15 years ago today....

Paul

Paul

Dr 'Dre
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America was under attack and the twin towers fell. Let us never forget the heroic actions of all the first responders. God Bless America!
:usa:
 
Remember all the tragic events that changed the USA forever 15 years ago today. Remember all the lives lost in the attacks including the families they left behind. Also as stated by @Paul remember all the first responders and the battles they deal with everyday since 9/11. God Bless America!
 
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We will Never Forget Our 343 Brothers that we lost that day.
 

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I'll never forget that day.

Interestingly I had an old dude who worked for me at the time. He was a Vietnam vet named Steve and a damn good electrician. But he was cantankerous as hell. He and I got along well. He liked the younger guys in my company. Hated most of the 30+ year olds though and would go out of his way make their life difficult. He was abrasive in his speech and insulting in his tone most of the time, to those he liked. To those he didn't he was much worse.

We were working on a jobsite about 4 miles from. Charlotte Douglas Airport. Cell phones were barely a thing then and news reports certainly didn't come to a cell phone. We were laying the underground for a new construction building. We were on a 500,000 sqft red dirt pad. We had no clue what was happening. But we noticed planes were circling overhead. Lots of them. Nothing was landing at the airport. When we stopped for lunch we would all learn what had happened. I cut everyone loose to go be with their families. I remember their being lots of hysteria about Charlotte being a banking huh and a possible target.

Everything had left except Steve and I. I was getting the paperwork in order and going to leave and get my son who was 10 months from "daycare". As we were departing Steve thanked me for a lot and hugged me. ( I can't explain how out of character this seemed) As we parted he said "Ron, you don't understand how the world has changed forever today. I'm glad I'm my age and not yours I don't want to live that long in this America"

Initially me and a couple of guys who wanted to help left the next morning headed to NY to try and find survivors and help with rescue efforts. To just "do something" . We never made it to NY. We turned around at the advice of someone on the ground when we were basically in DC . We returned to normal work the following Monday. Steve didn't show back up. A couple days later ups delivered his company cell phone. His home phones had been disconnected. His final paycheck was returned "return to sender" a few weeks later.

Within 6 months I'd be out of business... Then sold off the assets to another company. Laying employees off who had done nothing wrong was the hardest part. I never heard from or spoke to Steve again. I don't know if he is alive or dead today, and if alive where. But his words are burned in my head like a brand.

May all those lost RIP and may the souls of all those responsible never rest.
 
I will never forget how quiet it was in my neighborhood that day and the following days. I was living in Charlotte at the time and my house was in line with a Charlotte Douglass airport runway. With no planes flying overhead, it was eerily quiet. My neighbor worked for US Airways and knew what was up the minute the first one hit. He came over to my house and told us to turn on the television. Up to that day I was upset that I had been let go from my job at PriceWaterhouse Coopers, but was suddenly thankful that I was. The job was a consultant where I was travelling constantly. I had been to New York city a couple months prior working on a website project for Coty Fragrances.
 
Like everyone I can recall where I was when I heard.

I was in the volunteer fire department at the time and was 3/4 of the way to being a certified firefighter.

I was missing one class that prevented me from being at ground zero despite my hardest efforts to go. As much as I hated missing it, I'm sure it was the good Lord keeping me alive and healthy to raise my two beautiful children.

I will never forget and GOD BLESS AMERICA!
 
We lived less than a half mile from Langley AFB. It was like someone stirred a hornets nest. I've never seen so much stuff get scrambled out of there in a single day.
 
My youngest daughter was born that day. A few hours before the first plane hit. The nurse brought her too us and then abandoned us. We soon found out why. I went to see where the hell they all were and saw them all around the TV. One of the best days of my life, tainted by one of the worst days in our country
 
I was flat on back clutching a 90's model super duty.The guy I worked for mostly listened to gospel so no news about it until after the second plane crashed and that came from a customer who come by.
 
I've posted this before but I'll put it up again. I was working at a Ford dealer here in Fayetteville. I had put a Focus 5 speed back together I had rebuilt the day before and mostly had it back in before I went home on the 10th. I came in to work on the 11th around 7:20 and finished up the small stuff, topping off fluid, popping the cv shafts back in and hanging the wheels back on it. Back then Ford wanted us to put 10-15 miles on as a test drive after a major repair, I had a loop of neighborhood, highway, and stop and go city roads I'd hit regularly, it would take 20 minutes or so but I could really work a manual transmission out on that loop since that was one of the things I specialized in at this dealer. I was about half way through my test drive when the radio announcer said something about a plane hitting the World Trade Center. He didn't know what kind of plane but guessed it must have been a small regional jet. It was about 8:50, just minutes after the first tower got hit. I rolled back into the shop around 9 on the dot. I jumped out of the car and told the mechanic in the bay next to me to turn his stereo on a plane had flown into WTC. Two more guys walked up and I told them, then one said lets go to the break room and check the TV.

We must have switched the TV on around 9:04. They were showing a replay of the second tower getting hit, it literally happened as we were walking to the breakroom. Nearly every mechanic and most of the sales people were crowded into the breakroom watching a 25" tv until just after the second tower came down. I stopped at a Radio Shack on my lunch break because I needed a few resistors for a project, I'd never seen it so busy. There had to be 20-30 people in there buying batteries and hand held radios and tvs. After lunch I had to put a Ranger transmission back together, as I stood at my workbench I was staring out the window which faced Ft Bragg and Pope AFB less than 3-4 miles away, wondering if I was going to see smoke or a fireball myself. I had to take the longer way home that night because Ft Bragg used to be an open base so I'd cut through the base roads, but they had everything locked down with MPs. It was a very eerie feeling.
 
We were surveying for a bridge replacement over Black Creek on some lonely rd. in Johnson Co.; We were talking to some DOT guys and we heard it on their truck radio. We all assumed it was a small private plane. A while later the second plane crash was announced and everyone knew it was no accident.
 
Sophomore in HS at the time. Sitting in my second period class and the band director came in from the office adjoining his classroom to the one I was in. He turned on the TV in our room and didn't say anything but just had a ghost white stare on his face. As soon as he flipped it on to the local channel the second plane hit. We did absolutely nothing but watch the coverage and pray for that entire period. As I walked into my 3rd period class, the tv was on in that room as well. Right as I down in my seat and the first tower crumbled. The whole day was just spent watching the news coverage. Some parents came and picked their kids up and all of our practices were cancelled.

I wouldn't find out about it until later that day, but it was a tense morning for our family until we found out which flights were hijacked as I my cousin Dan was flying out of Logan that morning back to Tampa after being up visiting our family up there. His flight left shortly after and he ended up somewhere in TN or KY during the grounding if I remember right and ended up renting a car and driving all the way home.

Seeing the Tribute Lights lit up in person is still one of the most surreal things I have ever witnessed. I then knew what made that teacher stare blankly at the TV the day he turned it on in our classroom.
 
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