9-11

[jacksonianmarch]

Not sure if you guys are old enough, but I can’t fucking believe it’s been 20 years. Gonna enjoy this game tonight. Can remember exactly where I was when those towers fell.

[iortiz]

At the time I was living in Monterrey, Mex. I was having my breakfast while watching the news and everything came in a sudden very fast. I literally watched live the second plane crush on TV. I think it was the scariest moment I ever seen.

[a700hitter]

I got to work late that day, because I had watched the Giants on MNF. When I got out of Penn Station and jumped into a cab, the cabbie told me about a big building on fire. As we proceeded down 7th Avenue, I could see that one of the Towers was on fire. The cabbie turned down 23rd Street, and by the time we reached 6th Avenue, the second plane had hit. We were stopped at a light. The passenger in the cab next to mine opened his window and asked if I was hearing the news. At that moment, we knew that it was a terrorist attack. For some reason, I continued to go to work rather than telling the cabbie to bring me to the train station so I could head back home. I watched the smoke and flames from my 8th floor office on 23rd street. I saw the jumpers and the fall of the 2 Towers. Our phones were useless at various points that morning.

We had a Department Meeting in the afternoon and we were given an information sheet titled “What We Know At Noon”. I kept that sheet until I moved a couple of months ago. One of the items on the sheet was that there were no known survivors from our office on the 87th floor. I had a friend in that office, and he always got to work around 7 am. The next day I had found out that he made it out alive. On the following Monday, he was in my office and he recounted his harrowing experience minute by minute in vivid detail. It was hair raisingly riveting. Years later, the Discovery Channel did a documentary called Inside the Twin Towers featuring my friend’s story. His story was word for word what he told me on that Monday. Every detail of that day was burned into his memory. His name is Rick Bryan, and he made it out of the building stepping on and around body parts just as the antenna on the second tower collapsed and the building came down. He had just recently finished rehabbing reconstructive surgery on both knees. Although exhausted, he started running uptown and didn’t stop until he was safe. I asked him how he was able to do what he did with his bad knees. He told me that the fear just kept him moving.

I didn’t leave my office until 6:30 pm and we were told that trains were not running on any schedule and that we should just get on a train going in the direction of home. The city was completely empty at that time. It was quiet and eerie, and the smell in the air was like nothing I had experienced before or since. It was unmistakable what it was even though i had never smelled it before. It was burning flesh and death. When I got home, my cousin called me. He is a Vietnam Vet who had seen some horrors. He asked me what it smelled like. He told me that he had smelled that smell when he was 18 and that you never forget it.

I saw it all from a safe distance and smelled the death. Only one word could describe it. Horrible.

[Kimmi]

I cannot imagine what it was like to be living in NYC at the time.

Over the past week, I watched several shows about the 9/11 attacks. I was teary eyed through most of the shows, not only from the tragic loss, but also teary eyed from the hope, inspiration, and humanity displayed by the survivors and the surviving family members of those lost, from children who grew up without a parent. There are so many good people in this world. True heroes.

Let us also not forget about the heroes at the Pentagon and the heroes on United Flight 93.

Never forget.

[illinoisredsox]

I was a civilian working for the Department of the Army here in western Illinois. I was on my way into work and listening to a local radio show hosted by two guys who loved to joke and have fun on the air. When the reports of the first plane hit, they were making remarks about blind pilots, etc. When the second plane hit, they became the consummate professionals. Those who heard them from that point forward that morning would not have recognized them. They hit on the terrorism aspect immediately.

Once I got to the office, no one had heard anything (I was usually one of the last in as I took the kids to school in the morning). I called my wife to find out what was going on and was on the phone with her when the Pentagon was hit. I remember saying to her “I’ve got to go”. We were all sent home a couple hours later when the base went to threatcon Delta and we stayed there for several days.

I found out later that the priest who had been the chaplain at Holy Cross High in Waterbury, CT when I was a student there in the early 1970s was on the first plane. He was going to visit his sister in California.

My older son, now 28, was a 3rd grader and has vague memories of that day. My younger son, 26, was a first grader and does not remember it at all.

One memory that has stuck with me all these years: several of us were talking outside late that afternoon. Somebody mentioned how quiet it was without planes flying. At that moment, we looked up and saw Air Force One and its fighter escort flying back to Washington.

[Bellhorn04]

On the morning of September 11, 2011, my wife and I were on our way to our first counseling session after being separated for about two months. (It was our only separation and we've been married since 1992.)

So it has emotional connotations for me on two fronts.

[moonslav59]

I was playing in a contract bridge tournament, and someone came in and said a plane hit a trade tower. We kept playing- not knowing the extent of the event.

On my way home, I listened, shocked on the car radio- not believing what I was hearing.

The next few days, I think we were all glued to the TV- numb, sad and angry.

Never forget!

[Thunder]

I have no memory of that day. I was about 6 weeks away from turning 3 years old.

My brother, however, worked on Wall Street, and lost a good amount of friends, colleagues, clients, and business partners. That's about all I know. We try not to ask him too much about it

[notin]

At the time I was living in Monterrey, Mex. I was having my breakfast while watching the news and everything came in a sudden very fast. I literally watched live the second plane crush on TV. I think it was the scariest moment I ever seen.

I was living in Monterrey just 2 years earlier.

I was in Chicago for 9-11. When the first plane hit, it was a bit shocking, but we all assumed it was just an accident. But that all changed when the second plane hit...

[Northern Star]

I was out of work, in my apartment, turned on the tv some time after the second plane had hit. The caption "two planes hit WTC" made me think there had been a midair collision or something at first, then they replayed the footage of the second plane, and it was obvious that it was deliberate. My wife was working and they closed the office early, IIRC. I called her soon after turning on the tv, and then I called my mother in law.

Oh - and then they cut to DC and the smoke billowing from the Pentagon and it got really scary, because there was no idea how big an attack this was, where else might get hit.

[Northern Star]

I was playing in a contract bridge tournament, and someone came in and said a plane hit a trade tower. We kept playing- not knowing the extent of the event.

On my way home, I listened, shocked on the car radio- not believing what I was hearing.

The next few days, I think we were all glued to the TV- numb, sad and angry.

Never forget!

Please teach me bridge - it's the bidding I don't get, no matter how many times I try to follow the explanations of the rules. On second thoughts, don't.

[Kimmi]

Please teach me bridge - it's the bidding I don't get, no matter how many times I try to follow the explanations of the rules. On second thoughts, don't.

That's kind of like me with trying to understand cricket. LOL

[moonslav59]

It's about how many tricks you think your side will take out of the 13.

What's confusing is they start with 7, since that is the majority of tricks, but they call taking 7, one.

So if you start the bidding with 1 Club, and it goes pass, pass, pass, you have to take 7 tricks with clubs as trump.

Suits are ranked, with the lowest being Clubs, then diamonds, then hearts, then spades, then no trump.

The bidding, alone is fascinating and there are many systems used that send messages to your pard and the opponents about what cards you hold. The play and defense of the hand is the hardest to learn.

[Bellhorn04]

I can't play bridge or chess worth a damn.

[Northern Star]

It's about how many tricks you think your side will take out of the 13.

What's confusing is they start with 7, since that is the majority of tricks, but they call taking 7, one.

So if you start the bidding with 1 Club, and it goes pass, pass, pass, you have to take 7 tricks with clubs as trump.

Suits are ranked, with the lowest being Clubs, then diamonds, then hearts, then spades, then no trump.

The bidding, alone is fascinating and there are many systems used that send messages to your pard and the opponents about what cards you hold. The play and defense of the hand is the hardest to learn.

<pause> A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?