September 11, 2021 is 20th Anniversary of 9/11 - What are you memories of it?

[DonLever]

https://www.bu.edu/articles/2021/how-9-11-changed-the-world/

 

Saturday, September 11, 2021, marks the 20th anniversary of 9/11, the largest terrorist attack in history. On that Tuesday morning, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four American commercial flights destined for the West Coast and intentionally crashed them. Two planes—American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175—departed from Boston and Flight 11 struck New York City’s World Trade Center North Tower at 8:46 am and Flight 175 the South Tower at 9:03 am, leading to the collapse of both towers. A third plane, American Airlines Flight 77, leaving from Dulles International Airport in Virginia, crashed into the Pentagon at 9:37 am, and the final plane, United Airlines Flight 93, departing from Newark, N.J., crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pa., at 10:03 am., after passengers stormed the cockpit and tried to subdue the hijackers.

 

In the space of less than 90 minutes on a late summer morning, the world changed. Nearly 3,000 people were killed that day and the United States soon found itself mired in what would become the longest war in its history, a war that cost an estimated $8 trillion. The events of 9/11 not only reshaped the global response to terrorism, but raised new and troubling questions about security, privacy, and treatment of prisoners. It reshaped US immigration policies and led to a surge in discrimination, racial profiling, and hate crimes.

[DonLever]

If you are alive back then, what do you remember of 9/11?   Because it occurred before 9 am EST, a lot of people not see it live on the West Coast.

 

I remember waking up to see the replay of the events.  It was amazing to see the planes hitting the Twin Towers.  It seem so surreal.

[c00kies]

9 minutes ago, DonLever said:

If you are alive back then, what do you remember of 9/11?   Because it occurred before 9 am EST, a lot of people not see it live on the West Coast.

 

I remember waking up to see the replay of the events.  It was amazing to see the planes hitting the Twin Towers.  It seem so surreal.

Interesting word choice...

 

I was grade 2 and honestly, I didn't really know. I'm sure it was talked about around me, but I don't remember it vividly or any real memories of it.

[AlwaysACanuckFan]

When I first turned on the tv that day my first words were WTF

[drummer4now]

I was in grade 3 and I can remember hearing the word "terrorists" for the first time... 

At the time I was like why are my classmates and teachers using that term. 

 

As an ethnic brown person very painful to have your classmates use that term on you in subsequent years. 

Edited September 9, 2021 by drummer4now

[AlwaysACanuckFan]

13 minutes ago, DonLever said:

If you are alive back then, what do you remember of 9/11?   Because it occurred before 9 am EST, a lot of people not see it live on the West Coast.

 

I remember waking up to see the replay of the events.  It was amazing to see the planes hitting the Twin Towers.  It seem so surreal.

Tell that to the families who lost loved ones in that 

[thedestroyerofworlds]

I just remember getting up to head out and seeing it on TV while I was getting ready.  It was unbelievable.   Then all day for the next while it was nonstop 9/11 on the TVs around the uni that were all on CNN.  

[Rick Blight]

I remember it like it was yesterday. I was at a business conference in Toronto when we were all informed of the attack. The conference was immediately terminated as there was speculation that Toronto could be a target as well and I started my 20 minute walk back to the Royal York hotel. There was panic in the streets as people were trying to get home to their loved ones.

 

The Royal York lobby was filled with people watching the event on TV's. There were many Americans in the lobby watching and there was total silence except for the haunting sounds of sobbing. It was just surreal. 

 

I tried to see if I could get a flight out to get home to the family but there were no flights after the attack. Talked to the wife on the phone for about an hour assuring her that I would be fine. It was two days later that I was able to get a flight home and the experience at the airport was very memorable. There were armed soldiers everywhere in the airport along with their bomb sniffing dogs. It was a real relief to finally board the plane and eventually get home.

 

It was not until I got home that I was informed a business colleague was killed in the attack. He had flown into New York that morning for a meeting and was on the 100th (?) floor when the North Tower was hit.

[DonLever]

18 minutes ago, AlwaysACanuckFan said:

Tell that to the families who lost loved ones in that 

I wasn't disrespectful to the families.   Perhaps I should have said shocking...

[RWMc1]

I was in the lunchroom for first coffee break and one of my co-workers came in said "We're at war." We asked, "What do you mean we're at war?" He then told us about the planes flying into the Twin Towers. We had to finish our shift wondering wtf was going on. I went home and started watching all the different reports and video of the incident. It was surreal. Thankfully it was not an act of war by a particular country. It was a tragedy, but it could have been worse considering how our co-worker framed it.

[nuckin_futz]

I had just got up to work (financial trader). Turned on the financial channel and they were showing a gaping hole in the first tower. They didn't seem too concerned so I went about my morning routine. Speculation was a commuter plane crashed into it but the hole was pretty big to have been caused by a smaller plane. Then shortly after 6 AM PST I saw the 2nd plane crash into the other tower live on TV and it was clear the first wasn't an accident.

 

The markets did not open that day and would remain closed for a week.

 

The total chaos of not knowing how many planes were possibly involved and the effort to ground all planes was immense. It was chaos upon chaos.

 

Within hours it was clear the world had changed forever. Pretty much spent the next 20 hours watching news.

[Devron]

Must have been grade 7. My mom asked if I wanted to stay home. At the time I didn’t really understand it. It was like just TV not news ya know. I think maybe the next day or 2 it hit me. One of the biggest eye openers of my life. You always hear about these things through TV or history class but for it to really register in real time is something else. Truly tragic and sickening thinking about it again.

[I.Am.Ironman]

I was in grade 5. My mom went into work early, she called my dad to wake us up and turn on the news. My parents wanted me to watch it on TV, my dad said that "you're watching history today, you will remember this for the rest of your life". We ate breakfast and watched the live feed. I remember asking what the small black things falling were and my dad saying that they were people. There were people jumping while holding hands, sometimes in groups of 3-4. We watched the second plane hit the tower live and watched the towers fall.

 

I went to school and I remember filing into my classroom with out teacher at the door. Kids were asking her if she saw the news etc. I remember the look on her face being a mix of emotions. She was trying not to let these 10 year olds see her sadness but there was also a frustration because we obviously didn't fully comprehend the gravity of the situation. We were kind of on stand by for most of the morning. Trying to figure out if we were at war. It's almost more weird looking back on it being an adult, now fully understanding the consequences of that day.

[Coconuts]

Not much. I was in grade six when it all went down, I remember later on they handed out tins with commemorative quarters that I promptly spent on candy. Didn't really cross my radar as an eleven year old. 

[brilac]

I was in college living in Seattle.  I went out the evening of September 10th and kept looking up at the Space Needle. The next morning, my parents kept calling and calling, and when I answered the phone, my mother says - we are under attack! She told me what happened, and they saw the second plane on TV live hit.  My parents were living in Oregon and by the end of September, the convinced me to withdrawal from college and come home to Oregon. My mother wanted to keep her family safe, and she did not think it was safe for me to be in Seattle. By January I was back in college and living in Seattle. Every day on the news, I would see where the terror alert was at and it was high. 

[bigbadcanucks]

September 11, 2001 was a Tuesday...I was in my office in Montreal getting prepped for a presentation I was to give to the company CEO/President and Division VPs at 9AM when the first plane struck WTC North Tower at 8:45AM.  I don't know why, but I had the news page up on my Netscape browser and that's how I found about tragic chain of events.  I broke the news to the execs I was supposed to be presenting to, and at first, they thought I was kidding.  Then the CEO's exec assistant came in to the boardroom and confirmed what I had told them...needless to say, the presentation I was to give was postponed/rescheduled to another date and time.

 

The rest of the morning I was glued to my computer screen waiting for more news to come.  On the afternoon of 9/11/01, I played a round of golf at the fabled Royal Montreal Golf Club.  The PGA event (The Bell Canadian Open) had just concluded on Sept. 9th and the grounds crew kept the tee boxes/pins as they were for the final round.  I'll always remember 9/11 for the tragedy it was and for having the opportunity to play a round of golf from the same final round tees and pin placements as the PGA pros. 

 

A side note...I was in Manhattan from Thursday, Sept. 6th to Sunday, Sept. 9th with my girlfriend at the time staying at the Westin Hotel in Times Square (a little bit north of Midtown Manhattan).  We were at the WTC and Statue of Liberty which as most know is at the southern part of Manhattan (aka "Downtown Manhattan") on the Saturday evening before 9/11.  I also think often of how close I was to having experienced 9/11 in person and how lucky I was that the attacks did not occur on the weekend I was in Manhattan.

[CBH1926]

I had doctors appointment in Chicago that day and this overwhelming smell of cigarette smoke woke me up.

My parents were sitting in front of the TV in the living room and they were smoking up a storm.

 

I could tell something big has happened since they weren’t allowed to smoke in the living room.

On my way to Chicago I called my future wife who has not heard the news yet in Vancouver.

[Guest]

I remember it like yesterday.  I was working a day shift at the theatre, back in the day.  Lougheed Mall theatre that is, before it got converted to a London Drugs less then a year later. 

 

It felt surreal. 

[SID.IS.SID.ME.IS.ME]

Watched it all happen live on TV, from the very start. My main memory from that day was hearing the report that some of the hijacked flights were headed for Los Angeles. One of my best friends is a movie director in LA, so I called him that morning, woke him up, and told him what was happening and to turn on the TV. With so much confusion and unknown, I was worried that maybe LA would be also targeted, and he was living really near downtown at the time, so I was concerned for him and his wife. Of course, he wasn’t in any real danger, but at the time, I didn’t know how many planes were going to be crashed into buildings, and I just wanted to make sure he was awake and watching the situation, and would have time to react and take any precautions he could, should something happen. We stayed on the phone a while and watched the news together, said we loved each other, and then hung up. I stayed glued to the TV the rest of the day, and just made phone calls to friends and family, mostly just talking about how terrible and bizarre the whole situation was, and just feeling dread about what the events of the day meant, and what the ramifications would be.

[-AJ-]

I wasn't really that aware of what had happened, but I recall seeing that my grade 3 teacher was visibly upset when she talked to us about it that morning. it wasn't really until years later that I really understood the gravity of what took place that fateful morning.