Thread: Where were you Sept.11 2001?

It was my first year of university and I was walking to an early morning class on campus (one of the few times I actually made it to that particular class that semester, since it wasn't long before I decided it was a little too early for me). It was a crisp and sunny September morning. I was eating an apple and drinking from an orange juice box as I walked up the path to the building my class was in. I heard one of two people standing on the edge of the path say "World Trade Center," but I didn't get a sense of context.

Inside, I sat down in the back row of the room, feeling drowsy. Another student sat down beside me. I was kind of zoning out, waiting for the professor to show up, but I could sense that he wanted to say something. He was fidgeting in his seat and out of the corner of my eye I noticed him looking my way a bit. "Hey man, did you hear about what's going on?" he asked.

"Uh, no," I told him. "What's going on?"

"The US is under attack! Planes have hit the World Trade Center buildings and the Pentagon."

I can't remember exactly what was said after that, but I was pretty freaked out and wanted to know more, but he didn't have many details. "Under attack" just sounded so...wrong. The professor showed up right after this and I thought she'd fill us in, but that didn't happen. It was a philosophy class and the woman was a pretentious goof. She claimed at one point during the semester that she didn't own a TV and even asked a student, "What's CNN?" when he mentioned it in passing. I instantly pegged her as a phony.

After the class I walked back to my residence building and went to the communal lounge where I found people from my floor watching the news coverage of what was happening. One of the guys told me that he had just watched the second plane hit the tower live. It was startling footage. A saw tears welling up and rolling down a couple of girls' faces and I was struck by how no one was really saying anything. No one, not even the news correspondants, could make sense of what was really going on. I think everyone felt like they had been punched in the stomach.

I remember I had just got home from school. I turned on the TV and the Swedish television was broadcasting CNN. I saw a fighter aircraft flying around and the headline was "America under attack"..really I started laughing because it was so surreal. I was wondering who on earth had invaded America? Canada? The Soviet Union?
But then after a few minutes I they announced what had happened, and I still thought it was so surreal.

I was at school, waiting for my mum to finish work (she teaches) I can remember hearing about it then 3 of us were sat in front of a computer watching the news for an hour.

I was in Antwerp that day.
Peer.

I was in 7th grade. I arrived at my social studies class when the teacher told us what happened. We all thought it was an accident at the time.

I was working at a library at the time. Most of us thought it was just an accident when it was reported the first plane hit. I don't know if it was because of a news report or just our disbelief it could be an attack, but those in my department thought it was a small Cessna type plane. We were kind of all standing around waiting to find out what was going on. The only TVs we had in the building were used for watching VHS and DVDs. I went over to the TVs by myself and was able to get a snowy picture on the screen. When the second jet slammed into the building, I knew and everyone else knew, this was intentional. I remember walking over to my office and quietly telling people what I'd seen as I walked. From then on not much work got done. We were in shock and just trying to get more information. I remember a sinking awful feeling. And then I got mad.

Sept 11, 2001 was just before I started graduate school (computer science PhD... I'm almost finished, btw!). As I live in Los Angeles, it was very early here when events got underway. I was still asleep when my roommate woke me up and told me two planes had flown into the Twin Towers and one of the towers had collapsed. I didn't quite realize what was going on just yet, so I said something like "that's ridiculous" then started listening to the radio about it.

Sad, sad day.