I was in Hawaii. I got up early because I was scheduled to give a PT test. I missed the alert phone call by mere minutes as I drove out to Area X (rifle ranges and our PT course). I lived on base, so I had no idea about the traffic jams already mounting outside the closed gates. My cell was on buzz in the glove box and I was listening to my MP3 player. My batteries died on the MP3 player shortly after I got to the meeting place, so I popped out the tape adapter and turned on the radio. I swear, my first thought was that there was a 'War of the Worlds' type thing going on and at any moment, an Orson Welles type voice would come over and tell me that it was a piece of fiction. It took only a minute or so for me to realize the absurdity of that notion, so I grabbed my cell and saw that I had missed calls. I called the unit and got the 1SG (he lived on base, too, so was able to get in to the unit right away). He told me to stay put and take accountability of anyone that showed up for the APFT and call in when I got a headcount. He told me that we'd received orders to conduct only a telephonic recall for the time being, so he said to go ahead and administer the test to anyone that showed up. Not surprisingly, only about 1/3 of the people scheduled to take the test actually showed. I administered the test and sent everyone to the unit to be weighed and headed in to the office myself. I ended up spending the day there tracking down all our personnel and making sure everyone was accounted for. We released most of the company to go home and be with their families but told them to stay by the phones just in case we needed to get them in.

Silly double post...

I was at work. The boss came in from wherever he'd been and asked us if we were ready to go to war.
We asked him what he meant, and he told us he'd heard on the radio about the planes.

From there, we rolled from one rumor to the next.....Pittsburgh, PA was being evacuated.....planes were falling on all the major cities....the death toll in the Towers was expected to hit 50,000 or more....lots of weird stuff.

The manager sent me home to get a radio and bring it back (I lived about three blocks from work). I stopped off at the doctor's office down the street from my apt. to watch the news reports. When I returned with the radio, it was tuned to the AM talk and news stations, and stayed on for four days.

At my other job, at the local hospital, the departmental director had a TV brought into the shop, and it was left on for about a week, too.

That was a terrible, strange, and wonderful time. Patriotism had become fashionable again, and it was great. People paid attention to each other and cared about more than just themselves, at least for a while. We came together as a nation in a way that I'd never witnessed in my entire life.

Someone came into the hospital and dropped off about 200 American flags. I took 2 home and stuck them in the ground at the top of my steps. I lit candles, which I set under them, illuminating them from beneath, and kept the candles burning for a week. The flags stayed in the ground there until I moved.

Goddamn Osama bin-Laden for what he did, but God bless him, too.....for reminding us that we were, and could be, one nation.

Reply #18 By: Rightwinger - 10/31/2004 1:54:15 AM Goddamn Osama bin-Laden for what he did

Your right, Goddamn his ass to hell. After he eats a pork chop and wears a bra!

I was at work. I work in a seperate building with all the servers. Someone I don't get along with very well in my company called me and told me to get over to the cafeteria in the other building and hung up on me. I was kind of pissed about his abruptness. I remember thinking how I didn't have time for this crap, I had work to do, as I walked over to their build . . . oblivious. The Cafe has glass walls and I was walking down this corridor looking through the glass wondering why everyone was gathered in there. Everyone was standing then one guy sat down and all at once I could see the TV. I watched the second plane hit and began running down the hall.

Before I kew what was going on my Fiance called on my cell to say her building was being evacuated. I remember seeing somone jump out of the tower at some point and that's when I had to step outside I didn't want anyone to see me cry. When the Towers collapsed all I could think about was all those people, at work just like I was, doing their thing, getting coffee, checking their Email, and the next thing they know the world is on fire, their friends are dead or dying, they don't know if they will make it to the next minute. Over what? Religion? No god is worth that.

I was at work, and it was really busy. My husband called me on the phone and asked, "Did you hear about the airplane that hit the building?" I mean, it sounded like a joke and I didn't have time for jokes. I said, "OK, what does this have to do with me?" He replied, "If you are an American it has everything to do with you!" That's when I realized he was serious. While on the phone he says, "Crap, another one!" Or something like that. That's when our office went nuts. We turned on the radios and checked the internet, then finally closed and I went home. It was a beautiful day, weather-wise. The sky was clear and blue and it was warm, for September in Minnesota.

I was in jail. I work there, not confined there, although I wonder about that sometimes...
What I noticed that day was the TOTAL lack of interest by all but one inmate. They could of cared less while the staff was glued to the TV every chance they got. Interesting...

I had been out late the night before with some friends. I slept in the next day, because I had a 4pm to 2am shift at the restaurant I managed at the time. I woke up noon, and my answering machine had 10 messages or so on it. I went to work that night in a daze, then afterward I went over to my friend Hussam's house and me and him stayed up for the rest of the night, trying to get a hold of his family in New York and Amman, Jordan; drinking whiskey and crying about what had happened. Hussam just kept saying, "My blood is on those towers," because his family is Egyptian -- I remember him saying "I wish they had never found that goddam oil, because it has made my people crazy."

there has already been an article exactly like this. more than once

I haven't seen another blog on this; although I'm sure they exist. But I don't think it's so bad to remember where we were -- especially in light of how divided we have become.

Thanks for everyone who posted where they were, and thanks for posting this thread, greywar.

I was asleep at my auntie's house in New Caledonia. At 5.00 am she came waking me up for me to come and watch the news flash with her. It was terrible, we were all in shock that the greatest nation on earth was the target to such vicious attacks.

I woke up early to get some school work done before I went to school. Flipped on the TV... Needless to day I didn't get any school work done. The worst part of the day for me was when I went to work. I used to work at an after school program. Everyone was in shock, but they hadn't told the kids at the school (a private, catholic school). Anyway, the worst part was when little Carmen Fumagalli came up to me and said, "Guess what? Today is my birthday!" I felt so bad for her. To have this remembered on your birthday.

I was at Essayons and it was around 2130. Earlier that day in formation we were told that the ACE had lost a classified laptop so when we were put on alert (only my 2nd in area 1) i thought it was utterly ridiculous. Soon after a soldier came running past me and asked if i had seen the incident, which sounded like pure fantasy to me, but if it was on t.v. i'll take a look. i couldn't believes what i saw. i felt nothing but amazement. well, the rest of that night was drawing weapons, setting up defense positions, laying down ta 312s and learning how to kill people with yours truly as a practice dummy. welcome to the most F'ed up tour of korea.

It's amazing how anyone from our generation will be able to tell you what they were doing the morning of 9/11....kind of sad too.

Matt had just walked out the door and I was putting on my boots before I went to finish clearing post. I remember that I sat for probably 20 min with only one boot on and the other one in my hands. i didn't care about making my appointments right then. I was just in a state of shock.

My husbands car didn't have a radio so he had no idea what had happened until he arrived at the SCIF and saw everyone huddled in the MP shack.....