<p>I can only imagine. When we heard about the Pentagon, I said, “What’s next, the Liberty Bell?!” Then we heard about the crash in PA. I remember feeling a little panicky, thinking, “okay, who’s next”? I suspected that any more targets that day would be symbols of national unity, not all the way across the country in my city, but for a split second, I remember wanting to leave the hospital and go grab my kids. I can certainly imagine that everyone in NY, its environs, and DC could have been terrified as to their own personal safety.</p>
<p>I live in NYC. I worked in midtown at the time but…</p>
<p>Today is my 9/11. It’s Tuesday and I voted in the Democratic primary. 9/11 was a Tuesday. I voted in the Democratic primary. As someone else said, the weather was just beautiful that day. It may sound strange, but it always hits me on primary day rather than on 9/11 itself. </p>
<p>I was lucky. I didn’t lose any of my family or closest friends, though I did lose acquaintances. Some really, really sad stories. We–meaning my neighborhood–lost about a dozen people that day. </p>
<p>One of my college classmates–again, an acquaintance, not a close friend–was one of the 4 men who fought the high jackers and forced down the plane in Pennsylvania. </p>
<p>S2’s birthday is 9/12, one day after the event. (and his brother’s is 9/7, Pearl Harbor Day. I always thought it was a good thing I didn’t have more children. Who knows what might have happened.) A year after 9/11 was S2’s Bar Mitzvah. In temple the night before, there is always a moment when people stand up to remember others’ yahrzeits – the anniversary of their death. That night there were many, many, many names read. It really struck our out-of-town cousins, who had been 3,000 miles away when it happened. </p>
<p>I’m not going to revisit this thread. It’s too upsetting. </p>
<p>D1’s birthday is also 9/12. For the first couple of years after 9/11, her birthday was much more low key.</p>
<p>Have been following this thread and with the purpose of doing some introspection on my experience, which was not anything like 95% of the stories here. For some reason, I had slept in that day - I think I’d been in class late the night before. I was woken up by H’s phone call from work, asking me if I knew what was going on. Of course, I didn’t. And I think when I turned on the TV at that moment, the second tower had just started to fall. I was in shock, and went to my neighbor’s house so we could watch together for an hour or two. But I felt like I needed to DO something. So I was one of the thousands if not millions who went to a blood bank to donate - the first time in my life. By the time I got there, the line was out the door. The one TV in the place was not accessible from the majority of the line. For most of that day, I stood in line, and some of us took turns, going to the TV area to get updates, then come back and share with others around us. </p>
<p>I just remember how long that line was; I think I wasn’t home until almost dinner time (6ish), so I had not been glued to the TV all day long like so many people were. I am usually the type of person who does get caught up in breaking news stories, so for me not to be sitting in front of a TV and watching it all unfold, was unusual. I do think it prevented me from becoming more traumatized by the event, because I was not watching everything unfold as it happened. I was only getting bits and pieces throughout the afternoon, and didn’t sit down to watch TV until well after all the plane crashes were over. To this day, I am sort of glad that it ended up that way for me, but sometimes I feel somewhat disconnected from people who share how they watched everything unfold on TV. Of course, many of the images I missed were repeatedly shown over the course of many days and months, but there is something about not watching events unfold live as you watch, that makes it just a slight bit less traumatizing. </p>
<p>Yes, it was traumatizing watching it live on TV. None of saw the first plane hit, so there was confusion about its size and the general thought was that it was an accident. But seeing the second plane hit on live TV removed all doubt, and in that instant, everyone knew: this is deliberate, this is terrorism, and how many more planes are out there ready to to do the same? </p>
<p>Like cap (#5), my DH was in the Pentagon just around the corner from where the plane hit. He was finally able to talk about it on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 - how the building shook, the floor pitched & heaved, the hallways filled with dense black smoke, and the terrible smells. What many people do not realize is that on 9/12 many of the Pentagon employees returned to work in a still-burning building. They are unsung heroes.</p>
<p>I guess I was, but I got off work as usual around 4am, drove home to NJ and my wife woke me up at whatever time it was to tell me a (small) plane had crashed into WTC. I rolled over and went back to sleep. When she woke me again to tell me a second plane had hit the other tower I got up. </p>
<p>My cousins live in Westchester. This is, as I understand it, a commuter hub. My little cousin (my kid’s age) said that children were being called one by one to the office. Their train station (Pelham) had cars in the lot for days. </p>
<p>I was working and living in the Boston area and had not been in the office long before several colleagues and supervisors who knew I was from NYC motioned me from my cubicle to see the news on TV just as the second plane hit. </p>
<p>Within 40 minutes, the head of our division called us together to say that due to security concerns in the financial district, we were dismissed from work for the day. </p>
<p>Phone lines were snarled to the point no one could make calls to/from the NYC area. I was especially concerned as my mother worked in close proximity to WTC and my uncle had his office in one of the towers. </p>
<p>Fortunately, it turned out my uncle was late to work that day due to dropping off his D and consequently arrived late enough to be turned back by police. Mom’s office ended up dismissing them and they ended up making a long commute…including plenty of walking due to closed subway/bus routes. </p>
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<p>I know of at least one HS classmate lost that day from an older class who worked at Cantor Fitzgerald. </p>
<p>I was not in NYC on 9/11 - but I had tickets to “The Producers” (original cast! Nathan Lane! Matthew Broderick!) on October 5, less than a month later. All kinds of people told me to cancel my trip to NYC, but I already had my plane tickets and my tickets to the show… and somehow, at the time, it seemed almost un-patriotic to cancel out.</p>
<p>So I went. What I recall most about that trip was how happy the restaurant waitstaff and the hotel workers in NYC seemed to be to see us tourists. It also seemed to me that the laughter in the theater was almost cathartic.</p>
<p>Oh, and I flew home on October 7, 2001 - the day that the bombing of Afghanistan began. In fact, I remember watching the news reports in the airport as the bombs began to fall and seeing people in the airport start to cry. </p>
<p>A classmate is someone who is in your class, not who graduated several years earlier. I suppose if you were in one class with him that could make him a “classmate” but that seems antithetical to the true meaning of a classmate.</p>
<p>I consider everyone who attended high school during the period I was there to be a classmate. </p>
<p>Anyways, pretty off-topic aren’t we…especially considering he was a classmate and his death affected not only those in his graduating class, but the entire HS community. </p>
<p>Man we carpooled with was in hotel that day. He survived because he went out for coffee. All his luggage and computer were lost when tower collapsed.</p>
<p>i stayed with my dentist, whose DD was in Tower 2. When she called, I left ( a long day).</p>
<p>My on-web friend, on breast CA group, lost her husband.</p>
<p>My colleague lived next to pilots in training. She had a difficult time living with the guilt of not calling FBI prior to attacks. Her neighbors were on plane 2. She was suspicious of a group of men living together, the language, the visitors, etc.</p>
<p>just a few recollections.</p>
<p>I am relieved nothing awful has happened today.</p>
<p>Schoolmate is more likely correct. They are not classmates if they are not in one’s class. Maybe thats the same line of thinking that leads to the volumes of “cousins”.</p>
<p>One might say “a friend a few years ahead of me in school…” or something like that that portrays a more accurate description of the relationship.</p>
<p>I lost a classmate. He was in my college class. Worked at Cantor Fitzgerald. There were others lost from other graduating classes as well. So very sad. They did a roll call on our alumnae website at the time, for people to check in. </p>
<p>My parents were in the suburbs at the time. Many lost from the community. I used to pick my dad up at the train station mentioned above.</p>