Where Were you on September 11, 2001?

Midtown Manhattan. The office building was evacuated via fire alarm, and nobody knew why. I ended up in Brooklyn by a combination of subway and foot, as the rumor mill churned out stories ranging from airplane attack (which I pictured as light aircraft- it's happened before) to bombs to earthquake. I reached the Brooklyn esplanade and stared across the East River at the tip of Manhattan, by which time both towers had fallen. The following day I walked to Ground Zero to volunteer as a rescuer, (wearing grey trousers and a blue t-shirt, nobody tried to stop me), and saw the extent of the carnage. The smell was unbelievable. 

It took days to get in touch with everyone to let them know I was still alive (I had worked on the 89th floor of Tower 2 up until a few weeks prior, and had told everyone about the boring work with the amazing view).

I was working with a TV news station and one of my friends phoned me about this. I was able to watch second plane and shockingly i saw mighty tower symbol of American capitalism World Trade Centre falling down. It is one of unforgettable memory in mind.

 The incident, that nearly killed 3,000 people, is still etched in my mind and I can recall   every second of that. Indian with families in NY were scrambling to get in touch but all      the networks were completely jammed. Nobody could get through and it increased the woes.  Although tragedy has happened in USA but Indians were completely shocked       and distressed.

I was sitting at my desk attempting to follow my boss' instructions on how to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse, when a co-worker stopped by and mentioned one of our technical managers had just told her a plane had crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers ...

I immediately wondered why she would go out of her way to tell me this, since she and I really didn't speak much to each other ...

Well, I got onto CNN's page and BAM!, there was the photo of the first tower struck and on fire with incredible amounts of smoke, and I remember thinking, 'Oh, how terrible,' or something like that ...

Then somebody else turned on a radio which had been in their desk, and we were all listening, and then the announcer said that a second plane had now just struck the other tower ...

We all continued listening in growing shock and fear for the next 40 minutes or so until we heard to our abject horror that first one tower collapsed, straight downward, and then the other ...

It was absolutely surreal ... how could these buildings just collapse like that, I remember asking myself, who had done this horrible thing ... others were asking the same questions ...

Then our owner, a mechanical engineer and an admittedly very smart guy, got everybody together to explain what had happened ... he explained how the heat from the burning wreckage had softened the steel until it could no longer support the mass above the burning floors. At that point the mass above destroyed the building like a pile-driver all the way to the ground ...

It made sense, I guess, at the time ...

An hour or two later, right before I left early for the day, I stopped at the desk of the guy whose radio we had all been listening to, and I just calmly said to him, 'Things will never, ever be the same here.'

We just looked at each other for a moment without speaking, and then I walked out ...

I was working in the Barn, Milking Sheep and training some Students from Spain and Japan in animal Husbandry. One of the Student that was late and came down to Milk Parlour saying that a Plane had crushed into one of the NY twin towers, since we where in Canada at the time on Our Farm along Lake Huron we where in the same time zone as NY.

At first I dismissed it as some sort of Joke and miss understanding or made up story. After all some of my young students where rather good at making up great stories even if those where not always funny. 

Then the second plane hit and he came down again, insisting the he was serious, so I went up to my office checked the news. It was true after all, no story no mistake, from there on the news covered in the incident with much confusion and miscommunication.

Soon after the calls for vengeance and the call of the US army to enlist, Afghanistan followed by Iraq and no end in sight. 

The ethereal vengeance has been raining ever since and already before, it was that same feeling of hate, anger and vengeance that has broth on the this disaster of 9/11.  Have we  learned any thing from it? 

Now we are still killing civilians and cause families to suffer only it is not some so called terror group doing most of the Killing, we in the West have been causing far more civilian causalities then any attack could ever have caused in the USA. 

Will we find wisdom in remembering or just go on hating and keep on killing ?

I was in bed, suffering with my gall bladder. Earlier, I had struggled out of bed to get my girls off to school.

I got a call from my husband, telling me to put the television on.

I was stunned as a watched the smoke and flames filling the sky. I immediately called my children's schools.

The township school administration was weighing early dismissal of the students. When the girls returned home, they told me all work had ceased, the students were huddled together as the teachers wheeled televisions into the classrooms and stood watching, murmuring among themselves, visibly shaken, crying.

That day transformed America in ways that cannot be fully explained, with governmental actions now placing the attack on September 11, 2001 at the heart of nearly all of its decisions, as policies are created, pertaining to the governance and rights of its citizens.

I was asleep in my Mt. Shasta home when the first plane hit. The phone rang and a good friend of mine from Texas called and frantically told me to turn on the news. I asked what channel and she said just turn on the TV, it's on every channel. I reached for the remote and turned on the TV and within 30 seconds I saw the 2nd plane hit. As I watched, she explained to me that one plane had already hit one tower, and as the 2nd one hit she, along with me, said "Oh My God", and both of us almost in unison but totally unplanned said "BUSH. Bush had something to do with this."

For the next 36 hours I was glued to the TV set in the bedroom or living room, only leaving long enough to fix a quick sandwich or coffee. I could watch the bedroom TV from my bathroom while using the john. Even during those times in the kitchen, I had it turned up loud enough to hear and every time I thought they may be ready to show something I had not seen yet, I'd peer around the corner into the living room and watch. One sandwich took me so long to make by doing that that by the time I started to eat it, the bread had become dried out. I remember vividly seeing people jump from the WTC. I remember thinking, "you're the lucky ones, your life will be over the split second you hit the ground, the others in the building will die painfully by fire."

Sept 11, 2001 is when I became a news junkie and followed every aspect of Bush thereafter. I still believe Bush's people were behind 9/11 and nothing will change my mind about it. I still believe too that the WTC came down only due to explosives being placed in the building previously. The evidence is just too overwhelming not to believe that.

Thank you GWB for reminding us and proving to us that there IS a Hell, because that's where you'll be.

American History in my old High School.  Second period of the day.  Far left column.  Second seat from the front. 

Pretty vivid, huh.

Asleep in Hawaii Kai, Honolulu. Sister-in-law called. She was very concerned. Her husband is a pilot and was to fly from Chicago to NY that morning. He was grounded. We watched the news in shock. Feelings were also similar long ago when I was at school in a Toronto class and heard about John Kennedy's assassination.

My wife and I were starting to dinner when, suddenly, there were breaking news on the TV...

I was in 7th grade, in my Music class. An office assistant brang my music teacher a note, and a shocked expression came over her face. She turned off the movie we were watching (The Whiz) and turned on the news. Then, within seconds, I saw the second plane crash. We did nothing in school that day but watch the news. I was in the first row, second seat from the door, the person who sat in the first seat was absent that day. I remember like it was yesterday...