15 years

[Craig Arko]

It does not seem that long. I was about 10 feet from where I am right now when the unbelievable news hit. Staring at a computer screen, of course.

 

Still can see the video of the second plane in my head.

[Vanimal46]

Time flies.... I'll always remember where I was on this devastating day 15 years ago. Like you Craig, we saw the 2nd plane hit on live TV in our classroom. That image will never leave my head no matter how much time has passed.

[jimmer]

 

It does not seem that long. I was about 10 feet from where I am right now when the unbelievable news hit. Staring at a computer screen, of course.

Still can see the video of the second plane in my head.

I was in Saudi Arabia when it happened.  I got into work and wondered why everyone was watching the TV.  I got there just in time to see the 2nd plane hit.

[Squirrel]

The images I have a difficult time with were the people jumping.

[USAFChief]

Just can't possibly be 15 years ago.

 

I was in Japan. Got called in to work in the middle of the night. What awful memories.

[TheLeviathan]

 

The images I have a difficult time with were the people jumping.

 

The aftermath was incredibly difficult to process as it was happening.

[Badsmerf]

I think everyone will remember that day. I was in high school and like many, watched the second plane hit. We were on break, and people began shouting and screaming. It was awful.

[ashbury]

I lived in the Pacific time zone, and therefore was behind the curve on this one. All the events had already happened.

 

I got in to work, and it being a short commute I apparently hadn't turned the car radio on. It was a small office and my door was nearest the front. I had no clue as I sat down to my desk and began going through my work email inbox. Several minutes later a German colleague walked in from a few doors down. He was agitated and not terribly coherent. "Horrible, horrible" was just about the gist of it as I remember it. "What?" I asked.

 

My addiction to checking Yahoo News first thing when I get on the computer continues to this day.

[Brock Beauchamp]

I was in California and received a call from a friend just before 6am. I ignored the call. He called again. I picked up the phone and said something along the lines of "Somebody better be dead, what the **** do you want at six in the morning?"

 

He told me to turn on the TV. I flipped on the TV, found a local news station, and about 20 seconds later the second plane hit the tower.

 

It's still surreal even 15 years later.

[twinsnorth49]

I drove my wife to work that morning, she hates noise pollution so we rarely ever have the radio on when she's with me. For whatever reason I didn't turn it on right after she got out of the car but did about 10 minutes from home. The radio DJ's could hardly process what was happening, it was mass confusion. I went inside the house and turned on the TV just before the 2nd plane hit.......disbelief, still to this day. The image of the tower crumbling under itself is indelible.

 

It's crazy to think it was 15 years ago, but even crazier to think how much has changed and become normal after that dreadful day.

[biggentleben]

My professor walked into my first class at the U of M late and explained that someone had hit one of the trade centers with a plane. I was walking between that class and my internship at the sports marketing offices of the U when the second plane hit. I walked into Williams, and they locked the door behind me. I remember being locked into that building the entire day as the U of M was considered a viable target due to the size of the campus and the location in the middle of a metro area. The entire campus was locked down that day. Classes were all dismissed, and they didn't resume for multiple days.

 

I had the honor of singing the national anthem at the first sporting event at the U of M after 9/11, a soccer game held on Friday night before the Gophers hosted Purdue in football the next day, where Ben Uttecht and Preston Gruening sang the anthem in uniform rather than the traditional marching band rendition. I also was able to sing at the first sporting event on campus the next week at a volleyball game, and I remember having a veteran of multiple foreign wars coming up to me afterward in tears thanking me for what I had just done. His explanation - that I sang the song straight and to the point, not trying to "perform" it, but to simply provide the song as a moment to honor the country.

[biggentleben]

PBS has presented some incredible programs around the anniversary in the last week if anyone has been watching. I especially enjoyed "In My Son's Name".

[gunnarthor]

I was in law school out east at the time.  I had a meeting in Queens which would have brought me to the WTC on the PATH train just before 9am but a friend from MN had come out so I cancelled that meeting and was supposed to meet her that night at the WTC instead.  Fortunately, we were both safe.

 

The local news that night reported that the FBI had arrested a van that was going to blow up the GW bridge.  Turned out that was false but there was a lot of false information flying around.  It was incredibly scary at the time - for months, we kept waiting for the "next one" to come.