Where were you?

[DominicanHeart]

The question everyone asks on this day every year, where were you when you heard about the attacks of September 11th? I was in fifth grade and had no idea what was going on. 15 years later and I'm still trying to comprehend it all.

[CatherineM]

St. Pete, Florida. Someone called me to turn the tv on. I thought it had been an accident until I saw the second plane hit. I went and got my foster sons out of school. Not because I thought they'd be in danger but they're sensitive and I wanted to make sure they were okay. 

[Archaeology cat]

Harlaxton College, Lincs. I'd just gotten out of class and was chatting with a friend in the US. I watched the 2nd plane. 

[Guest]

Australia: My brother was staying with me on 9/11.  Called me into his room and said "Have a look at this!"  I thought it was a movie at first.  I just couldn't believe it had really happened and when it sunk in that it had happened, it overwhelmed me into a depression.  I was horrified by it all.  I forced myself to watch replays eventually including the aftermath and because it had really happened to real people.  It still grieves me.  The horror that New York (and the whole USA especially) went through - those in the twin towers (dead, injured and rescued - their families and friends) and those that were part of the rescue effort, police and firemen with those dead and injured, their families and friends - especially those who gave their lives for complete strangers most often. The shocking, horrific and unimaginable suffering connected to 9/11.

I felt that after 9/11 that we were entering a new stage of existence and we are.  Here in Australia we have just had another horrific 'lone wolf' form of terror - a man in his mid fifties was simply walking down his street and attacked with a machete and apparently it was an act of 'lone wolf terrorism'. He is now fighting for life.  Our authorities are saying that 'lone wolf terrorism' is a real problem we are now facing with little hope at this point of any sort of warning for anyone anywhere.

We do hear of numbers deceased, but we do not hear of those seriously injured and so seriously they will live with disability of all kinds for the rest of their lives and marked forever by these events. 

Jesus, Prince of Peace, have Mercy on us all and "guide our feet into the way of peace" (Benedictus) Morning Prayer (Matins) Divine Office.

Quote

 

Excerpt Benedictus: "In the tender compassion of our God, the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death,

and to guide our feet into the way of peace".

 

 

 

Edited September 12, 2016 by BarbaraTherese

[EmilyAnn]

I was 10 years old and I was at an after school club - I lived in the Middle East.

[LittleWaySoul]

I was seven; my family was in Italy and my dad was away from home, needing to come back by plane, I think. I don't remember much because I wasn't in school when it happened (time difference), but I remember watching tv coverage. 

[Papist]

I was at work. Really did not know it was happening until much later in the day.

[dominicansoul]

Just entered the Nashies.  Finished praying my hour of Adoration, and upon walking out of the chapel, Sr. Mary pulled us all upstairs to the Community Room.  Apparently, the retired Sisters called down to Mother's office to tell her they couldn't find "The Price is Right" because "all the channels are showing the same thing."  So Mother went up there to see what that was about and found out about the terrorist attacks.  She and the council and several other Sisters had been watching from that point on, but the novitiate was left in the chapel praying (we didn't know yet.)  

It was surreal and nauseating and scary all at the same time.  I don't know how to describe it...we Dominicans spend a great deal of time in silence...but the silence that came after this horrible day was different... it was as if someone had kicked us in the stomach really really hard, where we couldn't talk even if we wanted to...

Edited September 12, 2016 by dominicansoul

[Peace]

San Francisco. 2nd year of law school. The first tower had already fallen before I woke up. I turned on the TV and it was a Spanish channel showing some replays of the first tower falling. I thought to myself "Wow. That is crazy, what country did that happen in?" Then I turned the news over to an English channel and realized that it was NYC.

[CountrySteve21]

I was a wee lad in Elementary School; all I remember is the teacher's horror.

[Spem in alium]

I was nine years old. It happened during the late hours of our night, due to the time difference, so most people didn't hear about it until the following day. I remember talking about it with my friends at school, but most of all I remember the eerie feeling of shock.

[Not A Real Name]

In bed. I was recovering from a hangover. 

[NadaTeTurbe]

I was four years old. We were shopping with my mom, but when she overheard lady speaking about it, we went directly home. I don't remember much, but on 9/21, ten days after, there was a factory who exploded in my city, killing 31 people, and we felt the shock, the sky was full of smoke, one of our windows exploded, and everybody thought it was terrorist. I cried for hours because I thought it was like the "big attack by the bad guys in America" and we were going to die. It's one of my most vivid childhood memory. 

[BG45]

I was 15 years old when it happened, so I have now officially lived longer in the "post 9/11 world" than before it. The thing that really sticks with me all these years later is the famous "falling man" photo...not the burning buildings, or collapsed towers, but that man, one of so many, who chose to jump and end things on his own terms. I wrote up a post on another site, so just going to copy and paste here:

When I was young, I sometimes wondered if my generation would have one of those "defining" horrible moments that go in the history books. Morbid I know, but still: Pearl Harbor, the assassination of JFK, etc. I couldn't conceive of what would happen, because we were at seemingly the top of the world, having bought into the myth of our own invincibility. The Clinton years left the nation feeling on a high and proud of itself. Our biggest issues were that we had a President who had lied about a blowjob, a disputed Election count in Florida, and a new President who seemed to invent what were being called "Bushisms". For a bit, at the end of the 20th century, I thought Columbine would be the closest thing my generation had to a defining moment...and I was wrong.

I can tell you that when Columbine happened in middle school I walked up the hill to my grandparents' house as usual and grandma, granddad, and another relative were watching the news. I can remember watching the footage, but that's all I can really tell you about that day, from that day. Though later I'd read books on it and meet one of the first cops who went inside. But 9/11? I can remember a lot of it in vivid detail. I was in Mrs. Secreta's Keyboarding course, third row, second seat from the right. We had someone run in from Mr. Poling's room, telling us a plane hit the World Trade Center...and we turned it on just in time to see the second plane hit live. We didn't even realize, until we turned up the volume, it was a second plane, we just assumed it was the first again. Then Mrs. Secreta let us stop working and watch, she never let us stop before the bell, before or after that day. Part of me went, "that explosion looks so fake" and then, it really hit, this is real. One plane is an accident or someone committing suicide. Two planes isn't an accident, no way. Some guys in the back of the room were laughing at it all.

As the announcements came on, it became apparent the office didn't know things were going on. Mrs. Secreta tried calling down to tell them to shut up, but they'd not stop the principal, with his signature ending of "Make it a great day or not, the choice is yours". Then the bell to switch classes occurred...and something was on the TV about a fire at the Pentagon. Next was Mrs. Garton's science class, where we had a test, and she announced no one would be missing the test due to, "some accident in New York". During the test the principal came on the intercom again to enforce a media blackout, telling teachers to turn off their computers and televisions.

Now this was 2001, cell phones were not in every pocket. Bit by bit I watched more people leave my classes, picked up by their parents. Not a clue as to what was happening. The principal came around to ask us if we wanted to discuss what happened, but he knew what we didn't, and what I wouldn't discover until we left and I got a ride home and KLOVE was on the radio. The Twin Towers were gone. A plane had hit the Pentagon. A fourth plane was down in a field in Pennsylvania (I'd later go get my doctorate only a few counties away). There was a mass exodus from Midtown Manhattan going on (later I'd learn the US Coast Guard put out a call for all capable vessels to head for the ports to help get people back to New Jersey). No one was sure how many NYPD officers and firefighters were dead, because so many had been in the towers, no one knew how many people were dead. The President was on the run (though later to return to Washington for a speech that night). The FAA had grounded every aircraft in America and closed our aerial borders, sending worldwide flight travel patterns into a tightly controlled chaos. (Gander, Canada, remains famous for its hospitality to the stranded people in its town.)

I went home and watched television the rest of the afternoon until the President's speech in the evening, there was no homework to be done. Every detail of that day from Mrs. Secreta's class onward is burned vividly into my head. I can, in the words of one person on the History Channel the other day, "not remember all I did yesterday, but can tell you small details about that Tuesday." A few days ago, my new college Freshmen started and for their entire lives more or less, America has been at war with someone, or involved in some form of military action.

It's been fifteen years since the moment that was frozen in history for my generation, and the world has changed, not for the better. We've been involved in two costly wars. We're more afraid than we used to be; I can't go through an airport without being patted down, forced to take off shoes, and body scanned...I say this as a criminologist who used to volunteer in a prison: it is easier for me to enter a prison than get on an airplane.

As for the sites of these attacks, the Pentagon section has been rebuilt and a beautiful memorial of benches stands sentinel outside. In rural Pennsylvania, there stands a monument to the passengers who fought back. Meanwhile, where the Twin Towers once stood, the "Freedom Tower" now pierces the sky and a memorial and museum stand in its shadow. I went there at a conference too, as I had gone to the Twin Towers as a child, and wound my way through security checkpoints for the opening hour of its operation the day I visited. In the beginning it was solemn and quiet; the museum had yet to open, so it was the memorial and gift shop. People in that first hour of the day I was there, just milled about, looking at the names engraved around the base of where the towers once jutted into the sky and now waterfalls fell into the void. I saw names I recognized from a documentary I saw about firefighters on 9/11, made by the Naudet brothers, who went into the Towers with them, and paused to mourn those I had never met, but still felt a connection to, because I had seen their lives through the lens of a filmmaker before that day, and then their last day. However, after the first hour, more people began to arrive, some chattier, some not.

Then I heard a sound that I wouldn't have guessed I would hear there, a child's laughter. Some people were scowling, but I could only smile. In a time when we've been consumed by our fears of the "other" after those attacks, I can think of no better memorial than to know that not everyone who visits the site will be mired in loss and dread, but that there is a hopeful future. A chance to laugh and not to cry.

[Maggyie]

Everyone here is so young! I was 16 years old and in my World History class. There was some gossip in the hall between classes but nothing definite. The principal came on the PA to announce that a plane had flown into the Pentagon, and I remember the teacher clapped her hand on her mouth and the wave of terror that went down my spine. We discussed it and decided there was surely going to be a war. All the other classes were dedicated to watching tv. Except my science class, that teacher was a real jerk about it and insisted we proceed as normal. He felt it wasn't a big deal. Everyone was totally distracted and it angered him. 

Edited September 13, 2016 by Maggyie