Where were you?

[November_Scorpio]

Where were you on 9/11? This is not meant to be a debate over it, just where you were at, and what you remember. I remember that my parents weren't home, so I went downstairs to where my sister was. I remember her crying, and I was confused because I had never seen her cry. I remember asking her what was wrong, and she tried to explain it to me. I remember watching footage of the towers collapsing over and over again. And I'm curious where all of you guys were at.

 

Please do not make this a debate over 9/11.

[Emily]

I was in the sixth grade and we were working on a word problem about apples and my friend was trying to copy my work over my shoulder xD

 

I remember our principle running in (I'd never seen him run), saying a couple quick words to my teacher, then leaving and wheeling in a TV set a couple minutes later. They turned on the news just in time to see the second tower go down. Two or three other classes were brought in and we just watched the news together. We were all 11-13 years old, so many people didn't understand what exactly was going on until our teachers tried to explain it to us later, or people went home and talked to their parents.

 

It's amazing how many people remember, to the finest detail, exactly where they were and what they were doing all over the world.

[Spritzie]

A security guard asked me this question this morning. (He asked me what I was doing 11 years ago and I looked at him like he was crazy, until he said this very day, 11 years ago, then it hit me what he meant.)

 

I was at home, sleeping. When I woke up, there were 2 messages on the machine, one from my grandma and one from my sister's friend, telling us to turn on the TV. So we did, and saw the footage of all of it. We had to call my dad because he was on his way to the local Air Force Academy to ride his bike, and we knew he would get turned away.

[Dinosawr]

Im only 14, so i was quite young at the time.

However, this is what I remember combined with what my mom told my

I was in some preschool, and had gotten into some argument with another kid or something, and they ended up biting me. Because it was actually serious and drew blood, the preschool called my mom & told her to come get me. That was the exact moment the 1st tower collapsed :0. She tells me she was listening to the news, and the traffic literally came to a standstill. My mom finally managed to get me home sometime later& fix up the bite marks :). But right then she turned on the news and was watching the awful footage of the 2 towers and the Pentagon. My dad hhad also gotten home they were both totally in shock.

The closest relatives we have to that area were in Boston, so it didn't affect my family personally. But I think we can all agree it was a pretty tragic day regardless your opinion :sad02:

[Xepha]

I think I was in a French class when it happened. I didn't know about it before I went home to have lunch. I remember watching it for the entire time I was there... then back to school I had an history class and we talked about it a little bit. It was really fitting the class since it was about contemporary history...

[Ali Cat]

I was in second grade. I had already gotten dropped off at school and was only there for 30 minutes or so before the principal came in to talk to the teacher. I don't remember exactly what the teacher said, just that something had happened. We all went home early. It wasn't until later that day, around 6 pm, that I walked into my parents bedroom while they had the news channel on and saw the footage being replayed of the planes crashing and the buildings falling. My parents didn't even try to explain it to me since I was only 7. What I basically understood, in my 7-year-old terms, was that something important had happened that hurt a lot of people and it was making everyone really sad. Other than seeing the footage on tv, what I remember most vividly were the days afterward where my 2nd grade class talked about it in our sharing group.

[Lady Lyuba]

I was just going to an ordinary nice day at school, the TV wasn't on, my mum was oblivious (until Dad told her AFTER I went to school: "Did you know that all flights across the country have been cancelled?"), I was oblivious to how serious all the kid's parents were (because I could not read other people, I knew only myself), and as for class - well it was mostly normal until we were lectured about the incident. A woman who was talking to the class was almost crying, and I did not understand when she was nearly crying about planes crashing. I thought "Don't planes crash all the time?" When I came home, the same thing was on the news ON EVERY STATION. No other incidents were being brought up, regular programming had been cancelled, and it went on for DAYS. And I had to wear American flag colours for the next week to follow and be silent and I did not know why.. I did not understand why everyone was making a big deal about an accident until I got older and realized IT WAS NO ACCIDENT. I was only 9 back then, with a mentality of 2, but here I am now, knowing well what happened that day, and wish I could have understood more like the other children in my class could.

[Mouseykins]

I was in grade 5 and it was immunization day for our grade. We had to get our first dose of Hep B.

I didn't really fully understand what was happening. In the school library and the office the TV's were on the news. I think it was after the 2nd tower collapsed that we had a moment of silence, actually I think it was about 5-10 minutes. We all stood absolutely quiet. I was in the conference room just about to get my needle when our principle announced our moment of silence. For the rest of the day all the older students and teachers were quite somber, but classes continued on as normal.

[gingerew]

I remember I was in grade 7, and I turned on the TV to watch while I was eating breakfast, and I saw these images of the first tower smoking on the channel where my favourite kid's show always used to be. Being young and stupid, I didn't understand why this stupid news thing was on every channel I tried, even though the TV guide said differently. Then I went off to school and they pulled in a TV showing the footage of a plane crashing into the Two Towers and I understood what was going on. We also had a minute of silence that day for all the lives lost. Even though I was young and I didn't understand what was happening at first, I remember feeling like wow...something really huge must be happening for them to wheel in a TV to the library and have the whole school come in to watch it instead of doing our regular work.

[andaraen]

I was in the sixth grade and first period (Social Studies) was about to start. Instead of launching into some lesson when he got in, the teacher turned on the tv. For a moment, I thought we were going to watch a movie.

Except it wasn't. It was footage of the first plane. At first, I didn't understand. I thought it was an accident and I was pretty sure those happen all the time. Then the second plane hit and the only thing I could think was that I was watching people die. I felt angry and sad and helpless all at once.

[passiflora]

It's amazing how many people remember, to the finest detail, exactly where they were and what they were doing all over the world.

It is indeed, and I don't think anyone will ever forget. My old english teacher, who is in her 60ies, can recall exactly what she was doing on the day that JFK was assassinated (which was almost 50 years ago).

 

 

 

I was in grade 5 in 2001, and it was my turn to bring a "current event" on September 11. I had totally forgotten to do it the night before, so in a rush we turned on the TV for some news so I could fill out my sheet to bring to class - there was coverage of the attacks on almost every channel, and I believe it was right after the second plane had been hit. At the time, I didn't realize it was such a big deal and didn't completely understand what was going on. When I got to school, everyone was talking about it and my teacher discussed it with the class before I got to share, and I was so upset that my current event was "ruined", lol. It wasn't until later that I really started to comprehend the gravity of the situation. It's incredible that it happened 11 years ago, feels like way less than that.

[pchau123]

I was in class when it happened :(. I didn't find out until later in the day. No one would tell us what happened. I didn't learn of it until I got home...

[karmacow]

I was at football practise, where I was a sort of chaperoning a girls' football team. One of the parents told me what had happened. It felt surreal. Up until then, terror on that scale in the west was unheard of. And it made me much more aware that nobody is really safe at any time.

[cleomiele]

I was in second grade, so I was too young to really process what everything meant, but I remember we were coming back from art class or P.E. to homeroom and our teacher was just sitting in her desk chair crying, looking shaken and perturbed. When she gathered us around and tried to explain what had happened/was happening, she started to cry and that was shocking to me because she was the sternest, most stone-faced teacher I have ever had, so that's how I knew that it was a really serious thing. I believe that we, too, got to go home early, and we just spent the rest of our time at school attempting to talk about what it meant and watching the news for coverage. I was too young to understand and I wish I had been more capable of comprehending the accident at that time...

 

11 years ago...wow.

 

EDIT: I also remember being terribly afraid for many days afterwards because people were suspecting that if there was to be another terrorist attack in the U.S. that it might be in my city, because we had a sizable military base here at the time.

[chiaroscruo]

I was in the sixth grade. I had just gotten to school and everyone in the hallway was talking about a plane crash but nobody really knew what happened. Then after the bell rang and we all went to homeroom, the teachers explained that the principal thought we were old enough to know the truth even though the superintendent told them not to tell us anything. They explained as much as was known at the time and we watched 10 or 15 minutes of the news coverage. That's really all I remember. The emotions and exact details have faded over time since I don't live anywhere near the attack and my city wasn't considered a candidate for another attack. I do remember being scared for awhile though. I think all of us lost quite a bit of our innocence that day.

[Koralis]

I was in the eight grade at the time and I remember getting the announcement during lunch. Our teacher tried to explain the severity of the situation, but obviously the full weight of it didn't sink in as a child.

[lunalovedgood]

I was in my sixth grade music class and the teacher got a call from the office to turn on the news. Our teacher tried to explain it, but we didn't really understand what the severity was.We didn't really do much for the rest of the day.

[pchau123]

It was kind of scary for us O.O. That flight 93 thing was very near pittsburgh. Ugh. Terrible just terrible.

[hrtbrk]

Getting ready to go to school. We always had the radio on in the mornings as background noise, but never clued in until I got to class and it was playing on the TV.

[Rebecca~]

I was in bed. My mum came to wake my brother and I up for school, and told us to come down and watch the news, because history was being made.

[psychology]

i was in sixth grade and i remember the principal making an announcement on the speaker system. i went to some after-school clubs but i was picked up early by my parents because they sent everyone home from their jobs.

[Zombiiesque]

Okay, I was quite a bit older than most of you! I would probably be closer to many of your parents' ages.

We were actually living in upstate NY then, about a 7 hour drive to the city and much closer to the PA site. I actually didn't have tv on at all that morning - we went out pretty early and had gone to a thrift store, and they were playing the radio. I couldn't catch everything going on quickly enough. I knew it was serious - we headed home and turned on the news, and bam. I felt honestly like the bottom had dropped out of our world. I think we probably didn't turn off CNN for a month. I can remember the paranoia over further attacks, and other kinds of attacks, and the immense grieving.

[paperdoll66]

I was in math class. One of the other teachers came in and told us. My teacher assumed he was joking until she turned on the tv. We watched the news in pretty much all of my classes that day. I was in lunch when they started reporting that a plane had crashed in Pennsylvania. My school didn't handle the announcement that well, so everyone was assuming a plane had crashed in Pittsburgh because students were being picked up by their parents. I didn't find out that the plane had crashed in Somerset County until a few periods later, and I was still pretty freaked out, because I spent most of my weekends there.

 

I stayed after school that day helping to get out the patriotic stuff for the band. I was standing outside the band room to meet some friends to walk home, because a group of bullies would follow girls home from school and harass them making it better to walk home in a group. The teacher must have known what was going on, so he let us help out and walk home a little later.

[Rune Valentine]

I was in seventh grade when this happened. Living very far from America, but my dad was literally in NYC that day (he goes to watch the US Open every year), and had a flight out on that very day. To say I was terrified would be a huge understatement.

[Kaana]

I was five at the time. According to my mum I was impossible to get to sleep that night. I do vaguely remember footage of the crash, but I'm not sure if that was then, or in the days following, or just from seeing it again and again throughout the various remembrance days for it.