Where were you on September 11, 2001?

[Candy]

I was confused about what was the thread about (and the first post's contents wasn't clear enough), but then I remembered... and then I asked myself why would you make a thread like this?

I was still 5 and I really don't have any recollections on the subject... well, other than that I just returned from Saudi Arabia to Indonesia a few months ago and I just entered kindergarten at the time.

 

[zakisrage]

Probably in bed. It was nighttime in Australia at the time.

 

[moon]

I just got home from school with my brother and I think we just turned the TV on and saw the same ♥♥♥♥ on every channel and realized that something scary was happening across the Atlantic Sea.

 

[Sether]

I don't exactly remember. I only heard about the incident the day after.

 

[Alfieri]

I was in 1st grade at the time but I don't remember a thing. Which is weird because I lived in Queens, you'd figured I'd remembered what happened when Manhattan was nearby.

All I know is what my mother told me, she said she sent my older brother to pick me up because my school was doing an early dismissal.

 

[Sirfetch’d]

I remember this very clearly. I was sitting in my 1st grade class, my teacher Mrs. Edwards was pulled from the classroom by another teacher and didn't return. About 10 minutes later the principal made an announcement to the entire school that it would be releasing early and explained what had happened. I was still young and the time and didn't understand the severity of the situation, but knew something bad was up because a lot of the teachers and parents were crying. I went home with my dad that day and watched the news all day and all night. It seemed as if it were on every channel..even the non news channels. To this day, I can say that day has more of a place in my memory than almost any other day that I can remember. It's odd considering I wasn't even sure what was happening, but my mind chose to remember it vividly for some reason.

 

[Sheep]

I was in my 5th grade classroom and could see the smoke outside my window, living in NYC and all. The teachers refused to tell us what was going on as children in the class were picked up by parents/guardians one by one. I was one of the last to go home since both parents worked in Manhattan and had a hard time getting back but no complaints.. at least they returned safe. :( Mom worked a block away from the towers but I didn't find out about that until many years later, urgh.

 

[Trick 'r Treat]

I remember that year very clearly. It was the year my mom passed away and 9/11. I was in 3rd grade(8 years old) and playing at recess in the morning before school started & i saw my teacher watching the TV with the planes crashing into the towers & i was scared. When we got to class the principal told everyone that school was cancelled for a few days. My friend who was in the same class as me told me his cousin was walking right by the towers & saw the first plane go into the builing. It's crazy how it happened when i was only 8 & I'm now 21.

 

[blue]

I was 6 at the time and I was in school, obviously I'd heard about it once I got home but I didn't really pay much attention to the news being so young. Looking back and watching documentaries fascinates me now, and it was such a tragic event that won't be forgotton.

 

[Cyclone]

I was in school at the time. It was not a busy class day, so I was at home when the news of the first building being hit went by. At the time, I had the radio on in the morning while working on my computer, my first PC at the time. I heard a bit on the regular news segment about reports of the WTC on fire, I think mentioning a plane reported.

Not even 30 seconds later, I got a call from my father asking if I'd heard about what was going on in New York. "Yeah, a plane hit the World Trade Center."

"No," he said, "BOTH towers were hit."

"You're f**king serious?"

Just like that, I was downstairs like a shot turning on the TV to find a station covering it. That honestly did not take too much effort; it was everywhere, including on the Canadian stations CBC and CTV. I watched for a while, then went upstairs to see what people at my then-discussion forum home were saying (I had joined it earlier that year). I then read about the Pentagon being on fire, and back downstairs I went.

Back upstairs and discussing again, then the first building fell. I was back downstairs just staring in awe at the replays, and I knew the second building was going, so shot upstairs and typed something, saying I'd be back before leaving for the day, and back downstairs.

I finally (and sadly) saw something happen live when the second building fell, then there was news of a crash in Pennsylvania.

I figured at that point the main activity was over, school was still going on, and I still had to go, but I was driving in a bit of a daze at the morning's events.

The old fart who was teaching the first of the day's classes carried on as if he was oblivious to what happened. However, I am sure I wasn't the only one having a hard time paying attention.

Thankfully, the second class at 2:00 turned into a discussion about the day's events; the teacher was someone who is very in tune with the happenings outside our little world (I actually ran into him a couple of weeks ago) and basically led an hour-long classroom discussion about it instead of doing any of the regular class work that day.

After that, I went straight home (I decided anything else could wait that day) to find out the latest updates and later saw that Building 7 fell. I learned later it had been on fire all day since the second tower fell. Later, with the entire family home, we got the entire play-by-play with video highlights that had been airing all day.

I slept uneasy that evening, but life carries on. I still had school the next day.

I also remember gas used to be a whole lot cheaper back then. Nowadays, I doubt I would want to drive as much as I did to school back then.

 

[Yato]

I was eating lunch in my elementary school's cafeteria when our eating time was suddenly interrupted by an announcement to take all the children back to their classrooms. I remember being upset that I couldn't finish my lunch and didn't know why we had to go back. Along with the other kids in my grade, we went into a classroom and stayed there for quite a while. I think we also saw part of The Lion King; I can't remember. After a while, we resumed a normal schedule. I didn't know what happened until after my parents picked me up, and even then I don't think I was able to comprehend all that I was told.

 

[Limey-chan]

I was 8, I believe the attacks happened mid-afternoon GMT? Chances are i'll have either been finishing school or on my way home from school when they happened.

I can remember wanting to watch cartoons but literally every channel had switched to the News, showing the footage of the towers smoking/collapsing over and over.

 

[aurevesque]

I was in private school and was taking a test or something. My teacher seemed shaken up, and we all got let out. But, I didn't really understand it.

 

[Imperator161]

I knew that something was wrong during the school day, as the teachers seemed really distracted and all of our after-school activities were cancelled, but my school didn't tell us anything about it. That was probably for the best, as a lot of people had parents who worked in or near the World Trade Center, and seeing footage during the school day might have made a lot of people panic. I recall being excited that one of my normal Tuesday activities was cancelled, as that meant I could watch Pokemon on TV after school, but when I got home, I found out that hardly any of our channels worked (they were all knocked out when the towers went down), and the channel that my parents were watching showed footage of the towers being hit and then eventually collapsing. I then watched the news, and my parents filled me in about what had happened.

The next day was pretty awful. I had a classmate whose dad hadn't come home the night before, and he worked pretty high up in one of the towers. I remember all of us trying to be encouraging, but everyone knew that the situation was bleak. And no, that father never came home.

 

[acatfrommars]

At the time, I was five years old living in South America still. I was in a private school, in Kindergarten, and didn't even learn about the event until a couple of years later. We moved to the States the year after and everything seemed so strange. My parents were concerned, but I'm not sure if the country was concerned or how they felt. I was too young to remember; I'm sure things would have been different if I had lived in the U.S.

 

[Treecko]

I was in 3rd grade ,and my brothers and I were running late for school, a common thing for us at the time. My dad had the radio on and they were talking about a plane clash and it didn't phase me as very serious since I thought "Plane crashes are awful, but they happen all the time. It's not a big deal." None of us really didn't quite got what was going on. I didn't truly understand what was happening (or how serious of an issue it really was) until my younger brother's teacher made my class go to her classroom and sat us in front of the TV set to watch the news. Then I saw the footage of the plane crashing and learned more about the hijacking. When i got home from school, the news was on every channel (which made me a bit mad since I was missing some of my favorite shows, but once my once my dad explain how important it was, I understood) and it's only the only thing the news talked about for the rest of the week. That's when I definitely realized something was going horribly wrong.

Edit content warning :

Spoiler:

I just spent 30 minutes watching videos of it happening for no reason. Even though I witnessed it on TV as a kid on the day it happened, it's a lot more terrifying as an adult. I watched the towers burn up and shrivel to bits and I saw people actually jumping off the buildings and killing themselves. And now I'm sad and want to cry. :(

 

[Alexander Nicholi]

I was at the Penrose Community Urgent Care Center while my mother was birthing my sister, presumably with my dad. Dunno how my mom took that being in labor and all, if she even did. Sister was born the day after. I myself don't remember a damn thing :<

 

[Kyrul]

I was in the 2nd grade, we just got out of gym class and came back to our main room and our teacher was watching the news on one of those TVs the teachers can just wheel around the schools. Shortly after, they announced that school was over and we went back home for the day. I didn't realize how bad the situation was until the next day when my parents tried to explain it all to me.

 

[Synerjee]

I was seven at the time and didn't even know such a thing had ever happened.

 

[Legobricks]

I asked myself why would you make a thread like this?

Pretty much that. Why is this incident in particular the one thing people pick out to ask "what were you doing at the time" about?

This is nice. The world needs more of this kind of sympathy. Not just "Hey, it's not our country. What do we care."

Yes, but the tragedy of the incident has been played up so much as to diminish the significance of any other terrorist attack in the mind of our generation.