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Nugget wrote:I woke up and went to the VA office at school to get my shit squared away for the quarter. It had already happened by the time I got there. I sat down in front of the VA lady and she says, " so what do you think about what happened?" I had no clue and just gave her a generic answer, " Tragic...it was horrible." I flew home and turned on the TV, that's all I did was watch TV all day. I'm in the guard, so everybody was callin me asking if I was going anywhere.
Was having breakfast with my wife when we heard on the radio that a plane had crashed into the WTC. I turned on the TV and saw the second plane hit about a minute later. My first words were, " We're at war with someone." I still remember all of the reports that came out that day and how confusing it was. Reports of car bombs in Wash. DC, etc.
Kinda like all of the people who knew exactly where they were when they heard Kennedy got shot.
I was working at the VA as an intern. They had placed two TV's in the main conference room. We watched the second plane hit. It was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop.
"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." -Henery Louis Mencken (1880-1956)
"I might not be Airborne however, it's whats on my right sleave!"
*1992-1996 USMC CPL
* 12/2005- present USAR Medic PL/ Human Terrain Teams
2nd day of PLDC at Camp Jackson, Korea. I remember in PT formation some guy saying something about planes into the World Trade Center. Was at breakfast when we saw the whole thing for the first time on TV. I remember being able to hear a pin drop it was that quiet. I also remember watching on TV the first Tomahawks being fired at the Taliban and the out of control, wild cheering (think Super Bowl) of nearly a hundered soldiers.
2/75 97-00
It's not that I'm lazy........it's that I don't care
I was bullshitting with SGM Brashier and we got called into the hall were the TV was...After watching for a couple of mminutes he looked at me and said something like "You picked the right time to leave RTB" (I was already clearing and on my way to Vicenza.)
I was headed North on 95 from Fredericksburg, VA to George Mason University to tell my Professors that I was not going to make it to class because my mother died of cancer. I had left the Rangers six months prior becasue we(Bco 3/75) did not go anywhere since Somalia - 4yrs. prior to when I arrived in the Rangers.
DoorGunner wrote:Mmmmm, that was my 25th wedding anniversary. At the time, I was running a Guard contract for Homeland Security watching over their Federal Buildings in New England.
For some reason, that incident kept me very busy for the next month or so.
Didn't go out that night to dinner a the Bay Tower Room in Boston. They closed the place down. Gee I wonder why, "Bay Tower"
I thought that Homeland Security wasn't formed until after 9/11?
As for me, I was at Bragg working in the motor pool. We first heard that a plane hit the WTC and I thought that it was a small plane, like a Cessna. I thought to myself "what dumbass goes flying a plane around NYC and even worse, how did he miss seeing it - it's only the biggest building there." When news came that a second plane hit the WTC, I then thought "what are the fucking odds of TWO retards hitting the WTC." Of course once details came in, it was a whole 'nother ball game.
I flew into Philadelphia on business on Monday, 9/10 and stayed at a hotel about 10 minutes from the airport.
On 9/11 I left the hotel and drove my rental car back to the airport. I went through security and to the gate (remember those days ?) to meet one of my co-workers coming in from Pittsburgh on the 6 AM flight.
We linked up and drove about an hour to our appointment in Allentown, PA. We were early, so we went to a diner to grab some coffee. Shortly thereafter, a waitress said a plane hit the WTC. I thought it must be a traffic helicopter or something. On the way to the appointment we heard a second plane had hit.
We met our client and cancelled the meeting. We were walking out of her office and she came running out to say a plane had hit Pittsburgh. Too close to home. My co-worker said something like "maybe we should go back to the Philly office" I said get your ass in the car and we started driving West- fast.
I still remember the cobalt blue sky that day. We drove back accross Pennsylvania and saw very little traffic. They said they had closed the turnpike so we cut back up through State College and then home through side roads. When we drove through Pittsburgh, it was like a ghost town.
I got home around 5 pm. Although we had heard about it all day, we hadn't seen the video of the towers coming down. I was completely dumbfounded when we saw it.
I got home, grabbed my then one year old son and bearhugged him for about an hour.
The next morning, the local news was constantly broadcasting that rental cars were urgently needed at the airport. I drove out to Pittsburgh International and it was really fucking eerie- aircraft parked all over the tarmac and no noise except the birds and the wind. I turned my Hertz rental in....
....and the fuckers charged me extra for not turning it in at Philadelphia where I rented it.
I was doing my turtle time, waiting for my Drill Sergeant School course, so I was working in Basic Training as a candidate. We were on cycle break and I had come home from PT to drink coffee and lay on the couch for a while before going to work to do the mandatory BS quarterly classes and barracks R&U. The 1SG called and said for us to stay home and watch the news, and oh yeah! better go fill up on gas cause there's a rumor going around that gas is getting ready to go sky high.
Our next cycle started the week after, and the first thing the BC does is do a battalion classroom "group hug". That was an intense cycle...
