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[okiebluegrass]

September is here and in 10 days we will be remembering those lost in the terrorist attack.

Where were you when you first heard about it?

[Junior]

Working as a broadcast news reporter. When I heard about the first plane hitting, I thought it might be an accident. When the second plane hit, I knew it was deliberate. A woman from my coverage area was a stewardess aboard one of the planes. My coworker interviewed her parents on the air the next day. I covered local events that evening...five special church services in our area. I think that day may have left the biggest impression on me for big events. I also remember Challenger & Columbia disasters, Mt. St. Helens, the deaths of Elvis and John Lennon, the first step on the moon, Nixon impeached and resigned, and other issues, but 9/11/01 stands out head and shoulders above the others because it was unusual in that you sometimes realize a murder or death will happen, or a space ship will fail, or politics will cause sudden and massive change, but the deliberate murder of thousands while hiding behind the false cloak of religion leaves me flabbergasted. What has it turned into? Thousands dead in various parts of the world, a terror organization like no other that kills people of the same religion because of differences in belief, wars in two countries. Will those hijackers stand before God someday and have to account for themselves, (yes) and will they have the finger pointing at them for all that followed in their wake? (possibly) We know justice and rightousness will prevail. Truth will always beat lies. Light will expose all darkness. It is just a matter of time.

[Twinsmom98]

I was at teaching Adult Basic Education at a medium security prison.  I received a call from son who was enlisted in the Marine Corp based in North Carolina saying, "Mom, they sent us home to pack our stuff and return back to base - I don't know where we are going or when.  I love you and I will call when I can."  I can still here his voice as he is saying those words to me.  That was the first time as a mother I knew I could not protect my son from the evil in the world and that scared me.

[Andymeets1880s]

I was in bed and just waking up when my father knocked on my bedroom door and told me a plane crashed into one of the WTC buildings. I thought "Wow?!" I asked if it was a big jet or a small plane and he said he just heard something about a plane hitting one of the Twin Towers. I got up thinking how bad that sounded, but had NO clue of what it really was. I went about my day, eating breakfast and gathering some clothes for the day and later turned on the tv.....

My jaw hit the floor! It took me a second to grasp what I was really seeing!

A couple of years later, I had this thought......
Can you imagine those Americans who were probably oblivious to the whole thing for awhile?? Farmers way out in their fields, gradeners and groundskeepers at homes where everyone in the home was at work?? I thought about maybe that widowed farmer who gets up at 5am and goes out to farm way out in his huge fields.....can you imagine the impact it had on people like THAT?!

To be honest, it bothers me. It really bothers me. I saw some God awful and horrific pics that I pray I can get out of my head someday and I tend to shy away from the marking of the event. I know that may sound selfish, but when I saw some of the things I saw just from the media, it shook me to my bone marrow.

God love and bless the USA and those victimized by the ruthless &#@*%$@* that's out there!

[rubedugans]

I was in an upper level college course listening to a panel on multicultural classrooms. We had 3 absent from our discussion, and one professor walked out, only to come back in, and one by one pull all other professors out . We thought that one of our professors was in an accident or something, but when the 3 hour discussion was completed, wee were told by the Dean "The world has changed since we first met together with you this morning. Nothing will ever be the same. There will be no more classes today" She proceeded to tell us about the towers, and the Pentagon, and we were released to go home, etc. I went home to be with my family, then I went to work that evening. No customers. She was right, things did in fact greatly change.

[Ozark Outlaw]

Wow, very powerful post!

I was in my Journalism class in High School when the first plane hit. Interestingly enough, it was one of the few classrooms in the school that had immediate access to a television.

Shock must have set in, because I never could grasp the magnitude of that day until my mother actually came, and checked me out of school that morning. I can remember the news coverage running continuously for days.

I was, and still am a huge commercial aviation buff. The idea of using an airliner as a projectile, or weapon was something almost unheard of. That day changed everything in the aerospace industry.

America has gone through tragedies in the past. However, because of technology, and thousands of people having access to cell phone media, never has there been a time when events on such a huge scale could be captured, and broadcasted across the world.

That is one of the reasons this disaster has been etched so deeply into the minds of everyone in the country that day.

[joshblakebran]

I was teaching my 3rd grade children when I heard about this from a fellow teacher. She came to my room and said, "They are attacking us." I could tell she was in shock and did not fully understand exactly what she meant. My immediate response was to make sure all the children were in the classroom, locked the door and went into lockdown mode. All I could think of was keeping the children safe. After I made sure all the children were safely hidden in the classroom, I called the principal to see exactly what was going on. He told me the situation, instructed me not to say anything to the children specifically about what was going on at that time, and that we could continue on with our normal routine. I was on edge the whole day, ready to do whatever it would take to protect the kids in my care at any cost if the need arose. It was a very long day, but once it was finally over, I went home and turned on CNN. I was horrified at what I was seeing. I'm not a hugely emotional person, but tears filled my eyes as I watched what was going on. One thing I think about often is the people who were jumping off the buildings. How were they able to get themselves to do that? Anyway, it was a tragedy but one positive thing I'll never get out of mind was the response of all the emergency personnel and those who were helping, all the heroes that arose from the tradegy. I also will always remember George Bush's address to the nation and his reading of Psalms 91.  

[okiebluegrass]

I was on Tinker Air Force Base. My ex Maria called me and told me before anyone else knew what was happening. The base was immediately locked down. When the first plane hit, everyone was thinking accident then the 2nd and the Pentagon and all He** broke loose. Once you left the base that day, there was no getting back on. I waited 2 1/2 hours to get back on the next day before giving up and heading home. I spent that day with the family at the Oklahoma City memorial.

[Avalanche04]

I had just woke up and was recovering from sinus surgery waiting on the wife too get home from taking the kids too school.

[Destination SDC]

My Husband and 2 year old son and I were on our way to doctor's appointment for my husband.  I watched the news coverage in the waiting room for what seemed like hours while my husband was in his appointment.  I was glad my son wasn't old enough to understand what was going on, but I was sure grateful to have him there with me because he just wanted to cuddle while we were waiting.   My Parents were at Silver Dollar City that day.

[DianaGail]

I was a senior in High School in Journalism class.  I was the editor that year and we had to get our first issue out.  A teacher on break came in and told us to turn on the tv.  When I saw the second plane hit, I looked at my staff and said get back to work.  It's just a prank and the video isn't real.  It took us about 2 seconds to realize we were wrong.  I stopped all work on the newspaper to put out an issue with a completely different set of stories than we had planned on.  I had also been working that week, taking care of kids that I babysat for.  Their dad had been in NYC that day and all we knew is that he was supposed to be on a plane.  We had no idea where his connecting flights were headed to, etc.  His flight was 3 minutes behind one of the other flights that hit the WTC.  They landed safely in Atlanta and it took them 4 days to get a car and get back to Carthage.  I also remember that everyone went and got gas.  The lines at the gas stations were so long...

[DollarCityBoy]

It was 1st period Algebra in High School. We were just all sitting around waiting for the day to start, when a friend of mine walked into the class and said that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. I responded with "What the heck?!?! How can you fly into the World Trade Center, their huge, you can't miss them!" Knowing that it couln't have just been an accident. A few min. later we found out what had really happend. We went from class to class as normal that day, very few went home or were picked up, but we didn't have typical school work that day. We talked about it / watched the TV in every class that day.

It's something I'll never forget, and we shouldn't.

[bobber620]

  I ,like most ,was at work when the tragic events of Sept. 11 occurred. At that time in my life I was a volunteer EMT on nights and weekends but my full-time job was as a lead man over a department in an explosives plant that manufactures explosives for the mining and road construction industries. I had arrived at work as usual at around 6:30 -6:45 a.m. and sat BSing with the guys and gals until work started at 7. We all then headed to our respective job duties and had no idea what was going on in the world until about an hour or so later when our safety manager came strolling through my dept. and went about his normal safety spot checks. He found nothing amiss and started to leave when he stopped and mentioned something about a plane crashing into the "World Financial Center in New York.". He said that it sounded like they were calling it an accident and that it was assumed that a small plane had gone off course and crashed. After trying to figure out what the "World Financial Center" was that he was talking about, the first thing that popped into my mind was the story of the bomber that had crashed into the Empire State Building, that I had seen on the History Channel some time back. Anyway none of us really thought to much more about it until we showed up for our break at around 9:30 (our time) at which time we found our supervisors sitting around a TV watching the events unfolding. My fellow employees and I joined in until we had to get back to work 15 minutes later. Still unsure of what was actually going on several employees went on "Bathroom Breaks" and tried to gather as much info as they could and bring it back to the rest of us. This continued until 12 noon when our Plant Manager came out and infomed us of what he knew from his watching TV and from the phone calls that he had received from the ATF and State Fire Marshals office. He told us of the attacks in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania and that he had been told that things were still in a state of flux and that it was unknown if the attacks were over or still just begining.He then said, "Several planes were still unaccounted for and the FAA is trying to get all the planes in the air to land . We have been notified that along with amusement parks,government buildings, places of large gatherings and tourist destinations that chemical plants and explosive manufactures were all possible targets."  He then told us that it was left up to the managers of those businesses to decide on the course of action that they saw fit as to continue working or to shut down for the day. Our bosses had gotten together and decided to continue with production although we would do so at a substantially scaled back rate and shut down lines as they ran out of "mix" or made product that was waiting to be packaged. Once this was determined several employees requested to be allowed to go home and be with their families, our managers then asked who was wiling to stay and when the number was determined to be sufficient to continue the employers allowed those that wished to go ,to leave. I chose to stay and we finished out the day with no problems occurring at our location.
 I did call my wife after hearing what was going on and she advised that she had been glued to the TV ever since the attacks had occurred and that she had heard that gas prices were going to probably go through the roof or that there was going to be a shortage and that she was on her way to get in line and fill up( she ended up waiting for two hours before getting to the pumps).  Other than the obvious  shock of the whole event  the other thing that I found odd,was not seeing something that you take for granted seeing every day. That thing was airplanes in the air. Small privately owned planes to the large commercial airliners that leave those massive condensation trails in the air to even the medical helicopters that we all are so use to seeing everyday. It was just very odd not to hear the roar of those engines above us as we all tried to get about our lives.

[Duelist]

I work for Arkansas State Govt. in Little Rock.  My supervisor at the time and myself were at a Federal software conference just outside of Baltimore Maryland.  We flew out there on Sunday the 9th.  The conference was at a hotel in Hunt Valley, a suburb of Baltimore.  On that Tuesday morning the 11th we were sitting with about 350 other people in one of the hotel's conference rooms when one of the speakers announced a plane had flown into the World Trade Center.  Several people ran outside the room in tears.  We were there with representatives from all over the country so those people may have been from New York.  The speaker went ahead and resumed the opening of the conference a few minutes later then was handed a message and announced "They just bombed the Pentagon".  This was very early information and the facts weren't in yet.  At this point they disbanded the conference until they had a better idea what was going on.  For one thing the people putting on the conference were Federal employees and their offices were closing.  We were staying in the hotel across the street and didn't want to go back to our rooms yet so we went with our friends from the conference in search of a tv.  We found some tvs turned on to the coverage in the hotel bar.  We watched the towers come down.  One of our friends said it's Pearl Harbor all over again.  Though we weren't in any danger where we were at it was a lot closer to DC and New York and Pennsylvania than Little Rock.  We ended up staying at the conference until Thursday when we rented a van to drive home.  It was eerie going to Baltimore-Washington airport to rent the van and finding the airport a ghost town.

[Zephon]

I happened to have that day off and was still in bed, watching the Today show that morning. Katie Couric and Matt Lauer were on and she said "We have breaking news, apparently a plane has just crashed into the World Trade Center..." etc., with a live camera view of the smoking tower.  My wife was getting ready for work and I called her into the bedroom to see what was going on.  I distinctly remember saying to her "That was no accident...it was deliberate."  I couldn't believe any pilot would let their plane hit it regardless of whether they had a mechanical failure or not.  My wife went on to work and as I continued to watch, a short time later I saw the second plane fly into the other tower.  Soon the news came out about the attack on the Pentagon and the crash in Pennsylvania, and speculation that all those incidents were tied together.  As bad as all that was, I never imagined that the towers would fall.  Watching first one, then the other crumble to the ground, smoke billowing up to the sky, dust rushing through the canyons of lower Manhattan, people running hither and yon...it's probably the most horrifying thing I've ever witnessed.  I sat glued to the television all day and long into the night, praying the whole time.  It's something I will never forget.

Don't let anyone fool you...Islam is not a peaceful religion. From it's beginning, it was spread through conquest, and that is the path it continues on.  It sickens me that our president's policy toward them is one of appeasement.  God help us.