NationStates Jolt Archive

I'm sure most people remember. I was at the computer lab in my elementary school (I was in the 5th grade) and I noticed that my teacher and the librarian were talking and looked worried. My teacher took us back to the classroom and told us that because we were the oldest in the school, we would be able to understand what was going on better. She turned on the news and I just turned to the boy next to me with my jaw on my desk.

So...where were you?

I was asleep... my mom woke me up and told me what happened. Of course, I had just woken up, so I didn't really comprehend any of it until later.

I was in art class and my teacher had the news on for the whole period. the first thing I said was " hey, some idiot just crashed a plane into a skyscraper" I don't think I really thought about the magnitude of the whole thing until a couple hours later.

I was in my 7th grade teacher's classroom, can't remember which class...

While it happened, I was on my way to school. I first found out about it in my 6th grade reading class. My friend told me, "Hey I heard a plane crashed into the WTC in Chicago." (Yes, he did say Chicago.) I just laughed at him and said, "The WTC is in Ney York. Besides, thats crazy. Who'd be stupid enough to do that?"

I was in my 7th grade teacher's classroom, can't remember which class...
I was in math class, same grade, and the school decided not to tell us - at that exact time tho, I remember this jerk of a girl was trying to take advantage of my good nature all b/c she had diabetes (diabetes *is* serious - but taking advantage of some1 over it is just wrong)

I remember it clearly, I was in 6th grade, We were in third period I beleive, we walked into our US studies class, and the teacher told us all to take seats, and she turned off the lights, and turned it to the news, that is when I first found out about the attacks.

I also remember, on Sept 11 each year, my new/old social studies teacher (she was my teacher for two years until I got into highschool) she showed us a slide show that she made that displayed pictures of the attacks, with quotes from firemen, George W. Bush, had pictures of victoms with their names, and had songs that were made about 9/11, the slide show was really emotional, almost half of my class would be in tears after it.

I was in a History Class at college when it went down. I only found out after class and walked into the student lounge. When I did found out, I said its wwiii and walked out and waited to get picked up because they closed all the campuses that my community College is attached too.

I was in my 11th grade US History class and we were just about to change classes in 10 minutes. It was around 10:00 when I found out. The PA came on and my principal said these exact words.
" Attention students, as some of you know, this morning a plane crashed into one of the twin towers in New York. A second plane has just hit the other tower. We ask all teachers to keep their TVs off and not to allow students on the internet. We will go about the school day as if it were a normal day."

That was all we were told. At first I was thinking it was private planes, but then rumors started around school. People saying the white house had been hit, the Pentagon (that one was true), and the Chrystler Building. I didn't know the towers had actually fell till I got home. I was a nervous wreck all day.

I remember September 11th quite well... If you're talking about what i was doing at the exact time of the attack i was in my English class researching the Enron stock thing. I then went to my Geometry class next and one of the kids ran up to the TV saying "Hey look what just happened!" turned on the TV to a live feed of one of the towers. We didnt get to far into the news when someone announced on the PA that teachers shouldnt turn on the news (some bs about influencing the children wrongly or something) and since i didnt watch the news much at that time i actually didnt find out that it was an attack untill the next day at school.

Isn't it weird that everyone can remember exactly what they were doing no matter how unimportant? People can remember what was said, and other details. I can still remember the look on the boy next to me's face, and exactly how the desks were set up in our classroom, and the conversation our teacher had with us about it. I also remember watching a Spanish News Channel where they were showing people jumping of the WTC. I hear it is the same for people who remember what they were doing when they heard JFK was killed.

Without a script or someone telling me what to do, I just sat around with a stupid, lost chimp-like look on my face.

IT's teh same as the JFK assasination, pearl harbour, etc.


I was napping in science class Gr. 8 when our teacher got called out by a vice-principal. I started hitting on the girl next to me and she laughed at me. The teacher came back in and told us what had happened.

At school, early, in a science class. After that block, the principal made the announcement that teachers were nto to have the kids watch the TV...*Rolls eyes*It's a bloody highschool..I think they could handle it.a good number of teachers didn't listen,regardless.

Senior Year in my American Goverment class

I was at my Moral Civics class. Nobody told us, we just heard something happened.

Cut to 10 Minutes later, everybody was leaving the school, I was hoping I would leave too but I was wondering why.

Cut to 5 Minutes later, I'm at my house, watching the T.V. scared as hell.

At school, early, in a science class. After that block, the principal made the announcement that teachers were nto to have the kids watch the TV...*Rolls eyes*It's a bloody highschool..I think they could handle it.a good number of teachers didn't listen,regardless.

Wow, our elementary school principal thought it was okay for 5th graders to watch the news, I can't believe they wouldn't let high schoolers watch it. I could understand if those kids lived in New York or something, but any other place was relatively safe.

I was just getting up and getting ready to go to school. My parents were watching TV so I joined them. That's where I was when I first heard of the incident. The rest of the day was a less than normal school day.

I hear it is the same for people who remember what they were doing when they heard JFK was killed.
I think it's the same for any major event in a persons life, even if it only affects a single person or a few people like a first kiss, a wedding, or someone really close to you dying; you tend to remember all of the little details. It's just that with events of such wide impact, you have many, many people who will remember these small details surrounding the exact same event; what were you doing during the Pearl Harbor attack, the assassination of JFK, or the Sept 11 attack.

--The Democratic States of Cogitation

I was on grade eight at the time. I was on the bus, fourth seat from the front on the right, talking to one of my friends about how Shannon Sharpe injured his leg in a football game last night. I heard "...Woirld Trade Center in flames..." on the radio and just ignored the guy for the rest of the ride and focused on the broadcast.

Cut to after school, that same day. I was watching the TV news all afternoon. somehow, I wasn't thinking about how horrible this was or how this might be the end of the world. I was thinking about how my grades were going to drop because I wasn't doing my homework.

I can remember the conversations in the class.
It started normally we all sat down, and she turned on the TV and we asked if we were gonna watch a movie, she said no, and then told us how the world trade center was hit.
We watched in horror as there were multiple times it showed the planes hit, I remember my best freind remarking in horror how one plane could be seen flying through the building if you looked closely. Then there was the next part about the possible bomb in the high school not far from the Trade Center.

Eighth grade English class. Someone came in and said something to the teacher, and she turned on the TV, and we saw a replay of the first crash. It didn't even occur to me at the time that it was real. After about an hour we continued the day just like any other. Oddly enough, even though everyone at the middle school was told about it, the teachers at the high school were told not to turn on their TV's.

I was at work. wow, guess I'm kind of old, what with all you guys at school... anyway, I was at work, and a co-worker who was off called me and said "Hey, there's planes crashing into NYC, and we're being attacked, the White House is on fire, etc..." and I just said, "Right, Stephen, quit joking around..." and went back to work. Then about an hour later, some customers told us the same thing and we found out it was true...
Wish it had just been a stupid Stephen joke though...

i was woken up by my roommate because i was working nights at the time, and being just woken up i didnt fully realize what was going on at first. after work that night i could feel the tention(sp?) (worked with alot of people on the floor) everytime a news report came over the radio.

I'm sure most people remember. I was at the computer lab in my elementary school (I was in the 5th grade) and I noticed that my teacher and the librarian were talking and looked worried. My teacher took us back to the classroom and told us that because we were the oldest in the school, we would be able to understand what was going on better. She turned on the news and I just turned to the boy next to me with my jaw on my desk.

So...where were you?
I was busy getting drunk. It's saturday. So what do you expect?

I was busy getting drunk. It's saturday. So what do you expect?


Sorry.

9/11/01 was on a Tuesday.

Sorry.

9/11/01 was on a Tuesday.

He knows that but he doesn't care!

It was tuesday you jackass.

He was talking about today. Not the one 3 years ago. Noone gave a year when they started this thread. And all you people talking about how you were in junior high or less are starting to make me feel REALLY old. I was 26 when it happened.

I was in the local sheet metal union. They would lay the apprentices off for about 5 weeks a year to go to union school, learning to weld, build sheet metal ductwork and fittings, crap like that. Anyway, Tuesdays they gave us 2 hours in the morning to stay home and do the unemployment paperwork. I was doing that when it happened. I remember driving to school around 9:30 and thinking "Are any of these frickin' radio stations gonna play any music?" (insensitive, I know). We sat around for 2 hours watching TV, had lunch, started our lesson, and got sent home around 2:30, so we got about 1 hour of work in for the day.

Well, I was in 8th grade, trying to finish some last minute math homework, and jam a bowl full of cheerios down my throat at the same time, because it was just before school.

I remember going to bed on 9/10/01 (which I remember being a Monday) thinking that the next morning would be like any other Tuesday. I would go to school at the local juco, check my fantasy football team's result, go to classes, yada, yada, yada.

The next morning started out like any other Tuesday: I got up between 6:15 and 6:30, got ready to go to school, had a slight if any breakfast, and went out to start my mom's car. Once we got in the car though, that day was very much unlike any other Tuesday. My mom and I were driving for her to go to work and me to school and listening to the radio. I probably would have been a bit more knowlegable about what had happened if I had turned up the radio. So I went into school and my first class was Spanish. La profesora was discussing the impact of the morning's events and I was sitting there wondering what she was talking about.

When I finally found out what everybody was so worried about, I was just as pissed off as any good American would be. Why would they do this shit? I had heard of Osama bin Laden before, but not that he was the head of a terrorist organization called "al Qaeda" (sp?). What needs done to bin Laden: :mp5:

I was sitting in 6th grade math class when our teacher told us.

I instantly thought nuke the cowardly pukes who did this.

When the first plane hit, I was on the bus getting ready to go teach my freshman English class. I heard something briefly about it on the bus's radio, but didn't catch any detail--just somethng about an explosion and the WTC. I wondered if it was the annversary of the 1993 bombing. It wasn't until after I left class and went to my office that I heard anything different. A friend of mine was listening to the radio in his office and told me what had happened. When I went upstairs, the department administration had rigged up a CNN feed to the projection monitor in the A/V room, and I watched until my next class started.

I was in a haze the rest of the day, and remember being angry at the stupidity of the people who were lined up for blocks at the gas stations, and at the gas station owners who were gouging the people waiting in line.

Ninth Grade English, 1st period. She didn't let us watch the news, next period, I saw everything

I was in my high school government class. The teacher was talking a another teacher outside the classroom. He came back and told the whole class. Anybody started ask question and other stuff. Then I when to my next class and saw the news of what has happened.

Senior year.

I was in 1st period English class, Freshman year of High School when both planes hit. I went into the halls during the 1st 5 minute passing period (it was about 10 minutes after the 2nd plane hit) Some guy said a plane hit a building, I didn't know what he was talking about. I walked into my 2nd hour Study Hall and the TV was on. We watched it all day. Both towers fell during my 3rd hour Bio class.

funny thing is that during my 5th hour Spanish class I made the comment that I bet bin Laden did it (before I heard his name mentioned as a suspect). I was familiar with him as I remembered the Embassy bombings and the USS Cole

Mom woke me up with a big ol "The Pentagon's on fire!"

I didn't comprehend anything, being so sleepy and carefree to the world at the time...me being in 6th grade then.

After 15 minutes or so, I looked at the T.V. and saw what happened. I stayed home and watched for as long as I could.

I was in my criminology class when it actually happened. If anyone remembers that summer, that was the summer where the media sensationalized shark attacks as being the worst thing to happen ever. My professor was talking about how the media does that sort of thing when there's nothing else to report on, and he said, "In the next few weeks, some big media story will break and these shark attacks will lose all attention." I find it extremely disturbing that he could have been saying those words right as the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center.

I was in my Science class, preparing for a stupid boring lesson, when suddenly the principle ran in and whispered something to my teacher. Then my Media teacher took us all off to her room and we all watched CNN news for about 3 hours (literally)

It was also at this time that I lost any and all respect for my media teacher, who decided to turn the largest foreign attack on North American soil in over half a century into a MEDIA PROJECT. We were to research the elements of the media coverage of the event....

I was at work, getting ready to attend a meeting. The room across the hall from my office was a break room equipped with a TV hooked up to cable, and as I was walking out of my office, around 752am CDT, some of the folks there stared at the TV, gap-jawed. I walked in, to see what they were watching, and the North Tower was already on fire, and the folks on CBS were talking to some lady in the South Tower.

Immediately, I left that room, and went to turn on every TV in the building to the news. Needless to say, the meeting was secondary at that point. By the time I had returned to my office, everyone in my work area was glued to a TV set, watching the events unfold, when the image in our screen shook and a fireball shot across the camera. Someone on the TV broadcast said "oh my God, was that another aircraft?" All of us watching looked at one another, and said almost in unison "terrorism."

We continued to watch the events unfold. A co-worker expressed her hope that the fires could be put out, and I remember telling her "those buildings -both of them- are coming down...I just know it." I pulled out my cell phone and called my wife...she was glued to the TV. Then I called my Dad...same story. I then called my Mom...we were still talking about it when the South Tower started to collapse...I will never forget my mother weeping over the phone. After that, the day is a blur, though I do remember the North Tower's collapse, the announcement that the Pentagon had been hit, and flight 93's crash.

I finally made it home around 5pm CDT that evening. The day, like I said was a blur, spent formulating and implementing an emergency action plan for something we had never considered possible. Only then, while talking with my wife, did I get to reflect that I had witnessed what we then thought was more than 10,000 people dying (the fact that it was "only" approximately 2,800 doesn't really make me feel any better...) I cried...cried like I had not cried since the death of my grandfather (who always told us how he cried when he heard on the radio about the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941.)

I have friends in New York, so I was scared shitless the whole time. After school I called them ALL to make sure they were alright.

Yeah, I couldn't call them in school, 'cause cell phones arn't allowed. That's some fucked up shit. Actual conversation: "Look, I need to call some people to see if they're alright!" "Wait until after class. We're all scared-" "(shouting) NO. Shut up and listen-I have friends, people whom I love and care for, and they might be DEAD right now. Let me call them."


.....


To make a long story short, I spent most of 9/11 in the principal's office burning off steam and glaring at the clock, as if it had done some kind of horrible thing to me.

I was teaching, and I knew the towers had come down by the time I went into my third period class. Because many of my students' parents work in lower Manhattan, they were shell shocked, so I went on with the lesson -- we were all on autopilot, but we needed something to take our minds off what was happening -- and the ashes and dust that were drifting into the windows.

Then, I heard a jet screaming by overhead, and I didn't stop talking, but I started walking towards the windows. I distinctly remember thinking to myself, Holy ****, there's no place I can even get them where they'll be safe! I must have gone white as a sheet because all of a sudden, one of my male students got up, ran over to me, grabbed both my shoulders and said very quietly so no one heard, but very firmly, "It's ok, don't worry Miss. There aren't any more airplanes in the air except military jets. It's just the Air Force now."

It was exactly what I needed to pull it together, and that's what will stay with me most: that year, honestly, the whole school bonded together in a way that's hard to explain... students supported each other, staff supported each other, students supported their teachers, teachers supported their students... that part of it was amazing.

Speaking of teaching, Katganistan, I vaguely remember teaching my afternoon class that day--Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find" I believe--and then calling in and cancelling class on Thursday because I was still shell-shocked.

On a side note, while I was working yesterday on the bottling line, I saw a formation of four fighter jets fly past in the San Francisco skyline. It took me immediately back to that day, even though I had seen none in the Fayetteville sky.

11/09/01 was a normal day in my 5th form life, hanging out, not preparing for mocks etc. Early in the morning sept 12th some planes flew into some buildings or something though.

I fell asleep with CNN on the television and sleepily opened my eyes just in time to watch the 2nd plane hit. I thought it was more of the same annoying speculative news and that they were showing another "what if" story.

So, I went to change the channel, when I realized they weren't faking it. I knew my brother was in NYC at the time, so I scrambled to the phone and called. It took me nearly 2 hours to get through, but I did finally get his machine and left a message.

Then I made my kids some breakfast and watched as the towers fell.

Anyway, I spent most of that day in a haze. I bounced back and forth between, "I must be dreaming" and "George H.W. Bush finally went through with it". (Another story for another time)

I kinda figured it was time for something like that to happen. I wasn't terrified, however, until September 12th, 2001. That's when blame was fully assigned and I began to fear for my Muslim brothers. I knew times would be rough for them. In the 3 years to follow, I have come to learn that "Muslim Sympathizer" is the new "****** Lover". People in the neighborhood where I lived in Houston at the time knew that I let a local Islam group meet in my home and that I regularly could be seen at local Mosques and at rallies in support of the Anti-Islam Defamation Society. In short, the real terrorists started showing their ugly heads.

What I'd like people to never forget is that while September 11th was a tragedy and not one I'd like to see repeated, the damage of those attacks reaches far deeper than just a few buildings. The human cost continues to this day.

To make a long story short, I spent most of 9/11 in the principal's office burning off steam and glaring at the clock, as if it had done some kind of horrible thing to me.

Rest assured that it wouldn't have done much good for quit a while anyway. Phone lines and such were jammed up all to hell.

I just got home from school (Im from Scotland) and turned on the tv and the first plane had just hit. I just sat there, completely shocked. I then saw the other plane hit and the towers come down live. It was just unbeliveable.
I hope all you guys in the states are ok after the anniversary yestersay, and God Bless America.

Very harsh I know, but I was thinking... wow, it finally happened, the US stepped on the wrong toes.

Needs some explaining:
I'm very sorry for what happened in NY don't get me wrong.

But I had been thinking a lot, before 9/11. The US always interfears in things that aren't their business (or hmm its their business...world domination on an economic level) and always going to war (the US is the only country that in these days invades not neighouring nations, so no boundry disputes or historical/nationalist stuff like in the balcan). I was very sure, one day one of these people would start targetting the US the way it targets them. It only happened a bit sooner then I would have guessed.

Maybe the American people should consider a more centrist government that doesn't go to war and makes enemies at an incredible rate. The way it is now: democrates: very right wing, republicans: extremely right wing (almost nazi). And you have to chose between very bad and extremely bad :p, its obvious why many americans don't go voting.

Anyhow, my deepest respect to the rescue teammembers that died on 9/11 and all the innocent victims in US and Iraq and Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Mexico, Vietnam, ...