Where Were You?

[Pete]

Simply put, where were you nine years ago today?

If you need to ask, don't post.

[Taco-Calamitous]

I was on my way to school on the bus. Some kids were like, "Some small country just attacked the US. We're gonna kick their ass!" I had no idea what they were talking about; I hadn't seen the news that morning. School went on mostly as usual that day, until the last period, when our drama teacher actually talked about it, and then I went home and actually saw the footage, at which point it sunk what had happened. Anyhoo...

Wuv, Yer Mom

[Josh_R]

I was sitting in my class. I had gotten there early that day. We were watching the news and it was on there.

[Dodie16]

I didn't hear about what had happened until I got to my first class. When I got there, I overheard some of the students talking about how the first plane crashed into one of the towers. When the teacher got to the classroom, he immediately switched on the news. We sat and watched everything that was being reported. No one said much of anything during that whole time.

It was like that for pretty much all my classes throughout the day.

[OceanEyes28]

8th grade in my home room. We were still sitting around chatting when my teacher walked in and quieted us down. He told us what had happened ("The World Trade Center has been attacked and destroyed"), and then told us (the 8th grade class - small school) not to tell anyone in the grades below us. They didn't want it treated like gossip, I guess, or kids freaking out. My brother was in 6th grade at the time. I didn't tell him, but I wanted to. I still remember the walk to the park across the street for recess, everyone in their lines, thinking, "How am I supposed to keep such a huge secret?"

I can't remember when my mom came to get us (it was after lunch, which was had in whispers), but she checked us out early, because I remember going to get a drink of water and saw her walking down the hallway to come get me. When I got home, the TV was on and I saw the footage for the first time. It was eerie. And about then was when the implications of what had happened sunk in for me.

I can't imagine what it must have been like for the people of New York.

[Jin]

8th grade in my home room.

Ditto that. I can't remember what subject we were in the middle of, or if we had even made it to actual class before my teacher said what had happened. At the time, it wasn't certain yet whether or not it was an accident, so we were just kind of ho-hum about the news. Plus, how many of my class mates even knew what the World Trade Center was? That's not common knowledge for 13 year olds in Winnipeg. I remember thinking that it was something tied to the world economy, like the World Bank or something. When I got home, I watched CNN for a few hours and found I couldn't sleep for a bit. I'm not sure why, I couldn't possibly have the same emotional connection to the events as an American, particularly those around New York, but all the same, it was pretty jarring.

[Polk]

7th grade math class when I found out, can't remember where I would have been when it happened. I remember my teacher acting really weird, then breaking the news to us. I was confused until I got home from school that day and watched the news, then I understood.

[Clint]

I was sitting in my sixth grade math class, procrastinating/cheating on my work as usual. The teacher kept going in and out of the class; back and fourth to and from the teacher's lounge. My best guess is that that's where the TV was. Somebody asked her what was wrong, and she replied by saying that "Something has happened, but we aren't in any sort of danger." Then people started getting pulled out of school by the dozens, which was weird and completely contradictory to her previous statement. I had no idea what this "something" that was happening was until school let out early, at around 1 pm. The rest of that day is actually kind of a blur. The only other thing I remember is watering the garden and finding it eerie that the usually busy flight paths above the house had nothing flying through them.

[Xanatos]

I was sleeping when my brother wake me up, you need to see this he said. I followed him to the living room, and there was it, on TV, at first I didn't know what the hell was going on, until he explained the whole situation.

[DragonHeart]

I was a freshman in high school and in gym class. We had all changed clothes and everything when one of the gym teachers came out and had us all sit down on the small bleachers at the back. He handed us all notices that the school had literally just printed and he explained that the World Trade Center had been attacked. It was all still going on when I found out, as far as I recall, though I believe at least one tower had probably fallen by that point. I don't remember if my gym class was second or third period but it was early. I do remember that we didn't go outside for class that day.

I remember feeling rather numb about it all. I also remember how quiet everyone was. The halls were nearly silent all day, it was so surreal. All you heard were the bells. I don't think I really understood the magnitude of it all, not right away.

When I got to English class my teacher told us how he'd been watching the news that morning when it all happened. When the towers fell he had to turn away, he just couldn't watch it. He said they fell and then even the reporters were silent. No one had the words. There were none, really.

Then coming home and turning on the TV to the news, which I don't think changed channels for about a week after it happened. I actually remember coming on here and talking about it and everyone updating with news as it came in. I hadn't even been here a month at the time. Seems like so long ago and yesterday at the same time.

~DragonHeart~

[Lily]

I was in work, my supervisor came back off her dinner and was like, a planes hit the world trade centre, it's all over the news Im like. oh right. whats the world trade centre? (I know I know...)

Didnt really hear the full extent of it til getting home after work

[loaf]

I was in the 7th grade. Sleeping. I woke up and my mom tells me the twin towers had 2 planes crash into them. At the time I didn't know what the World Trade Center was. At school everyone pretty much was talking about it, having it on TV.

[kupo]

ya'll are making me feel old....
i was in geography class my soph. year of high school. our teacher had just passed out a test when another teacher (a fairly large guy) ran into our class and told us what had just happened. we had a tv in our room and about, literally, 2 minutes after we turned it on we saw the 2nd plane hit as it happened. that day i realized how ignorant all the 15/16 yr olds in the class were about the world around them.

about 2 hours later, my dad got sent home from work (he works at NASA and they started getting really freaked out that something may happen to it) and he picked up my brother and i, and went home. we live near an old air force base that still has military presence there and i have never seen so many planes fly out of there as i did the next few weeks.

our tv set was stuck on cnn for the next week. the few weeks following in school, i realized how increasingly prejudice some of the students were to an middle eastern friend of mine. it was sad really. felt sorry for the guy. he had people come up to him and say that "it was all his peoples fault" and that he should be ashamed. it was absolutely ridiculous

[Sinister]

I was fishing on the Cumberland river in Eastern KY. I was homeschooled so I didn't have the tight schedule everyone else did and I had worked overtime to get some R&R. Me and my family were fishing on the bank. Caught a few trout too... This old lady in a mechanized wheelchair rolled down the gravel walkway to where we were and started talking about exploding buildings and how "they" had blew it all up.

We thought, probably what you would've thought. We kept fishing for five or ten minutes until Dad started getting really bothered by what the old lady said, so we packed things up and headed for the van. When we turned the radio on, we knew. All the campsites we were passing, all the people had radios turned all the way up or were inside their car, just sitting.

None of our family slept that night...Me and my sister stayed up inside the tent. Mom and Dad never left the van for the entire night. If they slept at all it was in the van.

-Sin

[Fluffy]

Woke up and saw my parents watching the news. They soon explained what was going on, and I watched as I got ready for school. I remember it being really early, woke up around 6 I think. Soon after, the second plane hit as I watched.

Went to school and talked about what had happened with my friends before classes started. We did nothing in classes most of that day but talk about it. We may have watched it in some of the classes too.

[Rocky]

7th grade, inbetween geography and pre-algebra classes when one of my friends ran up to me and told me the news. I was really confused at what it all meant at first and to be honest, a terrorist attack on the United States was the last thing that I would ever to expect happen in a million years. When I went to math class, my teacher talked about it for a few minutes but he told us not to get overly worried about it and that "America is a very resilent country, we will get through this." Then we continued on with class. After school, I went straight home and talked about it to my friend across the street while a bunch of families were watching it at our house. It was a messed up day indeed.

[Zargabaath]

8th grade

Ditto

I ditto that ditto. We had beginning of the school year assemblies that day and when we were in the auditorium our principal told us. Afterwards out teacher turned on the news and we watched for some time.

[OceanEyes28]

I've been watching video footage and documentaries all morning. Stuff to do with the people who jumped, 911 calls, people filming from their apartments wondering what was happening. I can't believe I just freaked myself out like that, but I suppose I needed a reminder of what happened. I still can't wrap my head around it. Terrible.

[Unknown Entity]

I was probably trying to sleep and dreading school the next day. I believe I was in the start of year 5, meaning I had two more years of primary school.

It would have been tomorrow that I went to the local shop to get a drink and a snack for school that I saw the papers. Every single paper had a different view of the horrific 9/11 incident. At first, I thought it was an accident, but then I saw the headlines. We had a minute of silence at school at 1pm. When I got home from school, it was all that was being talked about in the news.

For some reason, I didn't notice the story the evening before, on the day it happened/while it was happening. I guess it wasn't being broadcasted over here, which makes sense.

[DragonHeart]

History channel, right? I've been watching it off and on throughout the day. I've already seen all the documentaries at least once, but I always feel oddly compelled to watch these programs whenever they come up on TV. Usually only once a year, thankfully. I'll probably watch the new one airing later on tonight, too. I usually watch a morning memorial broadcast to share the moments of silence as well.

Kind of weird this year though, the weather is exactly like it was on that day. I've always been struck by what a contrast it was to see the towers burning against that pristine blue sky.

I've noticed how over the years, a lot of details are fuzzy but some are crystal clear. I can't remember which gym teacher told us, but I remember what my English teacher said word for word. Those details are so vivid and every year it comes back as clear as though I were sitting in the classroom listening to him say it.

~DragonHeart~

[GeLeHa]

Some small town in Texas. Either Kemah or Dayton.

[che]

I was in Biology my sophomore year of high school. Someone from another class came in and just turned the TV on, they didn't speak a word. I remember my teacher saying "We're not doing anything in class today, this is way more important." Somehow, I thought it was a sick joke. Kind of like War of the Worlds. "The media is effing with us again." I had missed the first plane, but they were talking about it. For once, the people on the TV actually had some sort of genuine emotion. We were staring at the TV in the classroom for a bit, not blinking, when suddenly the second plane hit. That's when I cut all doubts. I replayed the impact over and over in my head for a bit, trying to analyze what the hell just happened. I had never felt such emotion before. The people in my class were a rainbow of mental states. There were people who were pissed; you know they wanted to be right there to help but we were in the middle of ****ing Kansas. There were people who didn't quite get it as fast as I did, which wasn't a first. But that day there were a lot of firsts. "What does that mean?" "What just happened?" "Are those people OK?" For the first time in their life, those people's dumbass questions were instantly answered by those around them. "Those people just died." I felt like we should be doing more than just sitting in a classroom watching it all unfold, but that's all we could do. We were hundreds of miles away. It was the first time I felt like I did in my entire life. Sometimes you don't realize you change as a person because it happens over time, but I felt myself change instantly when I was watching that TV.

[Andromeda]

I had just gotten back from work. So I watched the TV for like 30 minutes or an hour and then went to bed. I was working the night shift at the time so I had to sleep in the morning. I didn't hear about the collapse until I work up in the afternoon. By then everything had already happened. I got caught up on the details throughout the rest of the day.

[Pete]

Okay... gonna try this again... I had written a bunch, but my finger slipped and closed everything :/ I'll give the cliff's notes version.... kinda.

I remember waking up and having breakfast. I don't remember what exactly I had, but there was orange juice involved. I remember "Drops of Jupiter" by Train playing on VH1. I also remember it being the most beautiful day I can remember. 70 and sunny, with zero humidity, and not a single cloud in the sky. It was a noticeably beautiful day.

I remember having chem first period, and being bored. After that was a student assembly, which went on as the first tower got hit. I thought it was a nothing incident, like a stupid little propeller bi-plane, like the one that hit the Empire State Building back in the 30s or 40s. After that, we had history.

"The World Trade Center no longer exists. It's just a mess of concrete, steel and bodies."

Those words still make the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

We had a few classes after that, but I don't remember them too well. There was a gym class, where the kids who had cell phones, tried calling their parents, but there was no service, since really the only reception tower WAS the antenna on Tower 1.

I also remember getting into an argument with a friend who had a brother in the Marines. He was very concerned about him being deployed because of it. (Unfortunately, the brother wound up dying in a training exercise in May 2002).

I also remember French class, where we got to listen to reports on the radio. Because we were only a few miles from Ground Zero, we had kids who had parents and relatives in the towers. The school opted not to show any televised reports because of this.

I also remember standing in line after school to buy a gym lock and some other bullshit that the school NEEDED us to buy.

When I got home, there were about 4 or 5 messages on the answering machine. The first was my aunts friend, asking if we had any info on my aunt. The second was my mom's mom, telling us she was ok, and that she had actually seen one of the planes turning to hit one of the towers (she lives uptown in Manhattan). The third was my mom, telling me that my aunt had gotten out of Tower 2 safely (from 95 stories up). The fourth was my uncle, in tears saying the same thing*. I don't remember the fifth.

My brother came home after me. We just watched TV in silence. I remember my mom coming home early. She worked about a mile north of the towers. I hugged her probably tighter than I ever had. My dad came home after that. He was working down by the Courts, and had seen the second plane hit the second tower. He was probably half a mile away at best. He was stuck in traffic for hours, and his car was absolutely covered in the thickest coating of dust. I also remember hugging him, and the four of us just watching tv in silence. I don't even know if we had eaten dinner.


*I didn't even think my aunt was at work that day, since she was on vacation the week before and she was debating making it 2 weeks. I assumed she had.

I really just remember an eerie sense of calm, and a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. It was like "Everything's going to hell, but it's alright. We'll make it through this."

The ensuing depression and PTSD by proxy were nothing compared to those who had actually lost someone, or everyone.

[midgetbob]

Was off doing errands when stepped into an office and was struck dumb. A group of people who absolutely didn't know anyone else crowded into this small space and watched. Most were holding hands and crying. Fearing the worst was yet to come and praying for those who were effected.

Who knew that it'd eventually affect everyone and the worst WAS yet to come.

A sad day for America... it definitely knocked us down a peg or two, and at such a horrible price :'(

[Rydia Lover]

i was at school, 5th grade. all these parrents were pulling there kids out of school, and the teachers didnt tell us what was going on. it wasnt until one of the kids came back from being pickedup and said something about washington being bombed, and it scarred the hell outof me, because both of my parrents worked for the defense inteeligence agencey at the time, which is right across the river from the pentagon. it was a very scary day for me.

[Walter Sobchak]

Who cares? There have been much larger displays of death that no one cares about because it would require more than learning about it in school.

Why are you people fetishizing death? Alisyn, yours is the most disheartening.

[Pete]

Who cares? There have been much larger displays of death that no one cares about because it would require more than learning about it in school.

Why are you people fetishizing death? Alisyn, yours is the most disheartening.

And who cares about all the vapid bitches you bang, or the quasi-intellectual persona you desperately try to muster by talking about foreign films and obscure music that nobody gives a shit about?

Different things have significance to different people. But way to try and troll by trivializing the feelings and thoughts of others in regards to the biggest and most heinous attack on American soil in recent years. It's significant because it happened recently, in our formative years, on our soil. It completely shattered the idea of being the invincible nation that we always had the idea of.

Yes there are more deadly attacks of far greater magnitude, but it never affects you until it affects someone you know or your own land.

Was the Holocaust worse? Absolutely, but it doesn't affect us as much because we weren't there. We didn't see it firsthand. We didn't see people looking desperately for their loved ones, posting images of them wherever they could.

We didn't see the death camps that Milosevic ran. We heard about them, but unless we were Serbian, it doesn't affect us.

And it's not fetishizing death, it's a simple question of what you were doing during one of the most unforgettable groundbreaking historical events of our time.

But yeah where were you when your boy Obama was inaugurated?

[Walter Sobchak]

And who cares about all the vapid bitches you bang, or the quasi-intellectual persona you desperately try to muster by talking about foreign films and obscure music that nobody gives a shit about?

Different things have significance to different people. But way to try and troll by trivializing the feelings and thoughts of others in regards to the biggest and most heinous attack on American soil in recent years. It's significant because it happened recently, in our formative years, on our soil. It completely shattered the idea of being the invincible nation that we always had the idea of.

Yes there are more deadly attacks of far greater magnitude, but it never affects you until it affects someone you know or your own land.

Was the Holocaust worse? Absolutely, but it doesn't affect us as much because we weren't there. We didn't see it firsthand. We didn't see people looking desperately for their loved ones, posting images of them wherever they could.

We didn't see the death camps that Milosevic ran. We heard about them, but unless we were Serbian, it doesn't affect us.

And it's not fetishizing death, it's a simple question of what you were doing during one of the most unforgettable groundbreaking historical events of our time.

But yeah where were you when your boy Obama was inaugurated?

I know not of what obscure music or foreign films you are referring to. I am regularly ridiculed for having a square taste in music, and I would imagine that about sixty percent of the films I watch are in English. However, I cannot in good faith stand by as you attempt to connect by vapid bitches to terrorist activity.

Citing the Holocaust or Milošević tell me you completely missed the point I attempted to convey. How else can I comprehend a response to a post about people living in the past than going back even further?

The 2004 tsunami and the Haitian earthquakes of this year each claimed over two hundred thousand lives, but nary a peep from you or other popinjays. You can prattle on about how it affected us more, but it really does not hold much water. Maybe you were dodging debris in Brooklyn, but it did not affect me, or the kid in Wisconsin, or the girl in Arkansas. The resources allocated toward the Haitian earthquake have been far more pressing than a terrorist event that occurred almost a decade ago. The geopolitical effects will continue to be felt in our hemisphere for some time, but the television has not told us what to think about it, nor have we received the proper self-aggrandizement, so we sweep it under the rug. And besides, the presence of posters from halfway around the world joining in such behavior destroys your idea that it happened to "us". In the inflated ego that is America, people throughout the world are supposed to remember where they were when 4000 people were killed in another senseless act of violence in a conflict that has been waging for sixty years.

Obama, as far as I know, was a State Senator at the time of the attacks. Any attempt to tie him to it is tangential, at best.

I assume such a response will serve as an appropriate rejoinder to DragonHeart, chad, and Silver, although I will address two particular aspects of their posts.

Chad: Maybe the country stands for such things to you, but it really does not in most of the rest of the world. Also, I would bet a kidney that no poster here could recall, without the aid of a computer, either the month that the tsunami hit or the day in which the earthquake hit. Of course, such experimentation is moot with Google.

Silver: The fact that you think September 11th was an attack on anyone's "freedom" is more trivial and disrespectful to those that were killed than anything I could say or would say. The conflict is an adult one, and we do not need such Star Wars archetypal definitions, especially when they make no sense.

[che]

I know not of what obscure music or foreign films you are referring to. I am regularly ridiculed for having a square taste in music, and I would imagine that about sixty percent of the films I watch are in English. However, I cannot in good faith stand by as you attempt to connect by vapid bitches to terrorist activity.

Citing the Holocaust or Milošević tell me you completely missed the point I attempted to convey. How else can I comprehend a response to a post about people living in the past than going back even further?

The 2004 tsunami and the Haitian earthquakes of this year each claimed over two hundred thousand lives, but nary a peep from you or other popinjays. You can prattle on about how it affected us more, but it really does not hold much water. Maybe you were dodging debris in Brooklyn, but it did not affect me, or the kid in Wisconsin, or the girl in Arkansas. The resources allocated toward the Haitian earthquake have been far more pressing than a terrorist event that occurred almost a decade ago. The geopolitical effects will continue to be felt in our hemisphere for some time, but the television has not told us what to think about it, nor have we received the proper self-aggrandizement, so we sweep it under the rug. And besides, the presence of posters from halfway around the world joining in such behavior destroys your idea that it happened to "us". In the inflated ego that is America, people throughout the world are supposed to remember where they were when 4000 people were killed in another senseless act of violence in a conflict that has been waging for sixty years.

Obama, as far as I know, was a State Senator at the time of the attacks. Any attempt to tie him to it is tangential, at best.

I assume such a response will serve as an appropriate rejoinder to DragonHeart, chad, and Silver, although I will address two particular aspects of their posts.

Chad: Maybe the country stands for such things to you, but it really does not in most of the rest of the world. Also, I would bet a kidney that no poster here could recall, without the aid of a computer, either the month that the tsunami hit or the day in which the earthquake hit. Of course, such experimentation is moot with Google.

Silver: The fact that you think September 11th was an attack on anyone's "freedom" is more trivial and disrespectful to those that were killed than anything I could say or would say. The conflict is an adult one, and we do not need such Star Wars archetypal definitions, especially when they make no sense.

This post may be your opinion, but it doesn't deny the fact that your first post here was ignorant as ****.