September 11 bekons

[kham]

I had just gotten off on vacation on September 10, late...
remember getting awakened early on phone by friend shouting 'turn on the news, NOW'
Still groggy, flipped on CBC and for a moment thought I was watching some sort of film trailer -- then the second plane hit.
Most of the day was spent talking to friends online and on phone, with the coverage repeating endlessly in the background.

Finally was about to turn in around maybe 0200, when the whole house shook with a double crump. Went out on the porch and saw my neighbour also outside, asking what the hell was that? Looked up, saw one slow-moving cluster of lights, and a pair of brighter lights moving much faster heading east.
Fast Movers, busting the mach. That alone told you we were in a new reality.

[PM2K]

Sept. 11, 2001. Driving in my new car to help set up a news bureau in another town. Half listening to the local radio station about a plane crashing into one of the towers of the World Trade Centre. The announcer said initial reports thought it was a private jet... then he corrected it to be a commuter jet, then a DC-10...
Started mentioning the last time something that big hit a NY skyscraper was a bomber hitting the Empire State Building back in the War... WW 2, that is.
By the time I got to the office of the new bureau - a room with a desk in it in the back of a Sears store - the DC-10 had just become a 747. And then the second plane hit... and the news got worse each time he updated it. When reports of the Pentagon being hit got out, followed by the word the White House was next, then that one of the towers had fallen, I headed back to the main office as fast as I could to find out what the hell was going on. The radio announcer was babbling by now, sounding panicked, wondering aloud if maybe the US was at war.

The newsroom was dead silent. All we heard was the television as people flicked from station to station to station. All I saw was that horrible replay of the jets hitting the towers, and falling, looking like a promo for the next Michael Bay film. It didn't seem real. I really didn't want it to be real. Then every new agency started running different footage from different angles of the same moment, and somehow, that made it worse. But like everyone else, we couldn't take our eyes off the TV screen. Even when the phones started ringing, none of us took our eyes off the screen...

A colleague of mine screamed when she realized the newer footage showed people were jumping from the towers. That was when it hit home this was real.

The rest of the day was a blur. I do remember wondering if anything would really work out okay afterwards. Some pundits were calling the day "The death of irony" in the sense no one would ever joke or laugh about anything again in the wake of this.
In time, things got back to a "new normal" of sorts where poeple could laugh again and get on with the business of living. I suspect that's how it was during the Second World War too. THings had changed, but that didn't mean we'd stop being human beings.
Out of the nearly 3,000 people killed that day, a portion were foreign nationals, including 24 Canadians. They and the more than 150 soldiers killed while serving in Afghanistan which came about as a result of this attack were remembered in Ottawa on Saturday. One of many ceremonies held to remember this day. And to show we north of the 49th Parallel share the grief of our friends in the United States, and stand with them shoulder to shoulder on the war against terror it sparked in earnest.

We didn't start this fight, but by God, we'll finish it together!

[schlamm]

*

[Duncan Edwards]

The day began with the manager's secretary sticking her head in my door and wanting me to get the tv in the conference room working because her husband called and something was going on. I was walking to the room when my cell phone rang and my mom asked me what was happening. Told her I'd call her back when I knew more. Got some rabbit ears on the old tv and tuned into Fox just in time to see the second plane hit.

Didn't take long to figure out the basics after that.

Got computers running for all the different information channels that I could find. Most, including CNN, were overwhelmed and finally went to using stripped down web pages. I'm kind of an information junkie so I'm one of those people that everyone starts asking "what's going on?" when something happens. Cell and office phone rang without ceasing. Finally had to ignore much of it as we all gathered and watched the towers fall. I remember four things about me especially well -

We already knew this but it was really confirmed that our plant manager at the time was an idiot.

I think of myself as a well traveled, very open minded, sober and patient, kind of guy. I was absolutely white-hot with fury and if my finger had been on the button it would have been the last day for a lot of people.

I'm an aviation buff who looks up at every aircraft noise. Seeing an empty sky was just too wierd.

I had to resist the urge to go home and load all my guns.

[kham]

Of all the talking heads, and interviews thst day, the one that I remember was Art Bell, when he still did Coast to Coast am - he was commenting to all those who were listening in, who ranted about jihad, and total war? I have a message for you :

We're better at it

Calculated methodical rage is the deadliest of all

Maybe the enemy should think about that

[Mynock]

I was sitting in drafting class when the prof from across the hall came in and said simply "Go down to the Cafe and watch CNN" and then left. We all kind of gave each other that "WTF" look and went. Got there just in time to see the second plane hit. Half the people in the room were screaming or crying which made me realize instantly this was real, and holy shit, I'm only 10 miles from a pretty major airport so it might be a good idea to go home. Everybody driving had their lights on and one or two were actually driving with their heads out the window so they could look up. Got home and sat in front of the TV till midnight or so. Overall it was a day of bad going to worse going to cateclysmic and trying to get through my head the fact that this actually happend.

[water_bug_62208]

I was at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, participating on staff assistance visit. While going over the my checklist with the supervisor of the shop I was visiting, one of his troops came in about a plane hitting one of the towers of the World Trade Center. We went to the breakroom to join the other shop members watching the burning tower on TV. We then saw the second tower get hit by an airliner. A few minutes later we saw the image switch over to the Pentagon to see it burning after a plane crashed into it.

I, along with the rest of the team, was recalled to our meeting room where we awaited a decision on what to do. As we waited, we could hear the C-5 Galaxys firing up on the airfield. A colleague thought the base was moving the planes to a safer location. I told her that it was probably more likely that the C-5s were being sent to Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, to retrieve the remains of those who died at the Pentagon and bring them back to Dover Air Force Base... at Dover Air Force Base resides the Charles C. Carson Center for Mortuary Affairs, and as the Wing Commander had noted during the in-brief that Monday, all Department of Defense personnel who've fallen in war are first brought to the Mortuary Affairs Center to begin their dignified journey home for burial. Soon after, those killed at the Pentagon were moved to the Mortuary Affairs Center at Dover.