SO do you remember where you were 8 years ago tomorrow????

[lost-in-nj]

me at work...
a phone call
turned on the tv and only got the Spanish station

watched and worried
did not have to understand
the pictures said it all

my daughter was an hour away from home at college
wanted her home

my son
a Paramedic/firemen
who was there for days


I remember sitting out side having a cigarette
and noticing there were NO airplanes
the silence was defining


then I took my mom to pick up her pills....
on a hill that overlooked NY

and I saw the smoke, fumes and all the crap

I don't know if we will ever be over this
took a cruise the next year
the whole ship went silent when we went by the site


so
where were

you and what are your memories???

lost

on edit
I lost my first boyfriend
and a neighbors husband
she was pregnant


they are doing ok.....

[TZ]

1. Yep. I remember

I was at work and we heard about it on the lab radio. Later they had a TV in the office area where I watched the second tower collapse live. I remember the moans of grief.... And I remember the frantic worry and calls to friends and family in DC...

[madinmaryland]

25. This is bringing the memories back.

You mention the towers going down. Being five blocks away (75 Wall) on a site survey, I saw people running frantically east, and I first thought (:wtf:). Then a cloud of dark smoke engulfed us (I was on the 19th floor, and ironically we had power through the entire thing). We shortly realized that the first tower had collapsed. It was dark outside. It really looked like it was night time outside. We soon started hearing that the first tower had fallen into the Hudson and in the process knocking over one of the World Financial Center Towers, where I had my office.

Then the second tower came down. I was doing a survey of a company my firm was trying to buy out, and they had their headquarters in the WTC (it was not Cantor Fitz). Everyone was fucking numb. The whole city was fucking numb. We walked through the projects and there was no one around. It was fucking surreal.

We decided to head out of the building shortly before noon. We walked from lower manhattan to grand central where I was actually able to catch a train back to connecticut. I drank at least a 12-pack of beer on the back.

Six weeks later, I had a severe attack of gout.

-

And yes, I do remember seeing (and hearing) the second plane hit the World Trade Center. We still had no fucking idea what the fuck was going on.

[TZ]

45. Yikes.

My BIL has a ATM receipt from the WTC dated September 10,2001. They literally left NY the day before...oh and I was to learn later that my Uncle was near the Capitol and saw that plane flying low overhead. He's also convinced that the one that crashed in PA was heading for the Capitol ..

[Tobin S.]

2. At this time of day I was at work driving down the road

after watching the coverage all day contemplating what it all meant. I thought that it was an act of war, that was my first impression. Then we came to find out that a nation hadn't attacked us, but we were declaring war anyway. I thought it was the opposite direction than we needed to go.

I will always remember that day and I will equally remember how many people have paid with their lives since then, in our name, who had nothing at all to do with the events of 9/11.

[Strong Atheist]

3. Yes. I was on the way to the chiropractor for bad lower back pain. Started to hear the news in the

car on the radio; though the rock station was not giving it full coverage; just at commercials. The chiropractor had the t.v. on, and we saw the towers fall. More news (now being covered) on the radio on the way home. Massive panic by others; the roads were a parking lot. I figured it was over and that planes would be grounded while stuck in traffic. Went to the local hospital, found out where the blood donor site was, stood in a massive line (EVERYONE was doing it); and was turned away because they were full of all except the rare (O negative? - something).

The relatives, who were on vacation, got to me later in a panic, but I told them not to worry, it was over...

[Inspired]

4. Yes, I was driving west on I-80, between Des Moines and Omaha.

I was listening to Mancow Muller and thought he was joking. I switched to an am station and the rest was just nuts.

[DarkTirade]

5. I remember, first a bit fuzzy, then clear as day.

I was woken up out of a slumber by my roommates standing outside my door talking about it. Didn't get the full details until I got to campus shortly afterwards, and sometime between when I left the house and got to campus was when the second plane hit. Right when I got to campus the school decided to cancel classes. So I headed right back home.

[DarkTirade]

19. Oh, and I spent some time that day

and the next few trying to get ahold of the one friend I had at the time who lived in NYC... thankfully not only was she all right, but her mother who worked near the buildings had a doctor's appointment that morning. So she ended up getting stuck in traffic on her way to work late rather than actually being there when it happened.

[bigwillq]

6. See here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6518346&mesg_id=6518377

[lost-in-nj]

8. love you

:hug:


lost

[bigwillq]

9. Right back at you!

:hug: :loveya:

[RFKHumphreyObama]

7. In Australia, where I live

NB: Most of what I've written here was what I wrote for last year's anniversary so it may seem a little familiar to some readers here.

I was university during that year and living on campus. I had just concluded a very long and tiring day and was unwinding late at night in my room at college. I had been preparing some research notes on a tutorial for my American history course the next day on McCarthyism but I decided that I was too tired to finish it and was preparing to turn off my computer and call it a night but, before I did, I logged on to the Sydney Morning Herald’s website to see whether they had put up tomorrow’s edition of the paper (the new edition of the paper usually became available shortly after midnight). And that’s when I heard the news. At that time everything was uncertain and there were rumors flying everywhere. All the other news sites were agonizingly slow to access because so many users around the globe were logging in to get the latest information.

I turned on the TV and all five of our TV channels had crossed live to their American counterparts and bringing us the latest updates as they went along. I just spent the rest of the night glued to the television and the Internet. I cannot even begin to describe my feelings and emotions at that time. I’ve always felt a deep and passionate emotional and perhaps even spiritual connection to the United States since my youth and it was a source of deep and overwhelming pain and grief to see the tragedy and horror that was unfolding. I remember thinking about all the innocent lives that had been lost and all the families that were going to be losing loved ones and I just couldn’t believe that anyone could be so callous and evil as to inflict that pain and suffering on others.

I went to university the next day and it was just surreal and not in a good way. When I went to my history lecture, almost every conversation I could hear both in and around the immediate vicinity of the history department was about what had taken place the night before. My tutorial that day was mainly devoted to discussing what was unfolding and the implications for America and the world.

Most of the TV channels over the next few days continued their almost round-the-clock feed from the American news channels. I watched it and my sense of horror and sadness never left me. I remember looking through the portraits of those who were in the towers and who were at that stage missing and just being filled with overwhelming grief, pain and anger that so many beautiful, innocent people had been taken from their families and from this world. I went to sleep every night for a long time after that waking up every day and hoping that I’d just had a really bad dream and then confronting the reality that it wasn’t a bad dream. As it was, I couldn’t have predicted this in my worst nightmares

9/11 and what followed shattered much of the hope, idealism and faith in humanity that I once had -and believe me, I was once a very optimistic and hopeful person. It's been a downward spiral for me ever since.

My deepest and sincerest thoughts, prayers, condolences and sympathies to those affected and to those who lost loved ones in the awful tragedy, on this the eighth anniversary.

[seemunkee]

10. making funeral arrangements for my mother

[Odin2005]

11. 10th Grade Biology class.

Principal came rushing into the room and told the teacher to turn on the TV. Needless to say, we didn;t get much schoolwork done that day...

[rockymountaindem]

33. I was in 11th grade chemistry

Apparently my mom heard the first of it on the radio in the car while she was pulling out of the lot after dropping me off. A girl, who I shall always remember for this even though she was only in our school for six weeks, told me when I got to class that a plane had crashed into the WTC. I thought it had to be some single-engined prop plane and didn't really think much of it. Then, about 20 minutes after class had started, a student from the math class across the hall told us to turn on the TV. Ours didn't work so we crossed the hall and joined the math class, which was already in stunned shock, watching their TV. That was the first time I saw any of it. I think they were replaying the video of the first tower collapsing, so already things were well underway.

I was standing there with my best friend, watching, and I said to him "the people who did this had better enjoy it while they can because they're all going to be dead soon". Little did I know we'd still be going after them 8 years later...

Amazingly our other teachers kept going like it was a regular day. We all wanted to keep following the coverage, but by lunchtime I guess they made the decision that we should all just do our work. Our English teacher even said, about 12:30 that afternoon, "I'm not going to put the TV on because this is the time during disasters like this they just start running human interest stories over and over again because they're out of things to talk about". I was pretty shocked anybody would say something that shallow on such a day.

Needless to say after school activities were canceled. When my mom picked me up she was pretty much in shock, but told me how she had been sitting on the couch all day staring at the TV and shaking. We were both holding back the tears on the ride home, I think.

[cwydro]

12. I was going in late that day

and was getting dressed and watching the Today Show.

Watched the second one hit.

Called my mom and best friend and said, "turn on the TV". They said, "what channel?"

I said, "any channel!" "do it now!"

The rest of the day, my mom and I watched in horror as she kept saying to me, "WHERE is the president?"

Where indeed.

[rrneck]

13. Loading a truck in a warehouse. nt

[JTG of the PRB]

14. I was asleep in my dorm room.

2001 was my first semester at college, and I was literally just three weeks into my college career. On the night of the 10th, one of my best friends and I went to the Broncos-Giants Monday Night Football game in Denver, the first official game at the new stadium. We both had a great time (mostly because the Broncos won), and I was feeling good on my way back to campus.

I went to school literally right up the road from the stadium, so I was able to take the bus back to my school. The only issue was that most of the buses for almost an hour were completely full, so I walked and waited for one to have some room. By the time I actually got back to my dorm it was almost midnight. I made the decision then that I was going to skip my first class the next day - Speech and Communication - so I could sleep in.

I went to bed and didn't wake up until I heard my phone ring at 10:06am (the time is burned into my memory for some reason). I didn't answer it, as I was supposed to be in class. So I rolled over to go back to sleep. A few minutes later, my roommate came in and saw I was stirring and said to me, "Have you been in here all morning?" I replied that I had, and without another word, he grabbed the remote for the TV and turned it on to the nearest news channel.

I sat up and didn't comprehend at first. "What the hell?" was my first question, so to alleviate my confusion I put on my glasses, only to see the pictures of the WTC burning. "What the fuck?" was my next response.

I learned that it was my mom who ha called me, so I called her and talked to her for ten minutes. Then, being the semi-responsible student that I was, I went to my next class of the day, Statistics. I remember it being the most uninteresting class of my entire life that day, and time moved slower than I've ever seen it move. Nobody was focused on math in the slightest.

As soon as class was over, I went to find my dad. He's worked at that school in the IT department for many years, and I wanted to go see a familiar face. I went down to his office and sat talking to him for about half an hour. Once I felt better, I went to the student center and got some lunch. When I came back to the dorm, many of the people on my floor were in the lounge watching TV. So I joined them, and sat out there talking to them for a couple hours.

It was just such a surreal day. There are something about it I've almost forgotten, and some things that are burned into my memory. The things that I really remember were all my significant interactions with people - emotions, comments, phrases, the atmosphere.

I remember that it was such a beautiful day in Denver - beautiful blue skies, warm, bright sunlight, green grass and trees... Such beautiful weather for such a terrible day.

[applegrove]

15. I turned on CNN after the first plane hit and they thought it was just a small plane accident. I

called my dad. Then we saw the second plane hit. I didn't think of al Qaeda at first, I thought it was the Palestinians. Then I called my sister to get her to watch. Then I had to go to work where they had the TV on. Everyone was in shock. People had husbands who were in the navy and they were getting phone calls to stand up.

My immediate feeling other than shock and anger and grief was that the best and the brightest minds in the USA would take care of this and come up with some brilliant plan to make the world safe again. That the President would call on them. Keep in mind I come from Canada. Boy was I wrong it was all Cheney and Rummy and Wolfowitz. Not the best or brightest minds in the country.

[charlie and algernon]

16. college

My first class that day was American Politics 101. The prof had us bring in news articles from the day before or that morning for every class. That day I had printed my article out the night before, so because I didn't have to get up early to find an article, I was sleeping when it started. I get to class and people who had printed out articles that morning already had stuff on the planes hitting. So they were talking about it and I was totally in the dark. Then the prof said something I'll remember till the day I die, "Yes, America is under attack." Chills. The class was spent speculating what happened, did a bomb explode at the State Department, etc, who did it? was it the Russians, Chinese? The week before, I had actually written an Op-ED for the college paper talking about a fictional scenerio where the US is attacked by various groups and I turned it into a defense of Israel (Don't judge, I wasn't quite as liberal as I am now, lol) so I was kinda laughing with the guy in front of me saying how I basically predicted the attack. Still not knowing how bad it was. After class I walked quickly back to the dorm and walked into the first room that was open. Everyone was staring at the TV and I thought it was strange that it was showing just the empty sky. Then they said the towers were gone...
:cry:
I walked out to the hall and slapped the concrete wall HARD, I was damn lucky I didn't break a bone how hard I hit the wall. The rest of the day was spent wandering into different rooms, everyone watching different channels, all reporting different things. That night when Bush spoke, every single room had it on, it was eerily quiet in the dorm. Also went to a vigil out in the campus lawn.
I was in a daze the rest of the week, people were leaving campus in droves to check with their families in New York, since we were so close to Camp David, fighter jets were flying over campus constantly.

[Rabrrrrrr]

17. Yes - having my offices attacked. It was a beyond shitty day.

And many hours walking home, trying desperately to get a phone connection out so I could let my family know I was alive.

[Swede]

18. I was in bed,my brother phoned me to turn on the tv.

I did,just before the second plane hit.

[rurallib]

20. In the tub getting ready for work, listening to a local station on the radio

one of the female DJs said "Oh my God, it looks like a plane hit the world trade center in New York." I got out of the tub and heard her say "Oh my God, another one." By then I was headed for the TV....

[Amerigo Vespucci]

21. In bed, waking up, one eye open, looking at a burning high-rise with a plane sticking in it

It was one thing to see the news coverage...it was another to wake up to it. It's always been a tradition for me to go to sleep to the TV. The night before, I'd finished putting together a mix CD of "My Little Lover," a Japanese pop group that I like. To this day, I see the CD on my shelf and see that news footage.

I woke up just as they were showing footage of the first airliner.

[crim son]

22. Yes. Talking with a friend on the phone about hairstylists. Ugh.

I was watching the t.v. out of the corner of my eye and saw the first plane do its thing. I assumed it was just a terrible accident and kept talking. Needless to say the conversation ended when the second plane crashed.

September 11 is also my boyfriend's birthday, which is always strange.

[madinmaryland]

23. On Sept. 10, 2001, I was at work, getting ready for a site survey at 75 Wall Street the next AM.

Came home and hung out with the drunks next door and drank a couple of beers, came home and made some dinner, watched some tv and worked a crossword.

The next day, on the other hand, I was the drunk one coming home after my day in lower manhattan. Yeah. The sound of the plane crashing into the building is a sound I will never forget.

:hi:

[Generic Brad]

24. I was at work

One employee after another pulled me aside to give me the horrible news they were hearing on their headsets. Then we had a tv on in a conference room where all the managers stood entranced while the towers collapsed. What can one say? I was numb beyond stunned.

Then that night, my mother called to tell me that it happened because God was punishing this country because of liberals like me. It was perhaps the worst day I have ever lived through.

[Bertha Venation]

50. Brad, I'm sorry your mother said that to you.

:hug:

[TK421]

26. I was just arriving to work....my co-worker casually turned around and said

"Hey, you hear about that plane that crashed into one of the WTC buildings"? I didn't...I literally rolled out of bed with no T.V or anything that morning. He was listening to Howard Stern and I forget how long it was after that they announced the second plane hitting the other tower....I never heard Howard Stern so serious. After that the entire staff was gathered around the television in the main office just watching-numb. I went in to check on my friend who was sitting in his office freaking out when the production manager ran in and yelled " The Pentagon was just attacked "!!

We just closed the theatre down, and went to the bar down the street..weird thing was, nobody drank a thing. Freakiest day of my life....I'll never forget it.

[tigereye]

27. I almost forgot what day tomorrow was, until I saw this

My son had just started kindergarten the week before and i wasn't working much then, and I was a bit of a wreck because of the kindergarten thing, and my sister was visiting, too. On the way home from dropping him off at school I didn't listen to NPR, like I always did. The mailman told me that there was a plane crash in NYC, but that's all he said, and I turned on the TV against my better judgment.


I had never seen anything as frightening and surreal as I saw that day. The sky with no planes later on reminded me of the book On the Beach. Scary.


It still seems impossible that people could care so little for the lives of others, and take so many innocent people with them in their quest for destruction.

[Quantess]

28. Sitting in my room, in the crappy flat in San Francisco I shared with 5 roommates,

one of them a hard-core heroin addict in his 60s, who jacked up the sub-let tenant rental rates to pay for his habit. This was the tail end of the dot.com boom of Silicon Valley, when affordable housing was near impossible to find.

Boxes of my stuff were still piled high from the recent move, after getting kicked out of the house I was living before, with 6 gross roommates. Apparently, the dominant housemates had similarly-loserish-dude-friends who needed homes, so they informally evicted me and another female housemate. I moved into the only place I could find in the Mission District with affordable rent, which happened to be even more of a miserable shithole than where I was evicted from. But I didn't stay long. I moved away from SF at the end of October.

And I had no TV. But I did have a cell phone. A friend called me and told me about the disaster in NYC, so I rode my bike to her apartment and watched the news all morning and afternoon with a bunch of other people.

I had visited the World Trade Center less than a year before.

[Jacobair]

29. I was asleep at college in Berkeley, California.

And pretty soon, the whole dorm was awake .. I remember hearing screams.
And then we turned on the TV and it was happening.
Not what you want to see going on back home where your family is.
I was so helpless. :(

[armyowalgreens]

30. I was sitting on the couch, in my underwear, eating oatmeal, playing hooky.

I told my mom that I was sick so she let me stay home. I was flipping through the channels and found CNN.

I didn't know anything about WTC or the pentagon. But I quickly found out.

I washed the second plane hit and both collapses. It was a weird experience for an 11 year old.

[Snarkoleptic]

31. In a classroom on the Wachovia Bank complex in Charlotte, NC.

We took a break and I saw a number of people standing around the reception desk watching TV.
Corporate freaked out thinking that Charlotte may be next (as it's #2 in banking behind NYC) so we were all sent back to the hotel.
I remember mentioning that OBL was behind the whole thing and was surprised that none of the 10-12 people in our group had ever heard of him.
Next day they fired the VP of our division and had us all rent cars to drive home (me to Chicago).
Very freaky time to be out of town and away from my family/friends.

[Aristus]

32. I got into my car to go to work, turned on the radio, and the first thing I heard was a scream.

It was a live audio feed from the neighborhood around Ground Zero. Scared the piss out of me. I spent the rest of the day in a kind of daze...

[onestepforward]

34. I was asleep. A message on my answering machine woke me up

A friend's voice frantically shouting, "THE UNITED STATES IS UNDER ATTACK! THE PENTAGON WAS JUST HIT!"

I never will forget it.

[grace0418]

35. I remember nearly every minute of that day crystal clear.

I was on the way to work at my crappy-ass job designing crappy-ass stationery products. I got off the bus and two friends greeted me with "a plane just crashed into the WTC." At first we thought it was an accident.

Ran inside. No accident. Everyone in my department, including one of the Vice Presidents, was gathered in the conference room watching it unfold and crying. I remember at one point the CEO's uptight and unhappy assistant came in and took note (with a very disapproving glare) of everyone in the room. Whatever.

Then I realized... my niece had just moved to NYC to start college at NYU. Her dorm and classes weren't so very far away from all the madness. I rushed back to my desk to see if I could get a hold of my brother.

Then I saw an email titled "Emergency 911" and panicked. I opened it to read a message from my boss that said something like "I know this is a horrible day, but we have lots of deadlines and all those mock-ups need to be at Avon's headquarters by tomorrow morning. Also, don't forget the department dinner is tonight at xyz. I'll be in meetings all day."

So that's what my boss was concerned about, deadlines for items that needed to be FedEx'd to Manhattan. How many things can be wrong with one email?

My husband called. He was being sent home. I told him that I had to work AND attend the dinner that night if I wanted to keep my job. He couldn't believe it. Neither could I.

I couldn't get a hold of my brother or my niece. I went back to the conference room to watch. Finally I had to step outside for some fresh air. A friend of mine and I crossed the parking lot, remarking how eerie the silence was (our office was extremely close to O'Hare Airport). Just then, a plane flew overhead and we PANICKED. We got in the car and turned on the radio, ready to leave if we needed to go. The radio announcer said "Calm down everyone, that was an official flight from United heading out to the crash site in Pennsylvania."

Numb for the rest of the day. Finally heard from my niece, she was fine. Thank goodness.

Had to attend that department dinner. The CEO and all the bigwigs laughed and drank and acted like there was nothing strange about this scene. I could tell the restaurant staff couldn't believe we were there. I wanted to vomit. All of my coworkers wanted to vomit. But we stayed because we were afraid of losing our jobs with the world falling apart.

Drove home from the suburbs, one of the only people on the road. No planes overhead. Very little sound. Palpable fear and anguish and dread. Nobody knew at the time whether there would be more attacks, so we all lived in a panic state. Especially those of us in big cities.

Watched tv for too long that night, but there was no sleeping anyway. Went to work the next day because I knew I had to go.

[Lethe]

36. i was eating cereal and about to head off to my Theory of Programming Languages class

i was watching TV and saw it all, and then had to go to a 1.5 hour lecture for class.

[nuxvomica]

37. Driving to work and NPR reported a small aircraft...

...had hit one of the towers. It was described as possibly an unmanned drone. I spent the day at work following the coverage on Slashdot.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

38. I was lying down with a migraine...

It was a brilliant day, and my head hurt like hell. When Mr GoG came in to tell me, I thought he was messing with me; and I was pissed because it wasn't funny and I was in pain.

Then I realized he wasn't kidding.

[LostInAnomie]

39. I was sleeping in my college dorm room...

... when my girlfriend came busting through the door and told me to turn on the TV. At the time no one knew anything. We knew that two planes had hit the WTC and there were others that had reportedly been hijacked. We stayed glued to the TV throughout the day flipping through the channels trying to gleam any information that we could. People all around me were freaking out and talking about war and wishing death on all the people they showed on the Arab street that were cheering. As more and more news and speculation came through some of the people I knew that were graduating soon talked about joining the Army for the chance to get back at those bastards. I don't think I left the TV for one minute that day.

It was a surreal next couple of days.

[wearenotmissing]

40. I'd just moved to the UK

I'd just moved to the UK with my children. Been here 6 weeks, brand new to a new country, trying to adjust to a new home, new culture etc... I was standing on the school playground with my mother in law and 2 year old daughter to pick up my son. A woman who I'd never spoken to before came up to me and said, "have you heard about what's happened in America?". Since my TV had Nic Jr on before we left I hadn't heard. She said that her husband had just called and a plane had flown into one of the twin towers. I rang my husband, he was driving listening to the radio and trying to figure out what had happened. I got my son, raced back to the house, switched on the TV and saw the second plane hitting the tower live. My mother in law sat in the house with me and we just stared at the TV in shock. I rang my husband again and he said that he wasn't getting a lot from the radio.

It was as if the whole world stopped that day. I remember the sick feeling as whole tragedy unfolded. After I put the kids to bed I stayed in front of the TV till my husband came home. I couldn't sleep that night. I went to the shop around the corner the next morning after I dropped my son off at school and everyone was stopping and talking. The shop owner asked if I knew anyone who would have been in NY at the time. If my family was ok etc...

There was an air of shared shock and dismay with everyone. I noticed that people seemed different the next day. They walked slower, seemed more caring and considerate than before.

I see the photos and video footage on the news this morning and that same sick feeling sweeps over me. It's something that never goes away, never leaves you...

Take time today to remember the fallen and their families.

[krispos42]

41. I was at work.

No radio, working in a factory.

Section leader comes up and asked me how old I was. He was a pretty taciturn ex-Pennsylvanian... looked like he stepped out of a Civil War re-enactor's camp. Beard and everything.

I told him I was 25.

He told me I'd probably be drafted 'cuz of the terrorists. Then he walked off.


I blinked and went back to work.


Buzzer goes off at 11am (noon Eastern) and I jump out to the car to get tacos from Taco John's (Taco Tuesday, 59-cent tacos!!!). I heard some of the people talking about something big in NY, so I turn on the radio as soon as I start the car.


Wall-to-wall coverage, talking about how the Twin Towers had collapsed.



After work, went home, saw on TV for the first time what had happened. Lowered the flag outside to half-mast. Spend the afternoon and evening at my in-laws house.

[av8rdave]

42. I remember like it was yesterday

I was supposed to fly a trip that left Dallas in the afternoon and go to New York to layover downtown. My TV was on a timer, set to come on when the Today show started. I came downstairs, made my coffee, and went in the family room to watch the news.

I knew quickly I wouldn't be going anywhere. I remember getting a call from the Chief Pilot in the afternoon. He said, "don't come to the airport, but consider yourself on reserve." I said "reserve for WHAT?" He hung up.

The next week, I showed up for the very same trip. The lead flight attendant introduced himself, then told me that this flight to New York would be his last.

I never saw him again.

[csziggy]

43. Watching TechTV's live newscast

They had just started it a few weeks before and were very amateurish about everything. Then they cut in with the story about the first plane. I spent the rest of the day glued to the TV, changing from one channel to another. Saw the second TV hit on live coverage. Then watched Ashleigh Banfield run from the dust storm of the towers collapsing. Then heard the eerie sounds of the emergency worker's beepers chirping through the silence and dust clouds. That sound brings back that scene every time I hear it - and I hate the commercials that use the devices that make the same sound.

I got pissed about Shrub cutting and running with little thought to reassuring the country. Guiliani, for all his assholeness, acted the leader that day - at least on TV. No other elected official showed up on TV that made any impression of leadership ability all day long. I felt as though our country had no one in charge to help us deal with this catastrophe. I knew damn well that Shrub and Darth Cheney were incapable of handling it and doing what was best for our country.

My husband had just started working in Customer Service for the local newspaper - Sept. 11 was his first full day of work. They printed special editions all day long and sent everyone available out on the streets to give away copies of the paper. He handed out papers until well after dark that day. The only news he got was what he could read in the papers as he gave them away and what he got from people passing by.

An online friend was traveling into New York to meeting at the World Trade Center on the subway. Throughout the day as she tried to get back home to New Jersey, she posted messages on the forum (not this one) with her Blackberry (my memory may be faulty on this - her husband may have been reporting her messages as she sent them to him). Her messages gave us all a sense of what it was like to he there on the scene. Last I heard, she had still not found out what happened to some of the people she was supposed to see that day.

Later I found out that my cousin (who I have not spoken to in forty years) had an appointment at the Pentagon at eleven that morning. He's a retired Army chaplain and was meeting with some former colleagues about a program for retired soldiers he'd gotten involved with. The man he was supposed to see first was killed in the attack.

I was lucky - no one I knew personally was directly affected other than my forum friend and my cousin. But my heart still aches when I remember that day.

[elleng]

44. Of course, on the way to the office, downtown DC, with husband,

public radio on, heard about planes. I said, 'Star Wars' really worth it, eh?

[Deep13]

46. town tax office. nt

[Tuesday Afternoon]

47. at work.

[bikebloke]

48. Biking into work.

My commute route takes me within a kilometer of the Pentagon. I must have passed that point about ten minutes before the crash.

[Auggie]

49. My wife and I were packing to move into our first home

It was early in San Francisco, and I was clearing up some last minute work. My Dad called and told me to turn on the television. I wanted to watch the coverage all day but movers were coming first thing on the 12th and we were behind in packing our stuff up. Six weeks later I was blocks away from Ground Zero shooting a wine campaign. Really bizarre.

[NJmaverick]

51. I was on the Hudson river waterfront in Jersey City across from Ground zero

tending to the wounded that were being brought over by boats