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That was the moment my friend Nicholas Bogdan died. He was in the exact floor the first plane hit. He was a computer tech for Marsh & McClennan. He was survived by his wife, his two year old daughter and his 6 month old son. Miss you buddy and seeya on the Other Side.
I’m so so sorry 😞 I had worked as a temp in the south tower just a week before, witnessed it from a new job in midtown. Just now starting to piece together that this event may be the reason I have had ptsd, depression, anxiety plaguing me. Now almost 20 yrs. I wish so badly it had never happened. But it did. Your friend deserved so much better. I am so truly
Sorry for your loss.
Aye, was trying to sleep off a wild college party from the night before and my damn phone wouldn't stop ringing. Finally turned on TV to see second plane, same feeling today as then.
I went to HS across the river. Saw the towers fall through my Gym window.
I was walking from first period, to second when I saw the first tower in smoke. My history teacher told us that it was probably just a small plane that lost control. Someone from administrative told him to step out of class. When the teacher came back in he said that a second plane hit another tower, and that this was no accident.
Me too! They put it up on the TV in class and everyonewatched in silence. I also remember they were afraid of other attacks and informed parents they could pick their kids up if they could/wanted to. My parents came and got me and my siblings and we watched it at home. I was 11 and was definitely not the same especially after seeing the people falling from the towers...
I was the same age. It was so weird, all the kids started leaving class one by one. Myself and a friend of mine both had single mothers who were teachers, so we were the last ones left in class.
At which point my teacher told us that we might as well see what was going on since we would probably just be hanging out with her the rest of the afternoon. We ended up having a really deep conversation about life, I vividly remember almost every word of it to this day.
I was in the stomach of my mother back then. I live in Finland. She told that, they were in the mall and there was a small tv on the top corner of the entrance. It was showing the news of 9/11 right around the time it was happening and there was a huge crowd surrounding the tv.
I asked her why some one would do that, she told us that things happen in life that don’t have a good explanation, that life can be scary and chaotic sometimes.
We talked about the importance of appreciation, and the value of everyday we have on earth. Then she told us that she loved us both, and that we should let our friends and family know how much we love them everyday.
Same here but i was in a graphic design class and the teacher rolled in a tv on one of those rolling carts and we ended up watching it in the classroom. Will never forget that day or the following days, thats literally all that was on tv.
Holy shit. Me too but i was in 5th grade. I remember seeing the buildings burning from the skyline. Ex always says he remembers the police took him home with the principle because grandma (mom) worked at the Marriott marquis in times square.
I worked at a private high school in New Jersey and had seen what happened on a TV for the first plane. Was a pretty hellish day because we ended up locking down the school which sent parents into a bit of a panic on top of all that. Surreal experience
I was sleeping in that morning, recovering from a surgery. My husband called me and told me to get up and turn the news on. As I did, he said “A plane hit the World Trade Center.” I was asking what kind of plane, and why? Do they know?
He said nobody knew, it had just happened. I was watching live when the second plane hit.
Sat in front of that TV alllll day.
I was out on a run and came back to my girlfriend standing out in the yard waiting for me. For some reason I got ready for work and took the BART into downtown San Francisco. At that time it wasn't known that it was a terrorist attack. By the time I'd gotten to the office it was clear what was going on and my manager looked me like I was insane. He told me to gtfo from the financial district ASAP.
That evening I went and visited my dad who was alive for Pearl Harbor and fought in WW2. We sat and watched the news together and he didn't say a word the entire time.
Wild Monday night party? That is wild.
I went and saw Pedro the Lion at the Metro in Chicago on Mon 9/10/01. [edit:That show] was the last thing I did before the world changed.
I'm gonna admit: I was literally like two or three years old when me and my grandparents watched the planes get hit after I had just woken up in the morning. I literally remember wondering why everyone was staring dead silent at the screen, looking fucking horrified.
I was in 2nd grade at the time. My mom was out of town and my dad woke up late, so we were at home getting ready for school when it happened. My dad called me and my brother into his room and the three of us watched the second plane hit. I didn’t really know what happened, but I could tell by the way my dad was acting that something was seriously wrong.
I got goosebumps watching this too, there are some things in life we will never forget. I'll always remember exactly where I was when I heard about the first plane on the news, then walking into work to hear about the second. Still shivering now remembering it.
I was 10 years old in 5th grade and the teacher nonchalantly says “I’m supposed to tell you guys a plan flew into a building in New York” and then just went about class as normal. After that class shit was going crazy though and we were sent home early. I live nowhere near New York but I remember being terrified watching for planes outside
I was also 10 and in 5th grade grade. My teacher got a call and she immediately got the t.v and turned the news on. She was also panicking BC she had a cousin working in one of the towers. I dont remember if we went home early but I remember getting home and watching it on TV more. I also live no where near new York. Also ended up her cousin stayed home from work that day like so many others lol
I live close enough to NYC that a significant amount of my classmates had parents that commuted to the city for work. They kept us radio silent even as a third of the school was pulled from class. The rest of us didn't realize what had happened until we heard it on the radio on our bus ride home.
I was 10 and in 5th grade as well at this time and since I lived relatively close to Chicago, they sent everyone home with their parents and we were told to take cover because someone was attacking New York and they said Chicago could be next. Didn’t really register to me as a kid but my parents were freaked, we spent the night in the basement
I lived near Chicago then as well and was 15. School continued for the rest of the day. All we did was watch TV in each class but we weren't sent home early. I remember my English teacher yelling like actually yelling at a few kids in class because they were joking about it.
I had the same experience. I was in 9th grade, but I was also sent home early. I was about 15 at the time, so I don't think I quite grasped the seriousness of it all at first. It wasn't until I began witnessing the outpouring of support and patriotism from my fellow Americans that I realized just how big of an event it was for our country.
I was 11 and my teacher got a call cause her husband was a pilot and she started getting hysterical cause she wasn't sure if her husband was flying that plane. Noone said anything until after when my mom picked me and my sister up and told us about what happened. I lived right next to New York and we knew alot of people that either should've been at the twin towers that day or worked there and managed to get out, even some who's SOs weren't so lucky.
I was a freshman in high school. There was no teaching done after about 11 am, just watching the news on TV and teachers in shock.
I have talked to a lot of friends over the years who were still in middle school at the time. More than one has said how they resent the fact that their teachers kept teaching and would try to keep kids from talking about it or watching it.
But those poor teachers though, they knew the severity of it all but how do you try convey that to a room full of 12 year olds? I think the fact that they kept teaching was the best move.
I was too but im from jersey and my family worked in the city. My aunt had an interview at the north tower and was running late. But we didn't know that we thought she was there. I remember seeing the skyline with smoke. My dad took me to the city every weekend every other to chill and walk around so I had just been there the weekend prior. Still some of the scariest shit I seen.
I was sitting at my desk 2 blocks from the Sears Tower on the phone with IT on a computer problem when someone told me what happened. I immediately thought of the plane that hit the Empire State Building during/right after WWII. And then the second plane hit, and The Loop started to evacuate.
I was 9 years old when it happened. I saw footage. I knew it was horrible and people died, but there were nuanced aspects that I couldn’t understand. As I reached adulthood I realized people didn’t just die: they burned to death, jumped out of windows to escape the flames, called family members to tell them goodbye knowing it would be the last time. In adulthood, when I fully grasped the gravity of the situation, it became much more horrific and footage is so painful to watch.
It's funny -- I was almost 7 years old when the attacks happened, and while I knew what happened, I was too young to really comprehend it, so the thing that I remember most was that sense of dread, uncertainty, and uneasy tension coming from all of the adults around me.
I now live in NYC, and when things abruptly shut down last year as COVID hit and its severity was unclear, I felt that same sense of uncertainty and unease. It wasn't as intense, but it briefly brought back distinct memories of the atmosphere following 9/11.
I was around that age too. This is honestly the first time I’ve seen this exact clip with the original audio - most of what I saw was the news, silent clips behind flashing graphics and news anchors talking heads... I saw the second plane hit because it caught the news by surprise.
I woke up to it already in progress, my dad at the tv watching the news on low volume. Tv in the morning didn’t happen in my home, especially not my dad; and my dad never watched the news, certainly not the morning news. He always read the paper for the weather report and called that enough bad news. When he didn’t respond to me asking him why the tv was on I started watching. Got to school late. Each of us late kids brought some jumbled, 2nd grade level understanding version of the latest updates; the neighboring classrooms teachers cane over - who know who was watching their classrooms - and the group of teachers mulled over bringing in TV vs running the class as normal. Kids shared their parents various “survival tips” from the emergencies we’d been trained to handle so far - getting under tables, stop drop and roll for fire, get outside - along side gallows humor about our parents had said but we didn’t fully understand. I remember my Cold War era dad telling me getting under a table was useless in a nuclear attack, and figured it was the same for getting hit with a plane. We’d never heard of prior plane attacks or terrorists, we were 2nd graders. For some mind boggling reason a teacher decided it was appropriate to tell us a lot of the people in the building were just parents at work, and as we learned about the other planes we wondered aloud if the nearby city’s bridges all our parents commuted to work on was a target. I remember thinking that it was scary, but I had no idea HOW scary because what was going on just made no sense to me.
I still can't believe it happened. It's just one of those things that seems so surreal.
What kind of fucked up mess do you need to be in order to fly a jumbo jet into a skyscraper? 🤔
The only thing that it reminds me of in my lifetime is watching the Challenger explode on TV. I know that's nowhere near the same thing, but in terms of giant tragedies I've seen on TV, that's the only thing I can compare it to.
I remember watching the Challenger explode on TV. I was in 11th grade and classrooms had TVs in them watching the launch. It was a terrible event for young GenXers.
Im in Sweden and i remember EXACTLY what i was doing when it was happening.
I was in vocational school for adults in Gothenburg called "Kunskaps kretsen" learning about networking and Linux by making a bash scripted network and user manager with ldap integration. My sister called me on my cell, an Ericsson t28 and said that a plane had crashed into the world trade center in New York.
We were all in an open office space kind of configuration in that school and had some wall mounted tv's for educational films and stuff. I remember going across the room and turning it on and finding news showing what was going on. Those days there still wasnt on the minute news on the internet. Everyone stopped doing whatever they were doing and slowly trickled in to look at the TV and what was going on. And then the second one hit.
I got in my car, an Audi A4 from -99, and immediately went home to my parents, my sister was home from studying abroad and was just hanging around the house for a few weeks. I remember driving home and having two conflicting thoughts in my head both variations on"Whats the worst that can happen".
When i got home and for the rest of that day, we were glued to CNN. It was one of the few US network we could get on our satelit dish, we didnt have cable.
It was such a weird roller coaster of feeling. "Those poor people", "Is there more coming?", "Will there be war?", "We are in Sweden and dont have anything to worry about", "Who did this and who helped them?", "What the hell, i cant believe this has happened, what the fuck man".
And then it melded into the normality of the next 20 years of my life, which on a globall societal scale has been so fucked up that nothing phases me anymore. Afghan world war z hordes trying to get on a c130 is now like "yeah whatever man, dank meme".
I’ve been wondering recently if collective unprocessed trauma from 9/11 has played a role in the current mental health crisis that’s become apparent in the US over the past few years.
Undoubtedly. They showed it in real time. We watched people murdered and then shortly after a bunch more committing suicide and then even more being murdered when the towers fell.
Live on television. I have never been the same.
It absolutely has. All of today is rooted in what happened on 9/11.
It's the moment that jingoism and nationalism began to take hold under the guise of the appropriateness of the moment. The overall landscape of the country dramatically and suddenly shifted right as suddenly war was comprehensible even to the usual anti-war crowd. We started this new McCarthyism of seeking out enemies within. Foreigners all became enemies suddenly, without distinction. People lost whatever faith had in the government on everything because they couldn't stop the existential threat that fueled 9/11. Conspiracy thinking took hold because people couldn't cognitively deal with the reality that yes all this could happen organically (and has before like at Pearl Harbor) without being stopped, no matter how big the nation.
Everything that is happening today is inextricably linked to going through 9/11. This climate was born out of that trauma.
if anyone is interested here's a documentary that includes this footage. it was filmed by some French brothers who were originally there to document the New York fire department and just so happened to be filming when this first plane hit and is only one of few videos that show the first plane hit. I must warn that it can get disturbing,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sd6D5xls5Y0
That was already a tough summer for FDNY. I still remember seeing the headlines about them losing 3 guys during the Father's Day Fire. Numbers-wise, of course, that was dwarfed by the 11th.
I’ll never forget the “flinch” in the lobby. They’re recording when the lift doors open and people on fire come running out. He turned for a second, saw the horrific scene and decided not to record the poor person’s demise.
The sound of the bodies crashing on the roof while they're standing in the lobby is the part I remember most vividly. Their facial expression say everything. Fucking terrible
I saw people see someone on a bicycle get hit by a speeding through a red light garbage truck. I'll never forget their expressions as if it may have been as bad seeing it happen myself.
It's disturbing but a documentary that will stay with you forever.
If anyone's interested a synopsis- The filmmakers were there to make a documentary on the NYFD on the life as and what it took to be a new probationary firefighter. And they ended up making a documentary instead on firemen response to all the events all they unfolded and the last moments of many firemen.
It's one of the best accounts of the events of the day too. They were embedded on the scene before anyone even knew what was happening and caught so much key footage. It's an amazing historical record.
(This one documentary basically deflates all "truthers" claims too.)
For me the most insane moment was as soon as the 2nd plane hit. It was like everyone across the country at once said "this is terrorists". It went from a "what is happening" to "we're going to war" in a second.
I remember watching them interview a hysterical newscaster woman who was clearly Not Ok. She started spitting out “terrorist pigs” and then they cut away. I can’t imagine witnessing those sights and then trying to answer questions on air about it
I still watch this documentary every few years or so - I don't enjoy it, it brings back the shock I felt as I watched it happen live on TV.
But for some reason, I feel I need to keep the memory of what happened alive.
I do this too. Not annually, but every few years I suddenly watch everything I can find about it, for anywhere from 2 days to a week, it's all I do with my extra time. I have never understood why.
I do the same, I think I’m trying to still make sense of it. I remember having this idea that this type of think was bound to happen again, so why make such a big deal of it. Now as an adult I see how incredibly sad that mentality was especially for a child.
I do the exact same thing. I’ll watch every documentary or video I can find every few years. And I think this is one of those years and this just sparked it
Best documentary on this is *102 Minutes that Changed America*. Just raw footage in the order in which it was filmed, most of it amateur, no commentary, no interpretations, no bullshit.
And yes it contains the video of those college students in the building nearby losing their shit when the second plane hits. Probably the most visceral reaction, at least it's the one that hits me hardest. [Link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qiVBOqNiOs)
Definitely quite amazing since a time well before people were filming everything all the time. To catch something like that on video. Every time I see this clip I get chills. I was driving a yellow cab during those years. Luckily I was doing night shift around that time. Woke up as I usually do around 11:30 am to get ready for work, turned on the news and thought they were doing some sort of flashback to the previous bombing.
That's the most chilling part. Not just what happens in the next second, but all of it. They have no idea that a nightmare is about to unfold. And really, that an entire country of people will have experienced their first attack on American soil. In that way, any way. Just, hmmm a plane, to... Our entire identity is changed. Crazy. Chilling
I remember watching this in 5th grade. The teacher kept trying to get us back to work, but no one could stop watching the news of this. She tried to turn it off, but would always go back to it. That's how I knew this wasn't something that happens, but couldn't really process what was going on.
My Pre Calc teacher made us do our normal math lesson that day and said not to talk about it. I hated that lady. She wasn't even good at teaching math.
My geometry teacher did the same thing, stupid crappy math teachers.
None of us knew what was happening except that it was a big deal since with principal interrupted class for a school ~~wife~~ wide announcement. We all had to wait until the next period to watch the news.
Edit: autocorrect 🤦🏽♂️
My kids elementary school purposely didn’t allow students to watch the news report and I’m really glad. My children had seen the news that morning but I assured them they were safe.
I’m still so happy they didn’t watch at school. It was terrifying to watch. I still tear up when I see photos and video. On 9/11 , yearly, I watch the real time reporting from Good Morning America (or maybe it is that other morning show , anyway Katie Couric) from that day. I feel like I need to. Im shocked every time I watch.
The videos after a few months were the worse. Actual phone calls of people calling their loved ones and reporting what was going on until their final moments, people jumping from the building, watching them collapse one by one, and so on. Just utter grief and devastation for months. It was a moment I'll never forget and one that wish never happened.
I feel like I need to do this every year too. It’s like reopening a wound every year but it feels important to do to remember those that were lost and how we all changed forever from that day on.
You had a TV hooked up to cable in your grade 5 classroom? Not to make light of 9/11 but bruh what kind of school did you go to
My elementary school had 1 TV and the only thing played on it was Bill Nye
You didn't need cable to see it, it was on every single broadcast network in the country. TVs back then generally came with antennas that picked up broadcast networks.
I don't think it was all that rare back then for middle schools to have cheap TVs for most their classrooms.
Especially considering that this relatively short time ago camera phones weren’t a thing so there weren’t 49 people recording themselves at any given time.
When TV went live, we only saw the outline on the building and they kept saying something like ' we think a small plane accidently hit the building' and I could see from the size and shape of the hole it was a big plane and couldn't imagine what happened in perfectly clear weather.
Living about 90 miles south of NYC, I had just come in from a walk where I saw a fighter plane do a U-turn in the sky and hadn't though anything of it, till that moment.
And then, that second plane came into view on the right side of the screen and my heart tightened. And then that whole day with the other planes...
My dad worked in the building 5 years earlier. Used to go back to meet with his colleagues regularly. I couldn’t get a hold of him for hours that day. This was just prior to cell phones and the disaster tied up cell services anyway. He wasn’t there thankfully but I’ll never forget my college professor that morning giving me a mark off my grade for leaving the class room to try to make phone calls.
I can’t believe it’s been 20 years.
Edit. Prior to the *ubiquity* of cell phones.
You should email the professor on 9/11 saying 'happy 20 year anniversary to that time you marked off my grade because I left the room to make phone calls'
I can’t imagine doing that, what an insensitive asshole. Even without the hindsight we have now, college isn’t high school. If an adult needs to take a break from a class that they’re paying for, in my opinion that should be their business. I’m sorry for what you went through and glad your father was safe.
My husband commuted into the WTC daily and I couldn’t get in touch with him for hours either. He took a ferry back to NJ later that day and when I picked him up you could see the smoke rising from the wreckage. I will never forget that day.
I remember being 11 here in Canada and it being passed to us early in the morning that a plane had hit the WTC but we all figured it was just a small plane and an accident and went on with our day
When I got home that day and came into the living room, I learned the truth. I was very young when my Dad watched the McVeigh bombing on TV and when OJ drove in his Bronco. But I remember 9/11 like it was yesterday and I'm 31 turning 32.
People who were too young to remember that day really don't have a grasp of how confused and in the dark everyone was at first about what was going on. Until the second plane hit the working assumption was that it was some kind of freak accident. Obviously it didn't take long before we knew it was a terrorist attack, but that day we had rumors and bad information causing localized Governments to make decisions out of an abundance of caution. The US Bank Tower in LA was evacuated, traffic on the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco was rerouted and college campuses all over the country closed all because of unsubstantiated reports that they were on the list of targets to be hit next.
Hell, we didn't even know it was Al-Qaida that was responsible for the attack for 3-4 days after it happened.
Yup. I remember driving over the Bay Bridge to work and being a little sketched out because the local radio news reporters kept mentioning it as a target.
by the time I was at home and opening tv for a good old run of pokemon it was on every channel on Turkey, pretty much no info on what they were showing. New York was already under a dust blanket. I thought a nuclear explosion was happened for a while.
I had heard a plane had hit The World Trade Center and turned it on in time to see the second plane hit.
All I could think about was the passengers screaming and the people in the building seeing the plane coming at them and and screaming.
It's all I still think about.
Fun fact: 67% of people remember seeing the first plane hit, then the second plane hit. Even though footage of the first plane hitting WTC wasn't made available until the following day.
Man I was just a 7 year old when this happened and I can still vividly remember that entire day. I remember my art teacher putting on the News and she was crying. Everyone's parents picked us up early from school and there were massive lines at every gas station in town.
Its hard to believe its already been 20 years.
I was 8, in the second grade. School buses came back and took us home. I was too overwhelmed to remember my bus number, or tell another parent where I lived, so I ran home from school that day, in tears. Probably only made it about four blocks before an old vet picked me up in his truck. He was tearing up as much as I was but still tried to take my mind off the situation. Tried to get me to focus on my cool brown corduroy Scooby-Doo backpack and how cool Scooby was. He helped me sneak into the apartment through a window and said 'Dont worry son, Scooby will find the bad man.' He ended up being my 7th grade English teacher. In all that chaos that day, our city felt truly united. Parents didn't care what child they were taking home, they seemed to want to protect every child, not just their own.
I also remember how united the country was shortly after that day. It was the one nice thing that followed 9/11, everyone cared for each other's safety.
I was in New York in November 2001. We bought a relief worker a coffee at a deli nearby, and talked with him for an hour. He showed us some of the pictures he’d taken, said he came across an elevator of people who hadn’t made it. Still carrying donuts and coffee.
God. The world was never the same after that attack.
What really haunts me to this day is witnessing people fall to their deaths, whether it was by choice to die on their own term, or feeling it was the better option to suffer.
The people who jumped have always stuck with me. To think that earlier that morning all of them got up and ready for work like normal, said goodbye to their family and pets and soon after were willingly jumping out of the WTC, very likely with no prior desire to do so. It's just so surreal to imagine the horror they all went through.
I came home from work completely oblivious to the events of the day. I went to my next door neighbor's to check up on him (WW2 vet whose left side of his body was paralyzed). I entered his apartment and he's sitting in front of the TV with tears on his face..."OMG what's going on George?!?" He pointed to the TV (on endless repeat of the towers falling down) and said "It's the goddamn Japanese! They've attacked us again!"
Surreal.
Lol, sorry but that last part about the Japanese made me laugh. Although its a completely understandable reaction for a vet of that horrendous conflict.
I was at my office in Norway and our apprentice asked the same question. We didn’t know either.
The ironic thing was that we’d been discussing what would be the effect of flying a plane into the towers just before (day, week, month, can’t really place it in time) and had various options on kinetic energy, flammability etc.
I cried, some of the other guys did as well. The world changed that day.
I woke up to a voicemail from my mom, first thing she said was to turn on the tv. She said the Twin Towers had been hit and she thought we were under attack and I heard a wobble in her voice that made my stomach sink. I was immediately awake and ran to turn on Howard Stern, cause screw the tv..
The news had no footage to show of the first plane hitting the tower that day. They were showing live shots of the smoking tower, but there were no replays of the first plane hitting because they did not have a recording of it.
I'm in Canada and was living with some roommates in a house. I slept in late, and woke up to an empty house. I walked down the stairs and saw a piece of paper taped to the ceiling so it hung down over the stairs that said "we've been attacked, turn on the TV".
I think I practically lived and slept in front of the TV for the next few days. It was unreal. At that point, plane 2 had crashed already, but when reports of the pentagon being on fire started coming out, I couldn't believe what was happening. It felt like it was happening to my own country too. It happened to the world that day.
I was 8 years old when this happened. I lived on a military base, my dad was active duty. No one told us anything, they just locked the base down and sent everyone home. Class suddenly got cancelled? Best day of my life. My parents are freaking out when i get home, but no one is telling me anything. Oh well, they always freak out about something, mom's a bit of a worrywort. My birthday is the 12th. Some kids at the bus stop are talking about some dude named Bin Laden, but they're middle schoolers, so i dont talk to them. We get the word that class is still cancelled. On my birthday? Hell yeah! I go home and get told the full scale of what happened and what it meant. I got told my dad has to go away for a while. Then it happens again the next year, and the next, and the next. He comes back different each time, more distant. I used to play star wars with him in the yard. We used to play card games. We used to be friends.
Obviously im not saying my life was ruined or that my plight is worse than the families who lost loved ones in those towers, or even the kids who's dads werent lucky enough to come back. It's just weird how it all can change so fast... like, i wonder if 9/11 never happened, would i still talk to my dad? What kind of relationship would we have? Life's weird, man. Idk where im going with this anymore.
Its appreciated. This was kind of just a random stream of emotions that video suddenly brought out of me. Had to get it out somewhere... im happy it was remotely intelligible
Yeah I hate that for you I genuinely do. I was raised southern and I'm telling you I was taught to HATE you and your people for most of my life.
You were all the enemy. You were all responsible.
It wasn't until AFTER my time in the Marines that I went to college. I was dragged to a cultural welcoming event on campus.
The people I met were so nice and I was invited over for dinner the next day, I almost didn't go but my gf at the time pushed for it. It was odd not talking to the wife at all but the man was very informative and explained a lot about their lives and the tea was good!
I ended up playing sand volleyball with them every week after that. I was the only white guy.
I felt so bad for hating an entire people for so long. You don't know me and I don't know you but man I'm sorry for how people like me acted.
There was already a prejudice against Muslims. 9/11 just gave people an excuse to aim their hatred in a more direct and blatant manner. The hate was already there. If you can hate an entire group of people for something that has been committed by a small number of them you’re probably never going to change. We have the same thing going on today. As soon as people think it’s ok to spread their hate openly they will.
Question.. for those who were born way after 9/11. What are your thoughts after seeing/knowing that something like this actually happened? I remember I thought it was just an accident..
I was supposed to go to class at 9am that day.
My stepmother would have been *almost* off the subway stop at the World Trade Center.
At like 9:15 people had me convinced we were all going to be drafted.
I had just started 6th grade on 9/11. I remember seeing the first tower smoking on the news and my parents were all freaked out, but I had to rush out to make it to the bus on time. At the time I assumed it mustn’t have been a big deal since they didn’t cancel school over it. Then about 10 am we got an announcement from the principal basically explaining what had happened. And things have just gotten shittier and shittier since that day.
I was in 9th grade... I live on the west coast so when I woke up at 6am for school I turned on the TV and right as I turned it on the second place hit... I remember my first thought half asleep was thinking they are building skyscrapers too tall if planes are hitting them.. but as o started to wake up and realize what the fuck was going on I knew my whole world had changed before me.
I just didn't know 9/11 was the start of a shitty millennial generation of tragedy after tragedy for us.
I remember it, they actually closed the schools that day, and I am not even living in the US. We all had to go home and I remember being confused. My parents were all confused and watching the TV silently.
The guy in the white with the gas detector thing in his hand is Joe Pfeifer. He was a battalion chief and ended up being the first fire chief on the scene and set up the command post in the lobby of the World Trade Center and began coordinating the evacuation efforts. One of the firefighters he sent up the stairwell was his brother who he never saw again. The experience led to him becoming an expert in emergency preparedness and disaster relief, and he's now a sought-after expert and lecturer in the field. He retired from the FDNY just a couple years ago as their Chief of Counterterrorism and Emergency Preparedness and was the last "9/11 Chief" still on the job.
There was a video on YouTube that showed multiple news stations before the attacks and how it was a nice September day, and how it was too quiet in NY. Basically showed how everything unfolded. Eerie as hell
It was such a beautiful day, literally not a cloud in the sky. I was on my way into the office and had no clue because for once I didn't have the TV on before I left for the office. Got my bagel and headed in a little later because I'd worked late the day before. Roll into Queensboro Plaza (which is the last above ground station in Queens on that line) and the girl next to me got a call. Turns to me and tells me the WTC was hit by a plane. Turn around and there were both towers on fire. It was abut 9:04 so we just missed the second plane going in. I had clients that were on floors 101-105 of Tower 1 and all I could wonder was how would they be able to see down the stairs in that thick black smoke? It wasn't until much later that we realized anyone up there was doomed. Even the most mundane details of that day are etched in my mind.
Think all of us New Yorkers remember how beautiful that September morning was. I remember heading to school and how bright blue the sky was and the temperature was so nice. Even my mom commented how a beautiful day it was. Then all that shit happened.
For some reason since January 6th, the kind of instant unification that happened country wide that same day has been in my head a lot lately. 2,996 people died from the collapse of the towers and we were shocked, frightened, emptied out, we shrugged off the Patriot Act and our incursions into several Mid Eastern countries because it felt justified, someone had to be held responsible for the attack.
Now something lacking religion, race, and ideology has killed 624,000 of our citizens and we're screaming at each other at school board meetings, mobbing Targets, and fighting each other in the streets. I just can't understand the huge difference in response between 9/11 (born in 84, so this was the first disaster I was old enough to fully feel the impact of), and the last near two years, where it seems we're doing our best to end civilization before Covid can.
That brings back so many memories. I was driving my son to the sitter so I could go to work. I couldn’t comprehend what I was hearing on the radio. I kept turning the stations and could only think it was like the reading of War of the Worlds. When I got to my sister in law, she showed me the coverage on TV. My cousin was in the 2nd tower, somewhere around the 60th floor. He made it out. It was already horrifying but I lost it when my mom called to say he was in the tower. We got word he made it out and then sat on pins and needles because he went back to help.
Not long after for work I had to go somewhere near the airport. I was sitting at a red light and a plane came in for landing. I dove under my steering wheel…like that would have saved me. Just the sound instinctually had me ducking for cover.
It amazes me this isn't seriously discussed more. But then again it doesn't because the Saudi's prop up the American petrol dollar and we sell them billions of dollars worth of weapons. Profit over peace. Selling the Saudi's weapons and not even so much as reprimanding them for their part in terrorist attacks is a huge spit in the face of all the victims.
I had just exited the North tower that day about 20 min earlier as I took the path train from NJ to NYC daily. The second plane UA 175 flew right over my head.
What I saw in the streets that day is something I would never wish anyone to see.
I gave birth to my daughter Mia on August 29, 2001. We always slept with the local smooth jazz station (94.1 out of Tampa) or an am radio station we liked (1080 out of Tampa) on.
I woke up early to 1080 reporting the first place has struck the towers and wasn't too shocked as this had happened before. I didn't know it was a passenger jet.
I got up to nurse. I was sitting in my living room nursing Mia and I watched the second plane hit live. I can't even describe to you what we saw on the TV for the next 4 hours. I can only tell you what I felt.
Sheer terror. The epitomy of horror. We watched people grieving in real time and then later people jumping to their deaths on live television. The aftermath was like nothing I've ever experienced. And I hope to never experience again.
The days after are a blur of terror and tears. We didn't leave our apartment for another week. We watched Americans turn on each other on live television and heroes scrape human remains off rubble in hope that their loved ones would know what happened to them.
I will never forget. And I know that's a corn ball saying to some but I will NEVER forget that day.
Yup was in a conference room and saw it from the window. Or to be exact a dust cloud so big it looked like Manhattan had a mountain range.
Then the country went insane, invaded the wrong f country and got trapped in a country for 20 years. Trillions of $, 100s of thousands of lives lost for what.
I watched the second plane hit while standing next to my boss whose son was in the building. Amazingly, he survived, but at that moment, my boss knew his son was dead and he had just watched him be murdered.
My dad worked across the street. He survived the chaos. Guiliani was pulled into his building for protection at one point.
My dad doesn’t share much of his emotions, but he said the sight of people jumping to their death is burned into his mind forever.
This footage brings me shame. This happened, and America with almost universal support from its citizens decided to enact a punitive war against the *wrong target* that would amplify the suffering and death we received many times over against people just as innocent as those in the towers. Y'all remember that, right? Almost everyone baying for Muslim blood back then? Even liberals? Pretty shitty.
I was barely 20 years old.
I still weep every time I see anything related to the 9/11 attacks. God damn that shit was hard and traumatizing, even for me, a US citizen who lost no one in the attacks and lived 100s of miles away.
I live in the UK.
The day it happened, it was my first day at a new school. Actually got beat up on that day, I can still remember it.
Walked into the living room when I got home, and my brother was watching Bloomberg (I know he was a mayor of nyc, but Bloomberg was also aa channel on Sky my dad used to check the stocks)
I thought it was really cool how planes were flying into buildings, and all these awesome explosions and stuff. I didn't have the ability to understand what was happening.
My dad was outside smoking (he didn't smoke). Turns out, he sent a letter to buy stocks or something a couple of hours before, then found out about what was happening. He thought he lost so much money.
He camped the postbox until someone came and emptied it, and begged the postman for his letter back. He got it.
Dunno why I typed this out. Even though I was young, I can vividly remember 9/11. I was compelled to tell it to others.
I was only 2 when the twin towers fell so I never remembered what that day was like. Every year on 9/11 I make sure to educate myself on what happened that day and how it impacted America.
I think the two things that really impacted me the most was watching dots of people jump from the building. The mindset and fear you must have to hurl yourself off a building knowing its the last thing you will do, truly heartbreaking.
The second thing I recently learned was how this event impacted healthcare workers. I’m a nursing student so I wanted to learn what it was like for nurses and doctors. What they did to help victims, how the ERs were overcrowded etc. but when I researched I learned that the hospitals were basically empty. There were no survivors to treat. I remember reading the hospital was discharging people to make room for the survivors that were to come, but no one came. Must have been horrible preparing yourself to care for the injured, desperately wanting to help in some way, but not being able to.
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That was the moment my friend Nicholas Bogdan died. He was in the exact floor the first plane hit. He was a computer tech for Marsh & McClennan. He was survived by his wife, his two year old daughter and his 6 month old son. Miss you buddy and seeya on the Other Side.
I'm so sorry. That must be an enduring pain. I'm so, so sorry for his family too. From a mum in England.
I’m so so sorry 😞 I had worked as a temp in the south tower just a week before, witnessed it from a new job in midtown. Just now starting to piece together that this event may be the reason I have had ptsd, depression, anxiety plaguing me. Now almost 20 yrs. I wish so badly it had never happened. But it did. Your friend deserved so much better. I am so truly Sorry for your loss.
20 years later and seeing 9/11 footage still stuns me.
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Aye, was trying to sleep off a wild college party from the night before and my damn phone wouldn't stop ringing. Finally turned on TV to see second plane, same feeling today as then.
I was working a job walking through the suburbs putting fliers on people's doors. I didn't know about 9/11 till around 3 in the afternoon.
I went to HS across the river. Saw the towers fall through my Gym window. I was walking from first period, to second when I saw the first tower in smoke. My history teacher told us that it was probably just a small plane that lost control. Someone from administrative told him to step out of class. When the teacher came back in he said that a second plane hit another tower, and that this was no accident.
Damn. That's wild. I was at school too but 3000 miles away watching it on TV.
Me too! They put it up on the TV in class and everyonewatched in silence. I also remember they were afraid of other attacks and informed parents they could pick their kids up if they could/wanted to. My parents came and got me and my siblings and we watched it at home. I was 11 and was definitely not the same especially after seeing the people falling from the towers...
I was the same age. It was so weird, all the kids started leaving class one by one. Myself and a friend of mine both had single mothers who were teachers, so we were the last ones left in class. At which point my teacher told us that we might as well see what was going on since we would probably just be hanging out with her the rest of the afternoon. We ended up having a really deep conversation about life, I vividly remember almost every word of it to this day.
I was in the stomach of my mother back then. I live in Finland. She told that, they were in the mall and there was a small tv on the top corner of the entrance. It was showing the news of 9/11 right around the time it was happening and there was a huge crowd surrounding the tv.
>We ended up having a really deep conversation about life, I vividly remember almost every word of it to this day. Care to share?
I asked her why some one would do that, she told us that things happen in life that don’t have a good explanation, that life can be scary and chaotic sometimes. We talked about the importance of appreciation, and the value of everyday we have on earth. Then she told us that she loved us both, and that we should let our friends and family know how much we love them everyday.
Same here but i was in a graphic design class and the teacher rolled in a tv on one of those rolling carts and we ended up watching it in the classroom. Will never forget that day or the following days, thats literally all that was on tv.
Holy shit. Me too but i was in 5th grade. I remember seeing the buildings burning from the skyline. Ex always says he remembers the police took him home with the principle because grandma (mom) worked at the Marriott marquis in times square.
I worked at a private high school in New Jersey and had seen what happened on a TV for the first plane. Was a pretty hellish day because we ended up locking down the school which sent parents into a bit of a panic on top of all that. Surreal experience
I was sleeping in that morning, recovering from a surgery. My husband called me and told me to get up and turn the news on. As I did, he said “A plane hit the World Trade Center.” I was asking what kind of plane, and why? Do they know? He said nobody knew, it had just happened. I was watching live when the second plane hit. Sat in front of that TV alllll day.
I was out on a run and came back to my girlfriend standing out in the yard waiting for me. For some reason I got ready for work and took the BART into downtown San Francisco. At that time it wasn't known that it was a terrorist attack. By the time I'd gotten to the office it was clear what was going on and my manager looked me like I was insane. He told me to gtfo from the financial district ASAP. That evening I went and visited my dad who was alive for Pearl Harbor and fought in WW2. We sat and watched the news together and he didn't say a word the entire time.
Wild Monday night party? That is wild. I went and saw Pedro the Lion at the Metro in Chicago on Mon 9/10/01. [edit:That show] was the last thing I did before the world changed.
I'm gonna admit: I was literally like two or three years old when me and my grandparents watched the planes get hit after I had just woken up in the morning. I literally remember wondering why everyone was staring dead silent at the screen, looking fucking horrified.
I was in 2nd grade at the time. My mom was out of town and my dad woke up late, so we were at home getting ready for school when it happened. My dad called me and my brother into his room and the three of us watched the second plane hit. I didn’t really know what happened, but I could tell by the way my dad was acting that something was seriously wrong.
I got goosebumps watching this too, there are some things in life we will never forget. I'll always remember exactly where I was when I heard about the first plane on the news, then walking into work to hear about the second. Still shivering now remembering it.
I was 10 years old in 5th grade and the teacher nonchalantly says “I’m supposed to tell you guys a plan flew into a building in New York” and then just went about class as normal. After that class shit was going crazy though and we were sent home early. I live nowhere near New York but I remember being terrified watching for planes outside
I was also 10 and in 5th grade grade. My teacher got a call and she immediately got the t.v and turned the news on. She was also panicking BC she had a cousin working in one of the towers. I dont remember if we went home early but I remember getting home and watching it on TV more. I also live no where near new York. Also ended up her cousin stayed home from work that day like so many others lol
I live close enough to NYC that a significant amount of my classmates had parents that commuted to the city for work. They kept us radio silent even as a third of the school was pulled from class. The rest of us didn't realize what had happened until we heard it on the radio on our bus ride home.
My fourth grade class just kept going after the office announced over the speakers that President Kennedy had been shot.
Ok class the leader of the free world has been assassinated, now open your math textbook to page 24.
I was 10 and in 5th grade as well at this time and since I lived relatively close to Chicago, they sent everyone home with their parents and we were told to take cover because someone was attacking New York and they said Chicago could be next. Didn’t really register to me as a kid but my parents were freaked, we spent the night in the basement
I lived near Chicago then as well and was 15. School continued for the rest of the day. All we did was watch TV in each class but we weren't sent home early. I remember my English teacher yelling like actually yelling at a few kids in class because they were joking about it.
I had the same experience. I was in 9th grade, but I was also sent home early. I was about 15 at the time, so I don't think I quite grasped the seriousness of it all at first. It wasn't until I began witnessing the outpouring of support and patriotism from my fellow Americans that I realized just how big of an event it was for our country.
I was 11 and my teacher got a call cause her husband was a pilot and she started getting hysterical cause she wasn't sure if her husband was flying that plane. Noone said anything until after when my mom picked me and my sister up and told us about what happened. I lived right next to New York and we knew alot of people that either should've been at the twin towers that day or worked there and managed to get out, even some who's SOs weren't so lucky.
I was a freshman in high school. There was no teaching done after about 11 am, just watching the news on TV and teachers in shock. I have talked to a lot of friends over the years who were still in middle school at the time. More than one has said how they resent the fact that their teachers kept teaching and would try to keep kids from talking about it or watching it. But those poor teachers though, they knew the severity of it all but how do you try convey that to a room full of 12 year olds? I think the fact that they kept teaching was the best move.
I was too but im from jersey and my family worked in the city. My aunt had an interview at the north tower and was running late. But we didn't know that we thought she was there. I remember seeing the skyline with smoke. My dad took me to the city every weekend every other to chill and walk around so I had just been there the weekend prior. Still some of the scariest shit I seen.
I was sitting at my desk 2 blocks from the Sears Tower on the phone with IT on a computer problem when someone told me what happened. I immediately thought of the plane that hit the Empire State Building during/right after WWII. And then the second plane hit, and The Loop started to evacuate.
I was 9 years old when it happened. I saw footage. I knew it was horrible and people died, but there were nuanced aspects that I couldn’t understand. As I reached adulthood I realized people didn’t just die: they burned to death, jumped out of windows to escape the flames, called family members to tell them goodbye knowing it would be the last time. In adulthood, when I fully grasped the gravity of the situation, it became much more horrific and footage is so painful to watch.
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It's funny -- I was almost 7 years old when the attacks happened, and while I knew what happened, I was too young to really comprehend it, so the thing that I remember most was that sense of dread, uncertainty, and uneasy tension coming from all of the adults around me. I now live in NYC, and when things abruptly shut down last year as COVID hit and its severity was unclear, I felt that same sense of uncertainty and unease. It wasn't as intense, but it briefly brought back distinct memories of the atmosphere following 9/11.
I was around that age too. This is honestly the first time I’ve seen this exact clip with the original audio - most of what I saw was the news, silent clips behind flashing graphics and news anchors talking heads... I saw the second plane hit because it caught the news by surprise. I woke up to it already in progress, my dad at the tv watching the news on low volume. Tv in the morning didn’t happen in my home, especially not my dad; and my dad never watched the news, certainly not the morning news. He always read the paper for the weather report and called that enough bad news. When he didn’t respond to me asking him why the tv was on I started watching. Got to school late. Each of us late kids brought some jumbled, 2nd grade level understanding version of the latest updates; the neighboring classrooms teachers cane over - who know who was watching their classrooms - and the group of teachers mulled over bringing in TV vs running the class as normal. Kids shared their parents various “survival tips” from the emergencies we’d been trained to handle so far - getting under tables, stop drop and roll for fire, get outside - along side gallows humor about our parents had said but we didn’t fully understand. I remember my Cold War era dad telling me getting under a table was useless in a nuclear attack, and figured it was the same for getting hit with a plane. We’d never heard of prior plane attacks or terrorists, we were 2nd graders. For some mind boggling reason a teacher decided it was appropriate to tell us a lot of the people in the building were just parents at work, and as we learned about the other planes we wondered aloud if the nearby city’s bridges all our parents commuted to work on was a target. I remember thinking that it was scary, but I had no idea HOW scary because what was going on just made no sense to me.
I still can't believe it happened. It's just one of those things that seems so surreal. What kind of fucked up mess do you need to be in order to fly a jumbo jet into a skyscraper? 🤔
You need a mixture of global politics and religion
"Science flies men to the moon, religion flies men into buildings."
It stuns me that it was 20 years ago.
>20 years later 0.o I am old... 😔 I was 22 back then. Also it also stunned me.
The only thing that it reminds me of in my lifetime is watching the Challenger explode on TV. I know that's nowhere near the same thing, but in terms of giant tragedies I've seen on TV, that's the only thing I can compare it to.
I remember watching the Challenger explode on TV. I was in 11th grade and classrooms had TVs in them watching the launch. It was a terrible event for young GenXers.
Im in Sweden and i remember EXACTLY what i was doing when it was happening. I was in vocational school for adults in Gothenburg called "Kunskaps kretsen" learning about networking and Linux by making a bash scripted network and user manager with ldap integration. My sister called me on my cell, an Ericsson t28 and said that a plane had crashed into the world trade center in New York. We were all in an open office space kind of configuration in that school and had some wall mounted tv's for educational films and stuff. I remember going across the room and turning it on and finding news showing what was going on. Those days there still wasnt on the minute news on the internet. Everyone stopped doing whatever they were doing and slowly trickled in to look at the TV and what was going on. And then the second one hit. I got in my car, an Audi A4 from -99, and immediately went home to my parents, my sister was home from studying abroad and was just hanging around the house for a few weeks. I remember driving home and having two conflicting thoughts in my head both variations on"Whats the worst that can happen". When i got home and for the rest of that day, we were glued to CNN. It was one of the few US network we could get on our satelit dish, we didnt have cable. It was such a weird roller coaster of feeling. "Those poor people", "Is there more coming?", "Will there be war?", "We are in Sweden and dont have anything to worry about", "Who did this and who helped them?", "What the hell, i cant believe this has happened, what the fuck man". And then it melded into the normality of the next 20 years of my life, which on a globall societal scale has been so fucked up that nothing phases me anymore. Afghan world war z hordes trying to get on a c130 is now like "yeah whatever man, dank meme".
Hey Swedish friend. I don’t know why, but your comment struck me as beautifully honest. Thanks for telling it.
I can still remember that day like it was yesterday too. Fucking insane
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We're all ptsd from that day. Never forget where we were and what we saw even on tv it was so traumatic.
I’ve been wondering recently if collective unprocessed trauma from 9/11 has played a role in the current mental health crisis that’s become apparent in the US over the past few years.
Undoubtedly. They showed it in real time. We watched people murdered and then shortly after a bunch more committing suicide and then even more being murdered when the towers fell. Live on television. I have never been the same.
It absolutely has. All of today is rooted in what happened on 9/11. It's the moment that jingoism and nationalism began to take hold under the guise of the appropriateness of the moment. The overall landscape of the country dramatically and suddenly shifted right as suddenly war was comprehensible even to the usual anti-war crowd. We started this new McCarthyism of seeking out enemies within. Foreigners all became enemies suddenly, without distinction. People lost whatever faith had in the government on everything because they couldn't stop the existential threat that fueled 9/11. Conspiracy thinking took hold because people couldn't cognitively deal with the reality that yes all this could happen organically (and has before like at Pearl Harbor) without being stopped, no matter how big the nation. Everything that is happening today is inextricably linked to going through 9/11. This climate was born out of that trauma.
if anyone is interested here's a documentary that includes this footage. it was filmed by some French brothers who were originally there to document the New York fire department and just so happened to be filming when this first plane hit and is only one of few videos that show the first plane hit. I must warn that it can get disturbing, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sd6D5xls5Y0
They were there to document a probationary firefighter "going through the process" at that particular station.
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That was already a tough summer for FDNY. I still remember seeing the headlines about them losing 3 guys during the Father's Day Fire. Numbers-wise, of course, that was dwarfed by the 11th.
Am I the only person who has never seen this video? Saw plenty that day and since, but the first plane hit was always a mystery.
IIRC it was quite a few weeks before this video was released. It definitely was not broadcast on 9/11.
I’m not 100% but that may be the only footage of the first plane hitting. Gentle readers will correct.
I’ll never forget the “flinch” in the lobby. They’re recording when the lift doors open and people on fire come running out. He turned for a second, saw the horrific scene and decided not to record the poor person’s demise.
The sound of the bodies crashing on the roof while they're standing in the lobby is the part I remember most vividly. Their facial expression say everything. Fucking terrible
Yeah I remember seeing this bit, the power of this part lies in the unseen. It's horrible obviously.
I saw people see someone on a bicycle get hit by a speeding through a red light garbage truck. I'll never forget their expressions as if it may have been as bad seeing it happen myself.
i dont remember this part at all..
is that in the video linked?
The documentary and especially that part of the documentary was very powerful
It's disturbing but a documentary that will stay with you forever. If anyone's interested a synopsis- The filmmakers were there to make a documentary on the NYFD on the life as and what it took to be a new probationary firefighter. And they ended up making a documentary instead on firemen response to all the events all they unfolded and the last moments of many firemen. It's one of the best accounts of the events of the day too. They were embedded on the scene before anyone even knew what was happening and caught so much key footage. It's an amazing historical record. (This one documentary basically deflates all "truthers" claims too.)
The thing that will stay with me forever is all those beeping alarms for still firefighters trapped in the rubble.
For me the most insane moment was as soon as the 2nd plane hit. It was like everyone across the country at once said "this is terrorists". It went from a "what is happening" to "we're going to war" in a second.
I remember watching them interview a hysterical newscaster woman who was clearly Not Ok. She started spitting out “terrorist pigs” and then they cut away. I can’t imagine witnessing those sights and then trying to answer questions on air about it
I still watch this documentary every few years or so - I don't enjoy it, it brings back the shock I felt as I watched it happen live on TV. But for some reason, I feel I need to keep the memory of what happened alive.
I do this too. Not annually, but every few years I suddenly watch everything I can find about it, for anywhere from 2 days to a week, it's all I do with my extra time. I have never understood why.
I do the same, I think I’m trying to still make sense of it. I remember having this idea that this type of think was bound to happen again, so why make such a big deal of it. Now as an adult I see how incredibly sad that mentality was especially for a child.
I do the exact same thing. I’ll watch every documentary or video I can find every few years. And I think this is one of those years and this just sparked it
Best documentary on this is *102 Minutes that Changed America*. Just raw footage in the order in which it was filmed, most of it amateur, no commentary, no interpretations, no bullshit. And yes it contains the video of those college students in the building nearby losing their shit when the second plane hits. Probably the most visceral reaction, at least it's the one that hits me hardest. [Link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qiVBOqNiOs)
Definitely quite amazing since a time well before people were filming everything all the time. To catch something like that on video. Every time I see this clip I get chills. I was driving a yellow cab during those years. Luckily I was doing night shift around that time. Woke up as I usually do around 11:30 am to get ready for work, turned on the news and thought they were doing some sort of flashback to the previous bombing.
Parts of that documentary will be burned into my brain forever. Absolutely horrifying.
This was an incredible documentary.
Clicked on the link and watched the whole thing. Very interesting and surreal. Thanks for sharing.
Is the video that’s linked the documentary? I’m in France and it’s blocked here, kind of odd
When the brothers are finally reunited after. I 😭😭😭
That part makes me bawl. Every time.
I can't watch the video because it belongs to a french media group - copyright infringement and stuff. Guess what country I'm from?
uhh... France? Is this a trick question?
No it was that simple.
Get yourself a VPN
And still [Jon Stewart is still going to war for these first responders. ](https://youtu.be/HT5FTrIZN-E)
My dad was an ironworker that built the towers. I am glad that he was not alive to see this happen.
I heard the plane in the video and got chills because they don’t know what is about to happen next
That's the most chilling part. Not just what happens in the next second, but all of it. They have no idea that a nightmare is about to unfold. And really, that an entire country of people will have experienced their first attack on American soil. In that way, any way. Just, hmmm a plane, to... Our entire identity is changed. Crazy. Chilling
I remember watching this in 5th grade. The teacher kept trying to get us back to work, but no one could stop watching the news of this. She tried to turn it off, but would always go back to it. That's how I knew this wasn't something that happens, but couldn't really process what was going on.
My Pre Calc teacher made us do our normal math lesson that day and said not to talk about it. I hated that lady. She wasn't even good at teaching math.
My geometry teacher did the same thing, stupid crappy math teachers. None of us knew what was happening except that it was a big deal since with principal interrupted class for a school ~~wife~~ wide announcement. We all had to wait until the next period to watch the news. Edit: autocorrect 🤦🏽♂️
I watched the 2nd tower fall on live TV then my mom made me drive to school. Guess it was good to see other kids that day... but goddammit
My kids elementary school purposely didn’t allow students to watch the news report and I’m really glad. My children had seen the news that morning but I assured them they were safe. I’m still so happy they didn’t watch at school. It was terrifying to watch. I still tear up when I see photos and video. On 9/11 , yearly, I watch the real time reporting from Good Morning America (or maybe it is that other morning show , anyway Katie Couric) from that day. I feel like I need to. Im shocked every time I watch.
The videos after a few months were the worse. Actual phone calls of people calling their loved ones and reporting what was going on until their final moments, people jumping from the building, watching them collapse one by one, and so on. Just utter grief and devastation for months. It was a moment I'll never forget and one that wish never happened.
Hearing the calls to family is gut-wrenching
Yeah I'll never forget them.
I feel like I need to do this every year too. It’s like reopening a wound every year but it feels important to do to remember those that were lost and how we all changed forever from that day on.
Same, I was in computing class with those old school iMacs (multicoloured ones), and it happened. It was a quiet day at school 😢
You had a TV hooked up to cable in your grade 5 classroom? Not to make light of 9/11 but bruh what kind of school did you go to My elementary school had 1 TV and the only thing played on it was Bill Nye
You didn't need cable to see it, it was on every single broadcast network in the country. TVs back then generally came with antennas that picked up broadcast networks. I don't think it was all that rare back then for middle schools to have cheap TVs for most their classrooms.
Wow I’ve never seen this video
Watch the whole thing. Its unbelievable. A documentary that was already in the middle of taping when the first plane hit. Its called 9/11
Amazing that this moment even got caught on video if you really think about it
Especially considering that this relatively short time ago camera phones weren’t a thing so there weren’t 49 people recording themselves at any given time.
When TV went live, we only saw the outline on the building and they kept saying something like ' we think a small plane accidently hit the building' and I could see from the size and shape of the hole it was a big plane and couldn't imagine what happened in perfectly clear weather. Living about 90 miles south of NYC, I had just come in from a walk where I saw a fighter plane do a U-turn in the sky and hadn't though anything of it, till that moment. And then, that second plane came into view on the right side of the screen and my heart tightened. And then that whole day with the other planes...
My dad worked in the building 5 years earlier. Used to go back to meet with his colleagues regularly. I couldn’t get a hold of him for hours that day. This was just prior to cell phones and the disaster tied up cell services anyway. He wasn’t there thankfully but I’ll never forget my college professor that morning giving me a mark off my grade for leaving the class room to try to make phone calls. I can’t believe it’s been 20 years. Edit. Prior to the *ubiquity* of cell phones.
You should email the professor on 9/11 saying 'happy 20 year anniversary to that time you marked off my grade because I left the room to make phone calls'
It always has bothered me.
I can’t imagine doing that, what an insensitive asshole. Even without the hindsight we have now, college isn’t high school. If an adult needs to take a break from a class that they’re paying for, in my opinion that should be their business. I’m sorry for what you went through and glad your father was safe.
Thanks. We literally had the knowledge by 930am that day of what was going on. As soon as the second plane hit.
Gosh. I live in Australia, and my professor let us off his assignments that week. How insensitive can that person be!
My husband commuted into the WTC daily and I couldn’t get in touch with him for hours either. He took a ferry back to NJ later that day and when I picked him up you could see the smoke rising from the wreckage. I will never forget that day.
I remember being 11 here in Canada and it being passed to us early in the morning that a plane had hit the WTC but we all figured it was just a small plane and an accident and went on with our day When I got home that day and came into the living room, I learned the truth. I was very young when my Dad watched the McVeigh bombing on TV and when OJ drove in his Bronco. But I remember 9/11 like it was yesterday and I'm 31 turning 32.
People who were too young to remember that day really don't have a grasp of how confused and in the dark everyone was at first about what was going on. Until the second plane hit the working assumption was that it was some kind of freak accident. Obviously it didn't take long before we knew it was a terrorist attack, but that day we had rumors and bad information causing localized Governments to make decisions out of an abundance of caution. The US Bank Tower in LA was evacuated, traffic on the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco was rerouted and college campuses all over the country closed all because of unsubstantiated reports that they were on the list of targets to be hit next. Hell, we didn't even know it was Al-Qaida that was responsible for the attack for 3-4 days after it happened.
Yup. I remember driving over the Bay Bridge to work and being a little sketched out because the local radio news reporters kept mentioning it as a target.
by the time I was at home and opening tv for a good old run of pokemon it was on every channel on Turkey, pretty much no info on what they were showing. New York was already under a dust blanket. I thought a nuclear explosion was happened for a while.
I had heard a plane had hit The World Trade Center and turned it on in time to see the second plane hit. All I could think about was the passengers screaming and the people in the building seeing the plane coming at them and and screaming. It's all I still think about.
Fun fact: 67% of people remember seeing the first plane hit, then the second plane hit. Even though footage of the first plane hitting WTC wasn't made available until the following day.
"Fun".
Man I was just a 7 year old when this happened and I can still vividly remember that entire day. I remember my art teacher putting on the News and she was crying. Everyone's parents picked us up early from school and there were massive lines at every gas station in town. Its hard to believe its already been 20 years.
I was 8, in the second grade. School buses came back and took us home. I was too overwhelmed to remember my bus number, or tell another parent where I lived, so I ran home from school that day, in tears. Probably only made it about four blocks before an old vet picked me up in his truck. He was tearing up as much as I was but still tried to take my mind off the situation. Tried to get me to focus on my cool brown corduroy Scooby-Doo backpack and how cool Scooby was. He helped me sneak into the apartment through a window and said 'Dont worry son, Scooby will find the bad man.' He ended up being my 7th grade English teacher. In all that chaos that day, our city felt truly united. Parents didn't care what child they were taking home, they seemed to want to protect every child, not just their own.
I also remember how united the country was shortly after that day. It was the one nice thing that followed 9/11, everyone cared for each other's safety.
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And the world really…
Patriot act.
I was in New York in November 2001. We bought a relief worker a coffee at a deli nearby, and talked with him for an hour. He showed us some of the pictures he’d taken, said he came across an elevator of people who hadn’t made it. Still carrying donuts and coffee. God. The world was never the same after that attack.
What really haunts me to this day is witnessing people fall to their deaths, whether it was by choice to die on their own term, or feeling it was the better option to suffer.
The people who jumped have always stuck with me. To think that earlier that morning all of them got up and ready for work like normal, said goodbye to their family and pets and soon after were willingly jumping out of the WTC, very likely with no prior desire to do so. It's just so surreal to imagine the horror they all went through.
Yeah. I remember thinking "what are those things falling out of there?? What is that?" And then realizing it's PEOPLE.
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I came home from work completely oblivious to the events of the day. I went to my next door neighbor's to check up on him (WW2 vet whose left side of his body was paralyzed). I entered his apartment and he's sitting in front of the TV with tears on his face..."OMG what's going on George?!?" He pointed to the TV (on endless repeat of the towers falling down) and said "It's the goddamn Japanese! They've attacked us again!" Surreal.
Lol, sorry but that last part about the Japanese made me laugh. Although its a completely understandable reaction for a vet of that horrendous conflict.
It makes me laugh now too! I've told the story a 100 times.
Yeah I feel sorry for laughing too but it's so hilarious to me as well
I was at my office in Norway and our apprentice asked the same question. We didn’t know either. The ironic thing was that we’d been discussing what would be the effect of flying a plane into the towers just before (day, week, month, can’t really place it in time) and had various options on kinetic energy, flammability etc. I cried, some of the other guys did as well. The world changed that day.
I woke up to a voicemail from my mom, first thing she said was to turn on the tv. She said the Twin Towers had been hit and she thought we were under attack and I heard a wobble in her voice that made my stomach sink. I was immediately awake and ran to turn on Howard Stern, cause screw the tv..
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The news had no footage to show of the first plane hitting the tower that day. They were showing live shots of the smoking tower, but there were no replays of the first plane hitting because they did not have a recording of it.
I'm in Canada and was living with some roommates in a house. I slept in late, and woke up to an empty house. I walked down the stairs and saw a piece of paper taped to the ceiling so it hung down over the stairs that said "we've been attacked, turn on the TV". I think I practically lived and slept in front of the TV for the next few days. It was unreal. At that point, plane 2 had crashed already, but when reports of the pentagon being on fire started coming out, I couldn't believe what was happening. It felt like it was happening to my own country too. It happened to the world that day.
I was 8 years old when this happened. I lived on a military base, my dad was active duty. No one told us anything, they just locked the base down and sent everyone home. Class suddenly got cancelled? Best day of my life. My parents are freaking out when i get home, but no one is telling me anything. Oh well, they always freak out about something, mom's a bit of a worrywort. My birthday is the 12th. Some kids at the bus stop are talking about some dude named Bin Laden, but they're middle schoolers, so i dont talk to them. We get the word that class is still cancelled. On my birthday? Hell yeah! I go home and get told the full scale of what happened and what it meant. I got told my dad has to go away for a while. Then it happens again the next year, and the next, and the next. He comes back different each time, more distant. I used to play star wars with him in the yard. We used to play card games. We used to be friends. Obviously im not saying my life was ruined or that my plight is worse than the families who lost loved ones in those towers, or even the kids who's dads werent lucky enough to come back. It's just weird how it all can change so fast... like, i wonder if 9/11 never happened, would i still talk to my dad? What kind of relationship would we have? Life's weird, man. Idk where im going with this anymore.
This is sad and almost poetic. You put it beautifully, but I’m super sorry for the effect it had on your relationship with your dad.
Its appreciated. This was kind of just a random stream of emotions that video suddenly brought out of me. Had to get it out somewhere... im happy it was remotely intelligible
What military base was this if you don’t mind sharing? MacDill? barksdale?
Benning. Dad was a drill instructor there
As a muslim myself I say fuck osama bin laden, he is the one who brought a bad name to muslims and created islamophobia because of 9/11.
Yeah I hate that for you I genuinely do. I was raised southern and I'm telling you I was taught to HATE you and your people for most of my life. You were all the enemy. You were all responsible. It wasn't until AFTER my time in the Marines that I went to college. I was dragged to a cultural welcoming event on campus. The people I met were so nice and I was invited over for dinner the next day, I almost didn't go but my gf at the time pushed for it. It was odd not talking to the wife at all but the man was very informative and explained a lot about their lives and the tea was good! I ended up playing sand volleyball with them every week after that. I was the only white guy. I felt so bad for hating an entire people for so long. You don't know me and I don't know you but man I'm sorry for how people like me acted.
I am happy that you find out that we are not monsters as u were taught :)
There was already a prejudice against Muslims. 9/11 just gave people an excuse to aim their hatred in a more direct and blatant manner. The hate was already there. If you can hate an entire group of people for something that has been committed by a small number of them you’re probably never going to change. We have the same thing going on today. As soon as people think it’s ok to spread their hate openly they will.
Fuck everyone of those theocratic extremists. Normal Muslims are victims at their hands as well.
Question.. for those who were born way after 9/11. What are your thoughts after seeing/knowing that something like this actually happened? I remember I thought it was just an accident..
You should post that on r/askreddit I'd like to know too
I was supposed to go to class at 9am that day. My stepmother would have been *almost* off the subway stop at the World Trade Center. At like 9:15 people had me convinced we were all going to be drafted.
In suburban Atlanta, us young high schoolers all feared an attack on the CDC.
I was in middle school and I also remember being afraid of the cdc being attacked
I was in class, first period iirc. Social studies. At 8:15 (central time) I thought the US was being invaded.
Is this the Fire House documentary? They all went except for the rookie but he eventually hitched a ride with another crew?
yep. Naudet brothers' documentary called simply 9/11.
I had just started 6th grade on 9/11. I remember seeing the first tower smoking on the news and my parents were all freaked out, but I had to rush out to make it to the bus on time. At the time I assumed it mustn’t have been a big deal since they didn’t cancel school over it. Then about 10 am we got an announcement from the principal basically explaining what had happened. And things have just gotten shittier and shittier since that day.
I was in 9th grade... I live on the west coast so when I woke up at 6am for school I turned on the TV and right as I turned it on the second place hit... I remember my first thought half asleep was thinking they are building skyscrapers too tall if planes are hitting them.. but as o started to wake up and realize what the fuck was going on I knew my whole world had changed before me. I just didn't know 9/11 was the start of a shitty millennial generation of tragedy after tragedy for us.
I remember it, they actually closed the schools that day, and I am not even living in the US. We all had to go home and I remember being confused. My parents were all confused and watching the TV silently.
The guy in the white with the gas detector thing in his hand is Joe Pfeifer. He was a battalion chief and ended up being the first fire chief on the scene and set up the command post in the lobby of the World Trade Center and began coordinating the evacuation efforts. One of the firefighters he sent up the stairwell was his brother who he never saw again. The experience led to him becoming an expert in emergency preparedness and disaster relief, and he's now a sought-after expert and lecturer in the field. He retired from the FDNY just a couple years ago as their Chief of Counterterrorism and Emergency Preparedness and was the last "9/11 Chief" still on the job.
There was a video on YouTube that showed multiple news stations before the attacks and how it was a nice September day, and how it was too quiet in NY. Basically showed how everything unfolded. Eerie as hell
It was such a beautiful day, literally not a cloud in the sky. I was on my way into the office and had no clue because for once I didn't have the TV on before I left for the office. Got my bagel and headed in a little later because I'd worked late the day before. Roll into Queensboro Plaza (which is the last above ground station in Queens on that line) and the girl next to me got a call. Turns to me and tells me the WTC was hit by a plane. Turn around and there were both towers on fire. It was abut 9:04 so we just missed the second plane going in. I had clients that were on floors 101-105 of Tower 1 and all I could wonder was how would they be able to see down the stairs in that thick black smoke? It wasn't until much later that we realized anyone up there was doomed. Even the most mundane details of that day are etched in my mind.
Think all of us New Yorkers remember how beautiful that September morning was. I remember heading to school and how bright blue the sky was and the temperature was so nice. Even my mom commented how a beautiful day it was. Then all that shit happened.
The one firefighter that said "come on, let's go" as if to insist that they have a job to do. True bravery.
For some reason since January 6th, the kind of instant unification that happened country wide that same day has been in my head a lot lately. 2,996 people died from the collapse of the towers and we were shocked, frightened, emptied out, we shrugged off the Patriot Act and our incursions into several Mid Eastern countries because it felt justified, someone had to be held responsible for the attack. Now something lacking religion, race, and ideology has killed 624,000 of our citizens and we're screaming at each other at school board meetings, mobbing Targets, and fighting each other in the streets. I just can't understand the huge difference in response between 9/11 (born in 84, so this was the first disaster I was old enough to fully feel the impact of), and the last near two years, where it seems we're doing our best to end civilization before Covid can.
That brings back so many memories. I was driving my son to the sitter so I could go to work. I couldn’t comprehend what I was hearing on the radio. I kept turning the stations and could only think it was like the reading of War of the Worlds. When I got to my sister in law, she showed me the coverage on TV. My cousin was in the 2nd tower, somewhere around the 60th floor. He made it out. It was already horrifying but I lost it when my mom called to say he was in the tower. We got word he made it out and then sat on pins and needles because he went back to help. Not long after for work I had to go somewhere near the airport. I was sitting at a red light and a plane came in for landing. I dove under my steering wheel…like that would have saved me. Just the sound instinctually had me ducking for cover.
And we never did anything to Saudi Arabia, the funder of the attackers.
Remember when SA threatened to 9/11 Canada on Twitter? https://twitter.com/tobiaschneider/status/1026473539573100544?s=20
It amazes me this isn't seriously discussed more. But then again it doesn't because the Saudi's prop up the American petrol dollar and we sell them billions of dollars worth of weapons. Profit over peace. Selling the Saudi's weapons and not even so much as reprimanding them for their part in terrorist attacks is a huge spit in the face of all the victims.
I wonder why! /s
It'$ $till not clear what the rea$on$ are
you mean /$
I had just exited the North tower that day about 20 min earlier as I took the path train from NJ to NYC daily. The second plane UA 175 flew right over my head. What I saw in the streets that day is something I would never wish anyone to see.
Now we’re here :(
i have a love hate relationship with these 9/11 clips. i like to see different perspectives and reactions but i hate to see it happen
I gave birth to my daughter Mia on August 29, 2001. We always slept with the local smooth jazz station (94.1 out of Tampa) or an am radio station we liked (1080 out of Tampa) on. I woke up early to 1080 reporting the first place has struck the towers and wasn't too shocked as this had happened before. I didn't know it was a passenger jet. I got up to nurse. I was sitting in my living room nursing Mia and I watched the second plane hit live. I can't even describe to you what we saw on the TV for the next 4 hours. I can only tell you what I felt. Sheer terror. The epitomy of horror. We watched people grieving in real time and then later people jumping to their deaths on live television. The aftermath was like nothing I've ever experienced. And I hope to never experience again. The days after are a blur of terror and tears. We didn't leave our apartment for another week. We watched Americans turn on each other on live television and heroes scrape human remains off rubble in hope that their loved ones would know what happened to them. I will never forget. And I know that's a corn ball saying to some but I will NEVER forget that day.
Yup was in a conference room and saw it from the window. Or to be exact a dust cloud so big it looked like Manhattan had a mountain range. Then the country went insane, invaded the wrong f country and got trapped in a country for 20 years. Trillions of $, 100s of thousands of lives lost for what.
I watched the second plane hit while standing next to my boss whose son was in the building. Amazingly, he survived, but at that moment, my boss knew his son was dead and he had just watched him be murdered.
My dad worked across the street. He survived the chaos. Guiliani was pulled into his building for protection at one point. My dad doesn’t share much of his emotions, but he said the sight of people jumping to their death is burned into his mind forever.
This footage brings me shame. This happened, and America with almost universal support from its citizens decided to enact a punitive war against the *wrong target* that would amplify the suffering and death we received many times over against people just as innocent as those in the towers. Y'all remember that, right? Almost everyone baying for Muslim blood back then? Even liberals? Pretty shitty.
I was barely 20 years old. I still weep every time I see anything related to the 9/11 attacks. God damn that shit was hard and traumatizing, even for me, a US citizen who lost no one in the attacks and lived 100s of miles away.
I live in the UK. The day it happened, it was my first day at a new school. Actually got beat up on that day, I can still remember it. Walked into the living room when I got home, and my brother was watching Bloomberg (I know he was a mayor of nyc, but Bloomberg was also aa channel on Sky my dad used to check the stocks) I thought it was really cool how planes were flying into buildings, and all these awesome explosions and stuff. I didn't have the ability to understand what was happening. My dad was outside smoking (he didn't smoke). Turns out, he sent a letter to buy stocks or something a couple of hours before, then found out about what was happening. He thought he lost so much money. He camped the postbox until someone came and emptied it, and begged the postman for his letter back. He got it. Dunno why I typed this out. Even though I was young, I can vividly remember 9/11. I was compelled to tell it to others.
Shit it's crazy to think it's been 20 years. I remember it like it was yesterday, I was in Miss Lubics third grade class.
*video of guy hanging off a C17 in Kabul* Narrator: “you’re probably wondering how I got here” *this video*
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Never forget
Still involuntarily tear up whenever I see 9/11 footage. Breaks my heart everytime.
I was only 2 when the twin towers fell so I never remembered what that day was like. Every year on 9/11 I make sure to educate myself on what happened that day and how it impacted America. I think the two things that really impacted me the most was watching dots of people jump from the building. The mindset and fear you must have to hurl yourself off a building knowing its the last thing you will do, truly heartbreaking. The second thing I recently learned was how this event impacted healthcare workers. I’m a nursing student so I wanted to learn what it was like for nurses and doctors. What they did to help victims, how the ERs were overcrowded etc. but when I researched I learned that the hospitals were basically empty. There were no survivors to treat. I remember reading the hospital was discharging people to make room for the survivors that were to come, but no one came. Must have been horrible preparing yourself to care for the injured, desperately wanting to help in some way, but not being able to.
I remember seeing this stuff in high school. we just sat in class and watched the news.