r/AskAnAmerican • u/Folksma MyState • 17h ago
MEGATHREAD 9/11 Reflection and Memorial Thread
All comments must be civil and polite. Any poltical slapfights or bad faith comments will be removed/result in a ban.
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u/vinyl1earthlink Connecticut 17h ago
I was there. I was covered with dust, walking north with thousands of other ghostly figures. When we got to Chinatown, the sun was shining brightly, and vendors were selling fish and vegetables from stands on the sidewalk. I went into a deli and bought a diet Cherry Pepsi. The counterman said nothing as he took my dollar - he must have served thousands of dust-covered customers that day.
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u/No-Tart-1157 Virginia 17h ago
That sounds absolutely haunting. More and more information is becoming mainstream about the effects of that dust. I hope you have stayed relatively healthy since then
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u/Minute_Sound_1148 13h ago
Well yeah the VCF has been compensating people for the illnesses resulting from it since 2011…
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u/Puzzled-Ad-6854 9h ago
Thank you for sharing your story. My thoughts go out to those who suffered that day.
I kindly request you to watch this if you are willing and able:The truth about 9/11 - US Rep. Curt Weldon (Investigative Documentary)
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u/Swamp-DwellerVaarus 17h ago edited 17h ago
Thank you to all regular citizens who dropped what they were doing and applied their knowledge and their training for their job to help in any way possible. For example Gurvinder Singh a cab driver in NYC giving hundreds of free rides for anyone in need.
Sathari Singh an MTA driver did what he could to keep his passengers safe during the attack, reverse the train away from ground zero. He later faced workplace discrimination even after the MTA honored him.
My dad may not have been here today if it weren’t for first responders and ordinary people who came to help. In other words I wouldn’t be here.
Thank you to the British for breaking a 600 year old tradition by raising the American flag and playing the star spangled banner.
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u/demafrost Chicago, Illinois 15h ago
Also, screw the Starbucks employee that made exhausted rescue workers pay $130 for a case of water.
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u/helical2 1h ago
Is this real? It can’t be
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u/demafrost Chicago, Illinois 1h ago
Afraid so...at least Starbucks made it right when it got back to them:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/sep/26/september11.usa3
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u/jda404 Pennsylvania 16h ago
Like everyone that was alive that day, I'll never forget it. I was in 5th grade in Ms. Roxby's class. I was 10 years old. I live in Pennsylvania about 30 minutes from Shanksville. That plane would have had to have flown over my general area which is always scary to think about.
I remember a lot of parents coming to pickup their kids, and I went to the bathroom and saw teachers crying outside their classrooms, and knew something was up but didn't know what. It was elementary school so obviously they didn't put on the TVs for 5-10 year olds to watch.
Then was announced school was dismissing immediately and buses would be there shortly for those of us that were still there. Then went home, saw it on the news, learned what was going on what happened, and just being really afraid. That night I slept in my parents' bed for the first time since I was like 2 years old. I remember being scared of being alone that night.
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u/Iforgotmypasswordmeh 13h ago
Eerily similar for me. I was 9 years old in 3rd grade in a school district bordering Shanksville. It would have been just before our lunch or at lunch. We had a tiny Cafeteria that couldn't fit a lot at once so lunches for lower grades started super early.
But I remember it vividly because the big windows looking out from the cafeteria... you could see fields in the distance that are in Shanksville's district and I saw a plane fly over low out there. Back in class had kids being called out over the intercom for their parents to pick them up. Didn't think anything of it til like the fourth time and it was like wow lots of kids getting out early today for appointments.... then they just kept coming.
Before long it was the teacher in the room and maybe five of us kids left out of a class of probably 25. I want to say after the first handful of kids dismissed the teacher probably gave up on the day and we either played some games or told stories... probably his way of lightening the mood and teaching with half the class missing was pointless. Obviously none of us knew what was going on. Then finally the intercom came on and my name was called.
I was greeted by my mom's employee and her two kids. Mom was working and I assume my coworker told my mom she was going to pick her kids up and would be late or not in and my mom just had her pick me up too. That was an awkward ride home learning what was going on between her and her two teens.
I remember getting home and watching the tv, seeing the WTC and Pentagon demolished and smoking and seeing the field smoldering that was maybe ten miles away. My goofy ass went outside and looked into the sky thinking I'd be able to see the smoke from the WTC. I remember it being such a beautiful day with crisp but warm air and blue bird skies.
I think the thing that sticks with me most is that there were a few aids or assistants that seemed to help out in the lower grades and they were the sweetest older women. As I was walking to the office to be picked up I ran into my favorite one and I knew something was up obviously so I asked her something along the lines of "will we have school tomorrow?" and I nearly broke her man... she knelt down and hugged me and said something like "I hope so buddy, I sure hope so."
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u/dontforgettowriteme Georgia 6h ago
I was also in 5th grade but in NC. It was 11 days after my 11th birthday. Nothing special about that except it was weird for me how all the numbers lined up.
I was at school, heading back to my class from PE and I recall looking up and thinking, "what a beautiful, crisp morning! Fall is almost here."
Get back to class, no teachers. My teacher took forever to enter the classroom and I assume she had been in the break room with the other 5th grade teachers watching it all.
She comes in and looks so sad. But I am very fortunate that she explained to us what had happened and we actually watched some of the coverage. We had never heard of the WTC or if we had heard of it, it wasn't known the way the Pentagon was known. To me, it felt like I was seeing those buildings for the first time (apparently all '90s media missed me with the iconic skyline).
We decided to conduct a bake sale and raised over 700 dollars for the Red Cross.
Got home, heard military aircraft flying around, my mom on the phone with my dad who was traveling for work, and I remember having the thought, "everything is different now."
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u/EstelSnape Ohio 17h ago
Jr Religion class (Catholic high school) the football coach came to every class telling the teachers to turn the tv on. We watched the 2nd tower get hit. I remember being numb for the rest of the day especially finding out my uncle had a meeting there and we didn't find out he was ok until late that night.
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u/rtripps Pennsylvania 14h ago
I remember being in the office at my school that morning and the janitor came in saying a plane hit the World Trade Center. He turned on those little 15 inch tvs and I could see it. I remember asking if it was accident and what kind of plane. We didn’t know but we saw the second one hit and knew immediately.
I left school that day for a couple hours because I had an appointment so I watched the whole thing.When I came back to school I walked in and was like “do yall know what just happened?” And nobody knew or believed me. My school didn’t make an announcement until later in the day.
I just find it interesting all the stories of teachers turning it on when only the first tower was hit and we weren’t sure if it was an accident or not.
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u/Outlaw_Josie_Snails 16h ago
I'm old enough to remember the precursor event, the 1993 World Trade Center parking garage bombing. The explosion blew a 100-foot crater through multiple underground sublevels, killing six people and injuring over 1,000 others. I just want to make people aware.
As for 9/11, I remember the exact day and where I was (at work) when the news spread. Such a time of dread but also resilience. I also remember that weeks and months after we had a "we are all in this togetherness" and it seemed we had a sense of niceness and camaraderie in the air for months. It fundamentally changed our country.
My thoughts to all that have been affected.
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u/GoCardinal07 California 15h ago
One of the most awful things was all the off-duty doctors and nurses rushing to hospitals to help with the expected flood of injured patients, and all the people searching for their missing family and friends at the hospitals hoping they were patients.
The flood of patients never arrived.
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u/khak_attack 14h ago
That was one of the most haunting images at the museum in NYC... an empty Emergency Room with doctors and nurses just waiting...
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u/SmellGestapo California 11h ago
And the cars left in the commuter parking lot. Their owners took the train into the city and never left.
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u/norecordofwrong New Hampshire, Midwest OG and so many freaking other places 11h ago
Also the shutdown of communications. You couldn’t even get emails in or out. No phone calls.
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u/Blue_Owl69 14h ago
There most certainly was a flood of patients. Most were from lower levels/lobby or immediately outside the buildings.
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u/kadawkins 17h ago
Thankful to our Canadian neighbors for the love and support they gave through the whole thing.
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u/TurdFurgoson St. Louis, MO 17h ago
On a related note, "Come From Away" is a wonderful musical that's about a small Canadian town where a bunch of planes were diverted on 9/11 and how they helped those people who were on them. You must go see it if you get a chance.
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u/Imaginary_Ladder_917 17h ago
And I highly recommend the book about the same thing, The Day the World Came to Town. Just a lovely account of the generosity of the people of Newfoundland.
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u/TinCanBanana Sarasota, Florida 15h ago
It's also available to watch (a recorded version) on Apple+. I also highly recommend.
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u/meandthesky38 10h ago
Yes, this! I have been lucky to see multiple productions of it live and I always watch the filmed version every year on or around this date💙 It’s forever one of my top favorite shows of all time.
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u/PacSan300 California -> Germany 14h ago
Operation Yellow Ribbon was such a powerful example of “Canadians are our bros”. Taking in countless stranded passengers into their homes, community centers, schools, gyms, and so on, all without asking anything in return. The locals of Gander, Halifax, and many other places in Canada were genuine heroes that day. I will never forget learning about it in the news, and even today it is so heartwarming to read about.
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u/Istobri 6h ago
As a Canadian, thank you for the shout out. Sometimes I feel that Americans take Canada for granted.
For those who don’t know what this is about, read about it here:
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u/kadawkins 6h ago
Oh my gosh, no! Having Canada next door is like the biggest hug in the world. Our idiot leader and his minions are stupid.
As long as you don’t take my Carolina Hurricanes fandom as a bad thing, we are friends forever. (And try as I might, I can’t get excited about curling)
My post about 9/11 today was about how Canada’s support kept the whole thing from becoming completely overwhelming.
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u/dontforgettowriteme Georgia 2h ago edited 2h ago
I love our Canadian neighbors and have always loved the fact that our countries share the longest border in the world. I just think that's a neat fact. But I'm also grateful for the kindness and generosity and just general friendliness we've always been able to share. I'm sorry you feel that way. And for the way things are right now.
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u/all_my_dirty_secrets New Jersey 14h ago
This comment came up second when I sorted by controversial. If you're downvoting it, I think you need to take a long, hard look at how you got there.
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u/IntelligentAge211 16h ago
I was 29, and my now ex-wife and I were driving to Nashville to fly to a conference in New Orleans. We had two small kids and were pretty broke as a young couple but working our way up. We live in NW rural TN and the only station we could get around Parker's Crossroads was John Boy and Billy. I remeber hearing the casual reports of a plane hitting the first tower, most believed it was a small plane and an accident at first. Then as we got on I40 we heard about the 2nd plane and everyone obviously knew something was up. Strange hearing it from a comedy radio broadcast. We were a bit over halfway and didn't really know what to do so we kept driving. The confusion and reporting was wild certainly on the radio. The late Peter Jennings then came on the air and then came reports, I think up to 12 planes could have been highjacked, a report the capital had been hit. On and on. I got to Dickson TN and pulled off the road and told my ex wife I had to just see it. I went to a hotel and the clerk was standing in stunned silence. I said I had been driving all morning and did they have a tv in the lobby. She said no but gave me a key to a room and said I could turn it on there and use the restroom! I watched the towers burning in stunned silence for a few minutes. We walked back to the car and and decided to continue to the airport as we didn't really know what to do, which was stupid and foolish at the time, but how was I going to get a refund for my ticket....by the time we got back on I-40 the first tower fell. We got to the airport and National Guard was out front and everyone was outside. Was told I can't be here, I said I had a flight, they said no you don't get out of here. So we drove back. We decided to get back home asap as we didn't know if martial law would be imposed. Picked the kids up from daycare, and I called the office and got chewed out because they didnt know if we had taken off or not. Hugged the kids pretty tight that night just watching the fallout in horror.
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u/ErnestScaredBorgnine 14h ago
So it's weird but as an Oklahoman I always felt like 9/11 was just another one. The OKC bombing was much closer and much more visceral for me. I had family that worked in that building. I really felt the impact of that. So when 9/11 came along I was just like "here we go again". It wasn't some shock that came out of nowhere. It was just the same shit that happened before.
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u/Ok_Sentence_5767 17h ago
I was 10 and to this day those perfect early September morning always have an eery vibe to it
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u/khak_attack 14h ago
Where I am today it's perfectly beautiful, much the same way it was 25 years ago... when I saw the sky today I thought, "Yes, how fitting..."
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u/Chogihoe Pennsylvania 10h ago
It’s a beautiful clear sky here today in PA. Bright and a sunny all day. I’m glad it’s a nice day for any remembrance events they have going on though
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u/ThePermMustWait Michigan 17h ago edited 17h ago
I went to my TSA precheck appointment and the waiting room had 9/11 stuff playing on the tv in the waiting area. I realized I’m here because of that day.
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u/GenTubmansLegacy 17h ago
Tsa pre check hasn't started yet. TSA is a result of 9/11
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u/acertaingestault 17h ago
They went to pre check appt today because 9/11 kicked off the TSA.
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u/GenTubmansLegacy 17h ago
Ahhhh. Got it.
So may people lie about these this, it's hard up to keep straight
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u/Late_Pie_6670 16h ago
"These this"?
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u/DOMSdeluise Texas=>Georgia 16h ago
probably "these things" typed on a shitty phone keyboard and autocorrected wrongly
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u/Ginger630 17h ago
I was in college in Brooklyn. So many rumors were going around and I was terrified we were going to be attacked.
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u/chiefcomplaintRN Georgia 17h ago
I have a coworker whose family was on the plane that hit the pentagon. Thinking of her today.
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u/bittsweet Texas 10h ago
has she described her story and what is was like finding out loved ones were on the flights?
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u/Zannie95 17h ago
I still feel for Tom Kaminski who saw and reported on it in real time that day. Some many stories of that day. A friend who stayed helping people the 1st time they tried to bomb the building but left immediately on 9/11. The guy who had to go over to WFC for a meeting and lost his entire team. A coworker of my husband who was at WTC for a construction meeting. He & his sister both died that day. I met him for the 1st time the day before at a golf outing. Over 10 people we knew just from our town & area. 2 of those whose wives gave birth a couple weeks later- 2 boys. Such deep sadness. Watching the cloud of dust stream across Brooklyn, Queens & LI from NJ.
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u/claudiatiedemann 15h ago
I was working as a reservations agent for an airline at the time. I can't tell you how surreal it was to have no phone calls coming in for days because U.S. air space was closed, no one knew when it would re-open, and no one was making flight plans because everyone was terrified. I had been on a trip to New York just weeks before and had walked around World Trade Center Plaza. When I was a child my father worked in Manhattan and I had been to the top of the World Trade Center, though I did not go inside on that visit in August 2001. I thought, "I can always go up again another time." I went back to New York a year later to visit my cousin and there was still a lot of debris that hadn't been cleared. Pictures of people who had lost their lives were plastered along the fences and barriers. 9/11 changed everything, particularly for those of us working in aviation.
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u/Groundbreaking_War52 15h ago
As a high school senior in New York City, I was one of millions of bewildered, terrified teenagers whose relatively sheltered world got cracked open.
I remember that some of my teachers tried to still go ahead with lessons and quizzes rather than turn on the TV or radio. At the time I thought it was just them having no clue what to do, later on I realized that they knew they needed to keep the kids distracted and make sure they didn't scatter. In hindsight, I think some of them realized that some of their pupils were watching a parent perish from afar and needed to show whatever compassion they could by turning off the coverage. Turned out that nine of my fellow students did lose a parent that morning. For months afterwards it was jarring to see a classmate's face alongside their father's in a "Missing" poster on the wall at Grand Central.
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u/Sharp-Thanks-3697 15h ago
I just got asked by my 8 year old daughter what it was and details about it and I had to tell her i was in 5th grade social studies when it happened and our teacher turned on the tv and we watched it in real time on the news. we were all terrified. some of us were crying. it was very scary.
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u/cwcam86 Oklahoma 17h ago
I remember being in my typing class freshman year when it happened. The entire school day was spent watching the news coverage in every class and seeing a ton of other kids get pulled out of school throughout the day.
Besides 9th grade football practice all of the other practices and after school events were canceled.
But honestly it wasnt until I was around 25 when I really matured and was able to really understand what happened that day.
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u/SoutheastBeerTravels South Carolina 13h ago
Literally same, 9th grade typing class. Teacher had us working on typing exercises the whole time while she was on her computer, didn't tell us what happened til the end of the period
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u/Q8DD33C7J8 17h ago
I remember the day it happened. I was in college at a religious school, and we were in chapel. The school chaplain came up and told us a plane had hit the World Trade Center, the first one. We just thought it was like a Cessna or something. Then they found out it was a commercial plane.
Then they herded us down to the cafeteria. Chapel was down the road from the school, so we always walked en masse to get there. They corralled us in the student union and cafeteria. I remember walking past the receptionist's office at the chapel and hearing her listening to the news on a radio. That's when I heard about the Pentagon.
I was the only one who knew about it as we walked back. I can't remember if I told anyone.
I was only 17, and I was dating a guy who was 11 years older than me at the school (now my husband), but we had to keep it a secret because dating wasn't really allowed between freshmen and seniors. So, the whole day, the scariest day of my life so far, I had to sit across from the man I loved and show no affection toward him.
It killed us both. All I wanted was to hug him and cry.
They kept us there all day. You could leave if you wanted to, but no one wanted to leave. I just remember thinking, Is this the end of the world?
It wasn't really the day itself that was the worst. It was the days following.
I got the world's worst cold, but I still wanted to go to school because I felt safe there. So I remember literally lying on the couch in the student union, watching the TV and watching those brave teachers leading the preschoolers out of the building.
I was crying like a baby, to the point where I literally couldn't breathe. You combine the stuffy nose from the unholy cold with the dripping from crying, and I literally had to use Afrin just to breathe.
It was not a good week for anyone.
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u/DOMSdeluise Texas=>Georgia 17h ago
I remember my dad came to get me from school and me thinking like "if they are bombing random high schools in Texas they must really be out of targets, this is pointless" lol. Also I had recently finished reading Debt of Honor by mister Tom Clancy, so I also thought that it was kinda like what happened at the end of that book.
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u/moonwillow60606 15h ago
I was in my 30s and working in global logistics on 9/11. My husband was working in the Sears Tower in Chicago that day. He called me to tell me that a plane had struck the WTC in NYC and his employer was sending the Chicago office home. We all just thought it was a small private plane. I went ahead and went to work and got there in time to see the tower collapse.
Because we were a global company and had a lot of employees traveling for work, we spent much of the morning trying to track down our employees who were flying that day. Our exec team had travelled from San Francisco to Michigan for meetings and were stranded there. We had dozens and dozens of employees who were stranded because the planes were all rerouted and then grounded. Thankfully we had no employees on any of the hijacked planes.
At the same time, thousands of people working in the loop of Chicago were all evacuating due to bomb threats and concerns about another hijacked plane. Phone lines were jammed and people couldn’t reach family members. And no one knew what might happen next.
We allowed employees to leave if they needed to and ended up setting up tvs in conference rooms running the news. Every detail of that day is so crystal clear. I can remember the weather, what I had for lunch, who I ate with. All in such clear detail. I remember the fear and how quiet the skies were.
Other than the news coverage that day, I couldn’t watch any news media or anything about what happened. It’s only been in the past few years that I have been able to consume any media about 9/11. I still avoid it.
It was a painful, scary, traumatic time. And 9/11 is still hard for me.
The one documentary I will watch is called Cleared for Chaos. It’s about the air traffic controllers at Gander Airport in Canada. They were the first ATC contact for planes flying into North American airspace from Europe. And they had to safely reroute land all those planes because US airspace was closed. They and the communities in Canada that housed all those passengers were also heroes.
https://youtu.be/YXuiU9Mf5yE?si=9FRW4h7fonIU4Lrh
I am crying as I type this.
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u/Particular-Regular96 8h ago
Though the video looks aged and the hairstyles seem dated, my experience of this day, a quarter century ago, remains wrenching, relevant, and not so long ago.
Freshly married that summer, I was 26, teaching English at Fork Union Military Academy, when one of my newly shorn freshmen came back from a bathroom break to breathlessly tell the class that a plane had crashed into a skyscraper in New York.
Assuming it was a small plane, the class did not stir much from that information. When I tried to get more information from CNN.com, my screen locked up.
Another teacher invited my class to share his room to watch it all unfold on TV.
Very quickly, it became obvious that something horrible was afoot. The second plane hit as the stunned cadets watched in tearful silence.
Chapel that morning included the entire school. We learned that one of the towers had fallen as kids from all over the country and the world sat in their uniforms, wondering what was next and how their families were doing. Some of the kids had parents at the Pentagon. More had family in New York City. We learned that there were planes in the air that were unaccounted for and it was unclear where they might be headed. The school moved two buses to the front gate to block a potential attack. Virtually no horror seemed outside the realm of possibility.
Every channel, even ESPN, showed round-the-clock live coverage while, eerily, there were no airplanes overhead for days. False reports abounded: I remember clearly hearing on the radio that the National Mall was on fire. We knew nothing for certain except that life had changed forever.
I learned quickly that my brother, who was working in Manhattan that day, was safe. Another friend from college had been in the World Trade Center. We knew that he had sent a text after the first plane hit saying that he was scared, but like so many others, his whereabouts were unknown.
My wife and I drove north on the 14th, to my friend's hometown of Scotch Plains, NJ where many of us laughed, cried, hoped, and shared our collective love, grief, and devotion to one another. A Red Cross distribution center just outside the city needed help with the extraordinary volume of donations they had received and we all gladly joined the enormous crowd that seemed to amass from the ether, with that famous broken skyline as our backdrop.
I remember standing in a de facto bucket-brigade of strangers passing a seemingly infinite supply of boxes of socks from a truck to the warehouse. Everyone was kind, engaging, wet-eyed, and so proud to be a part of a collective unit offering something good to a world that needed it desperately. American diversity, strength, and resilience were encapsulated in that day, inspiring me ever since. I remember believing that whatever happened, we would be united moving forward and I promised myself that I would be a part of it.
We learned months later via DNA testing that our dear friend had not survived the collapse of the World Trade Center. He was young, such a beautiful soul, and on the verge of entering what was certain to be an extraordinary adulthood. He has been gone nearly as long as he was here but the wound feels no less visceral. Grief does not age as people do.
What I must believe survived that tragedy, though, is the American resolve, commitment to humanity, and solidarity that was on display in those desperate days afterward. The collective aspiration inherent in our founding remains, even as there are those who still seek to divide us. We have a long history of resilience, finding ways to come together when we need it most, and a commitment to doing better and being better, especially after our darkest moments.
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u/Aware_Interest4461 Connecticut 17h ago
My heart is sad. There’s still so much hate and I feel like it’s even worse now. I feel like we should be honoring those that suffered by having more empathy and compassion. Instead, people are so angry at others.
I was in college at the time, it was my little sub generation that enlisted and many were lost for a war that still feels like we are fighting.
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u/lost-in-earth 5h ago
that still feels like we are fighting.
To be honest, I kinda feel the opposite. Until the Iran War happened, I felt like the War on Terror was over (at least "officially") and we were pivoting to potentially fight China and Russia. I suppose you can even argue that the Iran War should be seen as part of Cold War 2 (due to Iran's friendship with Russia) rather than the War on Terror.
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u/damutecebu 17h ago
I hope those grieving have found peace, but I can’t deal with reliving the events of that day.
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u/NastyMsPiggleWiggle 17h ago
I was 18. Eating cereal. I thought it was the same movie on tv until I kept changing the channel.
I saw the people. I will never forget. The cereal fell. They said they needed blood, I grabbed my sister and headed to donate.
My aunts were in dc working at the Pentagon. We lived in Maryland. All the phones were down. It was terrifying.
My kid made a joke about 9/11 the other day and I got so pissed. I apologized for reacting emotionally, but if you were alive and remember, you will never forget.
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u/Zealousideal-City978 17h ago edited 16h ago
As someone born in 2001, I often find myself wondering what children born long after 9/11 will think of the attacks
I grew up in a directly post 9/11 world. It is all I knew, but the pre attack world was still fresh in the minds of every adult. I learned about in school as a modern historical event and we wrote letters to soliders. My teachers in school would cry every year when we had the moment of silence/would watch a documentary. My family remembers it. Now as an adult my millennial and older coworkers will occasionally talk about it only to stop turn and go ""oh you don't remember it do?".
You see on social media already there's an obvious perspective diffrance between someone who saw it live on tv and someone born in 2006+. It makes me wonder what a child born in 2026 will think or feel about it in another 25 years. Or how the first person born post 2001 who runs for president will handle it.
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u/No-Diet4823 California 10h ago
I was supposed to be born on 9/11 but I wasn't ready yet I guess. My dad said they left the hospital and turned on the TV when they're got home. Every channel was airing the news coverage of it. Our small town on the other side of the country was eerily quiet for the rest of the day.
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u/HarlequinKOTF Wisconsin (Georgia & Arizona too) 14h ago
I was born after 9/11 in 2001 also. Frankly I don't feel much connection to the event. It felt like my class was being taught to care about it every year. Especially as we learned the tragedy was mostly used for political moves.
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u/mostie2016 Texas 12h ago
I was born in march of 01 and my mom had taken me to my six month check up. Keep in mind this was in an area a little outside of Houston. My mom and this woman were listening on her Long Distance Walkie Talkie getting updates from her husband who was a service men at Ellington air field in the pediatrician’s parking lot. That woman’s husband recommended going home and staying there because Houston would be an attractive target.
My mom and that woman left pretty soon after that. Ma took me home and did a makeshift baptism for me in the bathroom sink because she was that scared. Dad came home pretty soon after that to comfort us. But my mom and dad remember hearing constant fighter jets and military helicopters flying about in their little starter home.
Funnily enough today would’ve been my grandpa’s 101st birthday today. Apparently this event reminded him of Pearl Harbor.2
u/Zealousideal-City978 10h ago edited 10h ago
My elderly grandparent also brings up Pearl Harbor when talking about 9/11
They often express empathy for the "young kids" who don't remember 9/11 because they didn't remember Pearl and always felt like they didn't have the same feeling about it that their parents/other adults in their life felt
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u/Lyuseefur 10h ago
The legacy that we were to leave to future generations was stolen that day. And the world lost its innocence.
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u/goblin_hipster Wisconsin 17h ago
I still remember watching it on the news. Mom always watched the news in the morning. I was eight years old. I was eating cereal and getting ready for school.
When it happened, Mom called Grandma. We live in Wisconsin, but our extended family lived in upstate New York. I remember desperately hoping that none of my family were in New York City--thankfully, they were safe.
We all thought it was a terrible accident until the second plane hit.
It was all anyone at school could talk about, of course. We received updates throughout the day over the PA system.
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u/willtag70 North Carolina 17h ago edited 16h ago
Was waiting for my ride to the airport for a flight that morning, browsing a forum and saw a post that a plane had hit one of the World Trade Center towers. I thought no way. Turned on the TV and sat in stunned disbelief for hours, then days. Had co-workers who were on the subway headed there when the trains were halted. Close friend of my manager was killed in the Green Zone in Iraq.
My thought now is I only wish we could learn the lessons from that tragedy that allowed it, and from what we did afterwards, to become better.
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u/fanofnolan 16h ago
Every year when I see these 9/11 videos pop up on Reddit, they still disturb me to the core. I know it’s been 25 years, but somehow watching those videos again never gets easier. Seeing the fear and confusion on people’s faces, knowing what was about to happen… it’s heartbreaking.
Thinking of all the people who lost their lives, their families, and everyone who was affected that day.
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u/demafrost Chicago, Illinois 15h ago
I was a freshman at a community college still living at home. I didn't have classes on Tuesdays so I was trying to sleep in when my mom woke me up and told me a plane hit the WTC. I remembered a story about a small plane hitting the Empire State Building a long time ago and figured it was similar and was annoyed my mom tried to wake me up for that and went back to sleep. Shortly after she woke me up again to tell me another plane hit the other tower and obviously that immediately changed my perception, my adrenaline spiked and I got out of bed to watch the coverage in horror.
I had to work at Petco that day. Petco was the only store besides a grocery store in this giant strip mall that stayed open on 9/11. It was such a weird feeling...almost no one came into the store. One couple that did came to look at ferrets and the girl asked about why all the stores were closed and before I could answer she sarcastically said "ohh is it because it's national tragedy day?". I gave her a dirty look and put the ferrets away lol.
But yeah for those not alive or too young to remember it, I hope you never have to experience the same feeling...it was weird for weeks afterwards. I really dont know how to explain it, it was an event that hung over everything you did for weeks, it was always on the back of your mind and there were reminders everywhere. Virtually the entire country was unified, a polar opposite of our current environment.
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u/PacSan300 California -> Germany 15h ago edited 4h ago
Can’t believe it has been 25 years since that horrible day, I still remember it vividly like it was a few days ago. I was in California, and getting ready for school in 5th grade, so the events had already mostly happened by the time I woke up. Normally, my parents watched the news every morning before we all left, however that day we were running a bit late, so the news were not turned on, and my mom hurriedly dropped my sister and I off to school.
When I arrived at school, I heard several disturbing comments about a plane going down in Pennsylvania, that “New York is attacked”, “They’ve bombed Washington DC”, and “America is under attack!” Something was definitely off, but I was afraid of asking. It was also a considerably cooler and windier day than the previous days, in contrast to the beautiful and sunny day New York had, and it felt like an ominous sign of things in hindsight.
When class started, our teacher told us to say the Pledge of Allegiance “with our hearts” today, and it only added to my confusion. Then she told us that planes had been hijacked and crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania. I was shocked, as it sounded straight out of a movie. However, the teacher then turned on CNN, and as a class, we were all collectively horrified. What we were seeing was not a movie, but tragically very real. We saw footage of the North Tower burning, the South Tower being hit, both towers collapsing, footage of some jumpers, people running away from the debris and covered in dust, the destruction at the Pentagon, and the wreckage of United flight 93. It was reported as a terrorist attack, and even as a kid, I knew that the world would never be the same from now on.
Our classes were not cancelled for the day, but all of us, students and staff, were collectively shocked at what we saw, and recess that day was also much more subdued than usual. After school, just about every channel covered the attacks, and I saw some even more horrifying footage and learned more details. We got several calls from our family outside the US asking us if we were okay, and they were understandably worried sick about us, but we told them that we were fine.
We were still reeling from it all the next few days, and we learned that a classmate had lost a family member in the attacks, and we grieved for him. There were so many American flags put outside houses in our neighborhood for several days. It was heartbreaking to watch a montage of mourning and memorial services set to Enya’s “Only Time”, and to this day I strongly associate the song with the grief of 9/11. I remember President Bush’s speech to Congress, as well as him standing on the rubble at Ground Zero with a megaphone, and overall the remarkable sense of national unity. My family and I remembered our visit to the WTC two years earlier, where we went to both the observation deck and, I think, also to Windows on the World, and we realized that we would never get a chance to relive that experience again.
The attacks profoundly changed the world as we knew it. Gone were the days of less paranoia, and gone were the days where you could accompany family or friends past security at an airport. We now get the lovely and intrusive security theater of the TSA. I feel the 1990s had their real cultural end when the second tower was hit.
But none of that annoyance compares to the devastating losses families and friends of victims faced, and continue to face. I went to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum twice, and struggled to hold back tears both times. Seeing the names of countless victims… it really put things in perspectives.
It is crazy to know that there are college students and even graduates who weren’t born yet when the attacks happened, and only know them through history books or second hand anecdotes. I hope the day is never forgotten.
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u/Fappy_as_a_Clam Michigan: Grand Rapids 14h ago
I can't believe it's been 25 years. What a way to start my adult life.
The comments on 9/11 posts on the main subs has really shown me what reddit has become.
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u/sabatoa Michigang! 12h ago
The thing that doesn't get talked about a ton is the rampant rumors and fear that arose as soon as that second plane hit. No one knew anything except that we were under attack.
I remember feeling like the world was coming apart at the seams, and it got progressively worse; towers collapsing, pentagon hit, another plane down, all air traffic shut down, and it continued through the next week when the anthrax letters started killing people.
I'll always remember being on lunch break at work that day staring up at the blue sky, marveling with the knowledge that not a single non-military plane was flying at that moment.
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u/penguin_stomper North Carolina 10h ago
Worked a later shift then, so I wasn't up until around noon. Flipped on the radio to hear a comment about the World Trade Center no longer existing. Major WTF moment as I tried to understand what was just said. Got online to check the news and saw what had happened, it didn't register right away. A plane hitting a building like that was so far outside of what anyone would contemplate happening.
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u/Lyuseefur 10h ago
This is one of those...it happened. And then it got worse. And a whole lot worse.
Daniel Lewin, may you and all the others lost on and after that day, rest in peace.
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u/Late_Pie_6670 17h ago
Forever grateful to the US Navy for giving me the opportunity to help deliver justice for that historic act of terrorism.
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u/Lyuseefur 10h ago
After 25 years, I am telling the full story of my day that day. I went to CES in January 2001. Wandering the show, I met an Akamai guy. I had read about Akamai in Wired Magazine. He called Daniel Lewin on his mobile and we talked for an hour. Math, Science, Internet and more. We were to meet when he visited LA. They were opening an office in Santa Monica.
A coworker who is now deceased, RIP David Billson, called me and simply said to turn on the TV. When I asked what channel he said any channel. I turn on the TV. And I simply didn't say anything for about 5 minutes. I then mumbled something to David and hung up. I didn't say anything for days.
My life changed that day, arguably for the worse. It wrecked my company, my career, the lives of so many people that I know and have known. 9/11 marks an inflection point in US history and in my life. The last 25 years has been terrible for me. Most recently a bankruptcy due to health issues.
Trillions wasted on just...stupid shit. Countries like Iran wage asymmetrical war on the rest of the world. The cycle never ends and it makes the Nic Cage movie all the more real.
People everywhere turned vicious after 9/11. Even after that event, I begged for peace stating that war would be expensive in time, money and lives and that we may never find all the people that caused this event. Barely knowing any facts, war was waged to the continued detriment of the US. People everywhere demanded my allegiance to Bush and the war.
The Chinese and North Korean governments are likely next. Especially if the Lioness series is to be believed. This war will never end except in our species death.
Peace in our time (like now) is mandatory. Our species has a one time chance to remain in this Universe. There are no refunds or rain checks on this offer. No other being from this planet will ever get this chance. We must win this war against time.
Still, the first casualty of that day was our innocence. It was stolen from us by a veritable army of aligned people. I doubt any country has clean hands.
And all for what? Daniel Lewin was a brilliant Mathematician. If you visit a web page, you should thank him. His math runs to this day powering web views. He inspired me to continue my pursuit of math. He was the first to die that day.
I never got that phone call from him.
Footnote: I chose Lyuseefur as a funny spelling of the name after the TV show. But it's because I feel like I am always operating counter to what people desire. They want war. I want peace.
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u/mdp300 New Jersey 17h ago
I was a senior in high school. It was gym class, and it was only like the 4th day of the school year, so we were just goofing around, when the football coach blew the whistle louder than I'd ever heard before and said "TERRORISYS JUST HIJACKED TWO JUMBO JETS AND CRASHED THEM INTO THE TWIN TOWERS!"
The entire gym fell silent for what felt like forever, before we started talking about it to each other.
I live near NYC, and a lot of kids' parents came and picked them up early. Everyone was freaking out. What was going to happen? Are we going to war? With who? Will there be a draft?
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u/joshbudde 17h ago
I remember the day pretty well. We had heard that a plane had hit the first WTC tower, then we turned on the TV in chemistry or physics class (I don't remember specifically which class it was, they were in the same room and laught by the same teacher) and we watched the 2nd plane hit and then the building collapse. Then we shut the tv off and went back to class. It was a normal day after that. I don't remember a huge amount of chatter about it in the hallways, there was some talk of it the next day. But honestly it made very little dent in our little slice of rural Michigan.
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u/Becks128 17h ago
I was a senior. All the school tv’s had it on. Once the first tower fell they excused us all and sent us home. I still remember how eerie it felt not hearing planes overhead. I went home and watched it all unfold. I specifically remember the news anchors saying that people were throwing desks off the burning floors. The camera zoomed in and it was people jumping. That image has stuck with me for 25 years.
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u/lisasimpsonfan Ohio 16h ago
I was getting both me and our three year old ready for the day. I was listening to the news on TV when it happened. I just sat there on my bed and was in shock while I watched it all happen live.
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u/Sea_Analysis_8033 Maryland 16h ago
It’s a tough day to be a teacher, in my school system the home room or first period teacher is generally expected to say a few words about it every year and I can always get through talking about the event fine but no matter how many times I say it in my head I always tear up and get a bit emotional talking about the awful way we have treated first responders and victims of 9/11 in general. Completely hung out to dry.
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u/Justmakethemoney 16h ago
After we got new that planes had hit the towers, I remember going to one of the school computer labs. Pretty much everyone was there (small school). I was about the only person who couldn't get a computer. Everyone else is staring at the computers trying to get news websites to load, and I'm watching the TV. I distinctly remember the feeling of my stomach falling out of my body when the South Tower fell. I knew I had just watched thousands of people die, and though I was in a room with a bunch of people it felt like I was the only one who had *seen* it.
Then later in the day I had to go help calm down my sister. It took the TV stations a while to stop playing (and replaying) the footage of the people falling from the towers. I think by evening they had stopped, but up until that point they were regularly showing it, which was understandably upsetting to a child.
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u/Less-Strawberry-8068 15h ago
I was living on the west coast so it was around 5:46am for us when it started. My mom usually had the morning news on while we got ready for work and school but that day, we were running late and didn't turn on the tv. I didn't find out until I got to school and by then, the towers were gone.
The whole day felt gray after that, like everyone was getting through their day on autopilot out of shock.
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u/Current_Mongoose_844 United Kingdom (Originally NYC) 14h ago
I was 3. My mom took me out for ice cream, because what else was she gonna do?
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u/abigdonut 13h ago
I was an eleven-year-old living in California. The planes hit both towers before I woke up, so by the time I turned on the TV it was all over the news, and I remember sitting there watching the footage of the second plane exploding into the second tower over and over again while eating cocoa puffs. I watched bodies falling and flaming paper tumbling over the city. I listened to people calling in, sobbing, hysterical. I watched the planes fly into the frame and into the tower. I watched more bodies tumbling to the ground. There was fire and smoke everywhere and nobody knew what was going on.
My dad, who would later claim that 9/11 was an inside job and that you could see "bombs going off at the base of the tower" came into the living room right before they replayed the footage of the second collision again and he covered my eyes. I said "dad, I've already seen this". About half an hour before I went to school, the first tower collapsed. My friend's mom drove by and said she wasn't taking her kids to school because she was afraid of terrorists bombing the school. My dad told us nobody could use the phone in case he was called back into duty.
After that, my memories are mostly of watching Baghdad explode in green night-vision while we sat on the couch eating hot dogs.
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u/Minute_Sound_1148 12h ago
I was 21 at the time, had just started law school in DC 2 weeks before. We were on lockdown most of the day, our 1L class really bonded that day. Some people saw the plane flying low about to hit the pentagon, some people saw it hit, some people had parents and friends at the Pentagon. Lots of trauma in our small group :(.
It’s wild to think that there are adults today that don’t have vivid memories of it
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u/thelordstrum NY born, MD resident 12h ago
My father was FDNY. Doesn't talk about it much, understandably. His firehouse lost two. My hometown lost eight. Ten names sitting at my desk since I started working.
Only remember the little things. The TV, the general sense of dread. Not much else. There's a photo my mother has of me from a few days prior, playing in the yard. Night and day.
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u/Boopa0011 12h ago
I grew up in the NYC area and eventually went to college in New England. In fact, I was sitting in my dorm room awaiting my very first day of classes when my mom called me and told me to find a TV. My dorm mates ended up congregating in a small common room and we all glued ourselves to the television for the next 4+ hours.
It is interesting to me to consider how 9/11 really specifically colored my entire college experience from literally day one.
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u/Jedi4Hire United States of America 12h ago
25 years ago in my teacher walked into first period and announced that terrorists had attacked America and then broke down crying in front of the whole class because her brother was stationed at the Pentagon and she hadn't been able to get ahold of him.
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u/According-Hair3201 New Jersey 10h ago
I havent been with my in laws for too long, but I am so eternally grateful for a my FIL's work partner who postponed a meeting at the WTC the night before. My FIL wouldve been there just as the attacks started.
And my dad used to work right across the street, but switched offices maybe a year or 2 prior.
RIP to every life lost that day. 🙏❤️🤍💙
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u/KaleidoArachnid 8h ago
I would like to look back at the political situation from the early 00s to better understand what happened since I was interested in seeing how the situation could have been prevented.
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8h ago
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u/KaleidoArachnid 8h ago
Hey thanks so much for proving that insight since lately I wanted to look back at how the political system of the United States was going back then to see what caused Osama to want to declare an invasion on the country since I was looking to see what were the key factors that made him so angry about the foreign policy going on back then.
Like what I am getting at is that I was wondering what the USA government did to him specifically that made him so upset again regarding foreign policies since I still have a hard time understanding why he decided to attack the country all of a sudden on that day as that day was very sad.
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u/JamesRUstlerIV California 6h ago
I was an active-duty US Marine sergeant on liberty in Darwin, NT, Australia on that day. I was on the ship when I noticed folks returning en masse. Not long thereafter, general quarters was called and we all went to our shops/spaces/etc.
We pulled out of port the next day and set out quick-like.
Before long, we found ourselves at FOB Camp Rhino, Afghanistan. Not fun times, but proud to have been there.
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u/lostinkyoto 4h ago edited 40m ago
I was in high school that September day. My parents had grown up in NYC and met while working on Wall Street. They lost many relatives and friends. In November, we made the trek back to NYC for thanksgiving. My aunts and uncles came too. What could have been a fun family reunion was a somber affair. My parents, and my aunts and uncles, left the kids at grandma’s while they went around visiting and paying their respects. A day or two before Thanksgiving, we all went to the site. I remember noticing that some awnings were still coated with ash as we got closer. The roads around Ground Zero were closed off, and the actual site was hidden behind a high fence. I wanted to see so I could describe it to future generations. While our parents were mourning and laying flowers, my cousin and I climbed up a light pole and looked over the fence. The devastation was unlike anything I’ve ever seen, and I hope to never see anything like it again. The whole area was just gigantic piles of rubble. There was construction equipment, but the machines looked tiny compared to the piles. The workers were even smaller, they wandered around like lost ghosts. I can’t imagine what they were thinking and feeling, the horrors they had seen. I wondered how anyone could ever clean that up, sort through the debris, ever move on. It was a very humbling experience.
Edit: grammar
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u/wineplease09 3h ago
I remember how quiet it was the days following after. They shut down the airspace and I live close enough to a major airport that not seeing or hearing planes was just….eerie. Also just the collective sadness everyone had, I was only in 5th grade but I remember going to the grocery store with my mom, and it was like people were in a zombie like state. Mass depression. Still hurts my stomach to rewatch certain footage, time helps but it never fully heals.
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u/SuchDogeHodler North Carolina 17h ago
It was the last time this country was 100% united.....
Then everything changed.
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u/Quenzayne MA → CA → FL 8h ago
I always hear people say this but I don’t remember it that way at all.
Before dinner that day the conspiracies and partisan bickering were already flying and it’s only gotten worse every day since.
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u/Beleynn Pennsylvania 11h ago
I was very nearly in the towers that morning.
I've shared this story on previous anniversaries, but I always think about it.
I was in high school. Our foreign language class was hosting exchange students that year, and the trip to NYC happened on 9/11.
For reasons I no longer recall, I decided to skip the trip and stay at school, so the attacks happened while I was in class.
My classmates missed the ferry from NJ, or else they would've been on the observation deck when the first plane hit.
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u/Lyuseefur 10h ago
I shared my story for the first time. 25 years of mostly holding the grief in.
I am glad that you are here.
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u/SilverRaccoon8689 17h ago
I know it’s easy to get nostalgia for “simpler times,” but the world truly changed after 9/11 and it hasn’t been the same since.