Where were you at 9/11/01?
 

It was just any other summer night for me so I decided to stay up late and watch Leno and Letterman. I couldn't sleep though afterwards so I was up all night. Next thing I know I'm watching the attack on the Towers as it was happening. I thought it was just some building fire. Then the 2nd plance hit and I got the feeling it was terrorist related. I said a little prayer while feeling the sorrow and sadness inside. The rest of the day I spent it with family watching the aftermath.

For days and weeks following all I felt was anger, sadness but most of all patriotism.

Personally I can't join the military becuz of health reasons but I made sure even as a civilian I would do my part for the nation. In high school I was brought up in a military style marching band. Also I lived in a military family with my Dad being in the Navy. During National Anthems I have always stood at attention no matter what type of reaction I got from the surrounding people. After 9/11 I still stand at attention during the Anthem.

It is also becuz of 9/11 that I joined my fraternity of Kappa Kappa Psi. Through Kappa Kappa Psi I felt I could continue to honor my country. Whenever I wear the letters I feel like I'm wearing a uniform again.

In the one year commemoration I will honor the day by placing a white flower of rememberance at the flag pole and then giving a drum major salute to the flag. I don't care if people look at me weird by doing that or laugh. I salute the flag becuz I love this country and to remember those who died that day which may have included some brothers.

I was walking to class and for some reason decided to go through the UC ( university center ) and there in the lobby was a television set turned on to CNN. They were showing the towers burn and collapse. It made me sick to my stomach. :( At the same time a great sadness overwhelmed me...it was just so sad. They canceled classes and shut down the entire campus. To get onto campus you had to show all this ID and there was only one entrance and exit. It was scarry! I remember watching the news and the San Antonio mayor came on saying that we (san antonio) was prepared for anything (attack) and that we had enough blood available as well as doctors and stuff....it was carzy!!! I was scarred...

ronnie

i was sleeping...
i had class at 11:00, so i got up at 10:00 and took a shower. when i got back to my room i checked my messages and my firend allison left me a message about what was going on. all i remember is her saying "we are at war." i was shocked. i didnt have a tv in my room, so i went down to my firends room and was like "what's going on?" i sat in his room all day watching tv. i was asleep when the towers collapsed and all the planes hit.
i just remember feeling like i wasn't safe anywhere.

We were over Lake Okoboji, Iowa (by Minnesota border), taking our plants class, on our way to Winnipeg, Manitoba. Yeah, we were in the middle of the boonies, and we heard the story on our van radio . There was no TV or anything at our camp, so we went to Wallmart (like 20 miles away) to keep it update. What a shocking moment. :eek:
After we arrived in Canada, our Canadian brothers and sisters supported us. At the custom border (North Dakota and Manitoba), they gave us white ribbon and small Canadian pin.

I was at home getting ready for work but my boss called right when coverage very first came on and said not to bother coming in. He said to just turn on the TV and he was closing the office for a little while. I ended up just sitting on the carpet in my business suit and heels for a couple hours watching the coverage. Then we opened the office, but we kept taking turns going home and watching TV the whole day.

Being that Hawaii is 6 hours behind the East Coast, many of us were asleep. Brady [my BF at that time] and I were sleeping when we received a phone call from his best friend in California. It was hard to determine what the hell she was saying because I could hear her crying. She told us to turn on the TV and sure enough, it was happening before our eyes.

I was nervous because Brady lived in Coast Guard housing. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to leave housing and go home.

I called my mom to let her know what was happening and she told us to come home right away. We packed up our stuff and went to my house. What normally takes 5 minutes took us about 45 minutes because they were doing a thorough check of everyone's cars.

I immediately thought of my sorority sister and her husband. They had left Hawaii on September 10th and they were on their way to their new home in Washington, but their flight took them to LAX first. It was a while before I found out they were okay.

What scared me the most was when Brady gathered his uniform and his weapons. At that point we weren't sure if they were off to go somewhere. He got the call to go in as soon as the sun came up.

I didn't bother going to class that day. I knew there was no way in hell my professors were gonna force us to go in on a day like that. My boss called me to tell me that I should stay home considering I didn't know what the hell was going on with Brady.

It's a day I hope I never have to re-live again.

I was in my World History 2 class that morning. My professor allowed to watch about 10-15 minutes of it. All of the political science profs (the floor was the Dept of History, Poli Sci, and Economics...Go fig!) came into our classroom and watched it. She turned off the TV then, and then she went on with class. But, she dismissed early that day. I went back to my dorm room and called my big (She lives near Somerset, PA). She turned out to be okay. Then, I called my dad. He was sent home early from his job with the State of PA. He also turned out to be okay. I was very scared that day!! :(

I was at work. I had just walked over to a co-workers cube (he happened to be from NY) and he said "A plane just hit the world trade center". My mouth dropped open, we gathered our other co-workers, and we went into the conference room to watch it on TV. We saw everything on TV starting with the 2nd plane. When the towers fell they told us we could go home.

I was pretty releived we could go home because:

1)I worked on the 33rd floor of a downtown building
2)The president was in Sarasota and we were in Tampa (about 45 minutes away by car).
3)We could see MacDill AFB from our windows at work - It was rumoured Air Force One was going to land there, also the home of CENTCOM - Central Command for Middle East Operations.

On my way home I kept trying to get in touch with my parents and sister ( I had already talked to my husband at work). I finally got them all & on my cell phone to boot :D I will never forget that day.

I was on my way to my 9:30 class and listening to the radio when the second plane hit. They had already been broadcasting that a plane had hit the WTC but no one had mentioned the size of the plane, I thought it was one of those small planes and the radio people were saying it was probably faulty radar. I was parking as they came on and said a second plane had hit. I called my mom because both my parents work in DC for the gov't and both have high ranking status. I asked her if she knew what was going on, and at that time she as well was thinking it was a small plane. She told me she would call her supervisor and call me right back, I told her not to bother because I was walking into class. When I got out of class at 10:45 I walked to my car and didn't turn on the radio because I was trying to call my mom. Obviously I couldn't get through to DC. I walked into my apartment to the first tower collapsing live on screen and my roommates telling me that DC had been attacked. I think I called everyone in my family that day trying to find out if anyone had heard from my parents. There were originally reports that the mall was on fire and my mom works two blocks away. Suffice to say I spent the entire day hysterical until I basically passed out from exhaustion. I woke when my Dad called and could finally get through around 4 pm. Fortunatly no one I knew or any one I knew knew any one who was hurt. I found out later that my uncle who works at the pentagon watched the plane hit because he was late that day.

I will never forget the impact on 9/11 on America's life, and in my memories of it I will always remember my sisters who came running over to see how I was doing.

-------God Bless America---------

I live right outside of Washington, DC and our area was in a state of total uproar and grief since some of the events were so close to home. I was on campus walking from the student union building to class and couldn't figure out why everyone was crowded around a radio on the quad. The phone lines were all down and traffic was twice as bad as it normally is. Everyone was trying to get home to loved ones, pick up their children at school,....How will everyone be remembering the event come 9/11? It's a day no one can ever forget.....

I was at work, listening to the radio and they mentioned something about the first plane. I tired to get to one of the media sites but they were all jammed. Then they mentioned the second plane. We went into the conference room and started watching. All of our key personnel were in route to Utah that day so there was no one to tell us that we could go home. Being on the 22nd floor of the General Motors building was not reassuring. So then we decided we were going home.

It took 45 minutes to get from my parking garage to the main street to go home. So much was coming in over the radio so no one knew if the building was a target or not so it was scary to be stuck so close to it. I came home and watched tv all day with my National Guard roommate.

I was in Manhattan. When I received a call about what was happening, I went into full panic mode. I tried to call all of my family. My mother works on Wall Street which is a few blocks away from the Twin Towers. My younger sister works on the West Side near the Empire State Building. My youngest sisters works in midtown near the United Nations. Fortunately, my mother and youngest sister had never left their homes. They didn't need to be a work until later. When they saw the news, they stayed home. My younger sister was at work. It seemed to take forever to get in touch with all of them.

My sister walked from the West 30's to Rockefeller Center where she used to work to Grand Central Station in an attempt to get home. That wasn't working so she walked to get to me. When she was near the UN, she encountered what could only be described as hundreds of people running screaming, "They're attacking the UN!" She thought that she would be trampled. I waited for her staring out of the window. I saw what looked like throngs of refugees that you see in a war torn country on the news. I was never so relieved to see anyone as I was to see my sister. She was terrified. She has never been the same. I somehow managed to get her into a cab and get her home.

The people flooded the streets of Manhattan for hours. I don't mean the sidewalks either. I mean the streets because the sidewalk wasn't big enough to handle all of these people. Suddenly at two o'clock, there was silence. There were no more sirens of firetrucks and ambulences and no more people. The only thing that I could hear was the sound of jet fighters in the sky.

The next few days were horrible. Most of my friends and neighbors were safe. Sadly, not all of them. Several of my neighbors who were firefighters were murdered. I knew one of them; he was only 23 years old.

What luck
 

That morning I was supposed to meet my mother in the WTC, but she decided to go to some meeting in the Bronx and cancelled on me. I ended up in a diner in Queens watching it on tv. That day I ended up giving blood and heading down to volunteer.

I don't think I ever walked around New York and saw a single person crying; that day and for many days after, I saw more than my fair share.

-Rudey
--And as much as my heart hurts every day I get out of work downtown and see the area or each time I see an American flag, I know most people have already forgotten.

I was in bed when my sister's friend called. She blurts out that a plane crashed into the WTC. I said, "Oh my God!" and ran to the tv, kneeling in front of it, for I don't know how long. I was in a state of shock. From the moment she told me what happened I just knew it wasn't an accident. It was like "a plane crashed into the WTC" equaled "someone intentionally flew into the WTC".

I tried all day long to call my family, anyone in my family. They all live in New York. Luckily I didn't lose anyone. However, one of my uncles lives in Far Rockaway, and his neighborhood was affected the most by this tragedy. They lost somewhere in the neighborhood of 75 people. I have yet to know the extent to which my family was affected. I have not been back to visit since 9/11.

The two months that followed 9/11 were horrible for me. It was as though I was living in a daze. I cried so much. I was so afraid for the world, our country, our citizens, our future, our military, etc. I was worried that my father would be sent to the Middle East (he's a Marine). It was just awful.

Interestingly enough, I was knocked out of my dazed state, or perhaps fear, when we took over Kabul. When I heard that on the news I just felt as though things were going to be o.k.

I'm still touched by this event. I can't watch anything about 9/11 without breaking out into tears. Even reading your stories makes me cry. Reading your stories is an extension of the events that happened that day, and it just reminds me how everyone was so effected by it.

With Love,
Shopgirl

It's interesting how 9/11 effected some of us hundreds of miles away from NYC. It was a wake-up call that life is short and we all are vulernable.

Anyways, I was studying for a test in one of our lounge areas. A guy came in there and turned on the tv and said a plane hit the WTC. I got the impression that it was a little jet and nothing serious. Then he turned on the tv and I was like :eek:. This was before the buildings collapsed. When the buildings collapsed I shook for like a hour straight. I was dazed for the rest of the day.

On 9/11, I was serving as Press Secretary to a Congressional Candidate on a special election in Arkansas. We didn't have a TV set up in the campaign office yet, so when I heard that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center, I assumed it was a small plane that had gotten lost in bad weather. Campaign offices get enough calls on a regular day, but on this day, we could barely handle the deluge of calls from people trying to give us information and advice.

Needless to say, my entire press schedule for the day went right out the window. Our campaign manager had previously been a high ranking Clinton administration official. Someone e-mailed her a picture of the Pentagon taken from her old office in DC -- it looked like the photos of the Pentagon we later saw on television.

We had to pull the candidate from his schedule and get him into the office to regroup. And in a situation like that, you really have no idea what is going on, so it's hard to know exactly what sort of response someone will expect from your candidate.

As all of this was going on, I was thinking about my good friend from high school who was in Manhattan working in the fashion industry. Was she okay? Had she been anywhere near the World Trade Centers? No one could get any calls into NY.... My campaign manager and good friend was in a panic over her friends who were in Washington She couldn't get calls into DC either, so she sent out a "roll call" e-mail asking all of her friends to let her know if they were okay. Not everyone responded. We heard from one gentleman who had been a high ranking military official. His former office was destroyed in the attack on the Pentagon. He told us that he assumed his former secretary had died when the plane hit the building.

Several of us attended an impromptu church service that evening with the candidate. It was a very sobering day for everyone involved. For me personally, it was the first time that the true weight and responsibility of political office really touched me in such a profound way.

I am now working in the private sector. Interestingly enough, my current boss and the CEO of the company where I now work was on his way to a meeting in the World Trade Center on September 11th. He was running late and drove up towards the building in time to watch the first plane crash.

I must admit that this is the first time I have ever really tried to write anything about my own perceptions and experience of September 11th. What I am posting is really only a superficial version of what I saw and thought and did. I don't know if I will ever be able to really capture the way I experienced that day in words. I had a feeling that morning as I was fielding calls from the press and from others that I was not really there... I felt like I was out of my body somehow and watching the entire situation unfold, and it wasn't really real.

I'm going to stop now, because this is already really long, and if I keep typing I risk becoming REALLY overly-emotional. But I've answered the original question of "where were you?" So... where was everyone else that day?

M&M

I was walking to class when I found out... I had just moved into my dorm the week before, and my roommate was still sleeping- so i didn't turn on the t.v. or the radio, and didn't have my cell phone on yet... as i was walking to class, i turned on my phone and had a message from my mom saying "the twin towers are gone"... I had no idea what she was talking about, and kept walking to class... i found a friend of mine on campus and she tried to describe to me what had happened, but it's hard to picture in your head if you hadn't seen it yet on t.v... i got to class and stayed for the whole class... I didn't get to see any pictures until I got back to my dorm after class, and finally saw what had happened- I was in total shock, and in some ways I think I still am...

I guess it's like any other really extrordinary event. I remember where I was when I heard about the JFK (high school PA room) and RFK (College and Union streets in Athens, Ohio) assasinations, the Challenger explosion (the chief engineers office next to mine at a NBC Owned TV station) -- even Columbine (at the National Association of Broadcasters Convention in Las Vegas) since that is so close to home.

In this case, I was in Lincoln, NE on business. I had been at the UNL Delt Shelter the night before, and attended a very nice initiation. When I came down from my hotel room the next morning, the coverage was on TV. I went to an appointment at Nebraska Public Television.

Obviously, I couldn't fly home, so I was watching the coverage, and since I spent many years as a TV director/manager doing live news and sports, I felt like the proverbial retired fire house horse who hears the alarm bell and can't do anything. When the president landed at Offutt (Sp?) Air Force Base -- about 30 minutes from Lincoln -- I called and actually got in touch with a friend who is Senior Director for NBC News and volunteered to head over there. He said that would be a great idea and he would get back to me. Of course Bush didn't stay there, so I ended up doing nothing in Lincoln for four days and then catching a bus to Denver.

Having a lot of friends in the networks and other jobs in New York, I was pretty worried about their safety. In addition, my former company had a TV facility right across from The Battery, very close to the WTC. It took a couple of days to find out that everyone there was OK -- although the facility was shut down. I had visited there many times, and we sometimes stayed at the Marriott which is no more.

I fervently hope that this is the last event in my lifetime where I will remember where I was when I hear the news. But, unfortunatley, I wouldn't count on it.

I was actually in the middle of teaching a class. I teach at a high school and one of my students came in late with a tardy slip. He broke down in front of the class with the news. I turned on the television, just to see what was going on. I couldn't believe it. It seemed as though every single one of my students had a family member or friend who either was flying that day or who worked at the World Trade Center.

I am fortunate because I work at a Christian school; we openly pray. We pray before every class as it is; on September 11, 2001, classes were taken over by prayer, prayers for our country, our President, our families, our friends and all those effected by this immense tragedy.

I know that this was a tragic event, but I also do see the good coming forth from it -- renewed faith and patriotism. I think that every generation has one pivotal event that shapes them; maybe this is ours.

God bless America.

I was in high school still, it was homecoming week. We had went TP-ing that night, and I had stayed up late to finish a paper. At school, everyone was talking about the night before--we had a battle of the bands, and it got out of hand, and the cops ended up macing people, and arresting some kids. So we were riled up about that, then in painting class, we always have the radio playing because our teacher is like all punky and is cool and lets us listen to music. Well anyway, the radio news comes on and says something about terrorists and attacking and I didn't hear it all, so I think it's about Israel or something. So I go to my second class and one kid is like "Yeah, I was in weightlifting and on the radio it said that New York and Chicago are being attacked by terrorists." Then my teacher says "NO, you must be mistaken, I don't want to talk about world events, we have work to do." Then (since the class spans two hours) we go to the library to work on our research projects, there are like 100 people in the libaray watching TV, and we start to watch, and we see the second tower falling live, and my teacher who was like "lets get to work" was like "Oh, my God, and I don't want to talk about it." That's when I found out about Bush and Cheney, and how they had been moved to a secret, undisclosed location. I remember seeing the Verizon Wireless building in the background on NBC as the news reporters talked. Then, through out the day, we watched TV in each class and listened to the radio. That night, while I was doing homework, I was glued to the TV, and I didn't go TP-ing that night, we were supposed to have a tennis meet that night, and all the sports got canceled, and people were like why, NYC is so far away. Me and my friend went out, and there were lines like a mile long, spanning nine blocks to get gas, people were panicking. The Casey's station had jacked up prices for gas up to 4 dollars, but no one else did. Then my friends mom called and told her she wanted her home because there was a rumor that the terrorists were going to bomb the Arsenal, a military arms place by where I live. So we went home, I was out of gas, but the lines were too long to stop. Since that week was our homecoming week, tons of the events got canceled, such as movie night, the pep rally, and during our assembly the chant, because it would "incite riot" as did the battle of the bands, and it would be innapropriate. We signed banners during that week to send to the victims families, raised money, and at our dance, sang some patriotic songs that got everyone, including administration, in the USA spirit. I was not shocked at first, though, because who were we to think that we were invulnerable to attack, because look at other countries such as Israel or Palistine, I expected something like this, eventually, but not of this scale. I was a little shocked because I didn't expect such a big building to come down like it did, and cause all of the carnage that it did. I didn't cry when it happened, but like 6 months later, I saw a special on the people who lost husbands, and such, and one woman told how they found her fiances heart, but not his body, and I just lost it. Now, when I see stuff, I tear up, because this was senseless.

This, too, was my first time actually talking about my personal experience during 9.11, hmm...

L.

I was home in PA, and I was sleeping in late b/c I didn't have to be at work until 2pm, and my mom came into my room and told me after the first plane hit, and said something had happened at the WTC. I wasn't really all that worried, b/c I remembered the last time something happened like that at the WTC back in like 92 or 93, so I thought it was just another like car bomb thing or something. Then, she came back in and said turn on the news, it's worse, and that's when i saw just how bad it was. then, the plane crashing into the pentagon and in somerset happened, and i was like, is this the end of the world? i was really shaken up b/c although Somerset is like 2 hrs west of me, it's still in PA, plus I live only about an hour north of DC, and I was supposed to be in DC for a concert, but my mom persuaded me a few weeks earlier to go to the same concert in Philly on the 12th, b/c Philly isn't as confusing as DC is, drive-around wise.
I still had to work that day, b/c I worked at a little video store that didn't want to close, so I was stuck there for 7 hrs w/ this really mean woman I hated working w/, whose husband is some specialist in the Marines, and she kept scaring me w/ all this war...let's go kill the bastards talk. And that was my Sept. 11, 2001 day

That day was terrible for me, as I have family friends in Jersey/NY, I myself am from upstate NY (it's still home to me even though I now live in Indiana), and my best friend lives a little bit outside of DC. I was sleeping my loft when my phone rang.. Of course I didn't get down to answer it..But then whoever it was kept hanging up and calling back, so I tumbled out of bed and picked up the phone by saying "I don't know who this is, but this BETTER be good". I knew it was an on campus call so I wasn't worried about being rude because I had been woken up.. But anyhow, it was one of my best friends and all he said was "Turn on the TV".. And I was like "DUDE, I'm SO sleeping, call me back later".. And he was like "NO, AMY, turn on the tv!! Something is going on in New York!!!" ... That, of course, immediately sparked my attention, so I turned it on. I had turned it on right after the very first plane hit, so I saw it alllll go down.. I was going up and down the halls of my dorm telling people to turn on their tv's (I think I was the first one on my floor to find out)...

Well in my flurry of telling everyone to turn on the tv, I hadn't heard anything about DC...When I finally get back to my room and had talked to my parents, I hear about the pentagon... I absolutely flipped out and destroyed my room looking for my best friend's home number.. I called there and it was a madhouse (her dad and uncle were both stuck downtown in DC cuz it was gridlocked in a big way).. So I call Jeanine (my best friend) at school and she's absolutely bawling.. She's telling me "Come get me Amy, I'm so scared....Please...I can't die.. I can't leave my room, we have a lock down beacuse all of campus has a bombthreat...Come get me out of here...I can't die without seeing you again, you're my sister!!".. And so on and so forth... So as you can imagine, I TOTALLY lose it at this point.. All day, I was walking around in a daze, mostly locked in my room.. Crying... Worrying...Talking on the phone...Glued to the TV.. It was terrible...

Thats my story anyhow...

Oh, Digital, I cannot imagine what that must have been like for you, I am so sorry.

I remember on the way home from the coffee shop that we planned on going to after tennis, we saw a truck that had a sign that said, "GOD FORGIVE THE TERRORITS, WE WON'T" We didn't go out for coffee though, I came home to watch TV.

I was at my apartment getting ready for my first class. I always kept the television on in my bedroom and had it on Today and was walking in and out between my room and the bathroom. I don't remember what they were talking about that caught my attention, but suddenly they interupted to show the first tower on fire. They knew a plane had crashed into it but it was unknown why, how, where it was from...etc.

And then, right before my own eyes, I witnessed the most horrific sight...the second plane crashing into the second building LIVE on television. I started shaking and called my dad at work almost in tears.

Needless to say I didn't go to school that day. I was too shocked and sad to see what was happening unfold before my eyes. That evening I finally left the house and there wasn't a song on the radio...only the national news. The gas pumps were jammed packed because people here feared a gas spike that was reported to be $5.00 a gallon.

And that evening I sat on my mom and dad's bed, like a little girl, and watched President Bush address the country...and cried with my mother.

I will never forget.

Hootie:(

I was asleep. I always sleep with the TV on. About 6 am, I had awakened, switched the TV from Comedy Central to NBC and gone back to sleep. I awoke to hearing Katie and Matt on the Today show talking about the first plane. Then the Pentagon was hit. I got out of bed and started calling my boyfriend. He didn't answer. So I kept calling. Finally I got him up and told him to turn the TV on. He was over at my apartment in a matter of minutes.

In the meantime, my roomate and her fiance had come back - their 9 am class had been cancelled. We all sat around and watched TV. The guys talked about how they would do what they had to do to protect their country. The girls talked about ways to get keep their guys from being drafted.

I had 2 classes that day. My first class, at 10:30 - either the teacher didn't know or didn't really want to stop class, becasue we still had a quiz. In the noon class the teacher said something to the effect of "this is bad, but we have work to do." I found that to be really tacky.

That night, some friends and I went out to dinner at Fudrucker's and watched the TVs there. It was so surreal. The president was on TV. We were at war.

I couldn't sleep that night. Or the next.

I was on my way to work when the first plane hit the WTC. I was totally oblivious... listening to a tape instead of the radio. I got to work, walked in the door, and heard a commotion in the break room... went to the break room, and there were most of my coworkers, watching as the second plane hit.

I was freaking out because my parents had told me of their plans to "spend Tuesday in the city" so I thought they were in Manhattan... turns out they had been talking about the following Tuesday, the 18th, and were in fact safe at home on Long Island. I tried to call them, but of course the phone lines were down, so I emailed them "PLEASE email me IMMEDIATELY and tell me you are safe!!!" About an hour later, I got their reply. :)

My office was closed around 2pm. I don't know how I drove home, I was crying so hard. I just kept thinking how easily it could have been me, either on one of the planes or in the WTC; I live within commuting distance of NYC (though it's a stretch) and I used to fly on a weekly basis out of Logan Airport. Self-centered, I know, but I wasn't exactly thinking straight :)

God Bless America. I will never forget.

I was in my house up at school. I had woken up and was flipping channels on the TV in the living room. My roommate came in the front door and told me to turn on the news...the first plane had just hit. We watched in surprise thinking it was an accident...then in shock as the second plane hit. We stayed glued to the TV all morning. My roommate got a call that her cousin was inside one of the buildings (he was later pulled out of the rubble alive the next day) . I got a call from my sister that all our relatives in New York were accounted for, but that my uncle had been at the towers about twenty minutes before the first plane hit. That was kind of scary!

My chapter sold 9/11 T-shirts and sent all the money (a couple thousand dollars) to the American Red Cross. Unfortunately, I couldn't help because I was a Rho Chi at the time.

God Bless America!

Where Was I?

JFK in my room at the Dorm at NWMo.

L H Oswald talking to my Mother on the Dorm Phone

Elvis Presely at Aspen and could not figure why so many people were crying till got back to the Condo!

Sky walks in Kansas City Collapsing killing many people at a Tea Dance that My Aunt usually attended!

9-11 at my shop in KCKs with a best freind who is a Police Officer. Came over the Radio that a small plane had crassed into one of the Towers! Dan said there was a TV at Division across the parking lot and left. My employeee hada small TV in teh Back and I brought it up to watch, just before the second plane hit!

We as LXA lost many Brothers in this terrible Tragidy and found out later that one of My Chapter Brothers was at the bottom waiting to meet a client when the first plan struck!

He was spared thank God. There were to many fine people who lost their lives in this act of Cowardice!

May We all remember this people who were killed and pray for the whole world for what about is to happen!

May it not!

I had skipped my first class of the morning. I was waking up and getting ready for my next class, and it happened to be politcal science I was going to next.

I made it to Poli-sci a little bit early... I was still oblivious to what was going on, until my good friend Michelle walked in. She mentioned we might not have class, and I asked why? She said "Because of the thing happening with the airplanes". I was confused. Our poli-sci professor got to class a lil early too. He seemed to be in a rush, and unsettled. He had this weird look on his face, so I kinda knew something really bad had happened. We went to the Student Union as a class to watch the news. We watched in horror as the second plane hit :( My friends and I were very emotional about it and were crying.. for the rest of the day people just went about in what seemed like a daze. Sitting at the front desk of my residence hall (I was an RA at the time) all we could talk about was how unbelievable the whole event was. "What could make someone hate THAT much?" was all we could think.

I went to my volunteer radio DJ job at the campus radio station and it was a bit chaotic as well. It was so weird. I was normally one of the most "bubbly" radio personalities and was in such a state of awe. I felt so robotic reporting the latest news on the incident. The campus radio station had taken off the music from the air and had a live radio feed from one of the parent news stations. An hour into my shift I was told to switch back to music and was given a list of music *not* to play due to the lyrics and the given situation. Even with the music, I couldn't pretend that everything hadn't happened. It was so hard not to cry while on the air that day.

That night our school held a candle-light vigil on University Blvd. and everyone was bawling. We were very worried about the incident because there was a Naval Air Station in the city we lived in.. and also another one not too far away.

After the vigil, we went back to our residence hall where everyone was huddled around the television in the main lobby watching the footage of the attack... and of the President's Address. It was a very sad day in history.

I was asleep. I had worked 3p-midnight the night before, and was sleeping in. Mr. ChiOJenn called and woke me up in the morning and said, "Get up and go turn on your TV, someone just flew a plane into the WTC". I said, "So what" and went back to sleep. It didn't even register what he had said, because i was dead asleep. An hour later, he called again, and left a message on my machine that I might want to call my bf Erin, and see if she was ok-she lived in NY at the time. I rolled over, and went back to sleep. An hour later he called again, left a message saying that they were evacuating his building and he'd call me later. I finally got up, and was mad, b/c I couldn't understand why he was calling so much and giving me a play-by-play of his day. So, I get up, go into the living room, and turned on my TV-and all I saw was black smoke over NY-the towers had both just collapsed. I just sort of sank to the ground and screamed "Oh my god, what's happening!". I tried to call him-no answer. I tried to call my parents-no answer. Needless to say I was so scared. I was shaking and crying-I just felt so lost. I called my bf's mom and luckily she had heard from Erin, and she was ok. But I remembered that I had a friend who is in med school, and his wife, who is a nurse-and they were vacationing in NY at the time. No one knew how to get ahold of them. It turns out they were ok, and they went to the hospitals to help out. I called my friend Amy, and she had no idea what was going on. b/c she had a final that morning and hadn't seen the TV.

I was in shock all day. I had to work that night, and the floor I was working on was the post-partum floor-moms and their new babies. I kept looking at all these new babies, and thinking-what kind of world have you come in to?? Mr. ChiOJenn came over that night and we both cried and watched TV and tried to make sense of our world. I was scared to go to sleep that night. What blows my mind is that our grandkids will ask us where we were that day and what were we doing. I kept saying-this is like Pearl Harbor, but this stuff is only supposed to happen in the past, like to our grandparents-but not to us.

I'm crying as I write this and as I read all your stories. I still can't watch footage of the second plane crashing into the building. But I love America and thank God everyday that I live here.

The morning of September 11 I had woken up early to study for my statistics test that day. My radio alarm went off at 5:45(8:45 NY time), and the first thing I heard was "A plane has crashed into the world trade center" and I jumped out of bed and turned on the tv, to see that it was true. I ran to the phone and called my Mom. When she answered I said, "Mom, were being attacked, a plane crashed into the world trade center", and she replied "It's okay, dont worry about it", and I said "NO, MOM go turn on the T.V.". She came back to the phone and was completely shocked. I called all of my closest friends and woke them up. Every class at school that day was cancelled and all of the students were mourning.
Its hard to believe that this was a year ago.

I had just hopped in the shower when I heard my father banging loudly on the door saying that New York had just been attacked. I just shrugged it of thinking, "Okay Daddio (who was in the Navy) you're over-reacting as -usual-.." But I finally got out, threw on my robe and walked in the living room to see the horrific pictures on t.v..it's like for once in my life I was truely scared. I quickly got dressed and quickly sped to school ( I had a 11:30 Psych class) just to find the lecture hall the class was to be held in filled with various teachers and students watching the news on the screen in the front of the class. I watched it for a while getting sicker and sicker and finally had to leave only to run into some friends who had just decided to join up that day. The rest of the day I floored it on every back road I could find just to come home and have a message from my exboyfriend (who had lived in Albany NY and now is stationed in Italy in the Navy) saying he was alright but he didn't know where he was going to be the next day.

I still dont' know how some people who lost their loved ones can handle all of it now. My grandfather, boyfriend (at the time) and my brother-in-law are firefighters and just thinking about losing them in something like that was heartbreaking. The familes are truely strong.

I was in my car driving to do some Music Therapy contract work at 2 nursing homes (about 45 minutes out of Tallahassee, FL where I was living at the time). I was singing along to the radio when they interrupted with a news bulletin telling about the first tower being struck. I couldn't believe it and at that point it hadn't been confirmed as terrorist action. I was still driving when they reported the second tower being struck....at that point I knew something was very wrong and I started driving faster so I could get to the facility and see the news. I got there and the directors wanted me to get started with my music group immediately. They said the residents were getting agitated (they had dementia) because of all the chaos of the morning. The room where the group was had a big screen TV and I positioned the group so that I could see the TV (on mute) while the residents faced me. I saw the first tower collapse while I was in the middle of singing a song. We sang hymns for the rest of the group. I still had to go to the next group (at another facility) where there wasn't any TV.

When I got in my car to head back to Tallahassee I remember feeling nervous and not safe being in a capital city. I knew Bush had been in FL that day and his brother Jeb is/was the governor of FL. My apartment was only a couple miles away from the capital building and I kept thinking something bad was going to happen. Traffic was horrible as I was heading home and I decided to cut through FSU's campus...classes had been cancelled that day and traffic was gridlocked there too. I ended up turning off the radio because it was information overload and I felt powerless. I finally made it home, called my family and was glued to the TV the rest of the day.

I had just woke up. It was about 6:00 am. I jumped out of the shower and found a new message on my cell phone. My bf had called me to tell me to turn on a radio or anything because the twin towers were gone and another plane had gone into the pentagon. First instinct was to call my mom at home to make sure my dad was ok since he works for USAirways and who knows what was going on at SFO. Second feeling was pure frustration because our cable guy was installing our cable on September 12th!!!!! So I didn't have a TV so I couldn't see any visuals until classes were cancelled and everyone was huddled in the pub watching CNN. And then all of the radio stations stopped playing music all day. Pure chaos... and I was on the opposite side of the country. It's amazing how fast a university can be shut down but how LONG it takes everyone to leave.

I was walking to my Anthropology Class, when I got there the TV was on and towers were on fire, and then they showed the pentagon on fire. I rushed out to call my mom cause she works at Reagan Airport which are right next to each other. I couldnt get through to anyone in the DC/MD/VA area. Nothing is more frightening than to not know if your family is safe. Well, I got through to my mom in evening.

Walking to german class and my friend was like did you hear about what happened and we were joking before so I thought it would be funny but it wasn't. :(

I was walking out of my room in the sorority suite, and saw in the living room the tv and what was going on. It was about 9am, so i saw the second plane crash. But, of course, at the moment, not having any idea how serious things were.

I went to class, calling my mom on the way to talk about it. The class was Theory of International Relations. The prof had only heard through a few people vague bits of info, so we discussed it for a few minutes. He asked us who we think did it, and why, and I was the first one to say Osama. We talked for a few minutes then went into his regular lecture.

I came out of class and went to the student union to meet with the greek advisor, and ended up sitting with 200 other people in front of a tv showing what was going on. At this point in time I was just learning of the crash in Somerset, a little over an hour away, and that the WTC buildings had collapsed.

I go back up in our suite and try to comfort a number of sisters- many are from outside NYC and have family and friends that work there. I call my mom, and my then-boyfriend who worked downtown in one of the larger buildings, which was being evacuated. Later on in the day we went to a vigil service. Everything was just so weird and overwhelming.

About two weeks later someone called in an anthrax threat to campus. It was a Saturday night, and I wasn't feeling well so I stayed in. I hear people yelling out in the suite, but i thought nothing of it- a Saturday night in the sorority suite, people are gonna be loud. Finally i go out to see what's up, and there's a cop screaming at me to get out of the building NOW! Wouldn't tell us what's going on. So i'm in pajamas, running out of the building. Outside there are SWAT team guys with gas masks and HUGE rifles yelling at us to run as far away as possible. Talk about scaring the shit out of people. I called my little brother on my cell, he lives on campus as well, and told him to get out NOW, that i didn't know why, but just to do it. Then I called my parents telling them that i had my cell but no idea what was going on... i was okay. Went to a friend's apartment where we tried to find out what was going on. Eventually we find out it's a hoax, but wow, that was a scary night.

I had skipped my 9:30 class that day because I was out late with friends the night before. I was getting ready for class and turned on the Weather Channel to find out the temperature. I kept seeing scrolling news at the bottom of the screen, but I thought it was just saying "planes crashed in NY and DC," so I thought it was sad but didn't really think anything of it. Then I turned on local news right as the second tower collapsed. I kept thinking that it wasn't real. As I was walking to my 11:00 class I overheard people talking about it, but still wasn't conviced it was real. In my PR class, my prof told us that we were witnessing history and to go find a tv ASAP and just watch. I went into the theatre building and people were crying everywhere. Some friends and I just held each other and watched.

What made it even worse was that night I had to go a funeral home for the viewing of my friend's mom who had passed away the day before. On my way home, I drive past Detroit Metro Airport, and it was the creepiest feeling. There was nobody on teh freeway, and there was no sign of life at the airport.

That night my roommates and I kept hearing fighter jets overhead. Anytime we heard a plane we freaked out. We were so scared we couldn't sleep.

It's normal in my family as soon as we get up in the morning to turn on the tv to a local news station. My alarm had gone off and I had just hit the snooze when I heard my mom turn on the tv and then I heard her yell for my dad to get up that the WTC was on fire (didn't know that a plane had crashed in to it yet). At that point I put my tv on just in time to see the second plane crash in to the other tower. All I could think of was "oh my God we've just been attacked". We immediately got on the phone to call my sister and brothers who all live out of state. I also texted message my boyfriend and then tried calling him about the news. Then the news starts talking about 2 other planes going off course and then that the pentagon has been hit with a plane too. After that it was a lot of calling family and friends back and forth with the news and talking about all the rumors various news channels were reporting.

I have one brother in the Coast Guard stationed near Norfolk, VA and the base was immediately locked down and on the highest level of alert. My other brother, who lives in Washington State, called to tell me to put on BBC America ( I have different tv company then my parents do). I was watching their coverage and they actually showed a video of the plane that hit the pentagon. I've only seen it the one time and it's never been shown on American tv, I guess it may show some national security measures. If I didn't know a couple of other people who saw the same thing i would think I had had a nightmare of it.

I remember just sitting in front of the tv in shock as all this was going down. I do have to say it was the oddest thing flipping to every channel on directv from shopping channels to sports to animal planet and everyone was broadcasting the attacks on tv. i have never seen anything like it before. Finally when it came around to 8:00 when I should have been in the office I called my boss and told her that I would be late and didn't know what time I would be in. She knew a plane had flown in to the WTC but didn't know about all the attacks.

I don't think I will ever have the memories erased in my mind of watching the towers collapse. this is truly the "where were you" of my generation (generation x) even above and beyond the shuttle explosion. Pretty much any generation born since Kennedy was shot or when the shuttle exploded this it the where were you time. I finally forced myself to go to work but ended up answering questions about what had happened since we didn't have tv feed in the Admissions office. Finally the Campus President announced that Governor Davis was shutting down all state offices and that the campus was closed. I drove home and just sat in front of the tv not still not believing my eyes.

I do remember everyone in my family telling each other we loved them. It's not something we normally do although it was always understood without saying the words. At that time they needed to be said. Then we just prayed our hearts out.

This Wednesday CSUDH is going to read off the names of the Californians that died in the plane crashes. After each name is read a bell will sound. Then a Patriotic quilt is being unveiled at the university. Finally at 8:00 Wednesday night we will hold a candlelight vigil.

The previous night, I had been in the ER with my then BF. So, I had called in late to work. I got to work just as the news of the first plane crash was reported. I was in shock, since I'm from NYC and used to visit the towers regularly. But, I still didn't think anything more than a horrific accident had occurred. I sat in my car for a few more minutes to hear that the second plane had hit. I walked up to my office and told everyone what was going on. The cynical group they are, no one believed me. I could care less about starting work, I just ran into our break room to see the news. I kept running back and forth between my cube and the break room to watch. When I saw the towers collapse, I just felt such a profound sadness. I called my mom at work and left her a message: "Mom, the towers are gone." She called me back, but we didn't say much of anything except, I can't believe it." I live just outside of DC, so when the Pentagon was hit, that was a little too close for comfort. Soon, rumors were flying through the office "The USA Today building is on fire" , "Camp David was attacked." It all seemed surreal and I just needed to get home, safe. My a$$hole boss was trying to keep from us the news that we were allowed to leave if we wanted to, but I found out, walked up to him, and asked him why he didn't tell us. The negative, cynical prick he is said, "You can go, but I don't know why you are so upset." I just stared at him and said, "I'm outta here." I booted my PC down, grabbed my stuff and drove home (I only live 2 miles from work). At that point, all I wanted to do was see my BF. I called and called, no answer. Turns out that the "sick" ex was ata bar, drinking!!!!!! And he never called to see how I was (needless to say, can you see why we aren't together anymore). I got home, woke my then roommate up and she was in shock as well. She travels for a living and most of her colleagues were out of town. All of them had to rent cars to get back home (one from CO, the other from FL). I just sat in my room and watched the news all day. I was actually supposed to drive to Raleigh, NC that evening, but was too scared to even venture onto the roads, much less the Capitol Beltway.

And guess what everyone? I am flying.....to Raleigh, NC...on 9/11, this Wednesday. How weird, huh??