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#113 | Thursday, September 20th, 2001
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my girlfriend woke me up with a friendly phone call on 9 11. she told me to look at the news. i checked USAtoday.com and it all just seemed so unreal. and it was hard to get through my head something like that could happen.
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Dan | 17 | Texas
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#114 | Thursday, September 20th, 2001
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I was asleep. My mom called to tell me what happened, mostly because I have friends in Pittsburg and they said one of the planes went down near there. This was very early in the event and we didn't know exactly what was going on. I spent the rest of the day in front of the TV with my neighbors.
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Chris | 25 | Oklahoma
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#115 | Friday, September 21st, 2001
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September 11th, 2001, the day the World Trade Center was attacked.
Where was I and what was I doing? I was in bed trying to sleep while my cell phone was ringing over and over and over again. Finally I answered it to the voice of a friend telling me the World Trade Center was gone. My reply, "yeah ok buddy, no really what do you want?” He told me to get out of bed and turn the TV, which I reluctantly did. The images displayed before me took a couple of minutes to register. At first I thought I was watching some Bruce Willis movie or something but then I saw the CNN logos and tickers and it hit me like a blast of fire.
The insurmountable loss of innocent lives and the sight of the World Trade Center burning and smoking before my eyes left me in a distant perplexed state. As I watched the news I was so disappointed in human beings as a life form. Why is it so difficult for everyone to just enjoy how great it is to be alive and to respect everyone else’s views, religions, opinions, cultures and lifestyles?
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Scott | 25 | Wisconsin
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#116 | Friday, September 21st, 2001
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I was attending a conference in Lille, France. The night before had been fun, crammed in to an absurdly small bar area of our university campus hotel, finding out about where everyone was from, everyone trying to speak each other's languages.
The next day was tutorial day, and I came out during a break to discover people gathered around an office watching the television inside. Oh, I see Mt Etna's erupted again, I thought.
I thought wrong.
The remainder of the week was spent in France, trying to understand from French TV what was happening, and with no access to English newspapers (Uni campus, off-season, no shops!), wishing that I was back in the UK. I wanted to know what was happening without having to rely on snatched snippets of information from other people's calls from home.
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Ian | 29 | United Kingdom
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#117 | Friday, September 21st, 2001
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Jose's roommate, Ben, knocked on the door a little before 10:00 in the morning.
"I dont know if you guys care, or whatever, but america is under attack...so you might
want to turn on the television."
And with the flick of the remote, my perception of the United States and, more
specifically, New York City, was forever altered.
We sat glued to the tv for hours, mesmerized by the grotesque and surreal qualities of
what was occurring just an hour and a half away from us.
That Saturday, Jose and I drove to New York City to help out. It was the first time I ever felt
an intense love for the city so many people claim to adore. I was in awe of the sudden
fragility of such a typically hostile environment. I was heartbroken by the pictures i saw,
the heights and weights and birthmarks of the missing faces haunting every flat surface. I
saw a woman across the street from St. Vincents hospital hysterically sobbing. And I cried
too.
We went back again the next Tuesday. We helped load things into trucks for a few
hours for the salvation army. And still, there especially, the unity was more than
admirable.
I don't know how I will feel about this in a year. Will it still remain as surreal and
unfeasible as it is now? Will I ever be able to drive down the New Jersey Turnpike and see
the skyline without imagining the rise of the deathly smoke and ashes? I don't know. In
many ways, I hope not. I don't want to forget this. I don't want to be less affected by this
extraordinarily evil attack than I am now. I want to always be capable of feeling both
shocked and appalled by this. I hope everyone does This is not something anyone should
ever accept as "normal."
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Elizabeth | 20 | Pennsylvania
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