9/11/2001 What were you doing?

[BigIron]

With the 10th Anniversary of 9/11 coming up, What where you doing when you first heard about the attacks?

I remember I was a LTJG in the squadron. It was a early on Tuesday morning and one of the Chiefs ran by my crappy little cubicle saying the WTC was hit by a f*'in Cessna. I thought this odd, so I found a TV to watch the news. Sure enough the WTC was hit and we all know where it went from there.

IIRC, we launched a bird up that to support USS GW enroute to NYC. The base went to instant lockdown. I think a lot of folks slept at the squadron that night.

I flew up there the next day early to also support the GW. Very surreal to see the smoke from afar.

It's been a busy 10 years since.

 

[RHPF]

I was a junior in high school. The first tower was hit just before I was going to get up. My Dad woke me up to tell me about it, and I was eating breakfast when I watched the second tower get hit live.

Went to class and watched the rest there as most of the classes left the news on to watch as more information came in.

 

[The Phiz]

I was a Freshman in high school. And probably the only one without a cell phone, so I knew something was happening, but the rumors kept changing. At one point, people were talking about a nuclear attack, to war, to an accident.

I distinctly remember coming home, and seeing our TV on with the news, and they kept playing the video over and over. That's when it hit me.

 

[webmaster]

I was a LTJG that had just recently checked into his first squadron, the Skinny Dragons in Kaneohe Bay, HI. My wife and family were still on the east coast, she called me and woke me up to the news. The place I was in didn't have the cable hooked up yet. Ended up going over to my sponsor's house, woke them up and we all sat watching the news. Two and a half months later we were relieving VP9 in the desert and flying missions over Afghanistan as a 3P (so much for ASW). And many more sand box deployments throughout the years, with three more of the anniversaries flying missions in support of OEF/OIF. I recently hit 20 years of service, and have been spending a lot of time reflecting on my time in, and now with the anniversary, how much of it has revolved around our "war on terror" and operations over seas. As BigIron said, it has been a busy 10 years.

 

[yak52driver]

At a prior IT job. The VP of the division asked me how a plane (the first one) could fly into the World Trade Center, I remember telling her I didn't think it could be an accident.

 

[hlg6016]

Watched it live on the tv while I waited to be interviewed for my current job, At the time I thought it was a nut flying a bug-smasher. By the time I wrapped that up and got home the second plane had hit and the first tower was down.

 

[Brett327]

Like BigIron and Websan, I was a LTJG in my first Prowler squadron. Sat down to check email as I ate breakfast and saw the "Plane hits WTC" on the Yahoo main page. I figured is was a light civil and turned on the news about 2 minutes before the second jet hit. I grabbed my stuff and headed to the squadron. Getting on or off base was a nightmare for about a week. Flew a couple days after that, before commercial flights were back online. TFRs everywhere, Navy ships and fighter caps patrolling the Puget Sound and barely another soul to talk to on the radio. Two months later, I was deployed as well, flying over Iraq and wondering when Al Qaeda would come over the dunes and overrun our Saudi airbase. A busy 10 years indeed - for everyone.

Brett

 

[Lucy]

Second period science class in 7th grade. First hit, tvs went on, watched 2nd tower hit live, the towers crumble, and stright news for the next 6 hours. Indoor lunch. Was in a major aircraft city so we were on some level of alert and parents had to come sign us out at the end of the day, no school the next day. Have a journal somewhere with an immediate response from third period.

 

[OscarMyers]

I was sitting in Anti-Terrorism class in boot camp at RTC Great Lakes watching a video about the WTC bombing. One of the instructors came in and told us something had happened. We marched back to the berthing and watched it all happen on the TV in the compartment. Base went to FPCON D and no family was allowed on or off base. We passed in review on September 13th. From what we were told the first grad group to pass in review in front of empty stands since vietnam (not sure how true that was). Flew to Pensacola the following monday out of an empty O'hare airport. Didn't realize the significance of the empty airport at the time, until years later i would hear radio and Tv personalities ask people when the first time you flew after 9/11. One hell of a welcome to the Navy.

 

[PropAddict]

High school English class, junior year. Crazy old Mr. Fletcher the ex-CIA Soviet specialist turned history teacher ran in and said "Anita, have you heard? It's terrible. Some hijackers took a plane from Boston and flew it into the World Trade Center."

We all kind of shrugged and went "Umhmm. So?"

Then we plugged in the TV, I jury rigged an antenna with some paperclips and a metal pen and we saw how massive the destruction was from the first plane. Shortly thereafter, the second plane hit. Spent the rest of the day watching TV in every class.

 

[fattestfoot]

Was a senior in high school, in my math class. The teacher turned the TV on not too much before the 2nd plane hit. It was my last class of the day (work release), and so I got home as quickly as I could and watched the rest unfold.

 

[MasterBates]

I was a CANDIO at OCS. I had some overnight watch, and was sleeping in the "dungeon" of Batt One.

My roommate came in, woke me up, and said NY had just been bombed. For the first couple minutes I thought it was some OCS mind game.

I was wrong.

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

 

[HAL Pilot]

I was in the DC-10 sim at the United training center in Denver. Came out of the box to an empty build which was usually very busy. Wondered where everyone was and walked back across the street to the hotel. Got to my room and turned the TV on.....

 

[wlawr005]

Like most, I was a senior in high school. We had just sat down in class (Calculus) when the teacher turned on the TV just in time to see the second plane hit. I didn't think much about it at the time, I didn't have a sense of what the implications of such an act held. I will always remember my teacher sitting down at her desk and quietly crying to herself as the first trade center workers started jumping from the upper floors...

 

[GroundPounder]

I was sleeping, when my wife called to tell me that an airliner had flown into the WTC. I tell her that she is crazy it had to be a GA aircraft, and go back to sleep. Shortly afterwards she calls back, to say the second plane had hit, so I roll out of the rack turn on the tv and see it was true. At the time the only thing I can think to do is to head into work in case I'm needed. I show up at the station only to run into several people to tell me " we though you might be dead". Obviously it wasn 't a time for jokes, and it only then sunk in that I had flown back home from Boston on the previous day.

In Boston, we had taken a Duck tour, and as you get on the driver asks each person where they are from in order to relate some part of the tour to your home state. The people sitting next to us were from California, and as we talked told us they were heading home on the 11th. Obviously at the time that had little meaning, but I've always wondered if they were on one of the flights out of Boston.