So This Sunday

[elizabeth09]

is 10th memorial of September 11, 2001.

[cmaD2006]

yup. Remember it well. And yes I can say I am part of those of us who can precisely remember where I was when I saw the news reports. I was buying a cup of coffee. And as soon as I heard that two of the planes were from Boston, and that my work group was flying over to LA frequently I was worried. The company that I work for did lose employees on the flights, but thank God everyone working in the towers were able to escape in time.

Praying for the souls lost that day and for the families left behind.

[got2luvjc]

I was in 8th grade social studies class. My teacher got pulled into the hallway to hear the news, and came back in tears.

[tinytherese]

[quote name='got2luvjc' timestamp='1315443586' post='2301869']
I was in 8th grade social studies class. My teacher got pulled into the hallway to hear the news, and came back in tears.
[/quote]

I was in my 7th grade social studies class. Our teacher was having us do an assignment in class when it was announced over the intercom. Later that day the whole school said the rosary. I prayed so much apart from that and I didn't know anybody in New York and I wasn't devout yet. That day sure opened my eyes to what was going on in the world. I never heard of terrorism before then.

[elizabeth09]

I was in 5th grade, and did not know anything that was going on that morning. My mom told me everthing that afternoon. I thought that someone was going to die and I needed to be there.

[Lisa]

I was in sixth grade, we were taking a spelling test. One of the fifth grade teachers came in and said something to my teacher, but I don't think she understood exactly what was happening. We finished our words up really fast, and then she turned on the TV. I won't ever forget when the second plane hit and the news reporters realized that it wasn't an accident. We watched it all day, and then grief counselors came to our school. The teachers made announcements that if anyone wanted to pray (and this was a public school), that they would be there.

But I also remember the pride to be American, and the outpouring of love. Why does it take tragedies to bring us together?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oOW-1OwtCA&feature=player_embedded

[faithcecelia]

I was at work. I worked in a callcentre at the time, and there was only one PC in the building with internet access, just outside the door to our main room. We took turns to go and see what was happeneing and I remember the surreality to the whole situation. Even from over here, most of us knew someone involved or who could have been involved.

Edited September 9, 2011 by faithcecelia

[AccountDeleted]

I was living in California, and had stopped at a donut shop on my way to work. They had the TV on as the first plane hit the world trade center and we watched in horror, thinking it was a terrible accident It was such a shock. By the time I got to work, the second tower had been hit and it started to become apparent that it was intentional - the whole day we spent glued to TVs and radios instead of working - we were all in shock. My brother was due to come home from Boston on a plane that day, and we worried about him, but he was grounded and wasn't involved. We were blessed that he was safe.

I think the greatest feeling of all for everyone was shock, shock and then more shock, especially when the buildings collapsed and fell. It was unreal.

And yes, we were all proud to be Americans that day, and we all put little flags on our cars to demonstrate this. Despite being an American/Australia, it was a day that I felt completely American!

One of the second biggest shocks was seeing all the people in the Middle East who were rejoicing and dancing in the streets at the news - how could anyone be happy at such an event? I think it was admirable of the US not to react with uncontrollable rage, which was probably one of the emotions that we all felt on that day, after shock and sadness and grief.... It was good that the US didn't do anything immediately that they would have been ashamed of later, like nuking some country just out of a desire for revenge.

My prayers are for all those who have lost loved ones on this day, and for those who committed this evil deed for whatever misguided reasons. Lord have mercy.

[LaPetiteSoeur]

I was in New Jersey, about 40 minutes away from NYC by train. My dad worked across the river from the towers, so he saw the whole thing.

The Catholic principals and teachers were under direct orders from the diocese not to tell us anything. I was in 3rd grade and learning multiplication problems. Sr. I came in and just told us that planes had hit the twin towers. We didn't understand--how could planes miss buildings? A few minutes later, we heard a loud plane and hid under our desks (why, I still have no idea). For the next week, we heard military planes go back and forth all the time, as we were under a major flight path. My parents wouldn't let me watch the news, but I saw the pictures in the NYTimes the next day.

After school (my parents didn't take me out), my mom, sister, friend, his mom and brother, and I went to Church and said the Divine Mercy Chaplet. I remember the church; candles were lit, it was dark, but it was calm in the midst of all this insanity. My cousins, who were living in the Middle East at the time, called in a panic, making sure we were ok.

If there hadn't been the attacks in 1993, my dad may not be here today; after those attacks, his company moved to NJ and out of the towers. It's a scary thought.

All of the parents who worked in the twin towers who had kids in my school were fine, thank God. But so many from NJ did perish.

My friend's at NYU now, and told me she CANNOT be in the city this Sunday. She can't. It brings back too much. I can't read anything about the firemen and police who died that day, and especially I can't read anything about the Franciscan friar (the NYFD chaplain) without crying.

[MargaretTeresa]

I was in my 6th grade art class. Mrs Barrett, my homeroom teacher, came in, said something to the art teacher, and told us to get our stuff and line up - we were going back to our building early. We were told not to mess around and to keep in line. When we got to our building, we put up our stuff and were ushered to the next classroom. I just remember watching the screen, tears streaming down my face as I took in the sheer surrealness of it.

It was that day that I first knew that I wanted to do war reporting when I was older. It was also the day I first learned the true meaning of faith.

ETA: The next year, in seventh grade history, our teacher made us all learn the one country song: [i]Where Were You[/i] by Alan Jackson. And the song [i]Courtesy of the Red White and Blue[/i] still makes me tear up.

Edited September 9, 2011 by MargaretTeresa

[let_go_let_God]

I was in 10th grade and we watched it all day. I didn't believe when I heard the first news that it had happened because I was in a room with no TV. I went to an adjacent classroom and couldn't believe what I saw.

God bless-
LGLG

[BG45]

10 grade, keyboarding class. We turned it on after a runner from the PoliSci teacher was telling everyone a plane hit the WTC. We turned it on just in time to see the second plane hit. The announcements came on...and drowned the TV out as they talked about a fire at the Pentagon. We changed classes and I had a test in science which the teacher wouldn't let us miss for "an accident". By the time it was over, the principal had banned all TV and internet use in the school. I didn't know anything until I got home after school.

I did a blog post yesterday about it:
[quote]In three days it will have been an entire decade since the event that will remain seared into my generation's memory occurred. I'm speaking, of course, about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. It feels weird to say that it's been ten years, because I'm twenty-five years old now, but I can recall what it was like to be fifteen during that day and yet, almost half my life has passed since that moment.

Ten years...it's a long time. This post could go a number of ways really; it could turn on anti or pro war platform, as ten years after the attacks we are still engaged in a war in Afghanistan that began in retaliation against Al Quaeda. It could turn into an attack on the anti-American actions of Mayor Michael Bloomberg who has disinvited the clergy and the men and women who risked their lives to save others on that horrible day. It could speak to the death of Osama bin Laden; whose life being ended will not bring back the nearly three thousand dead from that day. It could speak to the fact that the United States is so obsessed with being secure, that it isn't the same country that it was on that day.

There are so many things that could be said about the events of that Tuesday morning. Perhaps the most important thing to remember about it however, is that for a brief period, the world stood still and mostly unified. The attacks were not only on the United States of America. The World Trade Center was a truly global target in its handling of finances from around the planet and more than ninety separate nations would lose citizens in the space of only a handful of hours.

Condolences flew in from around the world as quickly as denunciations of what had occured; offers of aid arrived from every corner of the world. For the first time in United States history, the Federal Aviation Administration grounded all flights in our airspace, leading to the landing or redirection out of country of every aircraft above the contintental United States. Citizens of neighboring countries didn't complain however, but instead opened their doors for people who would be displaced until the borders were reopened.

It is a moment that has been burned into the national psyche in a way that few others have been. I know that among people older than myself I've often heard it described in the same vein as "I still remember 9/11, just like I remember where I was when Kennedy was shot" or "I still remember 9/11, just like I remember where I was when Pearl Harbor was bombed".

Personally? I remember and I'll post where I was and what I was doing at the end of this. But what comes to my mind first when I recall 9/11 isn't the ash clouds or the destroyed buildings; it's not the ruins that remained at Ground Zero; it's not the Pentagon where more people died than did in the Oklahoma City bombing; it's not a field in Pennsylvania. What I remember first is a single snapshot I once saw of a man falling to his death. He was far from the only one too; what was it like in the World Trade Center, knowing that you were going to die because you couldn't get out because you were cut off? Did these people agonize with the decision to jump or not as flame and smoke poured into their floors?

Where was I though? Sitting in Keyboarding as the second plane hit when we turned it on, everyone almost immediately realizing it couldn't be an accident. The announcements drowning out the television because the office didn't realize anything was going on. Going to science class as something was being said about a fire at the Pentagon and the teacher making us take a test because she wasn't going to let us out of it for some sort of accident. The use of television being banned in the school while we took that test. And then when being picked up, finding out about what had happened in my day of being cut off from the outside world at school: the twin towers I had once looked out from were gone, the Pentagon was partially destroyed, and a fourth aircraft had gone down in Pennsylvania. We didn't know how many people were dead, or if there was more coming in the following days.

Ten years and the memories are still fresh. Ten years and we're still stuck in a quagmire overseas. Ten years and the country is perhaps at its most divided and partisan since the 1960s.

Ten years and so much has changed; the world has not frozen in time. Life has gone on. Technology has continued to evolve, people have continued to marry, kids are still being born.

It hit me the other day that the kids in elementary school today weren't even born when the September 11th attacks occured. For them, it will be much like the events of the Cold War were for my generation; at most a fleeting memory from early in our lives, but more likely just another thing to be read in the history books that seems like it happened a long time ago, but whose impact is still imperceptibly felt.

Ten years and the march of history goes on.[/quote]

[Lil Red]

I forget how young you all are. I was 23, getting ready for work for the day. I was in high school when OKC happened

[cmaD2006]

wow LilRed ... I forget how young you are . I was 30.

[Lil Red]

[quote name='cmariadiaz' timestamp='1315608445' post='2302711']wow LilRed ... I forget how young you are . I was 30. [/quote]
is it bad that you have warmed my heart? Lol.