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September 10, 2001 I was in New York working for Scholastic Books.

I went to an art gallery that night. A Japanese HS student had won a game show and his prize was having his art shown in a NY gallery.

I ran into a buddy of mine there, made plans to go to the Brooklyn Museum.

September 11 was the day for the primary elections for the mayor. I stopped off to vote and was late getting to work.

It was beautiful clear day, just one cloud in the Manhattan sky. Black and gray one.

Someone told me there was a fire at the World Trade Center so I went up to the roof to see if I could spot it.

http://www.pbase.com/kidkyoto/september_11

I think it shows my respect for the dead that I wont joke around on this thread

Condolances to anyone affected by the tradgedy

My condolences to those who lost loved ones on that day. I have what might be considered 'controversial' views on the causes and effects of 11/9/2001, but I don't want to go offending the yanks on this board.

It is truly amazing to think that is has been 8 years...

8 years and still people think it was fabricated by our own US government. I can just imagine the conspiracy theorists are biding their time until the sun rises and they can start spouting their nonsensical theories all across the nation.

Thank the gods I don't know anyone that went through it. I had enough on my plate worrying about my friends in Iraq shortly thereafter.

Powerful photos KidKyoto, thanks for that.

I will continue to mark the minute silence at 1.46 UK time.

Remember the innocent killed by men of hatred.

I was on the USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) we were in the North Arabian Sea at the time. I'll never forget I was just about to go off duty when we saw it on the Ship's monitors. It was awful. Being from New Jersey I was worried about my family who often commute to NYC. I transferred to shore duty on 21 OCT 01. I flew off the ship to Bahrain, then had a layover in Amsterdam, flew across Canada and into Seattle. When I got off the plane and entered the terminal I entered a different United States then the one I left in July of 2001.
I went back to my apartment in Bremerton outside the NAVSTA and watched tapes of the 2001 World Series that my ex-wife taped for me. I remember sitting on the sofa with a bottle of Sam Adams watching my Yankees loose it in stunned silence. That time in my life was like a bad dream, a blur. My professional life and personal changed forever after 9/11.

To finish the story...

A lot of rumors that day, 24 planes were missing, car bombs going off in DC, trucks full of explosives stopped at the GW Bridge... None of them true.

Of course after they hit the Pentagon, I mean who could say what was crazy paranoia and what wasn't.

We started to evacuate the building but by then the subways and roads had been closed and the company made the wise choice to keep us in place where we had TVs, phones and the internet rather than send more frightened people into the streets. We were a mile away so there was no danger.

We went back into the office and crowded around a video screen just in time to see the first tower crumble killing anyone left inside.

Eventually I did take to the streets, they were completely calm. The only crowd I saw was at the hospital with people wanting to help.

When the subways reopened I went home.

The next few weeks were scary. The anthrax attacks started. They would close subway stations whenever there was anything suspicious. I remember lots of times the train would stop in a tunnel for long minutes and then we would slowly cruise by an empty station and not stop.

The friend I met at the gallery, I found out later he worked at the WTC. He had a dentist's appointment that morning. His whole office was killed.

One of my English students worked for a Japanese company. His job was to bring over the families of what we still called 'the missing' so they could go to hospitals and search.

Handmade signs EVERYWHERE asking if anyone had seen some missing friend or relative.

Massive memorials in Union Square park, which was the furthest south anyone was allowed for a week or more.

Fear on September 22 there would be another attack.

And here we are 8 years later.

And as far as I know Osama is still alive.

Strange.

Anyway the gallery below has my pictures from Sept 10, Sept 11 and then some of Ground Zero afterwards. One of the buildings the Deutch Bank building (big black 70s looking one) I worked in for a summer. THe big gash down the front is from the debries of the collapsing towers. The Burger King is where I used to get breakfast.

http://www.pbase.com/kidkyoto/september_11

I don't remember where I was on Sept. 10, but I distinctly remember being in my freshman physical science class on Sept. 11 that morning. Mandeville, Louisiana is like a half-city/half-suburb on Lake Pontchatrain. Blue sky, bright sun, no clouds I could remember. A typical day for a stupid high-school kid that was punctuated by everyone seeming very worried about something happening on t.v. Later on in the day I walked into a classroom that had a t.v. and I learned what was going on. It didn't particularly phase me at first, being the dumb de-sensitized high school kid that I was until later in the week when the reports started coming out bringing detail into story.

I observe the day every year now. Not in any particular fashion or action, but to make sure that I remember everything there is to learn from what happened.

I was working my first week at a school. I went to the basement where the
teachers were working. It was like a fallout shelter down there. Old computers
hummed and spartan work spaces scattered themselves about. In the background,
the copy service center for the school usually hummed along.

It was quiet now, except for the radio.

Upstairs, parents were picking up their kids and we had fewer kids the next day. Reason
eventually set in (who would terrorize a bunch of high school kids in the
residential areas of Chicago?) and the students returned. One teacher, who
wore his military uniform to work at times, disappeared from the school, presumably
to return to the military for a position he could not disclose.

In a couple months, I'd tune out the rest of the news as personal stuff happened, so
September 11 is otherwise a blank for me.

i was in boot camp when it happened. the drill instructors were anxious to go to war, some of the recruits were crying.

RIP to those who died.

I was only in first grade at the time. I remember the principal announcing that school wopuld be closed for the rest of the day, we were let out early. Nobody knew why. We found out when we got home and saw the news. I remember that my oldest brother took me and and older brother to get a pizza from the joint up the street. And, every year after that, the schools in my county have had a moment of silence. As far as I know, I'm the only one who stays silent. I was very worried for my dad, as he works at an army depot. My friends dad worked at the trade center but wasn't there that day.

Powerful pictures.

I was at work that night. I was, at the time, working overnight (graveyard shift).

A coworker showed up in the morning to relieve me. He started with, "Some fool flew into one of the Twin Towers".
It was not until I arrived home that things changed - for me.

After that it was, oddly enough, people online and outside of the USA that brought things into perspective for me with questions like "Umm, what is the US going to do in response?" Friends I had that were on-sight had stories later that still are almost too much.

Other than that it was very much more personal.

Even so, thank you for the post.
The images are powerful and important.

I was working in a health office for the NHS, at first when I heard I pictured a little plane, like a cesna or something, it barely registered, then people were on mobiles and then we were gathered around the computers watching news feeds.

It was very surreal, we were all taken into the largest hall, the manager explained what was happening and that the UK was also moving into a state of heightened alert and that the health centre staff would be on rotation lists for being called into other hospitals in case of incident. Our senior matron, a real old ironclad of a woman, gathered us all in a group and said a prayer.

You know when the world has changed and the anger that rose was chilling, in the streets, in the pubs, the calls for invasion and attack, despite the fact it was not our country that had been attacked.

I was working in a small country hospital in rural Queensland and turned up to night duty 15 minutes early.
No patients, so no handover, I checked it was all locked up then turned on the TV to see what was on, and saw the first building burning (about a minute after the first strike), I thought it was a movie and changed channels, and it was on that one too.

The live feed also cut to the president when he was told about the first crash, and he just sat there. Then after watching for awhile I saw the second plane hit live on TV.
Then they cut again to the president when he gave the speech and was spirited away by the secret service.

I ran back to the nurses qarters, grabbed my laptop, got online and pulled out 3 more TV's with CNN, SKY, BBC and NBC all live, and all running at once.

I then updated dakka with the latest news as the american dakkaites seemed to have no idea what was happening.

I remember someone saying they had been sent home from work at the Sears tower in Chicago, the army/national guard were on the streets of Houston, and somone who lived in Halifax was watching all the redirected transatlantic flights landing, then rolling onto the grass alongside the runway so more planes would be able to fit in the airport.

No patients turned up all night and I went to bed at about midday the next day because the buildings had fallen and it was just shots of emergency services picking through a huge pile of rubble, and other buildings falling.

I was in London at the office. We all watched TV nearly the whole day. Hardly any work got done because we were too mentally excited (I mean, not like it was fun but our brains were racing or shocked.) Everyone knew the world was being changed in front of our eyes. It must be how it felt to listen to the news of Germany invading Poland.

My cousin was working in New York but she was all right. A colleague rang his brother, who was in NY and over the phone heard the noise of the second tower collapsing.

The astonishing thing is how low the casualties were, considering the towers could hold about 50,000 workers and many thousands more visitors.

I think Bin Laden died years ago from kidney disease, if he wasn't killed in Tora Bora.

I don't recall too much about the day,other than thinking it was a horrific accident until the second tower, and a sort of 'pinch me, this can't be real' feeling for a bit after... What does stick in my mind though was an American friend who was in tears because she was told that the retaliation would involve nuclear weapons ><

Condolences to all those affected by this tragedy

I can say that day on the Carl Vinson there was a British LNO that knew me. He saw me in the enlisted aft galley a few hours after we heard, CNN was on in the Galley. My friend from the Royal Navy came up to me and knew I was worried for my family. I'll never forget, he said to me, "Hey Mate...I know things are rotten, but you want to hear a real horror show...let me tell you about my beloved Leeds United." He sat with me in the galley and told me of how MANU beat Leeds in the final. He told me how he cried, talked about relegation and just made me laugh. That night I couldn't sleep but my friend from Leeds stayed up with me playing cards and talking about the FA, trying to keep up my spirits. I slowly started to feel a little better. To this day I still follow Leeds, and love the EPL because of that guy. I lost track of him, but when ever I run into a Brit here I go out of my way to make them feel at home.

8 years ago Americans got a taste of the madness that Ireland,Beirut,Israel and far too many places across the world are bathed in every day.

We remember that almost 3000 people died and twice that were wounded. We remember where we were, and what we were doing. We forget, however, the things we could do but can not now. In the guise of safety we willingly surrendered some of the things that made us free. Some small inch we thought we wouldn't miss. We have become paranoid, watching for a small segment of mankind to the exclusion of common sense . In doing so we defile the memory and sacrifice of the fallen in war and peacetime.

When did honoring the dead include presuming all people guilty of some nefarious schemes in a country founded on the presumption of innocence? Or suspending the rule of law for only some people? Given we respect this loss why are the survivors punishing eachother?

"We remember where we were, and what we were doing. We forget, however, the things we could do but can not now. In the guise of safety we willingly surrendered some of the things that made us free."

Not all of us willingly.

Oldgrue posts like a well constructed liberal spam bot

I remember every day!!! I could make so much more as a contractor, but I choose to stay because it means something to me!

On the 10th I had a day off, did nothing special. On the 11th started work at 7am at Stansted airport, started getting the reports about a plane hitting 1 of the towers, we all thought it was a light aircraft, then the second plane hit and pandemonium hit, flights grounded, aircraft unable to be contacted.

RIP to all those who died and condolences to those affected.

Petty Officer D wrote:I can say that day on the Carl Vinson there was a British LNO that knew me. He saw me in the enlisted aft galley a few hours after we heard, CNN was on in the Galley. My friend from the Royal Navy came up to me and knew I was worried for my family. I'll never forget, he said to me, "Hey Mate...I know things are rotten, but you want to hear a real horror show...let me tell you about my beloved Leeds United." He sat with me in the galley and told me of how MANU beat Leeds in the final. He told me how he cried, talked about relegation and just made me laugh. That night I couldn't sleep but my friend from Leeds stayed up with me playing cards and talking about the FA, trying to keep up my spirits. I slowly started to feel a little better. To this day I still follow Leeds, and love the EPL because of that guy. I lost track of him, but when ever I run into a Brit here I go out of my way to make them feel at home.

Us Brits are a good bunch

It was a bright, cool morning and I was heading out to my Music in Cinema course (I was Film Studies at the time). I was planning on stopping at the gas station and listening to the radio. Once I pieced what the radio was saying and that it was not a joke or just an accident I turned back around and went home to check the TV. My wife was working third shift and still asleep. I saw the second plane hit and called my parents to see if they knew what was going on.

I remember watching the hit on TV, and thinking "holy crap, that's a big plane..."

And then years later being back in NYC and feeling out of place seeing a big hole where the towers should have been.

malfred wrote:Oldgrue posts like a well constructed liberal spam bot

thanks!
I'm not. :(For a few weeks the whole world shut the feth up and watched to see if the American war machine was coming their way.
When Bush opened his mouth about all terrorism I folded up my Sein Fein flag and told the family to expect the worst.
I half expected us to say "Frack NATO" and perform a military extraction of all our fallen from France.

I was calling one of the businesses that had an airplane pull through the drive through five minutes after the first plane hit. We had a very proactive service contract for their internet. For the following month I was directly participating in rebuilding the data infrastructure lost that day, and reminding folks that certain things came first in the list to fix. As much as folks say New Yorkers pulled together, there were plenty trying to climb over the dead to get what they wanted.

No offense intended. It just reminded me of product spam.

None taken. I've never been accused of being 'well written' before

Now if I could convince more people the evil of the TSA.