It's just like Kennedy's assassination for those of us old enough to remember.

Where were you on September 11, 2001?

I was working as a school counselor in suburban Atlanta, and had just come inside the building after working car duty. A teacher mentioned, "hey, a plane just hit the World Trade Center," and my first thought was a small Piper Cub kind of accident. Several small planes like that have hit the Empire State Building in bad weather, etc. But I remembered that we had a TV on in the back of our Media Center, so I decided to check in on it before I had to go teach a class.

When I got back to the Media Center, I had only been watching about a minute or so before I saw the second plane hit on live TV.

I immediately had to go teach a classroom of 2nd graders. Of course, I didn't share anything with the kids, going ahead and teaching my Guidance lesson, very much on "automatic."

Once I finished that lesson, my next one was a 4th grade classroom. I motioned the teacher to step out into the hallway, and said "two planes just hit the World Trade Center." She began to smile, thinking I was telling her a joke ("Two guys walk in a bar," etc.), but quickly realized I was on the level. After teaching her students (also still very much on automatic), this time she motioned me out to the hallway to tell me that the Pentagon had just been hit.

At that exact moment, I wondered if I would actually see my wife and kids again before the end of the day, scared that ICBM's or something were about to be launched at noon.

Where were you when you heard the news?

I was in a playground with my 1 year old son.

Sitting at my desk working in CT. I'd just graduated from college and had started my first full-time job about a month earlier. Absolutely surreal to think about it.

I was there in manhattan on vacations with my girlfriend now my wife.Very sad memories i saw all form city hall subway station.

Bye
Fernando

I was home with my youngest, who was 3 at the time. After the attack on the Pentagon, I got in the car to go pick my daughters up from school. The administrator was allowing students to leave; living in the DC area, everyone was frightened of what was going to happen next and we all felt particularly vulnerable. After I got my girls home, I spent much of the day outside looking up at the fighter jets zooming overhead and talking to my neighbors. Several of them worked at the Pentagon. Luckily none of them were killed in the attack. DC traffic was at a standstill and all public transportation was shutdown. Many people had to walk all the way from DC to MD or VA to get home.

Less than a month earlier, my father had died suddenly and I was still reeling from the shock and grief of losing him. The 9/11 attack immediately put my personal loss into perspective. but I still kept thinking all day that I wanted to talk to my dad about it.

Same place I am today... At my office...

We received a phone call from one of my coworkers spouses and spent most of the rest of the day glued to the tv...

One of the strangest things that I/we experienced was in giving directions to our office. We are part of a complex that has/had been referred to as "the twin towers on the corner of Northshore & Papermill" for as long as they had/have been there. It was months, if not years before I could refer to them that way again. Any time the fire alarm goes off, there's a part of my brain that goes back to 2001 and thinks about "a different north tower".

Peace,
Mr DJA

Where was i ?? we had just booked a holiday to Florida that morning and then the plane hitting the Tower came on the news. I will never forget that day. Foolishly i believed the events as they were shown to me on my TV screen.
Since then there have been so many unanswered questions about that day, its ridiculous. The more you look into it the more you realise things are not what they seem. Enough said already.

I remember Elvis and Micheal Jackson dying too, you never forget what you were doing on those days. Same with Bowie, just getting over that one

I remember absolutely everything about that morning...
where I was and with who at every minute of the entire day actually.

I just told my 15 year old son this morning that I was glad he wasn't born yet to have lived through that day. Oldest was only three and our daughter was one year old...never forget.

I watched Kennedy's assassination and Twin Towers both on tv, concerning the Towers I was with some Artists in the North of The Netherlands and was shocked and not a happy man when I watched the news.

I have an incredible story to tell about this.

My ex-wife, who was German, was a stewardess flying from the UK to Germany. About 6 weeks before Sept 11 she came home shaken up saying there had been a weird incident on board a plane flying from an English airport to Hamburg.

A man of middle eastern appearance had sat in the first row reciting from the Koran really loudly and half way through the flight lit up a cigarette which was then already illegal.

The guy was asked to stop chanting and smoking repeatedly but refused. On arrival at Hamburg he was arrested and led to a holding cell for questioning by German police. Eventually he was released and nothing more was heard about it.

Fast forward to the aftermath of 9/11 and it was revealed that several accomplices to the ringleader Mohamed Atta had used several European destinations to purposely test the resolve and protocol of aircraft security. One of these destinations was the one used by my wife.

It was also revealed that German security had known about a cell of 'potential terrorists' in the Hamburg area but had no reason to carry out a raid.

My wife was also interrogated at Hamburg airport by police and asked for a full statement about the incident.

Had police acted they could well have averted one of the world's worst ever acts of terrorism.

My wife called me at work. That was after the first plane hit the tower. I checked the internet and saw a first picture of the burning tower. First everyone thought that is was a terrible accident. Later we watched the news on a big screen in the conference room. Normally this room is full of activities and discussions etc.. Now total silence, some of my colleagues were crying. Some sayed that this is the beginning of the next war. All were totally shocked for days, weeks, months - no business as usual possible. I will never forget that day. Fortunately my ten years old daughter was in a school camp with her class for some days with no TV so we could prepare to explain it to her when she returned.

Was at my office in France. A coworker got a phone call from her husband, saying that New York was "under attack", which sounded very unreal! Which country? Is it a war? We were very confused. I didn't have a full internet access at work at that time, and of course no smartphone. So i decided to get back home early, got some news in my car, was at home watching the news on TV just to see the 1st tower collapsing, in tears.
My first trip in NYC was in 2002 (i've been there 4 more times since that), but as far as i remember i've always been pretty much in love with the city. So, 16 years later, i still have hard time and get very emotionnal when i talk about 9/11 with friends.

Living in a cabin on an island off the coast of Maine with no phone, no internet and very spotty electrical service. I was fixing the roof and listening to BBC on a battery powered shortwave radio. I didn't see any pictures or video until I visited the mainland a week or so later.

Was home in the morning with my young son, getting ready for work later in the day. Turned on the TV after getting a phone call.
I pretty much knew from the beginning who was responsible, having grown up seeing decades of Islamic attacks. And here we are, 16 years later, and they are still causing grief in the world.

In the newsroom of the "International Herald Tribune" in Paris.

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Silver Dagger
I have an incredible story to tell about this.

My ex-wife, who was German, was a stewardess flying from the UK to Germany. About 6 weeks before Sept 11 she came home shaken up saying there had been a weird incident on board a plane flying from an English airport to Hamburg.

A man of middle eastern appearance had sat in the first row reciting from the Koran really loudly and half way through the flight lit up a cigarette which was then already illegal.

The guy was asked to stop chanting and smoking repeatedly but refused. On arrival at Hamburg he was arrested and led to a holding cell for questioning by German police. Eventually he was released and nothing more was heard about it.

Fast forward to the aftermath of 9/11 and it was revealed that several accomplices to the ringleader Mohamed Atta had used several European destinations to purposely test the resolve and protocol of aircraft security. One of these destinations was the one used by my wife.

It was also revealed that German security had known about a cell of 'potential terrorists' in the Hamburg area but had no reason to carry out a raid.

My wife was also interrogated at Hamburg airport by police and asked for a full statement about the incident.

Had police acted they could well have averted one of the world's worst ever acts of terrorism.

My goodness. That is absolutely chilling. I'm pretty sure I remember a news story about the Hamburg Police raiding a property in the City in the days after the attacks and arresting several people. At a guess, it was these 'Potential Terrorists' to which you refer.

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stone4ever
Where was i ?? we had just booked a holiday to Florida that morning and then the plane hitting the Tower came on the news. I will never forget that day. Foolishly i believed the events as they were shown to me on my TV screen.
Since then there have been so many unanswered questions about that day, its ridiculous. The more you look into it the more you realise things are not what they seem. Enough said already.

I remember Elvis and Micheal Jackson dying too, you never forget what you were doing on those days. Same with Bowie, just getting over that one

yes, exactly

I was just getting ready to head out the door to work in California (apprx. 6:00 AM)and saw some breaking news live reports on CNN. It wasn't quite clear yet what was happening other than a massive fire in one of the towers. Made it over to the Cal State University Northridge campus, and news was spreading fast about exactly what was happening. I was told the campus would soon be evacuated and shut down for the day. Went back home and was glued to the news for hours...days...weeks...

RIP to all of those who perished on that horrible day.

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Rip this joint, gonna save your soul, round and round and round we go......

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stone4ever

I remember Elvis and Micheal Jackson dying too, you never forget what you were doing on those days. Same with Bowie, just getting over that one

I remember where I was for the Claude François death too
Pierre Desproges ate mussels 2 times when Georges Marchais died

390 Greenwich st ny 2 blocks away

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reg thorpe
390 Greenwich st ny 2 blocks away

OMG, reg....you knew about it immediately.

It was a Tuesday. I turned the TV news on that morning to check the score from Monday Night Football the prior night and saw the tower burning in NYC. Watched the second plane as it hit the second tower in NYC live as it happened. I had to go to work and listened to news radio for updates while I drove. Once I got to work, everyone was gathered in a conference room around a TV. After the two towers collapsed in NYC, we were all sent home. I mostly remember the confusion - no one knew what was coming next. Lots of false reports. Living near Philadelphia, I was worried that something would happen here with all the historical monuments and such - and being a large city between NYC and DC. We all were. Many of my co-workers knew people who were, or could have been in the Pentagon or the towers that day - lots of panic phone calls were being made to check on people.

Will never forget that day.

As I walked into the back of an indoor market in Abergavenny - a small market town in Wales - everyone was gathered ariound their radios............

Hurricane Erin was way offshore, having been pushed away from a cold front.

At the office.

I was at my desk at a school district in Westchester County, NY. The worst of days.

Sixteen years younger

My sister, her son & I were on vacation at our family's summer cabin.

We decided to drive into town that morning & started to notice how eerily quiet everything & everyone was, unaware at the time what had happened.

I ran into a 'general store' to grab some lemonade & fishing worms for the day & everyone just had a blank expression.

When I came back out to the car I told my sister "Something weird is going on"

We decided to cancel our fishing trip to 'The Graveyard' & headed back to the cabin, & that's when we first heard of what happened.

My sister completely freaked & we packed up & left as soon as possible & drove hours to our parents house to watch the news footage just in shock & awe.

I still remember how wild it was not to see a airplane in the sky that day & how many semis were on the interstate.

"Well my heavy throbbers itchin' just to lay a solid rhythm down"

On the beltway in DC watching the dang plane fly right over me and into the pentagon then watched it burn from my office in McClean....never get over that.

JR

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Marhsall
My sister, her son & I were on vacation at our family's summer cabin.

We decided to drive into town that morning & started to notice how eerily quiet everything & everyone was, unaware at the time what had happened.

I ran into a 'general store' to grab some lemonade & fishing worms for the day & everyone just had a blank expression.

When I came back out to the car I told my sister "Something weird is going on"

We decided to cancel our fishing trip to 'The Graveyard' & headed back to the cabin, & that's when we first heard of what happened.

My sister completely freaked & we packed up & left as soon as possible & drove hours to our parents house to watch the news footage just in shock & awe.

I still remember how wild it was not to see a airplane in the sky that day & how many semis were on the interstate.

Being apprx. 30 miles from Los Angeles International airport back then, there's plenty of flights coming and going, and you can hear them throughout the day - when they went silent it was strange indeed. Even stranger was after a couple of days when they started up again - how eery the sound of it was. I had the sensation of having to look over my shoulder when a plane flew above as if something threatening was around - they sounded louder than ever before.

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Rip this joint, gonna save your soul, round and round and round we go......