I know some you guys/ gals here were in diapers when the towers fell which is why they need to show footage every
year in every school of the towers falling and the people jumping to their death.

I was on the way from one police dept. to another when word came over the radio of a plane hitting the first tower.
When I arrived at Dist.5 I went into the clerks office just in time to see the second plane hit.

Hopped in the truck and headed north on Branch Ave. Looked west and saw the first plume of smoke from the Pentagon
just when the report came that a plane hit. My wife and SIL were in the Pentagon. Fortunately, on the other side.

I didn't know, however. Communications were halted and no phone calls could be made. About 5 hours later I got word
all was ok.

Our neighbor at the time was a U.S. Marshal in charge of investigating the WTC bombing a decade earlier. he would go
up for two weeks then back home for two weeks. luckily he was home that week.

I had taken a days leave to work on a project that I was getting late to need on. I had been up since 0500 working with no TV or radio on.

Around 0900 I decided to drive to the pet store, 6 or 7 away, and and half way there I turned the radio on and could not believe what I was hearing. I first thought it was a joke and something straight out of Orson Welles.

Store clerk had a TV on and confirmed it was a real situation.

Needless to say, I experienced one of the worst feelings that I have ever experienced in my life.

I was at work in a meeting when my assistant came in & told us she just heard a plane hit the World Trade Building. At that time we had no idea it was a terrorist attack. After the second plane hit & we realized what was going on, I closed the business & sent all home. Unfortunately, several people I know lost loved ones that day.
My wife who worked directly across from the World Trade Building in New Jersey saw the flames from the first hit, then watched as the second plane hit.
May we always honor the memory of all who lost their lives on that terrible day.

Sleeping in. Hell of a thing to wake up to.

I was at work, sitting at my desk with the office door closed and was called to the TV because something was going on. Saw #2 get hit. Made me sick and I just went home for the day. I also recall how eerie it was for a couple days after. I was numb.

I was working from home that day in Tennessee. My wife called and said a plane just crashed into the World Trade Center tower. I figured it was a small Cessna and did not think much about it. She called back a little later and said something is happening so I turned on the tv. Then it was like oh my God. I had co-workers working in the Met Life building, right next to Grand Central Station, they had to evacuate and make their way out of the city. My supervisor told me he was just staring out the window looking at the smoke coming from the towers, a guard told him he had to leave the building. I did not get to New York until about 3 weeks later, it was so surreal, seeing the poster boards up in Grand Central Station with all the "have you seen this person" messages, also seeing the national guard solders patrolling with rifles. The city was definitely different, people were different, so many differences were put to the side at that time.

The hotel that I was staying at was right across from the UN. When the UN was in sessions they had dump trucks blocking the streets to protect the access to the UN

I was leaving my house when the first hit, media was really conflicted/confused......my boss had the tv on when I got to work in the conference room (only time ever) so I went in just before the second plane hit. I wasn’t confused about what was going on at that point.

I was at work. I heard about the first tower impact and remembered the story of a WWII plane hitting the Empire State Building. I was working on a secure government nuclear site and we had a security level change. The IT folks started streaming a news feed from NY and I watched the second Tower get hit, I was sick knowing there were people inside that plane and that building.

The saddest memory was the gathering of hospital boats and medical assets to treat the injured that went unused; most had died in the collapse of the towers.

It was a triumph for savages that I will never forget.

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Was stationed in Guam. Couldn't sleep that night. For no reason that I could fathom while reflecting in the days after....I turned on the TV just before 11PM only minutes before the second plane hit. I watched in stunned silence for about two hours before getting called to report to the ship. Didn't get home for four days, even though we stayed in port.

Ya, the films of celebration coming from overseas pissed me off real good... it was a tough day... 😟

On my parents couch, getting ready to take gramps to chemo... Mom turned the tv on and told me a plane had crashed... Second one crashed right as she got it to the news...

Crystal Lake, IL on a customer's site. The engineer I was working with knew I was prior service. He came out and grabbed me and said you need to see this. Got there just in time to catch the 2nd strike and by that point the news was starting to catch up. Sat there in stunned silence watching the jumpers and then the collapse of the towers. We just could not accept what the hell we were seeing. The word of the pentagon hit came in, then the word of the flight the passengers fought back and brought down.

God Damn I was proud and simply in awe of those folks. That takes a lot of guts to know what's happening, to know you're probably going to die in the effort, and step up and do it anyway. To protect folks they didn't even know, to try and stop the evil. Those folks were Warriors. Finest kind.

The part that really made it real and drove the point home was when they shut the airlines down. O'Hare and Midway are right there in Chicago. Normally the air over the area is crisscrossed with continual air traffic. When I walked out to go eat lunch later, nothing. Not a single plane or contrail in the sky. It's hard to express how big the impact of that was on me. The realization of what that meant, and the change that had been made, that as a nation we would never be the same.

Later that day I was outside on the phone and saw three planes headed east. One large commercial type with two fighter escorts. Somebody was headed to Washington. I just stood there and watched it go over until I lost sight of it. "Go get those sunsabitches and make somebody pay!"

Then the anger set it. I almost re-enlisted that weekend, they put a call out for selected rating retirees to do voluntary recalls to on active duty. Gunners Mates were on the list. My wife asked me what did I think they were going to do with a 51 year old retiree ? Give me my cammies, a rifle, a boat and turn me loose? Yeah, no. I came to terms with that and decided my family had sacrificed enough over the years without me dropping my new life and career to go run an ammunition depot. That was a hard call.

All I could think about were the folks that died, and their families. And even worse was the thought of those that didn't know. I still get mad just thinking about it. It makes me sad we have to remind folks. But by God I'll keep at it. Those people and their families deserve that, every day, from everyone.

at work. heard a commotion coming from the designers' area.
they were gathered around a computer.
My friend Phil told me what happened.
I went numb, couldn't process it.
was dazed all day.

Out on surveillance. Sitting in my car listening to Howard Stern.

Stayed home that day to take my kid to a doctor's appointment. I was the security operations chief for Naval Air Station North Island at the time. We went from having 80 personnel to about 180 personnel when they activated the auxiliary security forces.

Traffic around the bases in San Diego was a nightmare for a few weeks.

Showed up for work. Someone said a plane hit the WTC. I said so???? Planes have hit it before. Clicked in to the internet which was barely working. One word was on CNN.com. TERROR. link went nowhere site was pretty well frozen.

Then our building was evacuated and we were sent home.

PG County, ehhh?

I was in bed, and got up to go pee. My wife had TV on and the first plane had crashed...
.as we were watching trying to figure out what was going on(accident or intentional), another plane came into view and crashed into the Tower as we watched. I never did get back to sleep that day...

Painted houses at the time and arrived to run through a punch list at the end of a job. Pukling up to the job I heard about the first plane on the radio and assumed an accident. Getting set up as news of the second plane hit. Spent the day glued to the TV with the homeowners.

After checking out I was walking from the Warwick to my office on Madison near 46th when the first plane hit. Arrived upstairs and I saw a few associates quickly heading to the break room, one yelled over his shoulder that a plane hit the tower, I thought that's unusual as it was a bright beautiful morning, pilot have a heart attack?

Made my way to the break room and the tv and watched the second plane hit, I said out loud that was no accident this is a terrorist attack.

Frantic calls were going out to friends and families, some of my co-workers had friends working in the Towers and I later heard one did lose a friend there.

Through the morning we huddled around the tv, our break room was on the street side of our building and we could see into other offices across the street at the various offices and lunch rooms, lots of crying and slumped shoulders and shaking heads, even some shaking fists from men in yarmulkes.

My cell phone rang about ten, it was my wife, around my co-workers fear I forgot to call her, she didn't know where our office was.

Staff was released and all the locals left to make their ways home, trains and busses were still running before noon however us "visitors" had nowhere to go as we were out of our hotels, flights were stopped and as of noon the hotels were not letting us back in because they were still expecting new guests.....so I walked and walked.

Across to seventh and headed south to see what was going on downtown. I walked against the tide of commuters that were heading north because all bridges and tunnels south were closed, going to Lincoln Tunnel?? Cannot recall.

In the twenties I turned around and went with the flow back north, about 3 I was around Sixth and 47th where I stopped and stood in front of a light pole, it was the only place to stop without being in someone's way. I wish - yet I am glad, that I did not have a camera. Everyone's face was grim, everyone hunched over trying to call, tears, even the grimy gross New York payphones had folks lined for a chance to call home.

It was around that time the people from near ground zero started to show up in the crowd, some lightly coated. some heavily, their hair and clothes with the yellow and brown debris of the Towers. I remember a cab coming slowly up the middle of the street covered with inches of dust from the buildings on it!

Later that night the city smelled of burnt concrete.... cops stopped a group of us south of Times Square and would not let us go further south. Next day the city was abandoned, I could hear birds in the trees as I went to the office to meet and plan our ways out. Three of us got a break and picked up a rental and we beat it out of the city Thursday morning and I was dropped off in Atlanta. Every bridge and overpass all the way down 95 had flags and slogans hanging from them, it was beautiful among all the carnage America was seeing. In Atlanta I saw my folks and brother and finally got a flight to Dallas and to my wife and son on Saturday.