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Where were you when the world changed?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Priceless
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Re: Where were you when the world changed?

8th grade FACS class was when I knew something was going on. A teacher (and dean I believe) came into the room and talked quietly to our teacher, they left the room quickly). Next hour our teacher told us what was going on, that planes had hit the WTC and it was a terrorist attack. There was one that hit the Pentagon and a hijacked plane was missing. The school made a conscious decision to NOT show us the live video feeds (although some students had seen it). I wondered to myself if it was Osama bin Laden...I had followed his attacks on the US as a news hungry child. My next period teacher had us talk about it and listen to WCCO. Over lunch a friend of mine told me the WTC had collapsed. I couldn't believe him. How would they collapse?

I skipped football practice (coaches were slightly upset that few showed up to practice:rolleyes:) and went home to watch the news coverage. I watched it all night. I could not get enough information.

What still strikes me today is how well planned the attack was. Using our planes as weapons, flown so low to avoid radar, and trained suicide hijackers.

It also amazes me the bravery that all displayed when helping others. Forgetting their own safety to save others. Crazy to think people survived the towers collapse.

Scary at the time wondering how many had actually died...so many people worked there.

As a history nerd it was facinating to see our nation go from peacetime to wartime. My generation has its Pearl Harbor and we will never be the same.
 
Re: Where were you when the world changed?

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Re: Where were you when the world changed?

I was a junior in high school, and I found out between my 1st block American Lit class and my 2nd block Physics class. I accused my friend of making things up. Lo and behold, I got to my Physics class and saw the 1st tower fall. I spent that 90 minute block watching the coverage and holding my friends' hands. After that, the teachers were asked to turn off their TVs and go on with classes as usual, but I refused to work. My band director, though, sat down with all of us for a good half an hour to just let us process what we saw that morning. We then went outside for marching rehearsal, and it was strange not seeing any planes overhead. I had to stay away from the TV for the next few days--I couldn't watch it without starting to cry.
 
Re: Where were you when the world changed?

I was driving to work when Tom Bernard on a local station reported that, "a small plane has hit one of the Twin Towers" or what you will. I got pulled over for expired tabs and when I got back into my car KQ was on a commercial so I put in a CD. When I got to work it was obvious that something was up and of course the progression from there was probably similar as for most.

However, when I learned of the origin of some of the flights I remembered that my wife was scheduled to fly out of Boston that same morning for a flight on American to Dublin and the resulting emotional reaction doesn't require explanation. The internet and cell phone network being abused to no end, I did not hear from my wife that she was safe until about 4 pm that day. Clearly an incredibly minute result compared with those that had tighter connections to NYC that day, but I will never, ever forget the emotions I had not only as an American but as a husband.
 
Re: Where were you when the world changed?

Slap Shot said:
but I will never, ever forget the emotions I had...
Click to expand...

I don't want to disrespect you one bit, so please, knowing that I'm not the best at saying things in a tactful way, this parsed statement is the key statement, felt by everyone. There were different reasons, but the same emotion.

Relatives, friends, whoever. That emotion is the worst emotion in the world. I dare say it's beyond the emotion you feel at a "normal" funeral, only if by circumstance. It's that powerful, that terrible. 100-year old relative dies? You feel a certain emotion. 20-year old relative dies, because of unnatural reasons? You feel a whole lot different. I guess that's what I'm trying to say.
 
Re: Where were you when the world changed?

I watched the MSNBC special "In Our Words" last night. I had the remote in my hand so I could change the channel at key moments, but hearing how it impacted these people who were on the air broadcasting this live was fascinating. I did not know the Andrea Mitchell/Alan Greenspan story before. He was on a flight and no one could get ahold of him. For hours Mitchell reported the story not knowing if her husband was one of the victims. He finally landed and called her to find out what had happened. At that moment Mitchell was going live to give a recap of the day's events. She put her cell phone in her lap, went on the air and recounted the horrific events of that day. That's how Alan Greenspan learned what was going on.
 
Re: Where were you when the world changed?

I was getting ready to walk to campus for "microprocessor application engineering", one of the classes I was required to take from the Electrical and Computer Engineering department for my B.S. program in CS. When I got to class I heard one of the towers had collapsed, which seemed almost unbelievable at the time. The professor hadn't even heard of the attacks until class. After class I went over to the artificial intelligence lab I was doing work in, and did nothing but watch/read news. Later that day I had a statistics class, and none of us really felt like being there -- some even asked the professor he could skip the day's lecture but he refused.
 
Re: Where were you when the world changed?

I was working from home, and when doing so, sometimes I'd have on the TV, or the radio, or at other times listening to some favorite music.

The first I'd heard was actually an hour or so after the second plane and just after the South Tower fell. I just happened to want to check the weather for the coming days, and of course, wondered initially why the web was crawling at such a slow pace.

As soon as I saw the initial reports that I was able to see, I immediately went and switched on both the TV and the radio for the latest. After a while I began to get in touch with friends who I had served with in the Marine Corps who were still active, offering what I knew, and wondering if some of them may know something different. No one knew much in the way of verifiable facts those first couple of hours, and of course much of what we speculated about turned out to be false, while other things proved to be true.

Around noontime, my daughter called me. She was a Freshman in high school at the time, 14 going on 15. It was only after hearing the fear and bewilderment in her voice that I began to let some real emotions come to the surface. Up to that point this all seemed unreal to me. Despite the fact that I was intellectually well aware that there were people out there who had both the desire and the means to do us harm, it seemed surreal, unbelievable really, to see the entirety of Manhattan enveloped in smoke. It looked like it was all gone. My daughter's voice seemed to jolt me to the reality of it.

We spoke for a few minutes and I asked her if she wanted me to come get her. Schools all over the place were allowing for early dismissals, and in some cases were just closing for the day sending the kids home. She did want to come home, and we spent what seemed like the rest of the week doing very little but absorbing the news, absorbing the sights, absorbing the horror of what had happened.

I think she assumed I knew more than I did because of my background, and while I perhaps knew more than some, I was frustrated at not being able to allay her fears, answer all her questions. She never used to ask questions. Were we going to war? If so would it be like the wars of the past, or was the world so different now that even war meant something different to this generation than it did to mine, or those before me? Whether or not you know the hardships of war, how do you answer questions like that from your 14 year old daughter? Why do we live in a world where questions like that need to be asked by your 14 year old daughter?

It is sometimes hard to believe it has been 10 years since those awful days. That 14 year old girl is now a Staff Sergeant in the United States Air Force. And she's 24. When did that happen? I see the change in the world by the changes in my daughter.

I hope all our sons and daughters are safe. And may the ones who are away all come home soon.
 
Re: Where were you when the world changed?

I stepped into my boss's office to ask him a question and he told me a plane had hit one of the towers. I said something like "a small single engine plane?", and he told me they thought it was something bigger. Then later on he told us a airline hit the other tower, I was like, "no way". Then they collapsed, which was unbelievable, so I ate lunch at a local bowling alley just to see some footage of what was going on. The hardest thing was explaining to our 4 yr old what was going on and why.
 
Re: Where were you when the world changed?

7th grade, Ms. Michael's 3rd period English class.

My school's principal made an announcement shortly after the 2nd plane hit. I remember listening to the radio in my next class, when the first tower collapsed. Eventually they gave up on having class and just put us all in the gym/cafeteria until the end of the school day. I don't think the gravity of it all really hit me until I got home and saw the images/videos, and my parents (NY transplants) were still on the phone trying to track down relatives and friends.
 
Re: Where were you when the world changed?

I was a freshman in high school when I heard about it. I believe I was transitioning from my Math class to my next class. At the immediate time I just kinda heard it and said "ok, whatever" but when afterschool activities were canceled and the only thing on tv was coverage I realized just how serious it was.
 
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