"Where were you, on..." No. 5 (20)

I was up watching TV in the morning...just chillin' on the couch,when the news broke in about the first tower hit.Everybody at that time thought it was just an accident at first...and then,as I was watching it live..I saw the second one slam into the other tower...



I just sat there with my jaw on the floor...I couldn't believe it...

did you get onto the phone an talk to friends?

Actually,I was married at the time,and the first thing I did was run into the bedroom and wake up my wife and tell her...."Apparently America's under attack!!!

I called family in Pennsylvania and Washington D.C.,later that day..


My cousin lives just a mile away from the Pentagon...he felt the impact and ran to help do what he could...he works for the government.

I'll just tell ya,girl...That was an aweful...AWEFUL DAY!!

anyone remembers meantime?

I was at the office (Malta) and i remember it very clearly, all of a sudden all mobile phones were ringing and the news was spreading, at the time it was still just the first tower. We immediately went on the CNN website whilst switching on the TV and it was then that we got to see the second hit.

It was terrible and shocking. We were all speachless, what can you say.

Was at work, when a colleague told us the news. At first we could not believe it and some even stated that there must have been a mixup, as she had heard the news from a 3rd party. We tried to access various sites, eg. CNN, BBC News, Sky New, etc etc, but could not manage to access them, due to the fact that they were overloaded.

Thus we tried some newspaper sites, and managed to get an update about what was happening.

Once I arrived home, I found my family watching the TV, and a bit later, the 2nd tower crashed.

As horrific as it was, for all those lost and for their survivors, I did not know at the time, that this even was going to be the cause of the end of MY career.

I had moved to Florida and had recently joined a Travel Agency as a Travel Agent. I was enroute to the Agency and, no sooner had I arrived there when one of the Agents received a phone call from someone who told her about the plane hitting the Twin towers.

I remember at the time, we were not particularly thinking in terms of terrorists. We had no television at the Agency, so each report we received came in via a phone call from someone.

Finally, after the second report, we knew that this was not just an ordinary accident. One of the gals who lived nearby went home and brought back a radio. The rest of the day, in addition to be shocking and frightening, was chaos for us because of all the flight cancellations.

Within a short span of time, travel by air...particularly vacations and pleasure trips, practically came to a standstill. Since I was the last to be hired at the agency, it wasn't too long before business fell off enough so that I was told they could not afford to pay me any longer.

The tour companies with whom I had worked for many years, no longer had enough business to justify hiring Tour Directors. I have not been aboard an airplane since that time.

There were so many lives that were tragically ended on that terrible day, that I have not even thought to complain about the "changes" in my life. I was very fortunate to have found other work and was gainfully employed until I chose to retire last year.

Since that time I have personally met folks who have lost loved ones as a result of that day. Some were parents of lost firefighters and first responders, who had retired and come to live in our RV Park in Florida.

Sadly,
Knittin Kitten
Judy

I was working at Hurlburt Field, Florida (Headquarters of Air Force Special Operations) that morning. I was at my desk when the first reports came in. One of the offices nearby had a small TV and I watched the replay footage on CNN of the first plane hitting the tower and also the live footage for a few minutes. I couldn't imagine how a pilot could accidentally fly into a tower that size without seeing it on such a clear day.

I didn't stay long, because I was the building manager and I received a notice to change our THREATCON signs to BRAVO on the doors, and implement our checklist, which was a fairly common request. It just meant we were under a slightly higher alert due to some unspecified threat to our area. After doing that I returned to glance at the TV just as the second jet crashed into the second tower. I said aloud, "That can't be an accident.". Apparently, others felt the same way, since a few minutes later our THREATCON went to CHARLIE. I had to print out the signs for this while someone else did the rest of the checklist, since we had never been to that level, except in exercises. I finished printing those signs and was walking to the doors to post them when we went to DELTA, the highest level, which in those days meant we were under attack or attack was imminent. We were totally shutdown and could leave the building for a few hours, not even to eat lunch.

It was a very long day for us, and for the rest of the Nation. It was eeire to see all the AC-130s and Black Hawks gone from our flight line. They soon were in the news as they provided support for the mission over in Central Asia and other places around the World. My mom became a news junkie for months afterwards. In the meantime, our Base turned into a virtual ghost town as the Special Forces deployed to places I had never even heard of in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the World. Life in the Air Force has not been the same since that day. We live and breathe the events and what has transpired since then, and my current NATO job in Poland would not even exist had that day not occurred.