Where were you on this day?

[Ansem]

So as most of us know, Sunday is the tenth year anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks. Ironically enough, today is 9/11, well, the 9th of September 2011 but whatever. Today in class, this came up and we shared where we were on that day. I felt like making this topic because I'm sorta curious where everyone was the day of the attack.

As for me, I was 5. On the day of the attack, my mother and I were on a train. She was taking me to my grandmothers house which was in Brooklyn at the moment. The train was packed that day, my mother and I were standing, she was holding my hand. All of the sudden, the train came to a sudden stop. They are known to stop in tunnels for a few minutes to keep even spacing between each other but this time, it was different. My mother knew something was wrong since trains usually stop that abruptly. Tensions were high, five minutes later, the conductor called everyone to the front car to evacuate. My mother and I had a tough time since there were so many people but eventually we made it.

I remember making it outside and then looking up to see the towers like everyone else was doing. I dont remember what I saw, my memories sorta hazy :E

So like, where were you guys on 9/11/01?

[Ein]

I was getting dressed to go to school while watching the news of the attack in my living room.

[Phoenix Wright]

I was at school. Teacher didn't let us watch, because it was too sad. We eventually learned about it and wrote a journal on it.

[Parrhesia]

All I remember was that I was in Canberra (I at the time resided in Sydney) with my maternal grandparents.

[Lux Aeterna]

I don't remember too well, but I think I was at school. My parents later told me that the teachers were in a panic, but I honestly don't remember anything beyond that.

[Hazuki]

I was at school. Teacher didn't let us watch, because it was too sad. We eventually learned about it and wrote a journal on it.

This pretty much. I still remember the assignment I had to do, and I got my facts all wrong, haha.

[The Envoy of the Beginning]

Only my second month in Georgia. I was in my Freshman year at high school. First Period if I remember correctly. Everyone turned on their TVs and set it to a channel that was covering it.

Edited September 10, 2011 by Black Veteran Soldier

[Ϲharlie]

I was in school, eating lunch. I had just overheard someone talking about the attacks moments before, and I quickly asked a friend what had happened. He nonchalantly replied "someone flew some planes into the twin towers" and quickly returned to whatever mundane subject we were talking about beforehand.

[Maji]

Watching Clifford the Big Red Dog, getting ready for school, I didn't know what was even going on. I think the kid at the babysitter's made a sassy joke about Clifford running into that girl so hard that she clasped, but I was young and ignorant. .__.

[Freohr Datia]

Lol I thought 9/11 when looking at the date.

I was in school. Or I found out in school, idk if I was actually in class at the time or not. Our teacher actually did show it to us in the news, even though we were just little kiddies.

[Junkhead]

Like most, I was at school. Back in the day, I was in 1rst grade. I was 6. They started calling out parents to come pick us up from school in fear that something similiar might happen around where I live. So yeah...then I was at a friend's house, looking at the news to what happened and dreaming that we would do something to prevent that from happening if we could.

Edited September 10, 2011 by Stocking

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

well i was around 8 or so at school when it happen, we were informed of what happen even though only the adults understood what happen at the time

[Thor Odinson]

I was in China minding my own Chinese business.

Didn't know about it until I logged on to the internet that night. Some people were insensitive jerks about it too. :< But Chinese people in general didn't like America much.

[Replica Model]

I don't know where I was because I was only four at the time, but I do know that my parents found out about it on the Internet, and thats all I know sadly.

My High school did a ceremony of it today, all of the school were there, and the A.F.J.R.O.T.C. ( Junior U.S. Air Force) officers were there announcing it. They put up the American flag and saluted it as I did in the crowd, and we had a moment of silence for the fallen..... Rest in peace..... ;(

[Inactive Account]

I was at school. The teachers decided not to tell a potentially panicky herd of fourth and fifth graders what had happened, and the district had not closed schools, so instead we grew more and more curious and worried as parents showed up and took various of our classmates home at random intervals all day. Some time after lunch my mom picked me up, and wouldn't explain what had happened until I got home.

My mom sent out a rather sappy "where were you" chain email the other day, and says that I had asked her about planes, said that kids had been talking about it in school. This is inaccurate; in school I distinctly recall being most freaked out because they told us exactly nothing. I don't know why the inaccuracy bothers me, but it does.

I don't remember much besides that. My parents wouldn't let me watch anything on the news, I ended up wandering around outside a bit. The weather was dissonantly nice. In the evening we went to a church service; I don't remember the sermon, but I remember the donut I had afterward. Memory works in strange ways, I guess.

We have this photo of my family and my aunt, uncle, and cousins in front of the towers. It was taken just a few days before. It used to freak me out. (Now it doesn't because every year my mother breaks it out and gets dramatic about it in the extreme.)

[Dark Sage]

I was really young when it happened, so I didn't really understand what was going on very well at the time. I slept through it and I was told about it right after I woke up.

[Original Alear]

I was in middle school. Oh the golden days of youth, the scent of fresh lemon. We were in a writer's workshop class, I remember not what assignment we were working on but it was with the most ordinary of teachers, that is to say the one scheduled to teach the course. Likely we were expressing our own little selves in ways legislated by the teacher, I remember one such assignment being "who would you interview [implicitly from all human existence] if you could," I chose Jiang Wei, that is all I remember of that class because Three Kingdomsgasm.

Surely I was not generating poetry as "brilliant" as the following at that time:

XVII: Stuffed with rags and cotton

Skin slicked with arsenic

I wasn't looking.

I looked in the glass spheres -

The blackbird was gone

I saw the blackbird.

I was pulled out of class earlier than the rest, because my mother, who works at a government agency, came early for me. We proceeded to a wake for a kid I had barely known in boy scouts who died the same day - on an early morning run, his heart stopped sometime earlier than the attacks took place, suddenly and without warning as hearts are wont to do. Everyone, speaking about what a kind and good soul he had been, suggested no information which I had any reason to disagree with - again, I barely knew him, but he had always seemed nice. I wonder now whether there was any kind of undercurrent that would have lead to further revelations about his lifestyle, but no matter, I know what I know about him which is to say approximately nothing, not even where he was attending school. Compared to a statistic like 9/11, how can the tragedy of one death take hold? I should say it was implicit in my scientific thinking at this time that there was no connection between this boy's death and the death of however many died in the burning towers, now my semi-non-scientific thinking believes otherwise, more precisely that both were warnings, intentional or not, that death can come at any time to any place.

Watching television at home, I remember no specific spark of information, perhaps because I was looking for none. The media flooded my head with so many repetitive ideas and images that I really had no idea what to focus on, I suppose. I do not remember when Al Qaeda were revealed as the villains behind the plot, when the hunt began, nor do I suppose it matters much that I don't remember, though I'd like it to. I remember sometime afterwards, my mom proposing "drastic action" perhaps nukes, against the middle east, and the rest of my family trying to dissuade her that, perhaps, trading in the lives of the guilty and the innocent is not the proper way of things, although it is sometimes the only way of things.

It was an important day for me.

Edited September 10, 2011 by Blue Mars

[Balcerzak]

If I recall correctly it was during Chapel break right after I got out of my Historical Perspectives 1 class. I think the footage may have playing on the TVs outside the college cafeteria (we had actually had our class just near there).

Then again, on the other hand, I also distinctly remember believing it was a hoax and not believing it was true, so maybe in my old age my memory is playing tricks on me.

[eclipse]

I was on my way out to shoot pool when a friend of mine told me. I shrugged and went to shoot pool anyway.

After that, I had to go to my chemistry class to pick up my test results. I got an A on that test (20% of my overall grade), and after he explained who got what in terms of class average and whatnot, he excused us. Campus Center had TVs going all over the place, with counseling services available as well.

Found out the one and only person I knew from New York was just fine, and decided to communicate that she was just fine by not returning my dad's calls.

[Zanarkin]

I was in Colombia. I was in second grade. When i got home the news had it all over the place...

[I.M. Gei]

I'd just woken up to go to school and my parents saw it happen on the news. It was pretty horrifying, to say the least...

[Ragnell]

I was at school. 3rd grade. Not when it happened, granted, but that's where I first heard about it. The teachers wouldn't tell us what was going on, but it was obvious the adults were really freaked out. I remember I managed to get out of one adult that a plane had hit a building. I didn't really understand the scope of it. I imagined like a propeller plane hitting a 2-3 story building and was wondering what the fuss was about. I thought it was an accident.

They kept us at school as normal, but a bunch of parents picked their kids up. Apparently, rural Michigan elementary schools were next on the terrorist hit list after major metropolitan trade buildings and military bases.

I remember when I got home I saw tons of TV coverage and was stunned. I can vaguely remember being very sad the next couple days.

Edited September 10, 2011 by Ragnell

[Raven]

So like, where were you guys on 9/11/01?

Well the ninth of November 2001 was a Friday. I was probably in school.

As for the eleventh of September 2001, that was a Tuesday. I was in school then too while the attacks were happening. I first heard of them when my Great-Grandfather turned on the BBC 6pm news. I remember him saying he thought he was watching something out of an action movie and couldn't believe it was actually the news. I was 12 and didn't even know the towers existed and so didn't give it much thought.

[Original Alear]

Looking at the above responses,

I guess having been someone to actually stand in the towers with other people, and on top of them - also with other people, ironically with fences to keep people from jumping off - changes one's perspective about the attacks in a certain way.

[Ciarre]

I was at home because of a tornado watch or warning iirc and I was watching it on TV. I had no idea what was going on and I didn't know what actually happened until way later. My mom says I was laughing at the "dropping buildings". Dear 4 year old self, you're an asshole.