Annual 9/11 Question

[Anonymous]

I'm French, and my boyfriend had just moved to the States to work at NIH. I was in a car in Paris, and saw people congregating in front of TVs in shop windows, and wondered what was so riveting on the screens.

Then I came home, listened to the news on the radio and tried to call my boyfriend. For 24 hours, we could not reach him, there were so many people trying to call.

My aunt working near the twin towers in NYC was late for work that day, and she saw the catastrophe while she was walking towards it in the street. She turned around and walked back to her apartment.

[Anonymous]

On an elevator going up to the highest floor in a skyscaper in downtown Minneapolis, where I worked. I was only 20, working at an internship for a large company. One of my coworkers was in the elevator with me and told me that a plane ran into the WTC. I didn't think much of it, thinking it was a small plane.

Days, weeks, MONTHS after, I found it so difficult to work on that top floor of that building. I was on edge constantly, always looking at planes out the window. I even thought of buying a parachute and keeping it in my desk drawer just in case.

I ended up switching teams and they worked down on the 7th floor, which help a ton with my anxiety.

[Anonymous]

I had just started a new job at a domestic violence project and had a breakfast meeting that morning with my staff mentor. After our meeting I walked to my car to head to work, listening in the car to NPR which was my typical thing. They were broadcasting about a plane flying into one of the towers but at that point it was just the first plane and it was assumed to be a terrible accident. By the time I got to the center and was gathering my things for our staff meeting, the news broke that another plane hit the other tower and it was obviously something entirely more awful. We all gathered in our conference room and plugged our TV in and started watching coverage as the events unfolded. I tried calling my close friend from law school who was still in DC living and working and couldn’t get through because the circuits were overloaded. When the towers fell, I told my coworkers I was taking personal leave and I went home and spent the rest of the day and the night watching TV coverage nonstop, with just my dog and cats for comfort. The day had started out so brilliantly, so beautiful weather wise but also the place that I was on a personal level at that moment. I feel like the 22 years since have been a long slowly unfolding nightmare in terms of what has been revealed about certain aspects of our national character.

On this day and many others, I often contemplate what the world would be had 9/11 never happened. I don’t think it is possible to overstate the cataclysmic effects of that event on our country and by extension the rest of the world.

[Anonymous]

I was in an elementary school in Alexandra meeting with administration. Watched on a TV in the office as the planes hit. Once the plane hit the pentagon, the meeting was abruptly canceled because parents were calling to pull their kids out of school (many military at this school).

I drove home instead of returning to work and watched as numerous emergency vehicles were heading in the opposite direction - toward DC. Got home to find my spouse quickly dressing to head into DC. He as in law enforcement. He wanted me to pick up the kids from school and head out of town. I refused - wouldn't leave him.

#NeverForget

[Anonymous]

At work in downtown DC. Had a congressman's wife as a colleague so she started getting alerts before the news was announcing terrorism.

Spent the day helping colleagues get home. Spent the next week hearing about all the people I knew who had died or were missing. (I'm from NY.)

[Anonymous]

Sitting at my desk in Arlington. I heard my boss say "Holy shit! a plane hit one of the Twin Towers." Then a short time later another hit.

Then the Pentagon. My neighbor and one colleague was on that plane.

My dad was high ranking FBI so I called him and asked what was going on. His response?

'We're still trying to find out.'

In the years since I have come to know at least another dozen people who lost loved ones at the Pentagon or on that plane.

66 and the GW parkway were closed. It took my three hours to get from the State Theater to Old Town.

I spent the rest of the day sitting on my then gf's, now wife, front porch smelling the Pentagon burn.

I really can't believe it's been a generation.

Such a waste of life and treasure.

[Anonymous]

Crossing the street in Midtown when the second plane hit.

[Anonymous]

On the Orange Line between Clarendon and Metro Center when the Pentagon was hit.

[Anonymous]

I was a 2L and was driving to the law firm in Maryland I worked at part time when the 1st plane hit. I can remember the brilliant blue of the sky that morning. Shortly after I got to work the 2nd plane hit and rumors started flying about things going on DC. We were sent home after the plane hit the Pentagon. My then-boyfriend, now-husband and I went to his apartment in Chevy Chase and we could see the smoke from the Pentagon.

[Anonymous]

It was such a beautiful day, weather wise. Weird how that sticks out for so many. Absolutely gorgeous.

[Anonymous]

I was teaching on Long Island. One of my students got some text/notification on her cell phone and announced something was going on. I turned on the TV in my room.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Freshman at GW, second week of classes. I had just walked back from my 8am French class and a bunch of people in my dorm were saying a plane had flown into the WTC. Went upstairs and turned on the tv just at the moment the second tower was hit.

I was in my dorm room wondering if I should go to my 10am dance class when I felt the impact of the plane hitting the pentagon. Then we saw the smoke. I called my mom and woke her up (in California). She told me I must be seeing a new movie or something on tv but then I told her to turn on the news and she believed me.
School hadn’t said anything about cancelling classes so I walked to my dance class. Got there to learn that yes, classes were cancelled for at least the day.
Walked home and could barely squeeze myself between the cars trying to get out of the city. We didn’t know what to do but we kept hearing rumors that the White House was the next target and we live about 4 blocks away.

My dad was still in DC for work after dropping me at school. He was supposed to be on AA flight 77 (Dulles to LAX) but had postponed his trip a few days earlier because he had a meeting that Tuesday morning - at the Pentagon. He was driving there when he saw the plane hit, he immediately turned around and went back to the firm he was working with and ended up driving a colleague all the way to New Carrollton metro station where he had parked his car. Dad didn’t have a cell phone and my mom and I were worried about him until he finally got back to his hotel @4pm and called one of us. I remember my mom was furious at him that he hadn’t tried to reach us but of course he and everyone else was just trying to do their best that day.

My dad came and picked my roommate and I up and took us to dinner that night - we went to La Chaumiere and I think we might’ve been the only people there.

It was a surreal and very scary day for 18yo me, just starting out on my adult journey. A boy on my floor lost both his parents that day - they worked for Cantor Fitzgerald. I remember he left school the next day. My uncle got stuck on the PATH on his way to a meeting at Cantor. He later told me that he was running late and had been annoyed and then so grateful. The big almost coincidences were really scary to me and I started getting panic attacks that fall.

I am so, so grateful your dad and uncle were OK. The incredible coincidences around your father's missing Flight 77 and then not yet being inside the Pentagon, and you uncle's nearly being inside the towers--I can see how thinking about those things would drive one into panic attacks. I hope you got help for those. What an experience to have at 18 in a new city, one that suddenly is under attack. I am also thinking of your classmate who lost both parents in one fell swoop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Freshman at GW, second week of classes. I had just walked back from my 8am French class and a bunch of people in my dorm were saying a plane had flown into the WTC. Went upstairs and turned on the tv just at the moment the second tower was hit.

I was in my dorm room wondering if I should go to my 10am dance class when I felt the impact of the plane hitting the pentagon. Then we saw the smoke. I called my mom and woke her up (in California). She told me I must be seeing a new movie or something on tv but then I told her to turn on the news and she believed me.
School hadn’t said anything about cancelling classes so I walked to my dance class. Got there to learn that yes, classes were cancelled for at least the day.
Walked home and could barely squeeze myself between the cars trying to get out of the city. We didn’t know what to do but we kept hearing rumors that the White House was the next target and we live about 4 blocks away.

My dad was still in DC for work after dropping me at school. He was supposed to be on AA flight 77 (Dulles to LAX) but had postponed his trip a few days earlier because he had a meeting that Tuesday morning - at the Pentagon. He was driving there when he saw the plane hit, he immediately turned around and went back to the firm he was working with and ended up driving a colleague all the way to New Carrollton metro station where he had parked his car. Dad didn’t have a cell phone and my mom and I were worried about him until he finally got back to his hotel @4pm and called one of us. I remember my mom was furious at him that he hadn’t tried to reach us but of course he and everyone else was just trying to do their best that day.

My dad came and picked my roommate and I up and took us to dinner that night - we went to La Chaumiere and I think we might’ve been the only people there.

It was a surreal and very scary day for 18yo me, just starting out on my adult journey. A boy on my floor lost both his parents that day - they worked for Cantor Fitzgerald. I remember he left school the next day. My uncle got stuck on the PATH on his way to a meeting at Cantor. He later told me that he was running late and had been annoyed and then so grateful. The big almost coincidences were really scary to me and I started getting panic attacks that fall.

I am so, so grateful your dad and uncle were OK. The incredible coincidences around your father's missing Flight 77 and then not yet being inside the Pentagon, and you uncle's nearly being inside the towers--I can see how thinking about those things would drive one into panic attacks. I hope you got help for those. What an experience to have at 18 in a new city, one that suddenly is under attack. I am also thinking of your classmate who lost both parents in one fell swoop.

Thank you. We lost my dad (at 90+) 3 years ago on Sept 12, he lived a great life and was able to see me fully grow up, get married and have kids.

[Anonymous]

I know a woman who missed both the Air Florida Flight and the Pentagon flight.

What are the odds?

[Anonymous]

I was driving in to work in downtown Austin. I heard about it on the radio. Rumors started going around pretty quickly downtown that we’d be hit too as Bush had just been governor there.