Where were you 11 yrs ago today 9-11

I think I was in 4th grade maybe? I remember I was late for school for some reason, so I saw it on TV at home. I got taken to school and all anyone did all day was watch the TV.

I was too young to know how serious it was. I remember the next day saying "jeez, are they STILL talking about that thing?"

I was a sophomore in college. I woke up to head to my 0900 Differential Equations class and turned on the TV. I seriously thought it was a movie about a plane hitting one of the towers. It wasn't until I got to class that I realized that it was really happening. Class got out early and I booked it to the Student Union Building where the President's room with the huge TV was open. I sat watching in disbelief about the twin towers and felt horrible, but was still detached...until the plane hit the Pentagon. My world shattered at that point because I knew people that worked in the Pentagon. I had work study that afternoon and the professor graciously and amazingly let me dial long-distance to Virginia until I could get ahold of someone to make sure everyone was safe. I still, to this day, cannot look at footage of the Pentagon without hurting inside and tearing up.

I was in first grade [Yeah, I'm a young'un]

Our elementary school was under strict orders to not let K-3 see anything, so teachers basically sat at their computers all day and none of us really did anything. We all knew something was wrong, just weren't sure what. Kids were getting excused all day long, and my best friend left during recess.

When I got home, my WHOLE family plus aunts and uncles and cousins were gathered around the TV [really weird to me, since my parents worked opposite shifts]. My dad was on the phone with one of his sisters, while my uncle was on the phone with their other sister. My one aunt had been driving into work at the Pentagon that morning, running a little late, and she completely missed her wing getting hit. She did lose one of her best friends in that crash, as well as many coworkers.

I can still remember it clearly to this day...

I had my students at our little private Christian school out at recess when one of the moms who had just left from volunteering pulled back into the drivethrough going the wrong way. I started teasing her about going the wrong way and then noticed her face and asked what was wrong. She told me, and I took my kids inside immediately. They went to PE shortly after, and I went to the cafeteria, where the principal had set up a TV. He and I stood there and watched in shock as the first tower fell. Right before I left to get my students the second tower fell. It was all I could do to go back to class. We didn't discuss anything with the students that day, though a couple of parents came and checked their kids out early. We were in Florida, pretty far away, so we didn't close down school or do a complete lockdown, but we did keep kids indoors for recess the rest of the day. The next day, though, we were given advice from the principal on how to answer students' questions, and the Bible lesson that day was used as a time for students to ask questions and discuss it. I was teaching 2nd grade, so the questions were pretty innocent, but still tough to answer.

I actually just wrote about my experiences that day for our first essay in my English Comp 2 class...it was over 3 pages, too much to post here so this is part of it:

The airlines refused to allow me to bring my wedding gown onto the plane as a carry-on, and I refused to check it. So, the decision was made that my fiance and I would drive a rented cargo van with all of the wedding decorations, catering equipment, and my wedding gown from Arlington, Texas to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We had to leave a week and a half before our wedding day to make all of the final preparations in Milwaukee and get our marriage license at least 7 days prior to our big day. We left late at night, on Monday, September 10, 2001. My family had mad this trip so many times that we knew precisely what time of day to leave and avoid all rush hour traffic in major cities.

We had made it through north Texas and all of Oklahoma, and finally arrived at a large truck stop in Joplin, Missouri. I called my mother, who was still in Texas, from a pay phone and told her that we were going to continue on our trip and not rent a room to sleep as we had previously planned. Five minutes later, I was standing in that same truck stop, next to my fiance, drinking my coffee, and watching what I believed to be movie on one of the many television sets in the building. On the television screen was a familiar pair of skyscrapers in New York City, one of which had just exploded, or so it seemed. Then it happened, on live television, the second tower of the World Trade Center was hit by a commercial airliner.

We thought we had been watching a movie. It wasn’t until I heard a familiar reporter’s voice, in awe, that I realized it was not a movie. It was in fact, very real. I looked at my fiance and we both shed a tear, he grabbed my hand and led me out of the building. We went to our van and realized we were in the middle of nowhere, and had no clue if we were supposed to cancel our wedding and head back to Texas or continue on to Wisconsin and hope for the best. We spent the next 11 hours driving north, we had to get somewhere near family, and decided to pray and hope that the attacks would not continue. The rest of that trip was spent holding each other’s hands, not really speaking much, just listening to the reports coming in on the radio and a few patriotic songs in between. To this day, I still get chills whenever I hear Lee Greenwood’s song “Proud to be an American.”

I was 11 years old my first full week at high school, and ironically my first ever religious studies lesson, the teacher turned the tv on and we watched the news for the whole lesson and saw the 2nd plane hit, a girl in my class was histerical because her dad was on business in New York (i live in England) and her family couldn't reach him, she was taken home and we later heard he was safe and well.
One of those moments you never forget, when i got home from school we all just sat and watched it replay on the news in silence, such a sad day!

I was a freshman in college. I had stopped at Mom's the night before to do some laundry. I fell asleep on her couch. My mom woke me up when the first plane hit. We still didnt know that it was an attack. When the second plane hit, I yelled to my mom in the other room. She yelled back that it was probably just a replay of the first plane - but I kept screaming. We sat on the couch and held hands for a few minutes watching the footage, before we started scrambling to call my dad - who was getting ready to board a plane out of Cincinnati headed to DC. They had already boarded the plane and were sitting on the tarmac. They had been stalled, but none of the passengers knew why.

I will NEVER forget that day.

I was in the Army at home on leave while recovering from a knee surgery. I ended up going into "work" that day. Last night my wife and I were thinking of all of the significant events we could remember in our life-times that shared the same media response. President Reagan's assination attempt, the loss of the space shuttles Columbia and Challenger, the Berlin Wall coming down (only good in the list) and of course this. I am sure we are forgetting a few but this will always be the most horrific and tragic event we think of. On a positive note, my son turned 10 today- born on 9/11/2002!

Boston. I had just arrived at Logan two days earlier on the 9th for a week long conference. I remember watching the second plane hit the towers from my hotel room and not being able to process what I was seeing. I also remember trying to call my family and the cell phone coverage being spotty because of the high loads on that morning.

Despite the horror of that day, we made the best of our conference - we really didn't have a choice - it's not like we could really go anything else, at least for a few days. Luckily, but the time I was supposed to go back home the airports had opened up again. I had to stand in the security line for something like two hours that day, it was just a madhouse and I was very grateful when I was safely back home.

I couldn't watch 9/11 footage on TV without crying for months on end. Thinking of all those who've lost family or friends on that day.

Seeing my first baby for the first time on ultrasound! I dropped my 5th grader off at school this morning and told him about it on the way. )))))