Remembering 9/11

I remember the day, but not the events. I was asleep in the Pacific Time Zone. Both buildings had collapsed by the time I heard anything.

Side note: I'd been at a wedding in Michigan the prior weekend. I flew back west on Sunday, so I missed some plane excitement by a couple of days.

I was at home in Arlington, VA watching the plane that hit the Pentagon fly right over my head.  I watched the second plane hit the Twin Towers live on TV.  I told my wife to come to work with me so if something bad happened in DC, we would be together and could get out of town if needed.  She still wanted me to drop her off at the Pentagon Metro Station so she could go to DC for business.  Just as we made it into the car, I heard the loud sound of a plane.  I looked up, saw an American Airlines jet so low that I could see the lights on inside of it and no landing gear down.  I knew what was about to happen and not five seconds later, heard a sound I'll never forget.  

I don't know if every generation had a day like 9/11, but I hope my children's generation never experiences something like that.

i was still playing football at that time, and we regularly played FDNY and NYPD.  guys that we'd played against died that day, guys who you'd played your heart out against and then had a beer with at an after-game party, getting to know them.  i still have a shirt somewhere listing the former players who died that day.  whew.  heavy stuff. 

of course, no game that year but we played them the next year and when the bag pipes came marching out there wasn't a dry eye to be found on that field.   

I was in a stupid poetry class.  There were murmors about some crazy stuff happening, but it wasn’t until after class that I got the full news.

My folks were on the east coast and were going to fly back that day.  I was terrified until I got a hold of them.

Though our memories may grow dim, never forget.  Never forget the sacrifices of the people we lost, the first responders who risked and lost their lives and the soldiers who have sacrificed since.  We must never forget, however, the important personal freedoms for which these sacrifices were made, including personal privacy and freedom for tyranny. 

Sophomore year of high school for me. Watched the second plane hit within the first minute of 3rd period, US History class. Teacher said “we’re watching this today. You might not realize it but this is US History happening right now. They're going to be teaching/talking about this the rest of time.”  

Never had been to New York, and only knew the WTC because of a Simpson’s episode. But watching that live all day with what my teacher said made me aware I really wanted to teach history. Because of 9/11 I am a high school/middle school history teacher. 

I was at work at Discount Tire... We all heard the news from 102.5 WIOG radio station... We turned the radio up to listen and everyone just froze... Phones stopped ringing customers were quiet, everyone was lost... We were all in shock and had no perception of the present...  Unfortunately when you work retail in the United States what happens outside your 4 walls does not matter... So regrettably it was back to work as usual... I did not have any family or friends directly affected but still to this day do no know how others were able to deal w/ their loss...  First responders were heroes as well as everyone else that helped... Sad it takes something like that to bring us together and now,  yeah we are more divided than ever...

Anyways... #NeverForget #GOBLUE !!

Never forget. 

If anyone gets the chance, I would highly recommend going to the 9/11 museum in nyc. Probably the best museum I’ve been to. 

I was at work in Gaithersburg, Maryland.  We had TV monitors in the hallways, and someone came around the corner and alerted us to come see what was happening.  A group of us stood and watched; some of the women were crying.

I waited until later that day to go home.  Normally the capital beltway traffic is stop-and-go around 5:00pm, but that day I was nearly the only car on the road. I could see fighter jets overhead.  It was surreal.  

And all this was the day after I had put down my dog of 17 years.

Lived on the West Coast at the time.  My month old son started fussing and It was my turn to get him.  I was walking back and forth with him in my arms when the clock radio alarm came on and told the news about the Towers being hit.  In my groggy state, I wasn’t quite sure what I heard and thought it had to be some kind of accident.  Wife woke up, turned on the TV and we saw it was no accident and watched the Towers fall.

Freshman year at University of Dayton. Got back from my 8 am Philosophy 101 class and noticed an odd amount of people in the lounge for the time but wanted to go back to sleep and didn’t think much of it. Flipped on NCAA 2K1 on Dreamcast to sneak a quick game in when a kid down the hall burst in the open door and said planes hit the Twin Towers in New York City. I don’t think I comprehended all the words, and especially in that order. Flipped the TV to local news and went slack-jawed. Not sure I ate or drank or blinked or moved from that spot until well after lunch. An absolutely surreal day and one that I can hardly believe happened in my lifetime even today.  

Freshman year @ BGSU. Skipped biology 101 to hit the gym and on the speakers heard "a plane hit one of the towers". I thought "what a moron how do you run into a massive building". I thought it was just some tiny plane.

I ran at indoor track nationals the previous winter (Feb '00) and it was my first time in NYC and fell in love with the place. I've been there at least every other year since and met my wife there as she lived there for 5 years. 

I get pretty emotional about it I love that city so much and really is one of my favorite places. 

I was at work, ~20 miles south of the Pentagon.  Being at work meant I was working, not watching the news.  We found out when a colleague in England called on the secure phone (classified, I work in the IC) and asked what the hell was going on.  That's when we hit cnn.com, and could barely get in.  From then, shit started happening real quick...

The next year, on 9/11/2002, myself and some co-workers landed at London Heathrow around 9AM local time, five hours ahead of the US.  We got our rental cars and headed into London for a quick day of fun before the 1.5 hour trip north to the site.  When the clock struck zero hour, London observed a one-minute period of silence, as did the rest of the world.  I swear to God, I was standing outside the Tower of London entrance, in the middle of a city with a population near 8 million, and it went silent.  London went dead silent.  After ~30 seconds we could hear a single hammer that seemed like 4 miles away.

I've never heard a single city, let alone one that large, be that silent.  And I never will again, nor will I ever forget it.

Edit:  Just realized I typed the wrong date, I was in London on 9/11/2002.  Sorry about the typo...

I watched the second plane hit on TV. At the time I was so mad I wanted to bomb the hell out of a couple countries. Whenever I see that footage again, I still do.

 What pisses me off again are the videos of Muslims and Islamists dancing in the streets. The "big Satan" had suffered. Yet they won't do anything to stop terrists.

Never forget. Freshmen year at GVSU, my mom called to wake me up to turn on the news. Saw the second plane hit and just froze. I couldn’t believe it, didn’t want to believe it and had new clue what the future bared next. I crutches my way to the training room and practice/PT was cancelled, but I couldn’t leave the facility. 

To all the first responders, unsung hero’s who’s story may never have been told and all those lost that day, you bravery wont be forgotten...

On my way to a history class in college.  Professor put on the tv and didn't take long to excuse everyone from class. Spent the rest of the day in disbelief. Bought some cigarettes from the corner store and the cashier reached out to grab my hand and just started to cry and it didn't seem weird at all. Surreal.

I was in class in HS, remember huddling around a TV at lunch and that's when they collapsed. I'll never forget seeing it live on TV, it felt like I was the only one who was realizing what was happening.

The rest of the day was just glued to the TV watching the response. 

My dad lived in NYC, but I couldn't get a hold of him. Turns out he was in the subway one stop away when it hit...on his way to work. He was one of the people who had to walk home across the bridge in the dark back to Brooklyn that evening. Lucky for all of us...he could walk home. Finally got an email at like 6pm that he was okay. Surreal.

I'll always remember the people who were in the towers or in the city that day who were never able to send that email.

The names of University of Michigan Alumni killed on 9/11 are below. 

https://michigantoday.umich.edu/2011/09/08/a8066/

David Alger ’68 MBA, president, Fred Alger Management, World Trade Center (WTC). Alger spoke at the Business School’s commencement in 1997 and served on the University Investment Advisory Committee.

Yeneneh Betru ’95 MD, medical affairs director, IPC, American Airlines Flight 77. Dr. Betru was a native of Ethiopia and grew up in Saudi Arabia. He specialized in improving hospital care and was in the process of developing an improved kidney dialysis machine.

Brian Paul Dale ’91 JD, senior consultant, Price Waterhouse, American Flight 11. Dale oversaw the legal and accounting activities at Blue Capital Management, the investment firm he co-founded. His job often required him to travel for business purposes.

Paul Friedman ’83 MSE, senior management consultant, Emergence Consulting, Flight 11. On the day before he boarded his flight from Boston, Friedman spent the day with his newly adopted infant son Richard “Rocky” Harry Hyun and took him to Starbucks.

James Gartenberg ’87, member of Julien J. Studley, Inc., WTC. He served as president of the Alumni Club of New York for 12 years prior to serving on the National Advisory Committee for the University Library and Task Force.

Steven Goldstein ’88, computer analyst, Cantor Fitzgerald, WTC. He had begun his job two weeks before the attacks. Prior to taking the job, he worked in the basement of his family’s home developing his Internet company, which traded weather derivatives online and was bought by Cantor Fitzgerald.

Darya Lin ’91, ’97 MSE, AON Corp., WTC. Ann Arbor native Lin received her degree in industrial and operations engineering and her MA in hospital quality management.

Todd Ouida ’98, firm member, Cantor Fitzgerald, WTC. On his application to U-M, he wrote, “I discovered no matter how big the person is on the outside (for I am only 5’5″ tall) that the size of the heart is always going to be more important.”

Manish Patel ’02, Euro Brokers Inc., WTC. An economics major born in India, he left U-M before graduation but was posthumously granted his bachelor’s degree in August.

Laurence Polatsch ’90, partner, Cantor Fitzgerald, WTC. Trained as an attorney, Polatsch changed careers six years ago so he wouldn’t have to “fight with people the rest of his life,” said his father, Bernard Polatsch.

Stephen Poulos ’77/’78 MMUS, manager, AON Corp. WTC. After singing professionally as a baritone for 20 years, Poulos switched careers for financial reasons in 1996 and took up a career in information technology. Right before he died, he had joined an Internet discussion called the Opera Forum, where he was again able to express his love for music.

Gregory Richards ’92, vice president of corporate development, e-Speed, WTC. Two of his best friends and Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity brothers, Larry Polatsch and Scott Weingard, were also killed on Sept. 11.

Joshua Rosenthal ’79, senior vice president and an investment portfolio manager, Fiduciary Trust Company International, WTC. Named a Truman Fellow at Princeton University, Rosenthal was recognized for his dedication to public service, leadership qualities and scholastic achievements. He also served on the University’s Investment Advisory Committee.

Christina Ryook ’98, human resources, Cantor Fitzgerald, WTC. She served as an officer in both the Asian American Association and the Korean Students Association at U-M. A cultural program with the latter group for adopted Korean children won recognition as best of its kind by the United Asian Associations Organization.

Meta Fuller Waller ’73, special programs manager, Office of the Secretary of the US Army, Pentagon. When Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon, Waller was working at her desk. She held a life-long interest in civil rights and attended the United Nations Conference on Racism in South Africa shortly before her death.

Scott Weingard ’93, equities manager, Cantor Fitzgerald, WTC. After earning his BA in business, he headed to New York City to join Hypnotic Hats, a baseball cap company his brother Robert and friends had created. He left as operations manager and had worked at Cantor Fitzgerald for a year.

Meredith Whalen ’00, research analyst, Fred Alger Management Inc., WTC. Her boss and fellow victim, David Alger, called Whalen a “rising star” in her field. Kristy Kuncaitis ’04 of Lansing, Michigan, is the first recipient of a scholarship Whalen’s mother, Patricia Whalen, endowed for women in business education.

Mark Zeplin ’90/’93 MBA, vice president, Cantor Fitzgerald, WTC. At U-M he was a broadcaster for Michigan sports. His friends and family hosted a fundraiser for the Mark Zeplin Foundation, which raises money for the children who lost their parents on Sept. 11.

At work, the radio in my office announced a plane of some type crashed into the World Trade Center Tower, I remember the the words, "it was believed to be a small commuter plane".  I had to travel a couple miles to one of our factories and when I got into the building there was a special news report that a second plane had just crashed into the second Word Trade Center Tower and it was clearly not an accident......    

God bless and comfort all those who felt the pain and loss of the events of 9/11.

I went to college about an hour outside of NYC.  It was my junior year.  Cut through the student union and saw a bunch of kids around the TV, but thought nothing of it even though there was typically only one or two kids watching sportscenter.

The classroom was empty and one kid came running by, saw me sitting there, and said "The trade center got hit, school is cancelled, everything is locked down".  Given my school was 70-80% tri-state kids, my walk back to the dorm was filled with panicked students trying to get cell phone calls through to family.  I know a girl who lost both parents in it.

Never forget.  Go Blue.  Go Army.

The one personal image seared into my brain from that day; I had been making some deliveries for work, listening on the radio and stopped home to catch it on the news for a few minutes. 

I walked in the door to see my mom on her knees on the floor as the towers started to fall. Sheer terror on her face. 

That, I'll definitely never forget. 

Now that she's been gone two years from cancer, I wish I had more happy memories of her as vivid as that one because I can still see her face in that moment, plain as day. 

I was finishing up a 4am shift on a shipping and receiving dock and about to head to my freshman psych 101 class, which was cancelled...that’s the day I decided I wanted to be police.

Some very powerful 9/11 film documentaries out there.  Many are rated 8.0 or above on IMDB.com.  Worth streaming for sure.

"I would like to extend my best wishes to all, even the haters and losers, on this special date, September 11th,"

Shouldn't today be a national holiday? Not trying to get into politics here either. 

I was getting ready for work with my husband. There was a story on the Today show about a small plane hitting one of the Towers. They thought it was an accident. We thought nothing of it, and rode our bikes to work. When we got there, our building, the Aon Building in Chicago, which looks a lot like the Towers, wasn't letting anyone in. That's when we knew something was up. We rode home and turned on the TV to see the first Tower fall. Our nanny at the time was an older Polish woman who had been a small child during WWII. Within days, she quit and went back to Poland, thinking this was the start of WWIII. 

I was working for a Wall Street investment bank at the time (just a handful of blocks from the WTC), and meetings in TN the day prior had gone longer than expected, so I stayed overnight out of town.  I hopped the first flight back to NYC and was on the glide path into LaGuardia over NJ when we suddenly turned around, descended to a very low altitude and were out over the ocean for a bit, hugging the coast line. It was obvious something was very wrong — startling on the plane, as we all figured we might have a serious mechanical issue that was going to threaten our lives.

It was the days of blackberries, and I had accidentally left mine on.  When we were somewhere around DC, my blackberry started buzzing like crazy, and one of the first messages I saw was from a HS buddy back in MI who worked in IT. I knew he’d be at his desk so started firing off messages back and forth with him. “We’re under attack! The WTC just collapsed after a plane crashed into it” was about all he could tell me.  Knowing my wife of four months would be somewhere between the Upper West Side and her job in the Fashion District, and that she would be very aware that I was on an airplane bound for NYC, I asked him to call her and tell her where I was.  Then I lost contact.

So thankful for that exchange, because by the time I landed it was more than 24 hours before I could get through to her cell.

I’ll never forget driving into Manhattan a couple of days later (I flew to Philly and drove, rightly expecting that the NYC airports would be a cluster right after they reopened) and seeing the gaping hole in the skyline as I looped around the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel.  Even though by then we all know what had happened, the utter shock of the sight was harrowing. Those towers were so physically imposing, and for them to be just *gone* was difficult to take in.

Bursley, 4th Doug, sophomore year. Asleep until my Dad called about the 1st plane hitting. Woke up a few guys on the hall and we watched the 2nd plane hit live and I remember us all being in a daze thinking was that a different replay, until realizing that a seperate plane and trying to comprehend that it wasn't an accident it was terrorism. Never Forget.