What Were You Doing 10 Years Ago on 9/11?

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This day means different things to different people. As a New Orleanian, i may not feel as strongly about it as a New Yorker but the event affected me nonetheless. I was 11 and sitting in my english class. The teacher announced the twin towers in New York were being attacked and the rest of the day was spent watching the news.

I feel like it does not really matter at all what I was doing on that day.

I live in Nova Scotia, Canada, where I was not personally or directly affected by the events, but I was already going through a very dark and difficult time, and it didn't help. I had only been diagnosed with Asperger's several months ago, I had really bad anxiety problems, had gotten kicked out of my first apartment after only a week living there because of a fight I had with a drunk neighbor who would stop harassing me, was put in the hospital, then had to move back in with my parents, where I had plenty of time to learn all about the terrorists killing so many innocent people. I did not believe I or anyone else was "safe" just because of where I live. Every day was a struggle with my anxiety, my new diagnosis, and the constant fear that North America was going to be bombed any second. There were even a couple of anthrax scares in my own town. People were finding "suspicious powder" everywhere (it turned out some idiots had sprinkled some household cleanser for their idea of a joke) and somebody died on the public bus (from heart problems it turned out). Once I was getting my hair cut and one of the hairdressers said she bought a chocolate bar that was full of pills and said terrorists must have been trying to poison us. After the haircut I went somewhere alone in the mall and had a meltdown. When I finally moved into a new apartment late in the spring my anxiety was so bad that if someone rang the doorbell I would literally scream, even if I knew someone was coming over, and sometimes while I was out walking a sudden loud noise like a firecracker some kids had set off would send me to the ground screaming my head off. Today my anxiety is much more under control. What used to be terror has more or less become just anger, hatred and disgust. And I still worry every day about the world ending or one day being forced to wear those hooded dresses, being thrown into prison just for walking around without a male escort and being forced to marry an extremist with nine other wives who beats them every day, or has their female openings sewn shut! I'm sorry if I've offended anyone.

Hi, I'd gotten up around noon or 1, no radio or T.V., took the bus to the grocery store on the way to work, saw the headlines. The first information was that there were 10,000 people in the WTC towers and initially there was not much hope for survivors.
The self-sacrificing rescue workers, the volunteers, the cops, THAT is what I
remember.Seems now to have become a topic to sell newspapers and magazines,and ribbons, pins and buttons to put on clothes. I remember suddenly flags appeared EVERYWHERE! Nice that someone makes money off of misery, but that has become the American way. Sylkat

I was in fourth grade, and I woke up to see it on the news.

It really strikes me as a terrible event. Yet then over tens of thousands of Somalians were starving of the doubt a couple weeks ago. It really puts it into perspective of how nationalism has an effect on you.

I was sound asleep at eight o'clock in the morning but I had the t v on and it was tuned to a local station. I dreamed about the WTC 1993 truck bombing but in the back of my mind I wondered why since I never dream about the WTC or terrorist attacks. When I woke up a short time later I realized I was dreaming about the 1993 bombing because they had been talking about it on Good Morning America. I could see smoke coming from both towers of the WTC but had no idea what had happened since I was asleep when the planes hit the building.

Needless to say, I was very confused for a while, not knowing what, exactly, had happened. When I found out later I was absolutely shocked,

I was 15 at the time, and I had just started my sophomore year at a new high school. I was transferring from first period art to second period geography. I walked into the room for my geography class, and the first thing I noticed was that the few classmates who had already gotten there before me were sitting at their desks staring up in silence. That was when I realized that the television in our classroom was turned on. So I sat at my desk, and I looked up to see what was so engrossing to everybody, and that was when I saw that the set was tuned to the live news coverage. At first, I didn't really comprehend what was going on-- I think my initial reaction was, "Is this some sort of trailer for an upcoming movie?" But then, when it continued on and on, I realized that it was actually happening. My class had a geography quiz scheduled for that day, but the teacher decided to leave the television on while we were taking it. It was very surreal, taking a test while that was going on in the background. About halfway through the test, I looked up, and that was when I saw the live shots of the second plane hitting the south tower. I finished my test quickly, and then sat there watching the news in stunned silence for the rest of the period. Before the class was over, both towers had collapsed.

I don't remember the rest of day very well, except that I was a bit worried because my family is originally from the New York area and we had a lot of friends and relatives there. I took home a memo to my parents which said that attending classes would be optional the next day, and I asked them if they knew if anyone we knew was missing or injured. Luckily, no one we knew was directly involved.

what did I do? Well, 11/09/01 I was in a big supermarket, just had finished one of my jobs there. I wondered why everyone was looking at the window TV sets within the market and as well from outside... I looked there and was watching what was happening. Still I had to do my next job. I did that but sure was not very focused doing my work.

So, what did I do the second time USA attaked Irak, starting the second war against Irak? I was at home, watching TV, wondering why and was talking about it with my parents about this stupid descission.

And what did I do in 1986 as the powerplant Chernobyl blowed up? Well, the time as the media started to broadcast about it, I was coming home from school and my parents have been very worried about it and have been talking about it a lot. We all have been watching TV news and wondered about the truth of what our politicians where talking.... and wonderes about the danger of the cloud coming toward Germany... I was not allowed to play outside and only drink bottled water and so on.

For most of you guys, Pearl Harbor is just an event in the history books. I was alive and aware when it occurred. The 9/11 attack was another Pearl Harbor except it was worse. It happened in the continental U.S., not thousands of miles away in the Pacific and the target was civilians When the Japanese attacked they were going after the U.S. Fleet and they did a bang up job of nearly wrecking our Navy. Civilian deaths in Pearl Harbor were collateral damage, not the object of the attack.

ruveyn

Well, I was thirty five years old, and just married a few month before the 9/11 attack. My wife and I had been renting a small house from her cousin, when I was awakened by a phone call that morning. Getting out of bed, I answered the phone, to hear my friend (and best man at our wedding), who told me that the World Trade Center had had a plane flown into it just minutes before. Turning on the TV, I saw live footage of the huge, smoking wound in one of the towers. After my friend hung up, I just stood there, transfixed by the image. Finally, I was able to pull myself away, and told my wife what had happened. When my wife came out into the living room, she also stared in dumbstruck silence at the TV screen, when we saw the second plane crash into the other tower...
After that, we stayed tuned to CNN for the rest of the day.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

I was 33 and still single. I was sitting in my TV room watching Rove McManus (Australian comedian) when the TV program switched to images of one of the Twin towers on fire. The switch was so sudden that I was initially convinced it was part of the comedy,

Then I realised it was real it was quite shocking. I could hear people on the ground zero saying something about a plane accident. I initially thought it was a terrible accident.

Then the second plane hit the other tower, I felt my stomach churn and through went dry. Myself, and the commentator came to the same conclusion that America was under attack and it was a state of war.

I was 22 and living in Japan at the time. We had just finished watching a movie, and had stopped it when it was on CNN. We had a couple of American friends over at the time, and thought we were watching another movie for a tick, then realised it wasn't. We all saw the second plane hit the south tower live. One of my friends was from NY, and her aunt lived about 4 or 5 blocks from the towers. Needless to say she was freaking out and I gave her my phone to call her family - she eventually got onto them, but it took a couple of hours. I think it was probably the longest few hours of her life. We were all glued to the tv for the rest of the day - like the rest of the world.

The city I lived in was also the base of a joint US/Japan naval base (Sasebo, Nagasaki-ken - to all those playing at home), and the base was on heightened alert for a long time. Not knowing initially who struck the US, living close (about 5kms) to the base, and being relatively close to the Korean peninsula, it was a pretty scary time. I remember seeing a lot of pissed off sailors around the city for a while.

The day before was the day of the general election here. The evening of 10th September my parents and I brought our dog and went down to the junior high school to vote. We decided that one would keep Viggo outdoors if he wasn’t allowed to enter. He was, and I took him. We had to go one by one (to ensure anonymity in our political choices), and he hated it. The little shepherd in him wanted to keep the flock together. He started howling with joy when he saw my mother on the other side, and he wouldn’t keep quiet when I hushed him. An old man looked at me and said: “I don’t think your dog is happy about your political choice.” I laughed, feeling a little embarrassed, and I was very relieved when we got out and Viggo could calm down, having his flock united again! We met some neighbor my mother knew and they talked and the atmosphere was good and relaxed, and she said something that made me laugh a little (can’t remember what) and everything felt rather good.
Incidentally (unrelated to the topic), this was the last election I bothered to vote in.

The next morning the headline in “Aftenposten” read: “Valgthriller i Oslo” (Election thriller in Oslo). I laughed, yeah, elections are so thrilling. Lol. I also thought that the news would be boring, with nothing but political stuff.
Now, this little reminiscing story had nothing to do with the events this thread is about, but for me they will always be connected. For the record, I was 24.

I was sitting on my bed feeding my beloved Nemo when the 15 o clock news began on the radio. The reporter said that a plane had just crashed into the World Trade Center, and an upset eye witness talked about “black smoke billowing”. I couldn’t help but snicker. Crashing into such a distinct land mark! Granted that a faulty plane will be uncontrollable but it still seemed pretty amazing. Laughingly, I yelled to my mother in the living room: “Et fly har kræsja inn i World Trade Center!” (“A plane has crashed into the World Trade Center!”). “Nei, gi deg ‘a,” my mother answered (“No, knock it off”), not in disbelief but astounded. I though again, what are the odds? Then an ice cold shiver ran down my spine (literally) as I thought of the odds. No, it couldn’t be… A feeling of unease grabbed me. At the end of the news there were rumours that a second plane had hit the other tower.
Then I knew for sure. It was no accident. I also assumed I knew who the perpetrators were and I wasn’t wrong.

As soon as Nemo had eaten, I ran into the living room (and tripped on the way and hurt my knee a little). I turned on the CNN, and there I saw the burning towers.
It was completely unreal. I felt lost. As if I saw it from behind a mist or veil.
As I sat there I thought about America. Unlike my grandfather, I have ambivalent feelings toward the country. I hate/d their world police attitude and I had often thought that they deserved, even needed to lose a war. I had earlier thought that I hoped they would get their big cities nuked. Let them be on the receiving end!
Sitting there watching the results of the terror attack, I felt guilty and ashamed for having thought that. I didn’t mean it, I found. I didn’t want it to be like that! These were just normal people whose crime was going to their jobs!
The headline read something about the plane crash. Later it was changed to “America under attack!” and I rolled my eyes automatically thinking “Puh-leeze! Could you be any more dramatic?” but then I realized that well, they kind of were, weren’t they.
They talked about planes hitting the Pentagon, planes crashing in fields, fire on Capitol, shooting; there were a lot of rumours going around. I felt some despair that no-one knew anything. And I didn’t even know anyone over there! All air traffic was grounded, and there was confusion about where some planes were and whether or not they were hijacked as well. I thought: How many planes are there? (that were part of the terror, not how many in all.)
I watched it live as the skyscrapers fell. The dust cloud. Scenes from the west bank showing paleswinians (no, not Palestinians, they are another group of people) rejoicing at the news.
Images of people jumping from the Towers. How desperate are you when jumping from the 80th floor seem like a good idea?
Hospitals feared they wouldn’t be able to help all the victims they expected would arrive. There were reports of people lining up to give blood.

As I watched it all, I thought “This isn’t an attack on the US; it’s an attack on the entire western way of life.” I can imagine a lot of you are rolling your eyes now, thinking that I’m repeating things you’ve heard your politicians saying over and over. But I’m only telling you what I thought while I sat there watching CNN, my thoughts, not the presumed thoughts of Blair or whoever else. These were my initial thoughts. For the first time I understood Kennedy’s famous words in Berlin.

I stayed in the living room for the rest of the evening, and we watched the news; they were on for most of the day. The ‘election thriller’ wasn’t mentioned. I didn’t think about it then, but later I thought that I wished that it had been the main issue that Tuesday. If only… The atmosphere in my home was subdued and we all thought it was unbelievable.
I felt like a zombie.

I had a lot of nightmares after that. Being trapped in a burning skyscraper, the smoke making me cough and gasp, so dark I couldn’t see, desperate to get out. Or I dreamt that I was part of the crew that cleared the place, taking away debris in the hopes of finding life under the wrecked skyscrapers. Or about being on a plane that got hijacked. Later I would also have nightmares about living under Taliban rule. And of being a place that terrorists would hit. And of nuclear war.

As I woke up in the middle of the night, early on the 12th, I wondered if it had really happened or if it was just a nightmare. I went into the living room and turned on the teletext. There it was in all its dread.
The papers assumed about 30 000 people had perished. No-one knew the exact number, but that was an estimate of how many were present there.

I had seen things in the news before that were bad. Most of the time I felt nothing, or if I felt anything, it was anger towards the perpetrator, not compassion for the victim. This time, for the first time in my life, I felt sorry for strangers. I had an honest wish that I could do something for them. The oft shown images of passenger airliners hitting civilian buildings didn’t lose their impact on me.
Seeing the line of desperate people with pictures of loved ones they hoped someone had seen, made me swallow.
The wave of wounded the hospitals feared would come, never arrived. They were all buried under tons of skyscraper remnants.

I knew it was big, of course, I just wondered how big. Would the US retaliate with nukes?

I know this will probably make the young ‘uns here snort, but the first few days there was a sort of quiet here, like a lot of us were sort of shell-shocked. People nodded to each other and were on the same wave length. I felt a sense of sameness that I had never felt before. While none of that lasted long, it made me understand what my grandfather’s generation meant when they talked about the concord and community feeling during WW2. I could relate, and I saw how a war scenario could bring forth the best in people, contradictory as that might sound.
We saw much the same here after the 22nd July terror.

I don’t remember much else of the days that followed. About 10 days later I sort of came to again, and I understood that I had actually been in a state of shock.


In 2003 my mother and I was in NYC. While we were there, we visited Ground Zero. There were 3 black boys there who barked and howled and acted like ret*ds. Street sellers were there selling pictures from the event and T-shirts. There were someone selling grilled food, and it stunk so badly my stomach nearly turned. I don’t know what made me feel more sick, the stench, the thought of eating there, or the ones trying to cash in on the terror. I felt bad from the minute we came up from the nearest subway station. The entire area felt bad and I couldn’t wait to get away. My mother talked about how big the in-fenced area was and how big the complex must have been. We saw the remnants of the underground floors down the gaping hole. Most of the people gathered around were very serious. My mother was impacted by being there. I just felt bad all the way. It felt bad being there, it felt bad breathing there, and I was very relieved when we headed for the subway and left Ground Zero. If we had stayed longer, I think I would’ve suffered a panic attack.



I will always remember where I was when that news broke, just like I will always remember where I was and what happened on July 22nd. Just like I will always remember the events on the days when Nemo, Viggo, Shalom, Nikita and my grandparents died.