I was living in Edison NJ on that day. Working nights on UPS airplanes. I was called by my mother asking if I was OK and I had no clue what she meant until I turned on the TV and then went outside and saw the smoke from Manhattan. It was a rough day and made me shiver. I was working at EWR at the time

May the powers above keep the souls lost on that day and let me never forget

Amen to that.

I was asleep in Australia when the attack took place.

I knew nothing until the next morning, when I saw photos of the explosions on people's newspapers in the bus. It took me a while to process that this was real.

I had no personal connections to anyone involved. Thirty Australians died that day. Another 88 were murdered by a similar group in Bali the next year.

(sadnods)

I was in Hartford, Connecticut, working for an insurance company you've likely never heard of. My work area was in a basement with only a few windows. I was returning from an early (8:00) meeting when i met a flood of people leaving the workspace and heading into the core of the building, into the conference rooms where the large-screen TVs were.

The news broadcast was on and it was virtually the same on every channel. We were updated shortly after the second plane hit the south tower.

Osama bin Laden deserved worse than he got. I've heard people decry that it was only the extremists 'defending their beliefs', much as I've heard claims that Pearl Harbor was a defensive maneuver. That's like calling a first-degree murder a reactive act.

Amen to that.

I was teaching in NJ. Kids came in from first period with wild tales, and I agreed to turn on the computers (we had four for labs) and link up to the news websites to get the story straight. We were in time to see the second plane hit, live.

The kids were deathly quiet. I told them, 'Someone has just declared war on us.'

We were lucky. We didn't lose any parents, even though the school served a bedroom community for Manhattan

(nodnodnods)

I was at work that morning when someone from another section (I work in the accounts department) burst in saying a plane had hit the World Trade centre. Like you I thought it was a small plane, then ten minutes later, she came back saying another plane hit the building.

Of course all work stopped by that point. One of my then co-worker's boyfriend lived in New York so she was worried (He ended up being ok, thank God).

I didn't know who Osama was before but I knew by the end of the day.

There was one good thing that happened that day. My aunt, who worked in one of the surrounding buildings which collapsed, was late for work that day. At the time she and my father weren't talking to each other. That incident brought them back together.

Looking at the New York city skyline the morning after really brought home the gravity of the situation.

I can't believe it's been twenty years.

Frankly, I'm worried that some terrorist a-hole is going to mark the occasion explosively...

at least she was able to be with her friends before she passed. as for me, I was in highschool , we were just tabout to start first peirod when someone came in and said the trade center was hit... we watched live on TV as the second plane hit the second tower.. than we watched in shock as the towers fell soon after..

(nodnods)

I was only five years old in kindergarten and couldn’t understand what was going on. Looking back at it it makes me realize just how blissfully ignorant I was to the horrors of this cruel world… it made me so happy to hear that we finally caught Bin Laden. I was in 8th grade at that time.

I spoke to my coworker today and she told me about how she witnessed the second tower fall and how one of her friends was a firefighter in that tower.

We must never forget, no matter what.

Amen.

My primary feeling about 9/11 is a lil' bit odd to some.

They made us fear the skies.

And as an avid planewatcher, and lover of aviation, that angered me.

I recall being unnerved a bit by the silent skies, and then by the sight of planes when regular service resumed. I also got into the habit of looking at places and wondering how terrorists could hit them...

Yeah, I was already paranoid before the attacks, so that was already a thing for me.

Goes back decades for me; what with synagogues being bombed and attacked. I had to sit through services anxiously examining the balconies and choir loft for potential terrorists...

I grew up in the '80s. So, I was brought up to be ready to be NBC'd out of existence from a young age.

I grew up in the "duck and cover" and Civil Defense drill era. Still remember having to go to the basement gym with my classmates and lying down on gym mats...which, in retrospect, probably had to do double duty as giving us kindergartners our afternoon nap...

*Snert* I was goin' to grade school in Florida in the mid-to-late '80s. We still did desk drills.

(nods) Sounds about right.

I had just finished my computer typing test at the university when my dad told me that World War 3 began (until he passed away two years ago, he still believed the Soviet Union was behind the attacks). We got to my sister's home (it was her birthday) just in time to see the Second Tower collapse on television.

As a South African, the biggest effect the attacks had on me was making me much more aware of the outside world and getting to learn more about what goes on outside, to learn more about other countries and related topics.

Never hurts to learn more about the outside world. :)

I was at work... when word came in of the first strike we rolled in a TV to Maintenance Control and then the second strike happened and all hell broke loose.

I will never forget...

If it was up to me... well... we don't need to go there...

V.

I rather suspect we're of one mind there. Black glass.

Exactly!

V.

I recall publically wondering how much energy would be needed to achieve the desired effect. Man! Did THAT set off flamewars! :D

I bet. And now the prez I always liked come out on the side of the left - true colors revealed.

V.

Eh? Now what?

Bush... comparing the Jan 6th protesters to the terrorists - all the while he's been in bed with the Saudis...

V.

Ah. Pfui. TBH, I haven't cared for a POTUS since Eisenhower.

and looking back on things - I tend to agree fully...

V.

And damned few before Ike. Mostly the ones on Mount Rushmore...

Such a sad day it was I was 4 years old when it happened and looking at it now 20 years on it is such a heartbreak.

(nodnods) Amen to that.

I was in sixth grade in the middle of history class. It was a normal day untill my teacher got a phone call and then next thing I knew she started freaking out. Shortly after that we all left. I didn’t know what was going on until later that day.

It’s been 20 years since that day. And over the years the more I grew the more I began to understand how horrific that day was and how lucky I was and how unlucky others were. Though I’ll never forget the day three years later after 911 that I actually saw a video documentary of that. And while all my class mates laughed at all the people that suffered and died that day, I think I was the only one that cried, especially when I saw one of the last remaining people who had helped built the twin towers break down and say he was responsible for what happened because he didn’t make them safe enough to protect all the lives that died that day.

And it’s hard to believe 20 years later that happened.

(hugs) I know.

I responded with similar on another journal, but...

I worked the closing shift at my folks' business(which they retired from in 2018, so they haven't been hit with the current round) and was still living with them, having just graduated high school. I was generally up very late and didn't get up until late morning to go to work.

I was awakened only a couple hours after getting to bed by my phone ringing off the hook. It was my best friend at the time(he ended up moving out of state a year or so later and we lost touch), telling me that I needed to turn on the news, any news channel. "I think we're being attacked." I flipped the TV on just in time to see the second plane hit.

There were a few online friends who were in NYC who had close calls with family, but nobody close to me was hurt or killed. A current friend of mine was in high school a block away from the towers and he told me about frantically escaping the area and seeing people who decided to jump hit the ground. Very tough stuff to stomach.

Beyond the shock, grief, and anger, I knew the halcyon days of my youth had come to a violent, abrupt, and cynical halt. For those of us who hadn't lived through the '80s and '90s, the 'before times' seemed a lot more cheerful and playful, and it's hard to get that across to people who are young enough to have only experienced life afterwards. It was as much a loss of innocence for my generation as it was anything else.

Well said. I grew up in the "duck and cover" era of the late 60s, but this...(sigh)

I was at work in the garage walking across the floor and noticed everybody was watching the tower burning. As we watched the second plane hit and we were in stunned silence and total disbelief. After viewing the incident a few times I walked to the main door and noticed an eerie silence as there were no planes in the air...and we weren't that far from Midway Airport. That really drove home the seriousness of our situation. I could only feel anger at the people that did the atrocities. Later on it was also aimed at the folks that allowed it to happen and all the folks playing the blame game.

Totally agree with the quote from Stilton's Place.

Likewise. And, alas, it appears things are actually getting worse.

I was in Manhattan that day. I had a 10:30 appointment at a customer at 90 William Street, three blocks east of the WTC. I dialed up the local ISP and got connected to IRC, then got in the shower. When I got out, I turned on the TV to check the weather. The Today Show was running reports of a fire at the WTC...and while I watched, the second plane hit.

Needless to say, I didn't make the appointment.

I would up getting a friend on IRC to get another friend from IRC to call my parents to let them know I was OK and nowhere near. (My hotel was at 106th and Central Park West, a few miles uptown.) Cellphones were totally useless, and so were long distance circuits. I kept that IRC connection going all day just so I could stay in touch.

I have two vivid memories from that day: the second plane hitting the towers...and Palestinians dancing in the streets.

And I can still smell the odor that filled the air, even uptown, after the towers fell.

(hugs)

Truth be told, I haven't turned on any news lately, as I'm afraid the raw rage I'd experience would do me harm...

I watched the memorial at ground Zero on CBS, some of those who were reading the names of those lost, all had been family of someone lost. Some of them then spoke very potently about how the US needs to Un-Fuck itself and get back to normal instead of living on WOKE timeline.

Instead of any news currently, I popped in the 1968 movie "Battle of Britain" to uplift my spirits.

Good choice. I've been watching a series on the Dambusters on YT, myself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJRXWYDjaDQ

So there IS pushback against the woke? There may just be hope, then.

One in particular, a son of a firefighter who was only a few weeks old when his father was killed, openly said that his father was murdered by extremists and that We are Americans, not left or right, Democrat or Republican, but Americans first and foremost and need to remember that and live that!

He got huge cheers saying that!

I remember vividly, being on the University of Madison campus commons 3 days after the attacks, and the students holding a Pro-American rally. But sure enough, about 8 students came parading in, holding up a huge banner that read "THE US DESERVED THIS ATTACK FOR ITS MURDEROUS GREED, DEATH TO AMERICA!" Immediately the chorus of Boos and yelling and swearing at this group was deafening, the group only flipped birds back and swore back. Oddly enough a couple Middle Eastern students got up and wrestled the banner down and the band 8 were yelling at them and calling for police, who just stood by and did nothing.

The band of eight then ran off shouting Anti-American, Anti-Bush slogans and a small mob in hot pursuit. BTW, the eight were pasty white liberals we'd later call SJWs. The students then sang God Bless America and Lee Greenwood's 'God Bless the USA'.

This would be the last time I saw the UW show support for the US, Police, Military sadly.

A lovely sight, I should imagine. Pity so much has changed in 20 years.

Appreciate and absorb every single second of such displays of truly human unity. They don't last very long, and they are too few, too short, and too far in between.

A-fraggin'-men to that, old friend. A-fraggin'-men.

my wife had left me that January, my kids had recently been taken away from me (July or August?) and I had literally just gotten my CDL on the 7th and was looking for a job.

That Tuesday the industry came to a screeching halt and it'd be the following January before I'd get gainful employment.

2001 was a bad year for me as well. Don't wanna go into details.

*hugs*

it's been pretty shitty ever since for me, so yeah i totally get you

Had my ups and downs since, but overall, I'm better off now, at least...

at the moment I'm about even. was WAY up, then WAY down. once I have all the debt paid off from the last 3 years, then I'll be pretty good.

Woke up that morning at 5:15am inexplicabily. Premonition, maybe?
Usually had my clock radio alarm set for 5:45am to go to work.

Switched on the radio news station to hear the bulletins of a plane hitting one Tower and turned on the tv to see the smoke billowing from the building. Went to work that day...in a downtown high rise (worked at the 10th floor in a 30 story structure). Got the news that Tower #2 was crashed into. The management told everyone to go home. CNN had a bureau office in the same building and rode the elevator down along with a couple of cameramen headed to the Airport for breaking coverage that United Flight 93 that was headed to my city as the planned destination had went down. I previously worked in another Bay Area city and commuted past one company building there where one Flight 93 passenger worked.

Arrived home and tuned into the news all day. Family members were safe. Unsettling feelings throughout.

History was made in a harsh way.

(grim nods) Indeed.