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[Alitas]

I was teaching a high school Spanish class 40 miles from the Pentagon.

My boss waved me out and told me what was going on. I went to his office and called my sister in NYC. Of course couldn't get through. I called my mom in Maine. She was worried sick about me and my sister.

We had several students whose parents worked at the Pentagon. We were asked to keep it quiet from the kids.

I told my students to pack their things and we all went to the main assembly room. It was a private school, we had about 400 kids in there. Someone put in a movie. We told them we were having the rest of the day off and their parents might come and get them early.

The high schoolers knew something was up. One of them went on-line. Soon the high school knew about it but the little ones did not. We called every parent we could. I manned the phones for three hours. Worried parents called and I told them to just come and get their kids.

We locked down the school as we were in a sensitive area--the warehouse next to our building was a government facility and things were going nuts over there so we decided to take everything very seriously.

Parents had to present ID before entering the building. They were held in a waiting area while a teacher went to fetch their kids. Then they were signed out.

We lost 2 parents on September 11.



Soon after my building established a procedure for Shelter in Place that was so surreal I couldn't believe it when we did the drills. I still have my Shelter in Place kit but have since moved back to Maine. We had enough food and water for three days for 2000 people.

Well there's my story, it feels good to talk about it.

[guty]

I too was in Japan, saw one tower burning, thought it was some kind of towering inferno, saw the second one hit live, realised it was deliberate, saw Bush, was extremely worried by his expression, knew it was the beginning of some big sh1t.
Im too young to remember JFK, but I do remember the end of John Lennon. Got me thinkin why was he in NY anyway?

[Capergirl]

I was here in CB, getting ready to take my toddler to the park. Live with Regis and Kelly was on the TV, but I wasn't paying any attention to it until they announced suddenly that a plane had just hit one of the WTC towers in NY. I continued with what I was doing until I heard that a second plane hit the other tower. Then I sat down, thinking, "Oh my God". We did eventually go to the park (weird with no planes flying overhead...we live near an airport), but most of the day was spent in front of the TV getting updates on the situation in the U.S.

[guest of Japan]

I was in a bar in Japan. The bar was in the basement of a building and I couldn't get a cell phone signal. When I exited the building my phone went crazy with emails. Before I could read them I got a frantic call from a frantic friend I worked with telling me to rush home. I ran home. After watching the horror unfold I decided to go to my friends apartment to get some support. I had lived in NY for 8 years before coming to Japan. My hometown is 40 minutes from where the plane went down in Pennsylvania. I was definitely in shock. I had to work the next day. I have never hated a day of work more in my life.

[khmerhit]

Elizabeth wurzel, the American novelist, was in her apartment in downtown Manhattan when the planes struck. She gave an interview to the Toronto Globe and Mail when she was promoting her new book. I remember reading it at the time and thinking, this is a nasty piece of work. See for yourself:

A most amazing sight

In an interview with a Canadian journalist last week last week (as reported in the New York Post), Prozac Nation author Elizabeth Wurzel described the collapse of the World Trade Center as "a most amazing sight in terms of sheer elegance. It fell like water. It just slid like a turtleneck going over someone's head. It was just beautiful."

Despite numerous frantic phone calls to her Greenwich Street apartment, not far from the World Trade Center, the emotionally stunted scribe couldn't be bothered to get out of bed until the second plane crashed, reports the Toronto Globe and Mail.

When she finally did drag herself to a window and saw the towers collapse, Wurtzel says, "I had not the slightest emotional reaction. I thought, 'This is a really strange art project.' "

http://www.google.ca/search?q=cache:Wo3Jh77FK2UJ:www.thismodernworld.com/weblog/archive/2002_02_24_bloggera.html+elizabeth+wurzel+globe+mail+interview+&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

[jpvanderwerf2001]

I was at my first teaching gig in Ukraine, and it was my second day teaching there. My DOS came into class and told me what was happening, and wondered if I wanted her to cover me. Well, I was still very nervous about the whole teaching thing (keeping my job, what have you), so I didn't think much of it and told her that I would continue. I couldn't understand why she was so distraught that a plane had hit a building in New York (she was Dutch). After the class, she took me to the internet and showed me that a second plane had hit...I was awestruck. Yet, I still taught my second (and final) class for the day. I spent the entire night at an acquaintance's of an acquaintance watching CNN. All I could feel was helplessness and what I would describe as rage (having never really felt it previously). The odd thing is that I felt very safe because I was in Ukraine, and what entity would make the effort to attack Ukraine?
Boy, was it weird teaching my Libyan (Muslim) student the next day: He felt it and I felt it.
I hope this is the last time I have to feel that way about anything.

[denise]

I was in California. It was my second week of grad school. I had gotten up and was getting dressed & ready, listening to my radio. The DJs basically said something like, "turn off your radios and watch this on TV." So I turned on the TV and just kinda went numb.

I went into school at 8am (it was 6ish in California when the first plane hit), and everyone was just standing around, not sure what to do. We all gathered in the student center and watched CNN, and some of the professors and the president came to find us. Classes were cancelled that day.

I, too, had a sickening feeling that it was the beginning of something nasty in the world. All I can do now is wait until the elections and hope that we begin to straighten things out by giving W the boot.

d

[shenyanggerry]

I was in Montreal when my gf came in from her exercise class and told me about it. Since she was on an austerity campaign, she'd cancelled cable. I didn't care, I don't watch TV.

Before I actually got to see the video's, I accessed the Darwin Awards Forum where I'd been posting for years. The absolute vehemence I encountered there was amazing. Nuke 'em til they glow then shoot 'em in the dark was one of the milder comments.

I'm afraid that after seeing that crude display of total disregard for life outside the USA I decided that the attack was justified.

I would like to feel sorry for the dead, however it was rubbed in my face that ONLY American lives counted. In American opinion, nobody else mattered. Both Afghanistan and Iraq have served to strengthen this view.

[donfan]

Some more appropriate questions for me might be:

Where were you when an earthquake hit Iran killing 20,000?

Where were you when the Berlin war came down?

Where were you when the Tianamen Square Massacre took place?

I rate 9/11 as far less important than any of these other events.

[struelle]

[James_T_Kirk]

[ls650]

[crispintp]

Where was I?

Midtown Manhattan, in the offices of JP Morgan Fleming. Behind all the panic, and the apocalyptic rumours that were flying round, the magnitude of the event did not seem to sink in. People were keeping themselves in good humour by making jovial comments to each other. Sometimes, some distance is required in order to make sense of world events.

I was not to know at the time that it would be a defining moment for me. More or less as a direct result of the 9/11, I lost my job, then six months later, after oddjobbing until my visa expired, I cut my losses, and went home. It was on my return to England that I decided to embark on a teaching career.

Many peoples lives were directly and severely affected by the events of 9/11. People lost family, friends, livelyhoods.

Some lives, like mine, were affected much more mildly and indirectly, but in ways that remap your future. Whether it turns out to be a positive move, well only the future will tell....

[jud]

I was in the middle of a 3-hour individual lesson. The student's wife called him and told him that a plane had hit the twin towers. I couldn't figure out what he was talking about as like most native New Yorkers I had always called the towers the World Trade Center, and then when it registered I figured it had been a small plane. We continued the lesson and then his wife called again when the second plane hit. At that point I remembered that my parents were on holiday (not in New York) and just kept on doing the lesson, not really knowing what else to do. The poor guy, he let me make him finish the lesson. Probably figured that, as a New Yorker, I should be allowed to do what I wanted.

I'll never forget the student, that's for sure.

In terms of the significance of 9/11, I think that wherever you are on the political spectrum you'd be hard-pressed to undermine the importance of the event. How we move around the world has completely changed, borders have become more and more tight, racial profiling's defenders have returned from the woodwork (if they ever went away).

It was a horrific and yes, defining event. But it does make me worry when someone suggests any kind of killing can be "justified," though. I was against the war in Iraq, against invading Afghanistan, in fact, against any war. I'm also against suicide bombing.

Imagine.

[rogan]

Coming out of a school in Mzalodozena, Moscow.

A supervisor told me that a plane had crashed in America.

Big Deal, I though.

I got home an hour later, switched on the TV and recognised a couple of buildings falling !