September 11th - where were you?

[concklin]

I know this was done last year but I figure 10 years later it would be fitting to bring up again.

I wasn't old enough to fully comprehend what was going on 10 years ago today. I was not personally affected by it, but it was still scary. It really did start out as just a normal, and beautiful morning.

I was in 6th grade, 11 years old, and my teachers' co-workers had pulled them out of class to watch what was going on on the news. My classmates and I were confused, didn't know what was going on. Then a teacher came back and told us that some buildings in the city had been hit. The concept was so weird at the time. Buildings? Hit with a plane? But...why? Then worry spread through the school - since we were only 30 minutes north of New York City, many people had friends and family there and didn't know just yet if they were ok.

I don't even remember the rest of that school day, the next thing I remember is getting home and watching it on TV with my family, the replays of the towers burning, and then falling. I remember thinking they had just fallen at that moment, only to be told soon after that they had actually fallen hours prior - each one hit with a plane...full of passengers.

I still remember the dust still slowly floating away from Manhattan in the following weeks after the attack. I also remember finding out that a teacher at my school had a friend who was a flight attendant on Flight 93, the plane that was intended to hit Washington, DC but instead crashed in PA. My mom commuted to the city for her job years ago before having kids, and we found out her old boss was killed in the attack. Little connections like that freaked me out. Just yesterday my boyfriend told me that one of our friends' mother worked in one of the towers 10 years ago, but missed her train that morning, and the next train she took to get to work ended up stopping on the tracks because of what was happening. I've heard other close call stories like that, but on the news, not from friends. My mind was blown.

Luckily I wasn't directly affected, but I easily could have been.

[Allegro molto]

I was also in 6th grade. I stayed out of school, and my mother was driving me to the doctor (I had strep throat). We heard it on the radio as we were making our way to our destination. I didn't grasp the gravity of it at the time, but I did notice my mother's look of disappointment and sadness.

[FloatingPiano]

I was way too young to understand what was happening, but I remember I was in the 1st grade during a break time, and I was playing a game with my best friend at the time. Then I remember all of the teachers meeting up with each other to talk, and they look really upset. Then my mom came to pick me up from school, and I remember watching the news.

[alex2020]

I was in 4th grade. I remember the principal came over the P.A. and asked all the teachers to turn on the TV. We were too young to really know what was going on, but I remember that my teacher was shocked. Most of us didn't know what the World Trade Center was, so she went through a bunch of magazines and managed to find a Time or Newsweek issue that had something about the World Trade Center in it.

My mom picked me up early that day and I watched the news coverage of it for the rest of the day with her. Even though I was too young to understand the gravity of what had just happened, my mom was a flight attendant, so I think I managed to grasp it a little better than most people my age.

[Steve712]

I was at school, but what I really remember is seeing it on the television when I walked in the front door after school.

[TheRoof]

I was still living in S.Korea; I was 9 at that time. But yea, Korea and the US has like 23 hour difference, so when I was watching the twin towers burning up like crazy, it was nighttime in Korea. My memories are really blurry because I had just woken up as my parents and my sister scrambled in front of TV, and the lights were all turned off except for the bright TV screen, and I watched this surreal awful thing happen. But I don't remember actually watching the towers crumble on TV, for some reason.
And I think because I was still in Korea at that time, and I was quite young, and I was half-conscious from sleep at that moment, so at that time it didn't really register to me what really was happening, or what really had happened.
Only when I moved to the US, and you know, learn more about 9/11 in school, and watch videos and documentaries about 9/11, that was when it all became much more clear to me, and I guess all the more terribly tragic and real.

By the way I saw the 9/11 memorial this morning on TV and it was really beautiful. anyways rest in peace for all the victims of 9/11

[kiersten]

I remember being in my 2nd year of uni the day this happened. I lived in a townhouse-style residence building with 7 other people, two of whom were 1st year students. I got up tha morning for my Archaeology class (I was an anthroplogy major at the time) & one of my 1st year roommates was watching CNN in the living room & said that a plane had crashed into the WTC. The guy was kind of an idiot to begin with, so I just dismissed him with a simple 'Sometimes a plane crashes into a building & those are both pretty tall buildings, so it was bound to happen sooner or later than a plane might hit one of them' kind of remark. At this point only one plane had crashed, so I didn't have any reason to think it was anything more than an accident, plus, why would I? It never entered my head that this was a terrorist attack, why would it. So I left to go to my class that morning. When I got back to my place a couple hours later & turned on the news, I obviously heard what I had missed - that three other planes had been hijacked & that the other tower had been hit, the Pentagon had been hit & that another plane had gone down in PA. At this point, I started to cry a bit because it was just so horrible, especially some of the images CNN had on, and I ended up apologizing later on to my roommate for treating him like he was stupid earlier. So, yeah, I was sitting in my archaeology class when the majority of 9/11 unraveled. It still scared the crap out of me tho, since my best friend is in the Royal Canadian Navy & when I tried to call him that day, his whole base went into lockdown, so I couldn't reach him for 3 days. I didn't know he was on lockdown, so I was really freaking out that I couldn't get ahold of him. When I did tho, I was relieved that he was OK...

Sorry for all of that, I just remember that day very well...

[Martin]

I was in primary school as it was all going on. It happened in the early afternoon in UK time, and I think the news had just started broadcasting it just after the lunch break so none of the teachers appeared to know about it. Or at the very least didn't mention it to the kids, which is quite possible.

It was just an ordinary day at school for me. I shouldn't actually remember anything in particular of it, but because of what happened I remember what my complaints were that day. I had a maths lesson that day about fractions, and I remember finding it really boring and pointless. I've never been a fan of maths, and fractions have always grinded my gears since a very early age. I got given homework that day, and I remember walking into the front room of my house and the first thing I did was complain about how awful my day had been because of the fractions, and probably spent about 30 seconds complaining about my homework before realising that my parents weren't really listening and were fixated on the TV. I always associated the news with my dads obsession with sports, so I had never paid attention to it before when walking into a room.

I remember looking at the TV and they were showing a video shot of the second tower collapsing, and just seeing New York covered in the dustcloud that both collapses had caused. At the time I didn't really realise the significance of it, or what it would shortly lead to regarding war, but I do remember it being a massive deal and feeling rather silenced by it. I spent the next week or so constantly watching all the footage that came in and just seeing how people were responding to it. It was quite a bizarre fascination really because it was the first time I had ever really seen just how evil people could be to each other. I had never really understood terrorism before that (being 10 and all), but there was no hiding it from children that day.

I don't think I ever really did utter another word about fractions for the entire time I was in school. I still had my complaints about maths over the years, but I've never been able to complain about fractions since. If anything all they do now is remind me about the day. It's one of those events that most people can remember exactly what they were doing when they heard about it, and I can't even begin to comprehend how people personally affected by it felt. It's hard for the average person to watch, but to be a victim of such a tragedy and have to frequently see the footage all across the world must be horrific.

I recently watched a documentary about the phonecalls that got made during the 9/11 attacks within the World Trade Center, and there was a woman on it who was speaking with her son who was in the tower that got hit by the second plane. In the documentary she was talking about how her son had phoned her telling her he was ok, and as she was speaking to him she could see the second plane on the TV heading towards the second tower, and she watched as it crashed into the tower and the phonecall got disconnected. It's experiences like that which make it more than just shocking footage that is so commonly played on TV.

[thecat06]

I was in the third grade....

The weird thing was that that morning I told my mom that I had a dream about two planes hitting two really tall towers.

My mom told me it was a dream and sent me to school.
After school she apoigzed to me and told me that it had actually happened. We then went home and watched the news.

My uncle was supposed to be there that day... But his ferry got delayed.

[Daisy1]

I was in high school in Manhattan, about 10 miles from the WTC. I listed to it on the radio with my art teacher, and then called my family from the school phone. My parents picked us up from school and we drove out to Long Island in case there were more attacks.

It was really scary, but also wonderful to see how New Yorkers and the rest of the country came together in the following days.

[Jonathan]

I was in third grade at that time. For some reason or another, I was going into school late that day. I remember I was sitting in the living room eating some cereral when my mom called me into the kitchen. So I went into the kitchen with my mom, and together we watched the planes crash into the twin towers on tv. I remember my mom sitting there in complete and utter shock. Being so young, I didn't really comprehend what was happening and didn't understand the idea of a terrorist attack. Needless to say, I didn't go to school that day.

[Psymark]

I remember that when it happened, I was in the music class, in the basement of the basement, almost isolated from the world, and I only heard from it when both towers were down when my math teacher told the entire class what happened.

[Victor]

7th grade. I was either asleep or getting ready for school over here on the west coast when it happened. Heard about it with my siblings on the radio on my way to school, but didn't really understand how big of an event it was. I remember some teachers in class talking about it. It was only later that day when I got home and was able to watch the news that I really understood what happened, being able to see pictures and such of the event. I have family in the state of NY, but I wasn't exactly sure where they were relative to NYC, so I remember calling and asking if they were okay. They don't live anywhere near, so that was fortunate.

[Zontar]

I was in the fifth grade. Our english teacher walks in telling us that the world trade center was attacked. My math teacher's cell phone wouldn't stop ringing. Some wiseass in gym asked why we weren't getting out early in a national emergency.

[Nazo]

I really don't remember. :/
I was only in 2nd grade, but my only memories are all the news stories on it for months after the occurrence. And writing a paper on it in 4th grade.

[Lexington]

A record label had us pimping the release of a new John Hiatt album called "The Tiki Bar Is Open" that came out that day. So we were standing around wearing Hawaiian shirts and leis, holding cups of punch, and watching the news in horror. It made the entire experience that much more surreal.

We closed early. I decided I wanted to walk home and let my brain sort itself out. It was over 10 miles, but I'm happy I did. The only thing I really remember about the walk home was passing the gas station that decided to bump the price of gas up to $8 a gallon. I never went to that gas station again.

Lex

[Gerry]

I was in 8th grade. I was getting ready for school watching shows on TV and then my mom happened to change the channel to the news and we saw what had happened and were in shock. I went to school and then it was all that was talked about. That's all I remember, really.

[Kidd]

I was in the fifth grade and my class was lining up to go to the cafeteria for lunch when our Principal came into our room crying, and she pulled our teacher out of the room. My teacher came back inside and led us to the lunch room like she usually did, and we ate, and then when we got back to the classroom she told us what happened even though our Principal told her not to tell us since she didn't want us to panic. I remember that I came home that day and my parents were glued to the television. I laid in front of the TV all day watching CNN's coverage. I was way too young to fully comprehend what was going on.

[FrozenFlame]

I really was waaay to young to get anything that was going on...

I was in kindergarten and it was supposed to be naptime, but I wasn't asleep. I never slept during nap time.

Anyways, somebody came in and quietly told my teacher something and she turned the TV on and next thing I know, I was watching the WTC burn and the south collapse before she turned it off to wake everyone else. She didn't say anything about it to us.

I didn't understand what I had saw until my parents sat me down and tried to explain it to my little brother and I. He didn't comprehend it, but I got a decent enough grasp of the situation: bad people stole some planes and attacked New York City and the capital and a lot of people had died (I wasn't even six yet...)

That day sadly gave me my most coherent memory from that age.

[SlickyPants]

I would have been 16 at the time and I was skipping school because I was a naughty student. I was playing computer games (Team Fortress Classic) when someone chatted something along the lines of "a plane just crashed into the WTC." My response was "What does WTC mean?" and they I got a response and was told to turn on the TV. I asked what channel and they said just turn the TV on. I did and realized it was literally being covered on every channel.