company formation, anyone who was from the NYC and PA were allowed to call home to make sure their families were ok. Within a week the cadences being called changed, no longer was it about killing charlie and commies, but rag heads and camel jockeys.
As for my own memory of that day, there were several.
I drove to the electronic big box store a few miles from my old office and found the beltway (perimeter interstate around this huge city) was practically deserted at lunch hour. Walking into the big electronic store, there was not a single portable tv left. The salesmen said they were sold out of TV 10" and smaller. That was back before there were wall to wall live webcasts on the internet. The traffic info sign on the interstate had the message about national emergency and the airport (2nd or 3rd largest in CONUS) was closed. You never seen that before nor since those few days.
I remember people in a very Hispanic neighborhood celebrating. I am still bitter over this.
Wow. That’d probably be the most infuriating thing I’d ever seen.
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I won’t even talk about it most of the time. I won’t say where it is. I was shocked that such a thing could even happen on our soil. Most of the time I suppress the memory of it, but whenever the 9/11 commemorations start: I remember. People standing on the ground of the best country on Earth were actually cheering the 9/11 attacks. My stomach churns whenever I remember it.
Wow, 17 years has gone by so fast. I was in 7th grade, watched it on TV, but understood none of what was happening. How could a child grasp the magnitude of how the world was going to forever change?
I remember scraping the frost off my truck in the dark and warming it up. I pulled out of the driveway and heard the news. My business didn’t open for two hours, so I whipped around and went back in the house. I watched the second plane hit and stayed glued to the T.V. until the collapse. At the time I was a volunteer F.F. and EMT. It really hit home that people just like me willingly went in to do what they could and never returned.
The second thing that I really remember is that it was the height of hunting season in Alaska and I had multiple friends that were in remote areas dropped off by bush planes. With the several day ban on flights, many of them were trapped and had no idea what was going on.
I was working second shift at the time and woke up late. I had a missed page that said call the PD when you get this. Since I was, and still am, boycotting the cable company at the time I didn’t have television. I turned on the radio on the way to the kitchen and noticed it wasn’t the usual talk show- what is going on? I called the PD and was told to be on standby until further notice. My family is originally from NY with several still there and working in the city. A close cousin actually worked in one of the towers. I called my parents, who live in SC, and my Mom was crying. My Dad filled me in and said they have been unable to get through on the phone to family members still in NY. I remember how somber everyone was sitting in the squadroom before the shift that day. Everyone knew that our country had changed forever.
I remember watching TV and loading mags because I wasn’t sure what else I should be doing.
The week after was surreal, guys with M16s and dogs at Ft. Lauderdale airport and an actual Abrams tank parked on the airport perimeter road very visible from I-95.
You are either a lot younger than I thought, or failed even more grades than I thought anyone could… 
People have forgotten. Heck 25% of the US population probably wasn’t born or has no direct memory of it.
A transcript of Tom Burnett’s final calls to his wife:
http://www.tomburnettfoundation.org/transcript.html
Tom (on board United 93): “…Good. (a long quiet pause) We’re waiting until we’re over a rural area. We’re going to take back the airplane…”
I got called in off leave to work midnights. Patrolled the DC side of the Potomac river on foot for 3 nights watching the Pentagon smoldering while all lit up with lights. A few days later I was assigned to Arlington cemetery along the fence line to keep the media out of the debris field in the cemetery. Hard to believe that was 17 years ago. My blood still boils when the history channel plays the footage. David
29, but I did do an extra year of High School because I liked it so much HA!
I remember first hearing about it as I was getting ready for school on the radio and thinking it was an accident and turned on the TV at home. When the second plane hit I knew it wasn’t an accident. We did nothing all day at school, I was a high school sophomore, but watch CNN, Fox News, CBC, etc. Football practice that day was completely half-assed and we were just going through the motions. Really that whole week was useless.
The military recruiters used to come by twice a month, usually in a Class B type uniform talking about money for college, travel and that stuff. The next time they came by, each was in cammies, talking about how their branch was going to be killing terrorists.
It absolutely had an impact on my career plans and course of study in college. To say otherwise would be lying to myself.
8th grade- civics class- started watching just before the second plane hit. I didnt know what the big deal was until I realized it was in our country… then it hit home.