#2449 | Thursday, September 12th, 2002
I was at school in 2nd hour. I don't even remember how we got word of it. My teacher had this little black and white T.V. My entire class was surrounded around it. At first I didn't understand. It seemed like something out of a movie,but it still didn't hit me yet. It didn't hit me until 3rd hour when we didnt have to do any work, and my teacher was tryin to get on the internet and evey server was busy. We didnt have a T.V. in there so we only heard what the other teachers were saying. After that day i was real scared. I heard rumors saying that Louisiana was the next one they were going to hit (which is where I live). I didn't even want to go to school the next day, but I did. First hour, when the announcements were supposed to come on, we just had a moment of silence. Everyone was so upset!
Doesn't even seem like it's been a whole year. I think it made America think about a lot of things, and made them realize just how much they take forgranted. I don't think having another war would be the solution, but I'm sure our president is doing everything he can, the best way he can!
**GOD BLESS AMERICA**
Sara | 16 | Louisiana

#2450 | Thursday, September 12th, 2002
At home, startled by an early morning phone call. A call that was to result in complete shock, panic and horror. My family - the entire world as I had known were all devastated. The Twin Towers hit by planes, on fire and now before our eyes imploding!
My husband has brothers on the floor of the exchange, My cousin works in a near by Bldg. My friends and family who are FDNY & NYPD workers - God almighty are they alive?
My daughter barely 4 months old, will she ever know some of these people? My God what if it was nuclear? We would have lost all of those we love, as they all live and work with in a 50 mile radius of the great big apple. Who did this and are you coming near me? I need to protect my daughter& my husband it is my nature. I need to fight for their lives and pray for all of the others. TRAPPED as I am 3000 miles away... I cannot help put out the flames, the fears or dig in the rubble to get to those still alive.... please let there be some life left in there. I am hopelessly watching, trying to find a ray of hope for those lost........
How will these families go on? Please let this be a nightmare! I never want to hear the phone ring again - God I hope the phone rings telling me all of my loved ones are alright. I am and always will be a New Yorker I just live some where else now............. 911 now has a whole new meaning! It is the day we lost the most precious thing of all - Human Life at the hands of a human Animal.
For the spur of the moment these are my recollections, for one more thought. I wish no one had been there - Where was I? Thank you for letting me vent, thank you for giving others a chance to reflect.
For my daughter and family to follow - May you live to see a brighter tomorrow.
Lisa 9/12/02
Lisa | 34 | California

#2451 | Thursday, September 12th, 2002
I was upstairs in my bedroom with my best friend. we were getting ready to go to a concert in London so we had the CD on of the band we were going to see.
We went downstairs to leave, and there it was on the TV, the images that haunt the minds of almost everyone that saw them. All I could do was stare at the TV. I felt so guilty that I had been upstairs laughing, joking, singing and acting like a kid while all this was going on. I couldnt beleive what was happening.
we went to London and all i could think about on the way there was "I wonder whats happening now". We had no access to information on the train.
We got to London and we found out that our concert may be cancelled because there had been a threat that a plane was going to be flown into Canary Wharf. I didnt care about the concert though. It wasnt cancelled but I didnt enjoy it at all, i just wanted to get home and see what was happening.
The best qoute I have heard is "stand facing the sun, and the shadows will fall behind you".
God Bless America
Emma | 16 | United Kingdom

#2452 | Thursday, September 12th, 2002
September 11th, 2001-
I was working as a bookseller at Borders at the time, and I was working an 'open'- a 7:30 am to 4:30 pm shift. The store opens at 9 am, and I was stuck with the register. (As a bookseller, you rotate from the register to the information desk.)...

I remember that it was the second customer who told me about the first plane hitting the WTC. I was incredulous, and had a sudden flashback to college, when I'd found out about the first attack on the WTC from a message left on the whiteboard on somebody's door ("WTC is on fire") and had dismissed it as a joke-- only later to find out it had really happened. Of course, initially, I thought it had to be an accident...

Every other customer filled me in on what was happening. (For some reason, everybody was doing returns that day. That detail sticks in my mind.) Next I heard that the second plane had hit, and it was terrorists. "What is this, Terrorism Day?" I remember saying. I very much wanted to leave the register, leave the store, and go home and turn on CNN. But I couldn't leave the register!

Then a customer told me the first tower had fallen. It couldn't be! But it was. I was in shock. I never thought those towers would fall down. I didn't think they could. I believe the very next customer after that told me that the other one had gone down too. My very first reaction was anger. They can't go down! I haven't visited them yet! And now I never can. Later, when I began to get information from actual news and not word-of-mouth, the loss of life began to hit me. But I remember the delayed reaction to that. First I had to believe it had really happened. But to get to actual news I had to leave the damn register!

After that I remember news coming in one thing after another. The Pentagon's been hit. There's a bomb at the State Department. (That one later turned out not to be true, thank God.) Federal workers just got sent home. (From the store I imagine my dad, stuck in traffic.) A plane went down in Pennsylvania, that was probably aimed at DC...

At this point I'm frantic. Is somewhere else going to get hit? What is going on? Get me to CNN!

I got off for lunch at 11. I went to the back and listened to the radio, which was talking about the terrorist attacks, of course. There's a lot of "This just in" type of stuff. I don't eat lunch. I just listen...

At noon, when I would have had to get back to the store, we are all sent home. We are all very quiet. There are no customers. The parking lot is deserted, but the streets are full...

I drive to my parents house (I was living in a townhouse at the time) because they have cable and I don't. I turn on CNN. I finally see what I've been hearing about, and it's utterly mind-boggling...

My dad comes home first, then, later, my mom. We all watch cable news, the same images, over and over. I never saw the people jumping from the buildings though- by 12:30 pm, when I started watching, they had edited that stuff out...

I was there until about 9:30 or 10, just watching cable news all day long. I never do this. I remember trying to process it, trying to grasp how many people were killed. I remember Giuliani saying on TV that the number would be more than we could bear. I remember the TV reports estimating 6,000, 10,000 dead. (When the number finally got whittled down to 3,000-odd it was almost a relief, after that. Now, it looks big again.) I kept thinking, maybe the people in the second tower had a chance. I knew, even then, that it was those in the upper floors that had it the worst...

Stories of heroism came later. Then, it was destruction, desecration, and death. The firefighters came in, and the rescue dogs. But there was nobody to rescue, hardly, at all; and nobody at all after the first week. I had a feeling it would be so (110 stories coming down!), but I still hoped against hope. You had to hope...

I get back to my townhouse around 10:30 or so. I watch some more TV...

The next day I attempted to watch TV, then realized I had had enough. I couldn't watch anymore. That day I was on the internet a lot though. I got my news that way, the day after. I had the day off on Wed. the 12th. Probably a good thing...

What is it about Tuesdays? The Depression-starting stock market crash was Black Tuesday, wasn't it? Constantinople fell to the Turks on a Tuesday. And Sept. 11th, a Tuesday. Not my favorite day of the week...

The next time I watched TV was Letterman's first show back. The one where Dan Rather cried. It was all so surreal...

Flags appeared everywhere, including on my car. I wanted to see more of them, they made me feel better somehow. It seemed almost a travesty for life to go back to normal, for flags to go up from half-mast. I wanted them kept at half-mast longer. How dare we come out of mourning? Apparently, others were ready before I was....

I was not- Before- the kind of person who'd put flags on my car, who considered myself very patriotic. Now I have four flag stickers on my car (if you count the "God bless America" which has a flag on it) and flags at my cubicle. And now, unlike Before, I do consider myself a patriot. My country ain't perfect, but by God, it's still my country! And nobody, but nobody, has the right to attack innocent civilians who have done nothing more than go to work. I hope the armed forces can get al Qaeda and bin Laden and give them what's coming to them.

It's a year later now, and it still boggles the mind. My heart goes out to all the widows, widowers, and orphans; those who lost family members, boyfriends, girlfriends, or just somebody they knew. May the Lord have mercy on them, comfort and heal them. May the Lord have mercy on us all. And for all the victims of that evil day, I pray, May their memory be eternal.

God bless America.
Michelle | 28 | Virginia

#2453 | Thursday, September 12th, 2002
On Septmeber 11, 2001 I was in school. I had been in school for not even an hour. I didn't hear about this tragedy until a couple of hours after it had already happen.

On September 11, 02 my school watch a movie on the tragedy that had happen this was a movie about the tragedy. The video showed people jumping out of the window, and right when I saw that I looked up and said "what had those people done to deserve that?" I wonder why they deserved that?
Well i am very sorry for those who lost their love ones and i hope that they will leave a happy life even though this happened to them!!
Lindsey | 12 | Virginia

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