Monday is the fifth anniversary of September 11th. This thread is intended for people to discuss not only how the terrorist attacks affected the US - and the world - but also to talk about where you were when it happened, your thoughts, and how you were affected.

I think it's fair to call the attacks our generation's JFK assassination; I doubt I'll ever forget that day myself.

I've seen a documentation upon this on Friday with my brother. We both were amazed that already five years have passed and told our stories upon hearing about it first.

I was alone at home and was stll going to school. We had recently got our cat Merlin and he was rather nasty this day. I remember quite well that I was bored and switched on the Radio. There they announced that the first tower of the WTC was on fire, but they speaker said it would be a problem with the elevator. So I got into the living-room to switch on the TV. When I switched it on I saw the second plane crash into the tower and was just staring at it with my mouth hanging wide open. I couldn't believe what i was seeing. My second thoughts were:"This must be a fake. This must a Hollywood-movie."
Surprisingly was my cat suddenly quite and lied down.

The next day in school there was almost panic. Our country has a long history of war and many, me included, just thought, "Please don't make war." But sadly enough it came true.

I was having my elbow pieced back together that morning. I had been having major elbow problems, stupidly tumbled on it the night before and had a stress fracture partially let go-so they were trying to get the bone back into place and braced my arm and sent my off to physical therapy to deal with the six million other problems in the joint (it was ugly). and then I went back to campus and flipped on the TV. I watched the second plane and both towers. My family lives in the DC. My father works at DC police headquarters, which is within spitting distance of the Capitol building. I was panicking. (Mr. RB, who was just the future Mr. RB at this point, was off int he woods for the semester and I called and made someone go find him and drag him to a phone-he had no idea what was going on)

but now when I think about what happened, I just get MAD. the person who orchestrated this is still out there.....

The first thing I heard about wasn't the WTC, but the Pentagon.

I was a freshman in college. That morning, my roommate and I had just gotten up for an 11:15 class we had with a bunch of our floormates. It must have been about 10:15. My roomie, Megan and I stumbled down the hall, and this joker who lived on the floor grabbed us before we went into the bathroom to shower, and told us a plane had just crashed into the Pentagon. We thought he was BSing us, so we followed him into his room and learned about the crashes into the towers.

After a few minutes, we went to shower, and then got ready for class. One of the guys on our floor was pacing, trying to reach his sister, who lived in either NY or DC; I think DC. He finally got in touch with her, but by the time classtime rolled around, he wasn't about to get off with talking to her, so a group of us went down to class w/o him.

We told the prof and a couple other students who'd been in class and haadn't heard yet about it - it was an American History survey course, American Civilization since 1876 - and about the guy who hadn't come down, and the prof said "Well, there's nothing really to discuss, so we'll go on with class." About twenty minutes before the end of class, he got annoyed with us and said that since no one seemed interested in paying attention, he'd let us out early. (DUH!!) The university closed for the day, and most of our floormates ended up in mine and Megan's room, and just watched the news the rest of the day. All you could hear up and down the hall was echoes of newscasters saying the same thing. It was eerie.

I was a sophmore in college in DC. I lived in a dorm that was 5 blocks away from the White House and just across the river from the Pentagon. I had a 9:00 class; I rolled out of bed and went. Someone mentioned before class began that a plane had hit the WTC, the professor tried to get online on the projector to show us the news, but couldn't (we later realized the Internet was too congested). So we continued on in class. Later someone who had come into class late told us that a second plane had hit the WTC- this was when we realized it wasn't an accident. We talked about it for about 5 minutes and then the professor continued lecturing.

I RAN back to my dorm when class was over and turned on the TV. I was surprised to find that there was a message on my machine from my aunt in Wisconsin, who I've met about 5 times in my entire life. It said that my mom was trying to get in touch with me to see if I was okay. I wondered why my mom hadn't called herself and why she was worried about my safety when all this was happening in NY. Just as the message was playing the TV was telling me another plan had hit the Pentagon.

The next couple of hours were awful. My roommates and I were trying to contact our parents and couldn't. This was particularly bad for one of my roommates, because her mother works in Manhattan. Finally I got in touch with my mom. At this point the TV was saying there was a fourth plane in the air and that it was speculated that it would hit either the White House or the Capitol. Needless to say, we were all freaked. We kept waiting for an RA or university official or SOMEBODY to come tell us what to do- evacuate, what? But noone ever came, and we couldn't get on the Internet, and phones weren't working. I was IMing my sister who lived in Northern VA, she suggested I Metro out there to be safe, and I told her there was no way in hell I was going on the Metro at a time like that and that it was closed anyway. At the same time I was trying to reach my best friend, who went to school in Manhattan. We watched the towers fall on live TV.

Crazy rumors were circulating- there was a bomb at the State Dept. (also just blocks away), there were fires on the Mall, the USA Today building in Rosslyn had a bomb. Eventually we found that these rumors weren't true. We also found out about Flight 93-- I think we all collectively sighed in relief, because it meant that we/DC were safe. But the thought that the people on the plane had given their lives for that was a little too much for us to handle.

For weeks afterwards there were military police all over town-- it was weird. I cringed every time a plane flew overhead. There were SAMs (Surface-to-Air Missiles) by the monuments, WH, Pentagon.

I actually read through the JCC thread posted on 9/11, and read about all those rumors; many I'd never heard before. I do know that there were a number of possible destinations for Flight 93, including Camp David and Three Mile Island, as well as the White House and the Capitol building.

I have a cousin who was supposed to be in the WTC that day for a meeting, but it was cancelled for no reason at all. One of my profs lost his girlfriend of seven years in the second tower to be hit - he was on the phone with her briefly before it was hit. She told him they wouldn't let people evacuate the second building.

The tower dorms in the Southwest residential area at UMass were almost evacuated, mainly because of the fact that the first plane, at least, had come out of Logan, and the towers were the most visible thing in the valley in Western Mass. The reservoir near my parents' place, which is Boston's water supply, had parts completely off-limits for a while, and even now you can't drive through the whole thing - they're worried about contamination or bombing the dam, or both.

I was in fourth grade.

Halfway through the morning, my teacher told us that two planes had hit the WTC in New York, and a third had hit the Pentagon. Then parents started taking their kids out. See, we were just outside one of the major banking capitols of the east coast.

Honestly, it's not as memorable for me as it should be, because I didn't know anyone in New York or DC. However, my good friend lives in upstate NY, and one of the planes flew over her school.

I was getting ready for school, and just before I left my mom told me that a plane had just crashed into the World Trade Center. I thought it was really wierd, having gone there three weeks previous. I didn't think much of it, though. It was only when I got to school that I began to realize how bad it was... in class we had a discussion on what had happened and who had done it. It was the first time I was really introduced to the concept of "terrorism".

Just now, reading Myra say she was in fourth grade, I had to stop and think about how old I was. I was 18; it doesn't feel like that now.

My US History teacher probably put it best. I recorded every one of his lectures on a minidisc, and using that, I made a transcription of this quote:

"There are points in time that serve as benchmarks for a generation, events that become engraved into our very being. These are events that you think about every day because they were so incredibly life-altering. For my generation, it was the attack on Pearl Harbor. For many of your parents, it was the assasination of John F. Kennedy... For you, without a doubt, it was the events of September 11th, 2001."

I was in the seventh grade, and I was twelve years old. I remember that I didn't have jazz band that day, so I was sort of "sleeping in."

I was still in bed when my mother burst into my room. Being on the West Coast, I had no idea what was going on until the country was well into it. I didn't quite comprehend what my mother had told me. She had said that planes had crashed into the twin towers in New York. For a few moments, I just laid in bed, trying to clear my head. In one horrifying moment, I realized what she had just said. I burst out of bed and into the living room, where my mother had the TV on.

By this point, I had already missed the second plane striking the North tower. I watched the screen, trying to see the other tower, not realizing that it had already collapsed. I told myself that the smoke coming from the north tower as well as the camera angle probably had hidden the other tower from my view. I can't remember exactly how long I was watching, perhaps five minutes, perhaps even as much as twenty minutes. I remember hearing that the tower had been burning for about an hour and a half.

I watched as the North tower collapsed, as it fell in ontop of itself. My mind was blank as it was happening, but a few moments after the collapse had completed, it slowly dawned on me that many lives had been lost right before my eyes. I had just witnessed the deaths of coutnless innocent men and women.

As the camera panned away to a wide-shot of the New York skyline, I remember hearing the late Peter Jenning's voice. I could hear the anguish within him as he was speaking. One of America's great voices had been reduced to tears on live television. I think that was the point where it really hit me hard. My mother turned off the TV and offered to drive me to school instead of taking the bus like I normally would have. We rode in silence the entire way, but as I stepped out of the car she grabbed my arm. Normally she would just let me go with both of us saying "have a nice day" to eachother, or something to that affect. That day was different, though.

She told me she loved me and gave me a hug before sending me off.

In all the chaos, that is probably the one memory that sticks out the most.

Jennings was the anchor who cried at the Kennedy assassination as well, wasn't he?

I may be wrong, but I think Jennings is too young to have been the one. Walter Cronkite maybe?

Possible; I have a book I'll have to check.

it was Cronkite, I'm 99% sure.

I love Peter Jennings-still do. his loss is a gapping hole in news media :(

Spee, are you a GW grad?

I was 20-we were up doing shots all night trying to make sense of it all.

I remember the rumors flying all morning-car bomb at State dept, a fifth plane still unaccounted for......it was horrifying. And impossible to get a line in or out of DC and thus no way of getting ahold of my father (who ended up walking from Judicary Square all the way to Woodly Park and crashed at a co-workers place until my mother could get into the city that night)

my brother lost a friend at the Pentagon :(

I was so young, I had no concept of what had happened at all until I got home and saw the special section that the newspaper put out - only time in my life they've ever done it. We still have the section: put together hurriedly, a four-inch headline (TERROR) over a picture of the towers.

Honestly, though, I was just so young that I just didn't quite get it. I've never been to New York - the Pentagon meant more to be, because of my dad's military trivia interest.

I feel bad that I can't say it was lifechanging, but I honestly can't.

We had an interesting discussion in history class today... Our teacher told us that 9/11 had more economic reasons for occurring than religious ones.

I live in the Philippines, and since my country at that time was very much allied with USA, it was a huge shock to us. I have an aunt in Manhattan, and I worried about her right away. She was okay, thankfully, though she couldn't say the same for her patients who lost family members or friends in the tragedy.

But what I hated was all the discrimination that came around after 9/11. It suddenly became so difficult to be Muslim or even Asian-looking. I hate how extremists give a bad name to whole countries or religions.

Valin, I'm curious about the economic reasons. What do you mean?

Yup.

My doctor today told me that this is the 5th anniversary of his daughter's activity in suicide prevention. On the night of 9/11/01, she found a friend of hers had tried to commit suicide because of all that had happened.

One of the most important events in German history had also zero effects on me when it happened. I was too young, too and when I saw the pics I thought it was already Sylvester. Only later I could realize what it meant for my country and even the world.

So don't feel bad about it, Myra.

What event are you referring to, Durrell ?

I remember seeing the tearing down of the Berlin wall on telly. It was particularly fascinating because my brother, Geoff, was in the Briitsh Army and spent many years stationed in Berlin. I went there twice, and of course viewed the wall and the House at Checkpoint Charlie.
The night the Wall came down, my brother went out to watch it happen, and took his daughter with him. She was only about five or six, and kpet saying that she was cold, and wanted to go home.

Exactly that event. I was seven when the wall came down and I remember very fuzzy that my parents were very excited about that and stared intensly at the TV, where people cheered standing upon a big wall.

We even have relatives in the east of Germany and actually visited them once when the wall was still there, but I was only three so I don't remember anything of it either. To my big shame I have to admit i've never been in Berlin.

I was 18, senior in high school.

A couple of freinds at school (being from atlanta area) had fathers who were airlane pilots, they were freaking.

People were walking around the schoo, with cell phones, calling home, callingrelatives. We didnt know if anythign would happen to us, cause Dobbins AFB ? LockheedMartin (where they build the F22 Raptor) is just a mile away.

A couple of teachers got in some trouble for being dicks about people not being able to pay attention to class, I remember one teacher tried to get students to pay attention by askin why we were so intersted in it and to pay attention to history class.

I went off on the teacher, told her that what we were talking about WAS history, since well over 10,000 people COULD be dead (I froget how many people worked in the WTC, was a large number IIRC).
She said she didnt see why that matterd, I told her that was exactly why she was a bad history teacher, and walked out, the rest of the class joined me, and we just congegated my the main entrence to the school, watching news on TV (the school had TVs on mounts in some places in the hallways, for use in emergencys, posting info and such).