I Remember !

[flybynight]

[majorhavoc]

We shall never forget.

[NT2C]

There were seven good friends under that.  I. Will. NEVER. Forget.

[flybynight]

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

 
I see a picture, I hear a story . It's like it happened yesterday
Like it's happening now.
I rage in my remembrance

[Moab]

My son was just a baby then. I remember holding him while my wife got ready for work. While watching the morning news. It came on and I yelled for my wife. We both stood there in shock as it unfolded.

There is a video on yt of the morning news coverage. As it happened. 

[12_Gauge_Chimp]

I was 16 years old and was in my first period Auto Shop class in high school.

Like any other day, I was goofing off with my classmates and my teacher (Mr. Foreman. Dude was like 5 foot nothing, but had been a Green Beret years before). Mr. Foreman gets the class under control and we start the lesson. About five minutes into the lesson, the school resource officer (known around the school as Rent-A-Cop Bob.) comes into the class and tells Mr. Foreman to turn on the TV because the Pentagon had been bombed.

Mr. Foreman turns on the TV and we tune in just in time to see the second plane hit the WTC. The silence in that room was deafening. It went from a rowdy class full of teenage morons to absolute silence.

Not taking his eyes off the TV, Mr. Foreman says something that's stuck with me for the last 22 years. He says "Get a good look at what's happening right now, boys. This is your generation's Pearl Harbor.".

For the next hour and a half, we sat there in silence watching the events of 9/11 unfold. Class let out and that's all anyone would talk about.

I remember the teachers and administrators of my school trying to take our minds off of what we all saw and back then I was pissed off about it. But looking back as an adult, I can see why they did what they did.

They knew the world we knew before that day was gone and had been replaced with an uncertain one full of terror and folks wanting to kill us just because we were Americans. They just wanted to shield us from that for a little while longer, to give us a bit more time to be kids.

I may never get the opportunity to see any of them again since most of them are probably either retired by now or passed on, but I do thank them in my mind for doing what they did that day.

I also remember in the days following 9/11 seeing American flags everywhere. I saw them on t-shirts worn by fellow students (who also wore NYPD and FDNY apparel), being flown in front of pretty much every house and business in the area I lived in at the time. It was amazing.

I may not have been personally affected by 9/11 in that I didn't lose friends or loved ones when the WTC towers fell, but I still felt it in my heart. I felt the terror and the despair of watching the country I was born in be attacked by a bunch of jerks. I felt sadness for those who did lose loved ones or friends. I may not know all the names of the people who died, but I still grieve for them.

[flybynight]

I was 16 years old and was in my first period Auto Shop class in high school.

Like any other day, I was goofing off with my classmates and my teacher (Mr. Foreman. Dude was like 5 foot nothing, but had been a Green Beret years before). Mr. Foreman gets the class under control and we start the lesson. About five minutes into the lesson, the school resource officer (known around the school as Rent-A-Cop Bob.) comes into the class and tells Mr. Foreman to turn on the TV because the Pentagon had been bombed.

Mr. Foreman turns on the TV and we tune in just in time to see the second plane hit the WTC. The silence in that room was deafening. It went from a rowdy class full of teenage morons to absolute silence.

Not taking his eyes off the TV, Mr. Foreman says something that's stuck with me for the last 22 years. He says "Get a good look at what's happening right now, boys. This is your generation's Pearl Harbor.".

For the next hour and a half, we sat there in silence watching the events of 9/11 unfold. Class let out and that's all anyone would talk about.

I remember the teachers and administrators of my school trying to take our minds off of what we all saw and back then I was pissed off about it. But looking back as an adult, I can see why they did what they did.

They knew the world we knew before that day was gone and had been replaced with an uncertain one full of terror and folks wanting to kill us just because we were Americans. They just wanted to shield us from that for a little while longer, to give us a bit more time to be kids.

I may never get the opportunity to see any of them again since most of them are probably either retired by now or passed on, but I do thank them in my mind for doing what they did that day.

I also remember in the days following 9/11 seeing American flags everywhere. I saw them on t-shirts worn by fellow students (who also wore NYPD and FDNY apparel), being flown in front of pretty much every house and business in the area I lived in at the time. It was amazing.

I may not have been personally affected by 9/11 in that I didn't lose friends or loved ones when the WTC towers fell, but I still felt it in my heart. I felt the terror and the despair of watching the country I was born in be attacked by a bunch of jerks. I felt sadness for those who did lose loved ones or friends. I may not know all the names of the people who died, but I still grieve for" them.M

My Dad  calls me that morning . He immediately starts talking to me about some work that needs to be done at one of his rentals. I'm like , Dad how can you be talking about that in a time like this? He asks  ,why what's wrong ?  I answer haven't you seen the news? He say's no. What channel ?  I say  any channel. All of them. I hear him turn on the little TV he kept on the kitchen table.  He's quiet for a second. And then he says to himself in a whisper . Oh my God. It's happened again. Then tells me  talk to you later

[NT2C]

Man who grounded 4,000 planes on 9/11 was on first day of his job

[DarkAxel]

I was in college when it happened. I was asleep when the first plane hit. My Grandpa woke me up before my alarm, and I got into the living room just in time to see the second plane hit. TBH, I sat down on the couch stunned, and in denial. I took the safety we'd had since the end of the Cold War for granted. I didn't want to believe it, but reality is a cold bitch.

I've never been to New York, and I had no idea of the scale of the Twin Towers. It took me awhile to realize that it was a jumbo jet and not a small private plane. I sit with my Grandpa and watched as people jumped. It was the first and only time I had ever seen my Grandpa cry. Then the news reported the Pentagon hit. After that, CBS news reported bomb threats all over New York and Washington. I hated Dan Rather. That sticks in my memory for some reason.

I got up and started getting ready for class. I was pretty sure classes were cancelled for the day, but I wasn't sure. Right before I left they reported a plane down in Pennsylvania. I kept the radio on as I drove to campus, hoping beyond hope that it was the end, but I had this dread feeling that it wasn't over and more planes would start dropping. Thankfully I was wrong.

All classes were cancelled for the day. The school brought in some therapists to talk to the students that needed it, but I spent the rest of the day sitting in the Rec lounge watching the TV with over 60 other people. I could feel the emotion in the room when the towers collapsed. By the time 7 World Trade center fell, I was the only one left. Everyone else had went home to be with their families or to try to contact loved ones in NYC and Washington. Campus security had to run me off at the very end of the day. I was still watching the TV, trying to make sense of everything that had happened.

That night, I couldn't sleep. I. WAS. MAD. I wanted to know who did it. I wanted to hurt them. I wanted them to die, slowly and after an agonizingly long time in extreme pain. Then I turned that anger into motivation, and started planning to get in shape. The next day I called my old JROTC instructor (he was the recruiter for the local National Guard) and asked him what I'd need to do to enlist. A year later he'd talked me into joining the Guard and I was on my way to training. While that didn't quite work out (that is a story for another day), it took me a very long time to figure out how to put my experience into words. In fact, this is probably the first time I was able to do so. It's by no means perfect, and there's a lot I left out, but I consider this a win. At least I'm not bawling my eyes out this time.

That day changed the trajectory of my life. I can't think of any other thing that effected me more, and I can remember when the Berlin Wall fell. I think it was seeing my Grandpa cry that hit me the most. He was the toughest person I'd ever met, all 5'7", 90 lbs of him. He'd survived the Coal mines as a kid. He'd survived polio. He lived through the Great Depression and was mining coal during WWII. By 9/11 he had buried two wives and most of his brothers and sisters. He was hard as steel.

[echo83]

I remember watching the whole thing on my TV in my freshman dorm room. 

Everyone in the dorm was glued to their TV. When the second plane hit, I remember hearing students in another dorm across the quad screaming while they were watching their TVs. That was the loudest part of the day. 

I called my girlfriend in D.C. Over the past weekend I had flown back to school after visiting her there. I heard the F-16s in the background before the call dropped. 

I spent the rest of the day trying to contact my family, while watching dust-covered New Yorkers walk through the streets. Someone on the news was interviewing a firefighter near the World Trade Center. It sounded like there were hundreds of car alarms going off, and I'd never heard that kind of tone before.

Fours years later, I was a reporter at the scene of a fire in a town in New Hampshire. The firefighters were working in shifts, and I noticed that the ones waiting to go into the building seemed to shuffle around every once in a while. I asked the Chief why they kept moving, and on cue, a loud tone began to go off from a device attached to a discarded pair of air tanks on the ground.

A firefighter walked over to the air tanks, picked up the beeping device and shook it. The beeping stopped. The Chief explained, "That's called a PASS device. When a firefighter stops moving, it goes off, so everyone knows where they can find him." 

That was one of the "alarms" I had heard on the news those years before. 

It had seemed like there were hundreds of them.  

When I had finished interviewing the Chief, I walked back to my car and cried.

[Raptor]

Never forget Todd Beamer. His quote is worthy of Patrick Henry  

Todd: (softer) God help me...Jesus help me....(clears throat and louder)
Are you guys ready?........
Let's Roll........................

Todd: Hello... Operator...listen to me... I can't speak very loud. – This is an emergency. I'm a passenger on a United flight to San Francisco...  We have a situation here... Our plane has been hijacked... Can you understand me?

Lisa: (exhaling a deep breath to herself) I understand... Can the hijackers see you talking on the phone?

Todd: No.

Lisa: Can you tell me how many hijackers are on the plane?

Todd: There are three that we know of.

Lisa: Can you see any weapons? What kind of weapons do they have?

Todd: Yes... they don't have guns... they have knives – they took over the plane with knives.

Lisa: Do you mean...like steak knives?

Todd: No, these are razor knives...like box cutters.

Lisa: Can you tell what country these people are from?

Todd: No.....I don't know. They sound like they're from the mid-east.

Lisa: Have they said what they want?

Todd: Someone announced from the cockpit that there was a bomb on board.  He said he was the captain and to stay in our seats and stay quiet.
He said that they were meeting these men's demands and returning to the airport... It was very broken English, and... I'm telling you...it sounded fake!

Lisa: Ok sir, please give me your name.

Todd: My name is Todd Beamer.

Lisa: Ok Todd....my name is Lisa...Do you know your flight number? If you can't remember, it's on your ticket.

Todd: It's United Flight 93.

Lisa: Now Todd, can you try to tell me exactly what happened?

Todd: Two of the hijackers were sitting in first class near the cockpit.  A third one was sitting near the back of the coach section. The two up. front got into the cockpit somehow; there was shouting. The third hijacker said he had a bomb. It looks like a bomb. He's got it tied to his waist with a red belt of some kind.

Lisa: So is the door to the cockpit open?

Todd: No, the hijackers shut it behind them.

Lisa: Has anyone been injured?

Todd: Yes, ..they...they killed one passenger sitting in first class. There's been lots of shouting. We don't know if the pilots are dead or alive. A flight attendant told me that the pilot and copilot had been forced from the cockpit and may have been wounded.

Lisa: Where is the 3rd hijacker now Todd?

Todd: He's near the back of the plane. They forced most of the passengers into first class. There are fourteen of us here in the back. Five are flight attendants. He hasn't noticed that I slipped into this pantry to get the phone. The guy with the bomb ordered us to sit on the floor in the rear of the plane... oh Jesus... Help!

Lisa: Todd....are you ok? Tell me what's happening!

Todd: Hello... We're going down... I think we're going to crash... Wait – wait a minute. No, we're leveling off... we're okay. I think we may be turning around... That's it – we changed directions.  Do you hear me... we're flying east again.

Lisa: Ok Todd... What's going on with the other passengers?

Todd: Everyone is... really scared. A few passengers with cell phones have made calls to relatives. A guy, Jeremy, was talking to his wife just before the hijacking started. She told him that hijackers had crashed two planes into the World Trade Center... Lisa is that true??

Lisa: Todd... I have to tell you the truth... it's very bad. The World Trade Center is gone. Both of the towers have been destroyed.

Todd: Oh God —help us!

Lisa: A third plane was taken over by terrorists. It crashed into the Pentagon in Washington DC. Our country is under attack... and I'm afraid that your plane may be part of their plan.

Todd: Oh dear God. Dear God... Lisa, will you do something for me?

Lisa: I'll try... if I can... Yes.

Todd: I want you to call my wife and my kids for me and tell them what's happened. Promise me you'll call..

Lisa: I promise – I'll call.

Todd: Our home number is 201 353-1073... You have the same name as my wife... Lisa... We've been married for 10 years. She's pregnant with our 3rd child. Tell her that I love her... (choking up)... I'll always love her...(clearing throat) We have two boys.. David, he's 3 and Andrew, he's 1... Tell them...(choking) tell them that their daddy loves them and that he is so proud of them. (clearing throat again) Our baby is due January 12th... I saw an ultra sound.... t was great... we still don't know if it's a girl or a boy... Lisa?

Lisa: (barely able to speak) I'll tell them, I promise Todd.

Todd: I'm going back to the group—if I can get back I will...

Lisa: Todd, leave this line open... are you still there?...

Lisa: (dials the phone..) Hello, FBI, my name is Lisa Jefferson, I'm a telephone supervisor for GTE. I need to report a terrorist hijacking of a United Airlines Flight 93.... Yes I'll hold.

Goodwin: Hello, this is Agent Goodwin... I understand you have a hijacking situation?

Lisa: Yes sir, I've been talking with a passenger, a Todd Beamer, on Flight 93 who managed to get to an air phone unnoticed.

Goodwin: Where did this flight originate, and what was its destination?

Lisa: The flight left Newark New Jersey at 8 A.M. departing for San Francisco. The hijackers took over the plane shortly after takeoff, and several minutes later the plane changed course – it is now flying east.

Goodwin: Ms. Jefferson...I need to talk to someone aboard that plane. Can you get me thru to the planes phone?

Lisa: I still have that line open sir, I can patch you through on a conference call...hold a mo.....

Todd: Hello Lisa, Lisa are you there?

Lisa: Yes, I'm here. Todd, I made a call to the FBI, Agent Goodwin is on the line and will be talking to you as well.

Todd: The others all know that this isn't your normal hijacking. Jeremy called his wife again on his cell phone. She told him more about the World Trade Center and all.

Goodwin: Hello Todd. This is Agent Goodwin with the FBI. We have been monitoring your flight. Your plane is on a course for Washington, DC. These terrorists sent two planes into the World Trade Center and one plane into the Pentagon. Our best guess is that they plan to fly your plane into either the White House or the United States Capital Building.

Todd: I understand...hold on......I'll.......I'll be back..

Lisa: Mr. Goodwin, how much time do they have before they get to Washington?

Goodwin: Not long ma'am. They changed course over Cleveland; they're approaching Pittsburgh now. Washington may be twenty minutes away.

Todd: (breathing a little heavier) The plane seems to be changing directions just a little. It's getting pretty rough up here. The plane is flying real erratic....We're not going to make it out of here. Listen to me....I want you to hear this....I have talked with the others....we have decided we would not be pawns in these hijackers suicidal plot.

Lisa: Todd, what are you going to do?

Todd: We've hatched a plan. Four of us are going to rush the hijacker with the bomb. After we take him out, we'll break into the cockpit. A stewardess is getting some boiling water to throw on the hijackers at the controls. We'll get them....and we'll take them out. Lisa, .....will you do one last thing for me?

Lisa: Yes...What is it?

Todd: Would you pray with me?

They pray: Our father which art in Heaven

Hallowed be thy name,

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread,

And forgive us our trespasses

As we forgive our trespassers,

And lead us not into temptation

But deliver us from evil

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory

Forever.....Amen

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want...

He makes me to lie down in green pastures

He leads me beside the still waters

He restores my soul

He leads me in paths of righteousness

for His name's sake

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death

I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.....

Todd: (softer) God help me...Jesus help me....(clears throat and louder)

Are you guys ready?........

Let's Roll........................