Comments

Episode-1868- Listener Feedback 9-12-16 — 38 Comments

  1. I was in school watching the news as it happened , I was in the army recruiting office on 9/14/2001

  2. My sister and I were on our way to work listening to Mancow. Before the announcement was made that a plane hit the tower, Mancow was complaining about people only tuning into his show halfway through. He explained that he was going to teach the late listeners a lesson by playing a joke on them and only the early listeners would know. About 10 minutes after that rant, he make a dramatic exclamation that a plane hit the twin towers. My sister and I thought it was a really lame joke, but Mancow wasn’t/isn’t known for being a class act in that respect.

    We shrugged it off and arrived at work to a bunch of our coworkers gathered around the TV in the break room. Unfortunately it wasn’t a joke. Our mom was supposed to be in the tower for business that day. Her coworker traded her spots, she went to Georgia and he went to NYC. His wife was on the phone with him when he was trapped in the tower as it collapsed. We are so very fortunate.

  3. I was on a long vacation in Nova Scotia and camping at Thomas Radall Provencal park in Port Joli on the South West coast: http://parks.novascotia.ca/content/thomas-raddall . This is a very beautiful area full of seals and at one time was a massive summer encampment of micmac indians, probably one of he biggest on the east coast. This is a great campground as well with large sites that are far apart in a wooded area. There’s really nice walking trails around the bay as well and hardly any houses for miles. September can be an ideal time for ocean swell kicked up by Atlantic Hurricanes far out at sea and that particular year the surf was really good. Nova Scotia sticks way out on the Atlantic and picks up decent swells for an east coast locale.

    My girlfriend was with me on that trip. It was a beautiful sunny morning and she came back to the campsite from taking a shower and said that another camper told her that the pentagon or some such was attacked by terrorists and they crashed planes into buildings. At the time it sounded like the craziest thing I had ever heard and I think at first I felt like I was not sure if I should believe her. That is the most clear initial memory I have of 911. A kind of shock and disbelief.

    For the rest of the week I was up surfing every day at White Point, a very low key beach area with a bar http://www.whitepoint.com/
    Every day after surfing I would hang out at the one bar in the whole place and watch the TV news reports of the buildings collapse and such .. going over and over showing buildings coming down and dust spraying everywhere

    I think I had to shave my beard off as we where concerned about taking the ferry back to Maine, customs and all. It was even reported that the terrorist came over on the ferry. They would have been getting off the ferry when we where getting on to come over. I think even on the same day

    911 seemed to start a whole process of reading books on al Qaeda, jihads, the federal reserve and eventually some conspiracy books. I found Jim Mars conspiracy 911 book at Barnes and Noble. At the time I was not even looking for that. I had heard somewhere ideas of an inside job, but never took it seriously until I started browsing through that book which I think must have been around 2004 or so.

    I gradually have been traveling less and less since 9/11 but I think someday I want to get another truck camper and head back to Nova Scotia and other places (depending on the economy/gas prices). I think I was in Nova Scotia last around 2008

    • I live in Prince Edward Island, equally beautiful. I was working as an independent computer consultant in Saint John, New Brunswick for Irving Oil at the time. My sister and mother just left from visiting me that Saturday, and I headed over to work from PEI (4 hrs) that Tuesday. My biggest memory was when one of the girls said “The tower collapsed”, and initially I thought, the radio tower on top of the building, she said “No, the whole f*ng building”. I was sick with an awful feeling. Then hearing my friends in Halifax hearing about planes landing, then reading about Gander Newfoundland. Everything was happening so fast

    • Surfivor – Thanks for the links! I just got back from Quebec and am already thinking of my next vacation 🙂 Who is the TSP community member who has a B&B or inn in Canada?
      Brent-I’m an Irving customer and was recently speaking with a rep in St. John’s.

  4. I was 20+ feet in the ground installing water line for a new site. Excavator operator yelled the news down to me, but didn’t believe it until seen there was no more air traffic. Was in State College at the time.

  5. Re:vaccines. I had a severe reaction to the flu vaccine (required by employer) two years ago. I spent time in the ICU & have lasting neurological damage (not to mention lingering legal and financial headaches). It’s not just kids that are affected. Medical facilities require staff vaccination because the rate affects reimbur$ment. Emerging research suggests flu vaccine is largely ineffective. In fact, annual vaccination may make a person more susceptible to flu. https://www.statnews.com/2015/11/11/flu-shots-reduce-effectiveness/
    I agree there is good in vaccination, but do your homework.

  6. My wife and I were newly married and finally stationed together at Ft Hood.

    I was working an evening shift on an airfield and woke up to build a new doghouse. Went back and forth from the TV and the build. Doghouse fell apart a few months later when the dog jumped on top of it.

    My wife recalls knowing it happened after PT and then being stuck in the motor pool and not being allowed to leave or watch/listen to the news.

    After that, anyone who worked on a CONUS base can recall the long, long, long lines to get thru security at the gates… For years after.

    Thanks Jack.

  7. In the uk on a day off at the beach, to my surprise a lot of people were celebrating the event, they saw it as some sort of ‘natural deserved justice’ to an evil empire which had spent the previous 50 years bombing poorer countries and topling democraticly elected governments. I don’t think they realized that so many ordinary workers were murdered in the twin tower attack nor did they consider that hundreds of thousands of people would be murdered in the follow up invasions of iraq, Afghanistan and destabilising of Libys, Syria etc, nor did they consider that western governments would use the twin towers as an excuse to supress it’s own citizens.

  8. I cannot adress contaminates but weeds can make minerals bioavailable. Lambsquarters and redroot pigweed both contain calcium. From the soil.

  9. We lived in Singapore and the evening of 9/11(12 hour time difference), TV was interrupted when the 1st plane crashed into the WT Towers. We watched as the 2nd flew into them with shock and disbelief. I stayed up till 4 am watching the news.
    My retired marine husband went to work the next day, but instructed me to inquire about the American School Security plans for our kids. Eventually the school assigned Gerka Guards with machine guns at the school entry. The next evening hundreds of international families gathered in our predominately American expat neighborhood to pray for the lost and show support for the USA. It was very heart warming to all of us americans
    The day after, my lovely muslim housekeeper came to work and as we discussed the tragedy, she wanted to know if the democrats might have done the deed as they might be angry about the hanging chads. She really did not want to think another muslim would have done this. When I mentioned this new guy, Osama Bin Laudin, she did know of him. She said he was very bad and could not go to Mecca as flies would land on his face because he was such a bad muslim.
    It was a very tense time to be in South East Asia, but I think it must have been worse back home.
    I did not let my 2nd grader know exactly what happened as we had to fly 24 hours home the next June and I did not want her to be afraid to fly. She did not learn about exactly what happened till the next fall after we had flown to the states and back to Singapore.
    As Singapore is an international financial center there were lots of people connected to New York City. One fellow lost his whole company as it was based out of the Towers. He was totally lost. Everything was gone.
    As a benevolent dictatorship Singapore kept us very safe during this awful time. The bombing attempt at the US naval installation was dealt with swiftly. The city state was on high alert for a good 6 mos.

  10. I was in Chicago, having flown there for an IT conference. I think I wandered out of a keynote to catch a TV and first learned the news. The rest of the day was a blur, taking in what had happened, wondering about getting home. That afternoon/evening I wandered pretty bare streets of Chicago, hearing rumors that Sears Tower was closed earlier and targeted. Friday of that week I took an industry certification exam, but the big concern was getting home. Saturday, I made my way to Ohare at about 4am, hoping there would be some flight home as air travel was to open back up that day. I did get a flight, a small puddle jumper, maybe 30 total seats with maybe a dozen occupied. I didn’t relax until several minutes after passing the Mississippi River, but not truly relaxing until we were on the ground.

  11. Was working at a large broadcaster. Walked past the help desk just in time to hear “BS – it had to be a Cessna”. 7 TVs at the help desk, all on different stations, all of them speculating about something. I had work to do – no time to worry about a wayward Cessna in NYC. We had TVs all over the building, & when the 2nd plane hit there were screams throughout the building. At that instant everything changed – we ALL knew it was an attack, not an accident.
    When jumpers were shown, the screams were long and loud.
    The rest of the day was pretty much just going through the motions between significant events. The Pentagon. Rumors of a plane in a field in PA.
    I remember President Bush coming on, and thanking God that Gore wasn’t the Cmdr in Chief.

    Lunch was a gathering of somber people discussing how exactly this might change our whole freaking world. Little did we know.
    For most of us, there was shock, followed by profound sadness when we learned people were free-falling out of the buildings, followed by rage.
    Rage.
    We had a quick team huddle to let people talk through it. The military veterans on the team really helped steady everyone else. They looked people in the eyes and said things like “relax. Pity those poor bastards once we figure out who they are, because they don’t know what sort of hornets nest they just kicked.”
    We lived near an Air Force base. That week, we’d turn to local news every time an F16 took off using after-burners. We didn’t sleep much.
    Because we broadcast Al Jazeera in addition to hundreds of other channels, we started to receive bomb threats the very next day.
    United we stand. I can’t believe we re-elected someone who thinks terrorism isn’t an existential threat. We knew 15 years ago that it was going to be them or us, and most of us were pretty danged determined that it was going to be THEM.
    Let’s roll.

  12. I just listened to an episode from early 2014, there was a question about soil ph level and Jack explains that adding limestone or lime can make acid soils more alkaline. So just a suggestion maybe the calcium carbonate could be added to a part of your garden or a large pot which you may want to make more alkaline.

  13. Good morning jack, please read. I I hold you in the upmost regard. I once sent you a message, it was like, ” I heard you talking about the dog that was a perfect companion for new homestead, I know you are busy, so what is a good dog for a new person that is calling to make it on their homestead?, one word answer, because I know how busy you are, Thanks for all you do.” You replied, “two word answer, Great peerenees”. I want you know how much of a blessing she has been to us since the then. Thank you.

    Now I want you you to know how much of a blessing you have been to me, personally. I am an old school Paramedic. A Dinosaur of Paramedicine. I have helped countless people, both young and old. I am also a volunteer fire fighter. I am the person that will follow the vehicle that has unrestrained children for miles while I am on the phone with the state police to stop them. I am also the unnamed person who will stop at an accident on the road to help save a life, then leave without any recognition. Right now, I am sitting in my back yard sobbing uncontrollably. Like I said, I am old school, but I’m ok. The episode that you ended with the group Poison, with the song “Give me something to believe in” hit home. I relate to that so much. I am that man. I know that person.

    This episode took it a step further. I think that the public knows the sacrifices that we make, both emotionally and psychologically, but they don’t really understand. I lost over 300 brothers and sisters in the 911 attack. Others in my profession feel the same way. We give so much, but know not to expect any in return. I was working offshore that day. While those around me could only see the horror that was unfolding before them, I could see it for what it was. We were stuck out there without transportation, food or water for a week, but we made it ok.

    You are dead on. Keep up your good work. You are helping more than I ever could, and some don’t even know it. Thank you for all you do. By the way, my dog is the best listener and best friend. Thanks so much. Keep up the good work. We care. H,

    • Believe it or not I remember that email. I thank you for your service and I believe that your life and those around you are better due to it. Karma is real in my view both in the here and now, in the future and in the beyond, trust me brother you have a great big ass full battery of karma, one that could indeed run a Steven Harris light saber.

  14. My husband and I were getting ready to go to work. He always had the TV tuned to news and set up in our bathroom. He called to me to come see the news saying a plane had hit a building. We stood there frozen as we watched the second building hit. He said to me” we are under attack, there might be more up there”. My first thought was of our young son, only 13 at the time. ” Would this be his Vietnam?” I was a young person growing up in the shadow of the Vietnam war, my brother served as a Navy Medic. I will always remember how sad he was when he came home. I never wanted this for my son. A parents biggest fear, is to give up her child to war. The ongoing tragedy of this event is the constant war and seeing our countries most valuable treasure, our young men and women, given over to this conflict. It saddens me to see so much, pain and suffering result from that one day. So many innocent killed in far away countries as well as our own. I cried for months and still to this day become emotional with the thought of all the lives lost and changed forever that day. I could never truly know the pain of losing a loved one or a friend to that tragedy. But I will never forget.

  15. I had gotten up that morning, and turned on the TV and hoped in the shower. I was working at Oral Roberts Television at the time. I remember getting out of the shower and walked into the living room of my apartment while drying of and seeing the news of the first tower being hit and only thinking it was some crazy dude flying a Cessna.

    I was either standing sitting on my couch already a little late for work, but not caring when the 2nd plane hit the tower, and it was then I knew that it was game on and I needed to get to work. I went to work, I lived less than 5 minutes away, I walked into the control room and brought up Fox News and watched the towers fall.

    We supplied cameras and various other TV equipment for the campus chapel services (Oral Roberts University). Like i said earlier I knew it was game on in more ways than one, I started packing the TV gear to take up the hill to chapel since I had a very strong feeling that we would have a special chapel service, work for people like that and you get a feel for things, especially stuff like this. I had some of our more complicated equipment broken down packed up, and reassembled in a personal record time for myself, I think God was guiding my hands and my mind that day.

    I remember calling my folks in Indiana that day, and talking about what happened, and talking to my next door neighbor named Betty. I was pretty much like everybody else for the next week glued to the TV watching the replay and hoping for something new.

  16. Jack, regarding the standing during the national anthem, I watched the Steelers last night and noticed all the photographers kneeling while photographing Alejandro Villaneuva, the Steelers Army Ranger left tackle while the anthem played. Noticed similar behavior for the next game with the Niners. While they were not protesting, if everyone was sincere about the respect for the anthem, there would be one live feed from a fixed camera, and all others at the game and producing the game, with the exception of the singers and flag bearers would be standing with their hand on their heart or saluting.

    I bet the NFL doesn’t stop beer sales during the anthem, nor do many of the internet anthem trolls stand at home while watching the game.

  17. Another song I thought of while listening was by Garth Brooks, we shall be free.
    I was on my way to work when I heard about a possible small plane crashing into the tower. As I walked into my office a co worker yelled out “another one just hit!”
    I was a volunteer firefighter in Levittown, NY at the time. I left work, went home to give my wife and son a hug and kiss, then headed to the firehouse to get on the truck and go into Manhattan. Our Chief, Ron Kerwin was also a leutanant in the FDNY squad 288. He and the 7 other s of his team that day never made it home. I lived two houses away from Ronnie and remember waving to him that morning as he drove past me as we were both leaving to go to work . I know I will never forget that day and the days that followed.

    • Good point I have been in Stadiums when the anthem plays and you are in the tunnels and what have you. No one really stops going about their business, it is like the ritual only applies when you are inside the actual church. Think about that.

      Oh and how many people stand at their house when it plays on TV? I guess it is a magic song that applies only when you are in the right proximity of it?

  18. I was at teh couty fairgrounds when the planes hit on 9-11. Families have to camp at the fair, those whose children have animals there. ANd, my kids homeschooled. The majority of parents and children were off to school or work, some still there with us and they ahd taken the week or day off ( 4H parents trade off, so someone is around for animals) So, at that moment, we were in the “campground” in the fair lot, there was a circle of 3 large RV’s, and a few of us with tents, there were a couple picnic tables in the center, so my 2 older children I had set to work on their school work at the picnic tables and my then 3 year old was just playing there, and one of the adults in an Rv had had the tv news on, told everyone, then brought the TV out to the tables and all of us saw the second plane hit. It was very sobering experience, seems that the people there together when this happened kept a connection til now even. For many of us it is associated with the fair, with the childrens livestock projects, a few of these adults realy upped the volunteerism to this venture, even to today, as I said. I think about all the children donated all their livestock money ( from the auction at the end of the week) to NYC, I know my son did, he was about 5th grade then and had a reserve champion that fetched a large price. The fair of course did not open the next day to the public, it opened a day late, so we all were there comforting each other and murmuring about it all. Realy seemed that a larger war was starting, many older youth did sign up.

  19. My then girlfriend (now wife) was working in NYC as she had graduated college a semester before me. I got up to head to a 9am class and heard a plane hit the WTC. “That’s a shame,” I thought, “Glad I don’t know anyone in Chicago.” Off to class I went…

    About halfway through my class, all the cobwebs cleared and I realized that the Sears Tower is in Chicago and the WTC is in NYC. In the Financial District. Where my girlfriend worked!

    I ran back to my dorm only to find out another plane hit the second tower. I started frantically trying to call her. No response on her cell. No response on her office. What I didn’t know at the time was she and her boss went to the top of their building (World Financial 1) to see what was going on. They had the unfortunate chance of getting there just as the second plane hit. As soon as that happened, their building began evacuations and she could only access the emergency stairs (no way to return to her bag and cell phone).

    She saw all the chaos first hand – the people jumping, the building falling – and had to run from the dust and debris. All these years later and she still hasn’t been able to completely tell me the full story of that day. And she’s never cried about it. I think it’s a defense mechanism for her more than a lack of empathy for the situation.

    Fortunately, she made it onto a bus and ended up getting down to Battery Park. From there, she and her boss walked to Midtown where her aunt and uncle lived. They watched the silent city from their rooftop that night and were amazed at the quiet of the city. No planes, minimal traffic – just fighter jets and rescue vehicles.

    During my frantic search for her, I was a wreck. I was calling everyone I knew with no luck and, as the hours wore on, was wondering if I was going to be one of “those” people. Thoughts of enlisting ran through my head and, had a worst case scenario presented itself, I’m fairly certain I would have. I was angry and scared and pissed off all at once. Here I was at 22 – barely a man – thinking I was going to be burying the woman I love.

    I finally made contact with her sister – who was at college in Buffalo – over AOL Instant Messenger (of all things). She told me my wife was safe and that phone service was spotty at best hence no call. Relief isn’t the word. Pretty sure I cried (read: balled) once I found out. She was able to walk over the Brooklyn Bridge the next day and get a train out to her folks’ place on Long Island the next day.

    So, every 9/11, I remember how I’m one of the lucky ones. I realize that the life I’m living right now could have changed drastically if she had done just a few things differently (take a different train, go into work a little late, etc.). My two daughters are a daily reminder of what that day could have taken away from me and did take away from so many people.

  20. I was working in Reston, VA just a few miles from Washington Dulles and close to the AOL headquarters building. I was at my desk when someone yelled out “a plane hit the twin towers!” My response was “that’s not funny” and kept working. Then, it sunk in that no one else was at their desks. I went looking for them and found them in the kitchen/lunch room watching the T.V. A few minutes later, we watched the second plane hit and the realization that this was INTENTIONAL. The panic was palpable. A construction supervisor was watching it with us and commented “those towers will come down…they way they hit those towers…they will come down.” One of my coworkers had family that worked in the Towers so she spent the next few hours calling and trying to find out if they were okay. The CEO of the association I worked for would not send us home because she wasn’t sure if it was safe for us to be on the roads. She forbid any of us from leaving as she was afraid for our safety “out there”. We heard that AOL had cleared out as they were afraid they were on the target list. The first report about a hit at the Pentagon was that a helicopter had crashed on the helipad. Then, that a small plane had crashed into the Pentagon. And, then, finally, that it was a commercial airliner. And, that there was a plane not responding to orders to land…and it was heading toward DC. That was the one that came down in the field in PA. I believed at the time and still do that our military brought down that plane. No one wants to think they would do that; but, I think they did to avoid it hitting the White House or the Capital Building. When we were finally sent home, the roads were empty – nothing was open, deserted and silent. Freaky. Every church service, two men stepped out of our choir to assist the Pastor from his wheelchair to his “preaching stool”. One of those men, a Lieutenant Colonel, was in the Pentagon War Room that morning. Friends of a friend were killed in the Pentagon that morning. The next day, everyone was flying The Colors – including many people of Middle Eastern ethnicity in an effort to show they were not terrorists. The owner of the convenience store where I got my morning caffeine fix seemed surprised and grateful that I continued to stop there.

  21. I was in Federal Prison. And because I was there on weapons charges they rounded up all us possible terrorists and threw us in the hole for a couple of weeks. Wow. Talk about panic.

  22. On 11/9/2001 We were in our flat on Lantau Island in Hong Kong where I worked for MCI on the 79th floor of the second tallest building on the island. It was a sad day for us as Sept. 11 is the birthday of our eldest son who was killed at age 21 in 1995. We had finished supper and I sat down to my PC to check my email before letting our 5 yr old play her “Puppies to the Rescue” game. I had recently signed up to the CNN alert email service and was surprised to see this email

    “Subject: CNN Breaking News

    BREAKING NEWS from CNN.com

    — World trade center damaged; unconfirmed reports say a plane has crashed into tower. Details to come.

    For complete coverage of this story visit:

    http://www.CNN.com or AOL Keyword: CNN

    CNN Headline News has changed everything but its name.
    Visit us online at http://cnn.com/headlinenews

    ========================================================
    To UNSUBSCRIBE or SUBSCRIBE to any CNN E-MAIL service Visit: http://www.CNN.com/EMAIL

    (c) 2001 Cable News Network, Inc. An AOL Time Warner Company

    CNN Interactive email id:2882085201245485″.

    (Yes, I still keep this email)

    I called down to my wife to turn on the TV and then booted “Puppies to the Rescue” for Crystal to play. I walked down stairs and we watched in horror as the second plane hit, then sat appalled as the towers collapsed. I said to her it must have been Osama bin Laden. I was in global security and knew quite a lot about al Queda and Osama. We didn’t let our little girl watch the graphic news.

    The next day my wife begged me not to go to work at the top of a skyscraper but I went anyway in a sort of daze. The Brits and Chinese I worked with were very supportive of me as an American and of America as a nation. That Friday we discovered that the brother of a good friend in Hong Kong was on the plane that hit the second tower.

    We had recently had a fire on the 80th floor of the building, started by a welding spark, that forced an evacuation of the top 20 floors. So I knew first hand just how hard and long it took to descend all that way in a huge crowd.

    Rumors were rampant after the attack that plots were laid against Hong Kong and American interests in Asia. My wife was thrilled when I moved us to New Zealand later that year.

  23. My wife and I were at home, in the mountains of NC Washington state. We both had the day off and There was still a (long since removed) T.V. reflector on the hill above us, and occasionally we were able to get a channel or two to come in clear enough that it was watchable.

    I had turned on the t.v. on the morning of September 11th to see if we could a signal, and saw tower 1 burning, and of course heard the commentator speaking about the attack. We did not believe it at first, and thought it HAD to be some kind of hoax, we were able to watch the coverage all the way through the towers actually falling, and some of the aftermath.

    September 11th is the first BIG historic occurrence that I can remember being alive for, and of course a story that I have since shared with my children, and will likely tell as an old man. I don’t think I have ever felt so vulnerable in my life as I did that September morning.

  24. I was at my grandmothers and all we talked about until the second plane hit was “how could a pilot be so stupid…”

    Hey, am I the only one who remembers the CIA director on the news admitting that they had “lost” their annual budget on September 10th? Just wondering.

  25. Regarding Infrastructure Automation Engineers – It’s definitely a valuable and highly sought after skill in IT right now. A big part of this is due to API-enabled cloud services like Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google App Engine, etc. It basically enables “push-button deploy” of any kind of server you can imagine – web server, database server, fully built out application server, etc.

    In the “old days” a person would have to acquire physical hardware and manually install and set everything up. Now we can spin up servers in the cloud and automate all the software installation and configuration. What used to take a week or more can now be done in five minutes and fully automated.

    It is much less expensive and also less prone to error because you remove the human element. Humans fat finger, forget steps, get distracted, etc. An automation script will just do what it is programmed. A human still needs to program it of course! And that is a good skill to have.

    I have a somewhat similar job title, “DevOps Engineer”. I mainly focus on application deployment automation.

    If you are interested in this field, I recommend checking out the software apps Chef, Puppet, Docker and Vagrant to name a few. For younger IT folks, this is a very good “future proof” (hopefully…haha) area to be in and the pay is very competitive.

    As for 9/11, I was in Tokyo, Japan. I was supposed to come back the following day. Needless to say, I got stuck there for a few days. I was living in Forest Hills, Queens, NY at the time. I could see the twin towers from my 7th floor apartment window. When my wife and I finally got back to New York, we looked out that window and the reality really hit us when we could no longer see the towers.

    Until that moment it all seemed surreal. I will never, ever forget seeing it on the news in my Tokyo hotel room and yelling to my wife, “Come and see this, you won’t believe it!”

  26. I was a senior in high school. That morning I had just gotten into a car accident in the school parking lot with a fellow student. I was so angry about the accident especially since I had just purchased the truck from my brother. I remember not doing much that day besides watching the television and seeing things unfold. I remember driving home after school and seeing lines beginning to form at gas stations, then seeing the prices shoot up to extreme levels. That was when it set in for me as a kid on how serious this event was and how many other things in our lives would be affected.

  27. I was in the shower getting ready to go to the office when the first plane hit… my wife stuck her head in and told me… I got out and watched the reporting for a few minutes… the reporting made it seem like it was a small Cesna or something so I thought it was tragic but not really bad.

    I got back into the shower and finished up and was doing my routine (shaving etc) when my wife exclaimed the other tower had been hit… I walked into the living room and said “We’re under attack.” I remember feeling really angry and then just mesmerized as I sat down and watched at the rest of the events played out…

    I always held training for my team every Tuesday night and Saturday mornings… I remember anguishing over whether to cancel training that night or not… I ultimately sent the word out that we WOULD be doing training as I would not let a terrorist attack change the way we live… It was tough that night but we had a full crowd and I believe most felt the same way – “We’re gonna show you we won’t cower…”

    The one thing I remember before the second plane hit was how inane and superficial the coverage was about the first tower strike… it was like is wasn’t a big deal… maybe they weren’t informed it was a full blown airliner with passengers – maybe they believed it was a small plane to until strike #2…

  28. I was sitting on a train from NJ into NYC when the 1st plane hit. I noticed a big ball of smoke just come off the first tower. We watched it burn as we entered into manhattan. When we got out we just thought it was an accident until the 2nd tower was hit then we got to be afraid. I was with my girlfriend and since this wasn’t normal I went to work with her to stay together. We took the subway to lower manhattan until they canceled all service in the city. We got out and kept walking south till we reached her building. From her office We watched the towers burning for hours when the first one fell…then the second. Seeing that building fall (I saw the 2nd) my first impression was that it was blown up because of how fast it fell. After seeing this we decided to try and get out of nyc before something else happened. Walking uptown with thousands of people while emergency response people raced downtown while jet fighters were patrolling over the city (better late than never). We were 2 of thousands who were trying to get back into NJ waiting at Penn Station for the trains to start running again. Luckily they did and the day was over. Being there that day I never want to re-watch it or visit the site.

  29. My first reaction is probably like no other American. I had just watched a documentary on the World Bank messing up the economy of Jamaica and similar countries. When I heard about the first plane I thought “Aha, they (the small people of the world) got the bastards!” I associated the World Bank with the World Trade Center, along with all things to do with the financially extorting evils on the planet. As the second plane hit, I thought, “Wow they really completed the job. Shock to the elitist system! Someone had to stop them!” It was only when I turned on the reports to see the human element, the running from the smoke, the people falling, the harsh reality sunk in: These are only real people doing their jobs in a corrupt system that runs them. I was regretful for my first vindictive thoughts.
    I sat there before having to teach a yoga class listening to reports from ground zero. I was so shocked I thought I would have to cancel the class. We all came in somber, sat on our mats, said a prayer for the victims and the country. In a long meditation we sent them all energy from our Montana corner far away. About 15 minutes into the practice it seemed as though we all left that world behind and found new reality in rooting our feet to lift up, and going so deep into the one pointed focus that technically precise Anusara yoga takes you. Soon we didn’t think the events of that day, until after class was over, having enjoyed a break for a time.
    When I heard the yoga teachers of NYC were offering free classes in Times Square at lunch to help the mental state of people there, I completely understood. That was my living proof that yoga can take you out of your problems and incessant thinking about them to a place of renewal, joy, and strengthening. I was glad to have my practice back then and years later, after having left the practice having another set of kids, I see its time to return to it for peace today facing the daunting blows of daily life, while always aware that life can change for our country in a heartbeat, even from thousands of miles away from us. In hard times, having a yoga practice to add to whatever is your spiritual practice (of any religion or none), builds the emotional resilience that will be so necessary to face whatever may come. especially aging.

  30. I was an eye-witness to the attack on the Pentagon. My office was in Arlington, VA with a view to the Pentagon and Reagan National Airport. (Early reports said my building was hit.) I arrived at work early to finish up a database and had to shut down Outlook, etc. to make my computer run better; thus, I did not know about the WTC. My monitor was directly in my line of sight to the Pentagon. As I was working, I heard a co-worker in the office next to me scream “…THEY JUST BOMBED THE PENTAGON!”. As I rose from my chair, the sound and shockwave hit me. I saw a fireball erupt from the Pentagon. I wish I saw the plane myself so I could personally confirm or deny conspiracy theories of the missile from what I saw with my own eyes. My co-worker was on the phone and saw the plane out of the corner of her eye when it hit and this is what she said immediately when we came to comfort her. (Interestingly, I saw a couple planes fly unusually close to our building in the preceding weeks but we were on the flightpath to an airport.) After a few moments of shock, we all decided to get out of there. Many of my co-workers were firefighters as well and reported to duty to cover areas that sent their firefighters to the Pentagon. I learned about the WTC on the way out. Upon hearing it, I instantly realized this was no accident. (We had seen fires at the Pentagon before but from a laundry fire.)

    9/11 was like a light-switch. I saw many libertarian friends become blinded with blood in their eyes. They immediately became statists. My coworkers wanted to nuke the entire Middle East. I didn’t and I was ridiculed and my contract was not renewed. I remember taking the Metro past the post office involved with Anthrax letters and seeing decontamination in process. The Beltway sniper struck all around where I used to live.

    I thank GOD that all my friends and family are safe. I know of at least four people who were supposed to be in the Pentagon or WTC that morning but something made them late, their appointment was rescheduled at the last minute or the Voice of GOD changed their plans.

    Last year, a former co-worker and good friend of mine, a member of this community, was murdered in Saudi Arabia. (Jack- I introduced you at Liberty Forum.) He was found outside his 3rd floor hotel room. It was ruled a suicide by the Saudis and the company that sent him there accepted it. I know there is no way he’d take his life. No way! In addition, he was an engineer and could think of better things than a fall from the third floor.

    My current employer is headquartered in the EU, in a WTC building. When I was in the air last year, a storm killed several people and knocked out communications, including payment systems. I had no idea what happened when I landed. A terrorist struck close to their HQ, in a city where many of my co-workers live, during their national holiday. Thank GOD all my co-workers and their loved ones are ok.

  31. My wife and I had flown from SW Pennsylvania to Vancouver BC, she for a trade show, me as chauffeur and lumper. Show was to open 9/11. Hadn’t watched the news that morning (on Pacific Time, it was noon in New York when we went to breakfast) Met a guy coming out of the hotel restaurant babbling about terrorists and the end of the world. A good third of the attendees at the show just left.

    All of the Canadians we talked to were concerned and polite. Normal for Canada…

    Air travel back to the US 4 or 5 days later was a no go, had to rent a car and drive south to Seattle. The airline did a great job getting us back to PA and everyone seemed on their best behavior.

    The strangest memory of all was armed uniformed troops (probably National Guard) at the US border– a guy with an M16 asking if I was bringing tobacco products across the border.