Take a moment (9-11)

I was serving as a C-130 crew chief out of Little Rock. Our Squadron was quickly deployed and I spent the next five years in and out of theater. That one day changed everything. Thank you all for your service and sacrifice.
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I was working for a transit bus OEM and was helping production with a problem in S/N 126 when the shop radios broke in with the early reports of an airplane flying into the twin towers. The rest of the afternoon was spent around a TV watching the coverage. The next few days were really eerie with no air traffic. I live in Kansas and there are always contrails in the sky. Not for the next few days though.

I wasn't quite 9 when it happened. I recall it vividly as the first tragic/controversial major news event that my parents talked me through and allowed me to experience with them.
(OK city, Clinton/Lewinsky, Columbine, even the Cole bombing I guess they figured I was still young and wouldn't be greatly impacted by the events). At that point the news to me was mainly Olympics, presidential elections, and the Y2k bug.

It was a terrible tuesday. Then came the airport security, and the wars, and all the rest that's become the new normal for the 21st century

I was so very young that I don’t remember what it was like to live through it.

However, I have grown up in a world that has been fundamentally changed by terrorism and our responses to it.

I think that this is a good day to remember the heroes who responded and all of the innocent people both at home and abroad who have suffered or lost their lives as a result the this tragedy and the aftermath.

Lost a college fraternity brother when Tower 2 fell.
I will never forget that "some people did something" that day according to one of our congresswomen.
I know who did what to who.
And that's as political as I care to get on a rocketry forum

Lost a member of our church in the Pentagon hit. I will never ceased to be impressed and indebted to the passengers of flight 93 who sacrificed their own lives to crash the plane before it could get to the Whitehouse.

I was pulling into the parking lot at work, listening to the classic rock station. They broke in and said that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. I immediately think small plane, pilot error. I went into work and found everyone gathered in the break room, watching the news. Then I saw the footage. It was absolutely surreal. Still is. I get chills when I see the pictures.

I had landed two days before in Vancouver BC, with my then girlfriend (now wife) to spend a week with my mum & sister.

i left with my mum early that morning, as she drove to work, and i would then have the car for the day. Work was a 10-minute commute. We talked the whole way, but I do remember it odd tht threr was no music on the radio. It was low, very low as we conversed.. She got out, and i switched seats. I then turned up the radio, as it as just 8:00 am PST.

And I heard what had happened. I sat, listening the news report.. for a good 10 or 15 minutes before turning around & going home. I get home, and my mum's husband has the news on. He points (doesn't say anything) at the TV. We sit, fixated, and watch.. I then go wake up the girlfriend, and she is now engrossed to the events that morning.

after about a half hour (and teh 2nd plane hit) we start to go about our business. it was, after all, a nice day in Vancouver..

A few days later, as we have been quite aware as there were no planes in the sky, we each finally asked each other "How are we gonna get home (To Montreal)?"

the Air ban was lifted, 2 days before we were to return home.. That was different..

Staying with a friend of my wife's walk up on East 7th, Manhattan. Woke up, saw a strange cloud rolling past the window. Saw the state of the North Tower, thought at first it was bomb similar to when the IRA hit Bishopsgate. Shouted to everyone. Watched the rest from the roof with neighbours. Beautiful clear day. A few sirens and a helicopter, fire getting worse. Then something hit the South Tower, catching the light. Everyone shouting. Wanted to turn away, but not watching as people burn is somehow worse than bearing witness. Later that day we walked up to Union Square to try to donate blood, but a huge queue, and they were turning people away. Walked down Lafayette towards the little green area, Thomas Paine Park. Some construction teams were gathering wood from the two construction sites there, and people were making makeshift stretchers. It seemed like some way of doing something, but I remember treading on the thick dust everywhere, falling in curtains over Brooklyn Bridge and making the light orange-brown and wondering if there was any point.
My second time in New York. I love it and its wonderful people more than ever, and I go back whenever I can.

Thanks, Tim and Paul. It is good to have the support of our allies.

Alan15578 said:

I'd rather not remember 9/11, instead we should remember Bin Laden's end.
Likewise, we should remember V-J day more than Pearl Harbor day.

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No. Dumbest thing I heard all day.

I worked in one of the closest large trauma centers outside the greater Manhattan area. I was holding a staff meeting when the first strike took place. Someone stuck their head in the door to say something about it and it did not quite click as such, we were rather unaffected, or rather did not grasp what had happened. When the second strike took place we went into overdrive like I have never seen before or since. Our facility discharged every patient we thought could even remotely reasonably be cared for on the outside. We began setting up for what we expected to be a horrific inrush of casualties. One brief period of time that will live with me forever was what took place in an intensive care unit that was undergoing renovations. At 8AM that morning it was weeks from being ready to be placed in service. Folks went into gear to set that right as quick as possible. I saw people doing what needed to be done with no fanfare. You simply asked someone to do something and if they could not do it, they would find someone who could. I saw patient family members moving furniture and I saw union carpenters making beds. It did not matter what needed to be done as folks just helped without complaint. That facility became usable in less than eight hours. Then came the wait. Everyone was geared up, everything was in place, we were ready for whatever came our way, and then - nothing. It took a while for it to soak in, but slowly we realized there was nothing all of our skills and technology could do. The victims were beyond our help. To me that will forever define a crushing blow. That was the day I truly felt that we as a nation lost our innocence. However, in the midst of tragedy, I saw the very best of what we as a nation represent. That one day keeps my faith in our country alive.

I had just finished working a 12 hour night shift and turned on the news as I was getting ready for bed. I never did get to sleep before my next shift because I was glued to the screen in horror, thinking we might be at war in our own borders and how my 2 month old baby girl would be raised in a world that evil. Can’t say enough how grateful I am to our armed forces, and the sacrifices they made so that my little girl could grow up safe and free.

I was in Kodiak for an overnight work trip and my flight out the evening of 9/10 was cancelled due to fog. I woke up and turned on the news in the morning to find that both towers had been hit. The airspace was closed soon after and I knew it was going to be a while. When the first tower fell, the news crew didn't really know what had happened. I remember the dust cloud looking just like the one from when they imploded the Kingdome here a couple of years before and realized that the tower had fallen. I ended up stuck on Kodiak for a week and a half because I had another job then and by the time they opened the airspace it wasn't worth flying home and flying back. That was a lonely week and a half.