God Bless those we lost on 911.

[aubiefifty 16,791]

i was not there but i watched the whole thing at work and i was stunned at the horror of it. to be honest i have never been quite the same. also, i have never been so proud of Americans in my life who stood up and risked or gave their lives for their fellow Americans. we should always remember.

[TigerHorn 1,351]

Several forums have "Where were you and what were you doing?" threads for today. Your heartfelt post seems like a good place to start one here. Hopefully others will share too. My experience:

I had just gotten to work, we had a ton of visitors in from Hyundai (Seoul) and GM (Detroit). One of my colleagues walked in and asked if I had heard about the plane hitting the WTC. I said "Man, some ATC is going to be in trouble today!" as I was thinking of the B-25 that hit the Empire State building back in the late 1940's (I'm a history buff).

Then I realized the internet was slowing to a crawl, and that never happened at a major R&D center like ours, we had the biggest pipe technology could provide. Then the second plane hit, and we knew it was on. The major news sites were locked up solid, CNN.com just had a blank page with a pic - or maybe a very slow video - of the first tower that was hit.

Our Korean visitors, who have no concept of the size of the US (50% of all Koreans live within 50 miles Seoul's center) were terrified. Our GM guys wound up being stuck with us for a week or two before renting cars and shift driving to Detroit.

Within a few weeks, my wife, who was in a critical medical position at a big city trauma center, was issued a garbage bag full of everything from nerve gas antidote to antibiotics. The assumption was that they were for me and the kids, so that she would not feel compelled to leave her position in the hospital should another attack happen. My wife and the rest of the staff would be expected to sleep at the hospital for the duration. Some may recall that everyone feared the terrorists had gotten hold of non-nuke WMDs in the collapse of the Soviet Union. The people I knew in the State Department from both sides of the political aisle viewed it as a certainty.

[3rdgeneration 6,469]

I was teaching my little class of kindergarteners in my rural west Georgia town.  Our principal walked around asking all teachers to lock their doors and to keep the children inside the classroom. We were not allowed to turn on the tvs in front of the children (and I wouldn’t have wanted to) or come out of our classrooms to talk to other teachers until lunchtime.  I remember feeling anxious, although I never thought we were personally in danger.  I remember feeling the need to watch and absorb what was happening. I can’t remember, but I think we didn’t go to school the next day.  

[gr82be 14,424]

I was at a work retreat with meetings and activities all day long. I don't think any of us learned a thing job related for those two days because this is all that was on ours minds. Total shock when the second plane hit the second tower. The heroes on Flight 93 were amazing. What a brave and inspiring act.