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Remembering 9/11. Never Forget

S

Sloe Gin

Relax...take your time...
Please try to keep politics out of this thread, out of respect. Please.

I was sleeping in my dorm room freshman year of college at UND. The phone rang. The only thought in my head was who the *k is calling me so early. Naturally, I let it go to voicemail. It was my mom on the other end calmly telling me that she was stuck at JFK Airport and just saw a second airplane hit the WTC. I bolted out of bed and turned on the news. My roommate woke up and joined me. We were both just in shock. Two kids who were planning on being pilots the rest of our lives were watching our dreams and our country be destroyed before our eyes.

We got an email from school saying class was optional. At this time, I was communicating with my cousin on AIM who worked in the Sears Tower. Suddenly he said we're being evacuated I gotta go and I didn't hear from him until that night. With all the *t going down that day, I was obviously pretty concerned.

At 4:30 that afternoon I attended basically a forum for aviation students. One of our advisors/professors told us that we were in a great place right now. That yes, this would hurt the airline industry but it would rebound. That yes, there were more questions than answers, but at this time, we were in a great place.

It is one of those days that's burned into my mind forever. I remember just going for a walk along the campus in kind of a daze. The sky was so clear. How could this have happened? And as the day went on, I prayed for vengence.

This is the 9/11 thread from that day. It made the HOF threads on USCHO. Take some time to read how a community came together that day.
 
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Re: Remembering 9/11. Never Forget

I was a junior in high school. I was walking from my first period Honors American Lit class to my second period Honors Physics class when my friend told me that someone crashed a plane in to the World Trade Center. I accused her of trying to give me nightmares. When I walked in to my physics class, the TV was on and I saw she was right. We watched TV the whole class that day, and no one said a word. I remember sitting there with my arm around my best friend, and I remember watching the towers fall and the news broadcaster saying "America, say a prayer."
The teachers at my school were instructed to go on with the rest of the day like nothing was going on, but my marching band director sat us all down and we talked about it. She told us that we would always remember where we were when we found out what happened. She was right.
 
Re: Remembering 9/11. Never Forget

Ralph Baer said:
Glad to be of service. :) That thread still gives me the chills every time I look at it.

It's also interesting to read all of the false news reports among the true ones.
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it's amazing to me that this was some people's only news source for awhile. USCHO provided people with the updates that they needed.
 
Re: Remembering 9/11. Never Forget

That was junior year in college, and I was just getting up when someone down the hall told me to fire up my TV. When you are all groggy and up late at night playing video games, unrealistic things look like something from a movie which is what I thought I was watching. I still remember going to fluid mechanics class and not being able to pay much attention that morning...I think classes were canceled after that but I really forget.

There are some peoples worldviews who are so convoluted and beyond help that they resort to taking lives and justify it for the greater good. These people sought to instill fear 8 years ago upon us , but I think did the exact opposite and instilled the feeling of community and kinship. You could see it in that post ( which I posted in!), and can see it today in this one.
 
Re: Remembering 9/11. Never Forget

Sloe Gin said:
it's amazing to me that this was some people's only news source for awhile. USCHO provided people with the updates that they needed.
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That's one of the things I remember; CNN and so on were so bogged down as to be unusable; local newspaper sites were'nt being updated; but every true/rumored/unsubstantiated news flash was making it to USCHO. It was great to have it around.
 
Re: Remembering 9/11. Never Forget

Sophomore year at NMU. I woke up early that day to study for a psychology exam I had at noon. Was sitting on my bed trying to study for an exam I knew I had no chance at (prof's exams were rediculous and often contained content from one of his other 300 & 400 level classes even though this was a 100 level and we obviously didn't have the material) with the door open. My RA came in saying to turn on the tv and I remember telling her I had to try to study and she said no, you need to see this. Turned on the tv in time to see the second tower get hit. We both sat there staring at the tv, it seemed so surreal.
Yes I still had to go take the test, and the only reason I passed was because of the curve. Classes officially got cancelled starting at 1. Most of the day was spent watching news coverage and trying to get a hold of a couple friends who were in NYC.
 
Re: Remembering 9/11. Never Forget

I was teaching at the time and we were reading "Animal Farm" and my aide came in and told me a bomb went off in NY and DC. I thought she had misinterpreted something, so went on with the class. When class ended, I turned on the t.v. and saw it. Our school went into lockdown mode and we watched t.v. the rest of the day. My students were so shocked and confused, asking, "Who would do this?" I just answered, "I don't know."

"...So bless NY's bravest, the FDNY
Giving their sweat, their tears and their lives..."

Christmas in NY, a great song by Shilelagh Law
 
Re: Remembering 9/11. Never Forget

When it first happened I was in class (Sophomore year at UND...Air Transport major). When I got to my next class (Basic Attitude Instrument Flying), someone told me that the airport was no-fly (meaning no flights were going out). I was supposed to be going on a long solo cross-country flight that afternoon so I was not very happy with that status, so I asked why. All he could tell me was a plane had hit the WTC. My thoughts were ok, that sucks and all but it's happened before and shouldn't affect my flight up here in ND/MN. Then we watched the 2nd plane hit live. And we learned one went into the Pentagon, and another went down in PA. I was no longer upset about not flying that day. We spent the whole class watching coverage. Unlike Sloe Gin, I didn't see the email about optional classes so went to my Avit Safety class later that day and we did the same thing. After that I remember attending the same thing Sloe Gin did. Unsure of what this would mean for everyone's future. A friend of mine (now an F/O with Continental) from New Jersey spent most of the day trying to get through to his parents back home. He was sure his dad, a 737 captain based out of Newark, was flying that day and thought the 2nd plane looked a lot like a Continental 737. Thankfully, his dad was across the river teaching a class, though he witnessed the whole thing out of his window.

I am honestly amazed that we didn't lose more then 4 airplanes that day after the decision was made to get everyone on the ground. A lot of respect for the controllers and pilots involved in that as they were able to get everyone down swiftly and safely as that had to take a massive coordination effort. I am in no way comparing them to the bravery that was shown by the FDNY or NYPD that day...they are on a whole other level of heroism.
 
Re: Remembering 9/11. Never Forget

I am sitting here in my office in NYC, 8 years later. Luckily I was not in the office 8 years ago but at home recuperating from surgery. I watched the whole thing unfold on TV. One of my brother-in-laws worked in the World Financial Center next to the WTC. We didn't know what happened to him until he was able to get a call through at 4:30 in the afternoon. He was in the WTC during the first bombing in the 90s so he went through this twice. As soon as the first plane hit in 2001 he wasn't sticking around. He immediately got up and ran out of his office not stopping until he got to Midtown several miles north. Needless to say we went most of the day not knowing where he was. We were lucky.

Over 30 graduates and family members of my high school perished in the 2001 attack. The town I live in lost a number of people including some first responders. My nephew's best friend worked for Cantor Fitzgerald, just out of college. Nothing was ever found of him. It affected every family and person in this area and still does.

As I was walking back from lunch today past the firehouse next to the office, the trucks were out and tables for family members were setup with food and drink. That firehouse lost 10 members that morning and there is a permanent memorial to them right inside the doors that is visible every day as one goes by. 9/11 is never far from our minds here.

Just say a prayer for everyone today.
 
Re: Remembering 9/11. Never Forget

du78 said:
Over 30 graduates and family members of my high school perished in the 2001 attack. The town I live in lost a number of people including some first responders. My nephew's best friend worked for Cantor Fitzgerald, just out of college. Nothing was ever found of him. It affected every family and person in this area and still does.
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I think what's lost in everything in all this is that the people who died... simply went to work one morning like they'd done countless other times. Think of your own life: when you're groggily walking into to work in the morning, sipping your coffee, would it ever occur to you that you might never leave? Of course not.

These are 3000+ lives ended, plus tens of thousands of other lives ruined or wholly changed.
 
Re: Remembering 9/11. Never Forget

At the office. One of the guys I worked with walked to my office and stood in the doorway with an 8x10 picture of the first tower burning. Once I realized what I was looking at, I asked him if this was a gag or real. The way he replied "Real" to me was instantly recognized as sincere.
As the day unfolded, I went from confused and scared to very angry. What happened to our country that day will never be forgotten, nor forgiven.
 
Re: Remembering 9/11. Never Forget

The memory of where I was and what I was doing is as perfectly clear today as it sept 12. I was yakking on the phone to a friend waiting for a Sub to show up at a store in Ellsworth. He told me a plane flew into one of the towers, we thought the pilot must be out of his mind, we didn't really know any facts at the time. A few minutes later the other plane went in and we knew then that this wasn't some accident. Its still unreal thinking about it. I went home and posted on USCHO the rest of the day.

One other thing, my house is on or near the flight path into BIA, it was strange when their were no planes for several days
 
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Re: Remembering 9/11. Never Forget

walrus said:
One other thing, my house is on or near the flight path into BIA, it was strange when their were no planes for several days
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I forgot about that.
If there's a south wind, jets prepare for approach right over my house, it's not horrible, but like a train in the distance, you don't really notice it until you don't hear it. I went outside that night, and after a while I did hear a plane, but knew it was no commercial aircraft. I assumed it was a fighter patrolling out the Duluth wing or NoDak. Either way, it was actually a comforting sound.
 
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