9/11 - 5 years later, what were you doing?

Lee3dee

It was 8:50am, and I was in the watching the today show at home, getting ready for my morning college class. I remeber being glued to the TV all morning, watching the events as they happened. Ended up missing both morning classes, and eventually made it to campus, where almost everyone was watching a TV in designated classrooms. Most of my classes were cancelled or had very low attendance.

Anyone else remeber where they were on 9/11

Josh_Singh

Me and my wife had just gotten home from my honeymoon, and was at my parents house. I was Eating breakfast. I couldn't belive it. I remember they couldn't get anybody important to comment on the happenings, so they got Tom Clancy for his thoughts.

Ferg

I was asleep, my classes (high school) that day didnt start till noon. Mom came upstairs and woke me up saying "you should come downstairs, someone crashed a plane into the world trade center." I thought it was a dream for the first 30 mins or so.

Xenobond

I was actually a bit nervous coming to work today.

I was back home in AZ when it actually happened. I was on my way to work, and was just picking up my then-girlfriend to take her to work. Needless to say, I used that tragedy as an excuse to take the day off work and spend it with the girl... doing... stuff.

bearkub

I was sitting at the help desk working (I work in the IT department for an airline, btw..) and my boss called after the first one hit and said "turn on the news and get on the phone, now. we have a problem. someone is flying planes into buildings and we don't know what's going on" My boss is known to be a prankster and I was half awake when he called. I said "right...good stuff, just get in here.." and he said "no, I am serious. get on the net right now and find out what is going on" I hit cnn.com....down...reuters.com...down...it was then I got a little scared.

The3DGuy

i was in the school library. Teacher comes in and asks if i know what is going on and we both try yahoo news to see what was happening about some planes. all that loaded was an image of one of the towers on fire and i said "oh that looks so fake."

adam

I was outside of my life drawing class waiting for the class before me to finish up so we could go in and get to sketching. Someone showed up saying "Someone kamikazed into the world trade centers this morning" to which someone else replied, "Well, they're fucked.". At the time the magnitude of those attacks hadn't hit anyone in my class. It wasn't until I was out working in downtown Toronto that it hit me - I turned the corner on a street and there was about 300 people on the road watching 2 big-screen TV's that were rolled outside from a Hooters broadcasting the news.

Ruz

I too a half day from work at blitz games. just got back to the house around lunchtime I think and it was all kicking off. weird as my birthday is on the 12th

noritsune

I remember being in the great big freshman dining hall at college, nervous about making friends freshman year and getting down to breakfast with some new people when word started spreading through the crowd of students. We all ran to our dorm common rooms and watched on TVs in crowds. Quite a mix of reactions too. We were in boston where the planes had taken off from, people were getting hysterical thinking everything from the campus to the subway was in for a bomb. At the time anything seemed possible.

Josh_Singh

remember how everybody said they were going to bomb shopping malls on halloween?

noritsune

yeah it was nutty. someone was doing a survey on campus at the time that I participated in, one of the questions was "what are you most frightened of in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks?" I remember answering "that our government will make some kind of violent, vengeful, destabilizing counterattack that will only make things worse" or something to that effect.

hmmmm.... happened?

LegionaireJoe

I was getting ready for class, and I had the radio on (99.3 The Fox, Vancouver polycounters should be familiar with the station)... the DJs mentioned briefly about reports of an aircraft crashing into one of the WTC towers, then they played Chop Suey by System of a Down. Right after the song ended they cut their set short once more information starting coming in. It was really eerie, and whenever I hear that song now I think of 9/11... Classes that day were a blur, everyone was in a daze; it was all so surreal.

Joshua Stubbles

I was up early, doing some mod work. It was about 7:15/7:30 maybe (central). It was shortly after the first plane hit, anyways. I got IM's over ICQ about it. At first, news sites like CNN were completely bogged down, so I couldn't get any info. I thought it was a Cesna or something that hit it.
My cable box was installed about an hour later. Right after the cable guy left, I changed to CNN. About 2minutes later, the 2nd plane hit the tower. I was speechless. I sat there the rest of the day, chain-smoking and watching the world change.

I was lucky enough to not have lost anyone, but I know some people who did. I called everyone I could, to see if they knew anyone who was there. I'm glad that no one I knew was hurt.

ebagg

I saw it on the news, after the first plane had hit, then went off to high school (I was a senior at the time), my best friend picked me up and said "so did you see the plane hit the world trade center building? Crazy stuff!" When I got to my first period class, History they were showing the news and the second plane hit the other tower. By third period rumors were spreading like crazy about how many planes were in the air, guesses were as high as a dozen. I remember a friend of mine from another high school telling me about how he decked some kid who was yelling obscenities about muslims in the hallway. It was crazy times. It didn't really set in until maybe a few days later the severity of the attacks and what path it would put the country on.

notman

I was at my desk at GM. I was talking to my boss and the guys in the next cube heard that a plane hit the Trade Center. I was thinking a Cesna or something.
Just like bearcub, we tried to access the news sites and they were ALL down. So we decided to wheel one of our media carts into the cafeteria and turn on the news. Shortly thereafter, the second plane hit. Most of our building was stuffed into the cafeteria at this point. My heart sunk and I'll never forget those moments. Especially watching the towers fall.

The news was throwing out all their usually unconfirmed reports at that time. I remember them reporting that bombs were going off in various cities.

I was glued to that set almost all day. I wasn't very productive that day, but I don't think many others were either.

Vitor

Me, my brother and a friend, after riding our bikes all morning, when to a photo shop from a friend. When we get there the TV was already on and we really got a lot confused with all that, wondering what was happening, and that was when we saw the second plane crashing...

oXYnary

I just got into my Computer Lab job at the University of Arizona, and my coworkers told me someone hit the world trade centers with a plane. I thoguht at first some damage along the lines of the bombing back in 92 of them then made a sarcastic joke which they proceeded to convince me of the seriousness. Anyhow, we started watching online sites for more information. It seemed unreal to me. I can't say I was scared. In fact I was more interested in watching the fears and horror of those around me.

The scary part came later in watching it did to otherwise rational people and how it became hard to argue reasonably with them. How this fear has driven our nation the last 5 years. How I had already been aware of Afghanistan since a group of artist and myself had being setting up a show for RAWA. Then based on that information against how we treated Afghanistan, and worse how it has become a secondary objective after all the promises we made.

Im not scared of terrorism. I never have. Its a reaction. Whats scary/worse is seeing the group think/fear unrational reaction from my fellow country men. How it has been used politically to drive a stake into dividing the nation.

Fuse

i was in my highschool morning class .. someone ran in and said that the pentagon has crashed a military plane into the twin towers ...

everyone went to the gym to watch it unfold .. it was then that the 2nd plane hit live .. i was absolutely speechless, it was surreal

notman

[ QUOTE ]
someone ran in and said that the pentagon has crashed a military plane into the twin towers

[/ QUOTE ]
Wow, now there was a completely rediculous statement (what they said ). Wonder how that got pieced together by that mornings events.

ElysiumGX

i had stayed up all night playing tomb raider. got a call telling me to turn on the TV. saw a building on fire. watched the buildings fall down. fell asleep. nothing good on TV anymore.

Nerd Groupie

I had a 7:30 am class with the 3d guy. No one from my group showed up, and when I called one of the guys to ask where he was, he was driving and listening to the radio and goes "shut up! the radio just said some planes were hijacked and someone bombed the pentagon!" I started flipping out because the dad of my boyfriend at the time flew for Sun Country.

sonic

i was in 8th grade in my social studies class. our teacher ran in at the beginning of class and yelled "SOMEONE CRASHED A PLANE INTO THE TWIN TOWERS!" Of course, being the 8th grader I was, I had no idea what the hell was goin on. then they took us to a room where we watched the news all day.

thnom

I went to school and came home to find sky news on and the world trade center had been hit. I had no clue what the buildings were/did and had no knowledge of them. The first one was already hit but the 2nd one was hit in front of my eyes.

Just a note to elys: do you have to be such an insensitive prick? Is there any real reason for the last comment? I believe not.

Fuse

i think it's more effective to just ignore that post completely..

Zcubed

I was at school, and the faculty remained relatively tight-lipped about what was happening (If they knew themselves). I didn't really understand the gravity of the situation until I got home in the afternoon and turned on the TV. I was certainly in disbelief at first, it took a few hours for everything to sink in.

Joao Sapiro

Elysium, your an ass.

i was at a friends house playing quake 3 over lan when his brother told us "oh my god, look whats happening" we all rushed there , i thought it was a movie at first etc...then his mother called and said " do you know the news?" then we didnt leave the living room for 5 hours...

Ozymandias

I was at work at the sports authority, stocking the shelves. The managers called everyone into the breakroom to watch the tv. I got there just in time to see the second plane hit. Nothing about it made sense to me at the time. I walked back out to the floor to finish working and a customer, seeing the look on my face, asked me what was wrong. I told him that two planes had hit the wtc, and that we were under attack. He looked at me for a second, and then bolted out the door.

HonkyPunch

I was drawing a picture in my notebook. I think I was in fifth grade, or something.
Anyways, the teacher told our class, and I just shrugged it off like everything else she told me.
Kept drawing...got through the day without really hearing about it again.
Got home, and my mom was watching something about it. I still didn't really care/know what the world trade center was.
Plus, my friend is convinced that in a few years, 9/11 is going to become a corporate holiday. Just imagine.."So, what'd you get me for 9/11?"

ScoobyDoofus

I was sitting in bed when my girlfriends mother called us, frantically screaming something about the country being under attack. This woman had mental problems and had been comitted in the past, so I thought nothing of it. My GF at the time walked into the living room and flipped on the TV then screamed bloody murder. I ran into the room in time to see the 2nd plane hit live. I remember thinking "on geez what a terrible accident...wait? a 2nd plane? oh shit, we are under attack...sorta"

Jeff Parrott

I was sitting on the computer and my wife was getting ready for work. She heard something on the radio and told me to go turn the tv on. That was before the second plane hit.

TelekineticFrog

I was actually kinda just getting up, half asleep. I was living in Las Vegas then and I don't watch TV, so I was a bit clueless to the events happening. Only way I found out was that I went to check my email after getting out of the shower to see an email that was really short and confusing from my mother saying, "You're not flying home, turn on a tv and don't go anywhere". Yep I was about to be flying home to see my family when all that went down. I turned on the tv to shortly thereafter see the 2nd plane hit live. I left the tv on and went to look outside and it was pretty quiet and then it hit me there were no planes flying in to the international airport. One thing about living in Las Vegas is that there is always a constant stream of air traffic day and night that anyone in the valley can see. My studio was nearby so I chose to walk to work and see if anybody had came in. Not many, like three others. Later I saw military go down green valley parkway with their top gunners out. I think that kinda made me feel a bit uneasy. Las Vegas all but shut down and all the tourists were stuck.

KeyserSoze

I felt the same as oXYnary and Elysium. I don't mean to say that I share Elysium's attitude, but that morning I didn't feel particularly scared or effected by the attacks. I remember thinking how unreal the footage looked (I said to my mom, "that looks like footage from a movie... it's hard to believe that it's really happening"), and I remember wondering what it would be like if I were drafted. I didn't think it would happen, but my mom was freaking out and was convinced that my older brother and I were going to be drafted (she's one of those people who watch FOX News 24/7, and is always convinced that the world is coming to an end).

When I was driving to school that morning with my little brother (I was a senior in high school at the time, he was a freshman), the whole way I was thinking about the possibility of being drafted. I don't know why, but I didn't feel at all apprehensive or concerned about the idea of being drafted.

I was disappointed to find out that school that day would go ahead as scheduled. Nothing was really out of the ordinary; most people were talking about the attacks between classes, a couple teachers set up TVs playing the news while we did our school work, but other than that it was a normal school day.

There was a large forest fire not too far away, so all day the sky was overcast with an orangish-brown haze. Forest fires weren't an unusual occurrence for the area, but it was one of those things that seem to punctuate a significant moment. After school, I went home and played DoD for a couple hours while my mom was calling family members.

KeyserSoze

[ QUOTE ]
Plus, my friend is convinced that in a few years, 9/11 is going to become a corporate holiday. Just imagine.."So, what'd you get me for 9/11?"

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmmm... more like a military-industrial holiday. "So taxpayers, what'd you get your favorite politick for 9/11? OH! A dozen F-35 fighter jets? Wait until my best pal Lockheed hears about this, he's going to be thrilled."

Asherr

i was in Ceramics class at college when the gallery director came in and spoke with the professor. he told us what had happened. we were making seed pots at the time and he continued the class but i think brought out a radio so we could listen on NPR. i remember him saying "Don't think this doesn't affect you." and something along the lines "They've [the US government] known something like this was going to happen for a while. Maybe not when or where but they've known."
when class ended i went back to the dorm and watched CNN for the rest of the day. skipped my drawing class and never went back to it.

Slum

I was in history class in highschool. My teacher heard the news and turned the TV on instead of teaching class. After seeing the first plane hit, the girl sitting behind me said "Oh my god, how could the pilot not see that building right there?!"

ElysiumGX

[ QUOTE ]
do you have to be such an insensitive prick?

[/ QUOTE ]

one day 5 years ago, two buildings full of banks and law firms fell, due to reasons we're told very little about. today and for many years now men, women, and children are dying while we continue to grieve over a comparatively trivial event. an event that was exploited to justify an endless war. i'm sorry people died. but people are dying everyday, in a region most americans couldn't point out on a globe. very little mention on the TV. and it's always this way. insensitive? today is just another day. not patriot day. am i suppose to grieve about this every year?

snemmy

skipped painting. woke up heard asherr and our friend come in and say something about towers blowing up.. think i went to class without really knowing what happened. halfway to class i almost stopped dead when i noticed how eerily perfect of a day it was out. no clouds, and no plane trails, nothing.

Geezus

I was working the morning shift at my old job (inhouse tech support for Comcast internet). I thought it was odd because when I came in there were hardly any cars in the parking lot. It all happened during my comute to work. By the time I got there, everyone was told they could go home if they wanted to. I ended up staying and watching the day unfold on the huge tv on the wall (this tv was the size of the wall). Only myself and two other people ended up staying. Every now and again we'd get a call from customers, most of the calls were spent discussing the days events. I do remember being shocked though, when I recieved a call from an extremely rude woman. She was totally aware of what was going on, but was more concerned about not being able to check her ebay account. Hrmf.

Marcus Dublin

I was on my way to work at my old job which was a 30 minute long commute every morning. I would normally listen to my car stereo but every now and then I would listen to Howard Stern, while Howard and the crew were joking around as usual one of his guys reported that a plane flew into one of the twin towers. The crew assumed it was a small plane and even joked about it, I assumed the same and thought to myself it’s just another crazy morning in the big apple! Well after a few minutes they reported on the severity of the situation and no one was joking anymore. Twenty minutes later I showed up to work and everyone was glued to the radio on what was going on. The only thing I could think of that day was of my family members and friends who worked pretty closely to the WTC. I tried calling everyone that day but cell phone service was non existent! I remember leaving work early around 3:00 and what would normally be a 30-minute ride home turned into a six hour ride home as all highways were closed. The eerie thing is that I would always see the Twin towers from the highway in the skyline coming home and on that faithful day they were no more, I never realized how much I took those buildings for granted and it left me with a sinking feeling in my stomach all the way home. After the long trek I finally made it home and I was glad to see my aunts safe and sound but the horror continued! While at work I didn’t actually see footage of the twin towers being hit by the planes since all we had were radios and 56k connections. Well suffice to say I couldn’t have imagined a more horrific sight seeing the planes hit over and over on multiple TV stations, it’s an image I shall never forget as long as I live and I hope to God that I never have to see anything that devastating ever again. On a last note being a New Yorker born and raised it opened my eye’s to the beauty I took for granted in this great city and I made it a point to not only visit the WTC sight but also take the time to visit other landmarks of this great American city. I look forward to the day when the new towers are built standing as a beacon of remembrance and the great American spirit!

Marcus Dublin
Artist – Kaos Studios

Ramucho

I have to aggree with ely.
According to UNICEF 1400 children die of hunger every two hours, can't see why I should really care about an event like that, only people who lost someone in the event should remember. Can't understand why everyone want to get involved with it...

Thegodzero

My day begane with finding my mom watching TV that morning something she never does. So i watched from the doorway trying to figure out what was going on that would get her to sit and watch TV. After a few min she turned and noticed i was there and comented on how crazy it was that a plane had hit the WTC. I told her that it would be fine it was made to handel shit like that. The weeks before i had been watching shit on the WTC and a few months before that i was standing on top of it. Then i ran to catch the school bus. At the bus stop everyone was talking about it and i told them all it was ok the tower would be fine. Got to school and the teacher had the news on and just as i was telling others that the tower would be fine the second plane hit. Then i started telling everyone that the buildings could be holding as many as 200k people inside, and that they were made to take direct hits by airplanes. As i was telling my friend that they started to fall. After that i kept thinking about how 200k peope had just died on live TV, and how who ever did this was going to suffer.

I just read some stuff i wrote a week after and well i wanted to kill everyone and anyone who knew a terroist, and turn the middle east into a galss parking lot.

ebagg

Ely and Ramucho; It's not a matter of grieving necessarily, it's the significance of the event. Yes, thousands of people die every day, do they all die at once in a coordinated attack against some of the US's most symbolic buildings? No. You can trivialize any event, even ones like World War 2 if you want to "grand scheme" it enough, or you can pull your head out of your ass and realize it was a major event that has changed much of the way the country and the world works.

Ninjas

I think it is the overblown reaction that has changed much of the way the country and the world works.

I certainly think people should be able to not care without being called names. Maybe a realistic view of the actual damage and human lives lost is exactly what we need to pull our heads out of our ass.

Keg

I was sleeping and woke up and felt like something bad really happened, then went back to sleep. and no I am not bullshiting this.

I liken it to feelin a disturbance in the force like a million voices crying out in fear :P

sonic

[ QUOTE ]
I have to aggree with ely.
According to UNICEF 1400 children die of hunger every two hours, can't see why I should really care about an event like that, only people who lost someone in the event should remember. Can't understand why everyone want to get involved with it...

[/ QUOTE ]

You should care about both, dolt.

ElysiumGX

[ QUOTE ]
Yes, thousands of people die every day. do they all die at once in a coordinated attack against some of the US's most symbolic buildings?

[/ QUOTE ]

No...I'm sure they don't. Since they don't have the luxury of living in the US, and working government jobs in a tall building in New York. What the hell kind of question is that? I've told what I did the day it happened. I explained how i feel about it, after being called a prick. After you've bought your 9/11 memorial T-shirt with american flag background, pull your head out of your ass and look up the word genocide. And this country hasn't exactly changed for the better since this event.

adam

This thread is awesome

aesir

One of these days were gonna put together a real polycount convention.



there will be bloodshed.

Zcubed

Ding! Ding! Sonic has the right answer.

ebagg

Listen I'm not debating it to be patriotic, or even to mourn, I'm just saying it's history happening in front of your face, and you sound like you just brushed it off. I care about what happened on 9/11, I care about the genocide that has occurred in such hot spots as the African tribal conflicts, I care about the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah (sp?) because I think the history being formed as we live our lives is something we should pay attention to.

Mister Sentient

It was a terrible thing that happened. Hopefully if anything it will have taught people to take an interest in their government's activities in foreign countries.