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What were you doing on 9/11 ?

R

Roy Suomi

Well-known Member
I was raking asphalt at the township job I had. Wife called me on my cell and I dropped my asphalt lute.
The guys were looking at me, like I saw a ghost. What a terrible morning that was..
 
I was working at a golf course, mowing the rough on the right side of #21 fairway when I heard the superintendent talking about it on the 2-way radio. I'll never forget that, very sad day.
 
Doing finish carpentry in a house. The construction super told us. I didn’t believe him so I went to my truck and turned on the radio. Didn’t do much afterwards.

Vito
 
Which 9/11?

9/11/1958 was the day Chairman Mao of Red China said I was supposed to die. (He obviously didn't get the job done).

9/11/2001 I was working for an insurance company. I'd just sat down at my desk at 8:00, 9:00 New York time, and taken a phone call from an auto repair shop in Brooklyn, NY. While we were talking business, a bunch of yelling started up in the background. The fellow said he'd see what was going on. He came back and said an airplane had hit one of the World Trade Centers, but they didn't have any details. While I was talking with him, I got a blow by blow account of the whole thing.

Also, our daughter was Multi Media Manager for a Borden book store in Pentagon City at the time. She was three blocks from the Pentagon when the plane hit it.

Interesting day.
 
I was on a coffee break when the supervisor came in the shop and said a plane hit the building in New York, I thought well it's happened before, when I got home and turned the TV on, I found out the full impact of it.
 
My oldest daughter and youngest son were on the steps of the Hart Office building in D.C.when the plane flew into the Pentagon. They were there with a lobbing group from Farmers Union. I was praying they would come home safe.
 
he wife ,son,and I had done a tractor show in Grayson,ky on sat and drove down to Gatlinburg,tn. for a couple of days and we had just sit down to at breakfest and saw it on tv.Well we finished our meal and packed up and headed home
on the interstate,seemed like even the traffic was in mourning or scared.Guess the most humorous thing of the whole deal was when we were told to go buy duct tape,go figure,bombs that could level cities and told to get tape.
 
I was still at home at 9am making phone calls for my job. Unusual for me as I was always on the road by 7am. Had trouble reaching people and left messages for them to call back. While waiting I turned on the news and saw it all live. A strange morning in all ways.
Dave
 
Helping to host a conference for the ACCCI, a trade group for metallurigical coke manufacturers. All the plants in the U.S. and Canada were there. We had just started the days meetings when everybodies phones started ringing. Conference was over as everybody started trying to get home from Birmingham. We watched it on a tv set up for us.
 
Was going to an auction sale in MN with my uncle and cousin, and had stopped for some gas. Sitting at the gas pump with the radio on when the regular programming was interrupted to tell about the events in NY.
 
I was emptying a barn of flue cured tobacco and preparing it for the market. I had a portable black and white TV there for noise. After the first plane hit, I watched most of the day.
 
Building a log home in the Catskill Mts here in NY. Heard it on the radio. Didn't know the full extent until got home that night. From where we were you probably could have seen the contrails from those planes. Strange not seeing any planes afterwards.
 
was putting in grain bin drying floor when my dad came down said we had been hit, then just watched the reruns that night
 
I was at work, my now ex wife called and said a plane had hit a building in NY.

I asked was it a small plane, "no it was a big one".

I'm thinking an accident.

About that time she said another has hit.

Knew right then something was up.

About that time there was a lot of Spanish chatter and people huddled around the radios.

I found a radio and tuned it to the first station I could find, the story started to unfold.
 
Spending the morning up at Bud Yingling's tractor salvage yard,came inside and Bud had the TV on.On the way home on US 15 crossed over I66 crowded with cars coming out of DC almost none headed into DC.
 
I had arrived in Camp Comanche, Bosnia the day before as part of the NATO mission there. Saw it on Armed Forces Network TV. Needless to say, things got serious as for as security then.
 
Helping a neighbor cut corn silage. they were talking about a plane hitting one of the towers on my way to work but even the radio announcers didn't know what kind of plane etc at that point. Tractor I was driving didn't have a radio so it wasn't till noon when the boss and I usually went into town for lunch. He came in with the cutter and said I was on my own for lunch he was going into the house, (looked like we are gonna be at war). I went in to nearby bar and grill they had a TV so got to see recaps of planes and towers falling.

Parents were on a genealogy road trip to Pennsylvania and I was trying every chance I had to raise them on the cellphone.

BTW radio station I listened to on the way to work is a clearchannel station that is talk/news format with a decent news department, it was just early enough that the whole story hadn't gotten out yet.

Just like older generations remember the Kennedy shooting and Pearl Harbor I will remember that day.

jt
 
I was getting ready to report for jury duty. Then on my way to jury duty when the second plane hit. No jury duty that day. Stan
 
We had TV's in classrooms. No teaching that day. Students were glued to the TV. Didn't take long before we figured out what was symbolic about the date. 911
 
I was building a new house on my farm. Walked over to the old house for something when I saw it on the TV. Being a pilot, I was interested in what happened to cause the pilot to fly into a building, fog, engine failure, surface control failure, etc. Then I saw the second plane hit the second tower. I said that’s no accident! What is going on?
 
Employee and I were finishing up morning milking and getting ready for vet checks, when our Vet walked into the parlor and said a plane had hit WTC. I thought he was kidding at first. We didn't do anything except chores the rest of the day, and for a couple days afterward, just watched things unfold on TV.
 
I was at work. Had to run up town to a welding shop. No one in the shop when i walked in. They were all in the office watching the news on the tv. An awful day. So sad that many have already forgotten.
 
Wife and I were flying, going on our honeymoon. Had landed in Chicago, switched planes, and were on the tarmac when we were pulled back to the gate.

Rich
 
I was in Mpls,i heard on the Citizen Band Radio,but a friend of mine was in New Jersey,he was coming back to Minn, he said there were cops leaning over the hood of there cars, with flap Jackets on,and rifles drawn, it was a scary time !
 
On a roof in Arlington next to the Pentagon. I heard two booms. One when the plane hit the ground and one when the plane hit the Pentagon. Then the plumb of smoke. Our crew had cleaned the Pentagon renovation job of in preparation for the elevator test the next day. No one was supposed to be in that wing until everything was inspected. Thousands of lives were saved when they hit a nearly empty building.
 
I was loading a semi to make a run from Milwaukee to Chicago. One of the salesmen came out and said an airplane had hit the World Trade Center. That was the start of a weird day The computers at the fuel stop were screwed up. The regional airport in the north suburbs had snow plows blocking the runways. Strangest thing was no airplanes at O Hare You normally could see jets coming in one after another
 
We were enjoying a beautiful stretch of weather here in NY. Wife, youngest child, and I were building a grain bin. Wife went to the house for a snack, and came out and said one of the towers went down. I said that can't be, remembering how a large plane bounced off the Empire State Bldg leaving only a scratch. Boy, was I wrong!

A flight instructor here in the Fingerlakes ignored the warnings, and that evening a couple of fighter jets went over low and fast. Fortunately the instructor was on the ground by then.
 
I was driving to seal coat a customers driveway when I heard it on the radio & I figured it was a plane accident. I had just pulled up to the house & turned the radio down so I could concentrate on paying attention to backing in the driveway & the lady of the house came out & ask if I heard what happened & I said yes I'd heard a plane hit one of the towers & she said a second plane had hit as well & that is when I realized that it wasn't a accident. Such a sad day. I will never forget.
 
There are 3 times in my life I will never forget where I was
JFK Assassination ,Space Shuttle Challenger, and 9/11
 
We had finished housing tobacco the day before and I had the day off from my job. I had put my work boots on out on the porch and was ready to go to the barn to straighten up a bit. I got a funny feeling and I felt compelled to go back into the living room and turn on the TV. I never go into the house with boots on, but that morning I did. I turned on the TV and stood on the tile by the wood stove just watching for an hour. I later moved and sat on the couch and watched for a while longer. I just could not believe it. Mark.
 
I was on I-287 in New Jersey on my way home from a night schedule when I heard on the radio that an airplane had hit the trade center. I thought it was some sort of accident involving a light plane. When I got home the truth was coming out. I later found out that one of my friends was flying a Sikorsky S76 right under the first plane as it hit. He had won the Distinguished Flying Cross and 47 Air Medals in Viet Nam. He was on his way to Teterboro Airport in New Jersey after dropping his pax off at Wall Street. After he landed at Teterboro he was so shaken by what he saw that he wasn't able to drive home until 5 that afternoon.
 
My place is about 35 miles bee-line to that part of Manhattan. We saw the huge plume of smoke over there. We had an old television with rabbit ears hooked up to an inverter out in the field. I have a good friend who was at work on the 62nd floor in the twin towers. They were told to stay put. He defied the order and raced down the stairs and got out minutes before the building collapsed. He lost 98% of his co-workers.
 
I remember the JFK assassination.

That was Friday, November 22, 1963. I was due to leave the Marine Corps on Sunday, the 24th. After lunch on Friday, the Colonel called me into his office to try to talk me out of leaving. When he saw he wasn't getting anywhere, he relaxed and we started chatting about all sorts of stuff.

About then, the Sergeant Major stuck his head in the door and said Kennedy had just been shot.
 
I was working at my teaching job at a state university. That afternoon I had students from a 256-person auditorium class calling to ask whether class had been canceled. My response was that if the university didn't shut down, I was obligated to hold my class as usual.
 
I was at work wiring a house addition. Boss pulled in, turned up the truck radio and we listened to the news. At terrible time in our history, just reading these posts still makes me teary eyed.
 

I was delivering a load of wood chips at a paper mill, truck was on the dump with the front bumper 70 ft in the air when another driver walked up and said a plane had hit one of the towers, was on the way back to the mill when they said on the radio that a second plane hit the other tower. Lessoned to the radio in the office for a few minutes when I got to the mill but decided to go home and watch events on tv.
I was in school when JFK was shot, they patched a news radio into the pa system, I remember the teachers crying.
I was on the I-495 beltway going around DC when they announced the space shuttle had exploded.
 
I was in 6th grade, didn't know what had happened until I got off the school bus and watched the television. What still haunts me to this day was the dead silence from everyone going back to school the next day. Nobody and I mean nobody, knew what might happen next. The whole world was in shock. I know what it means when someone uses the saying of "you could've heard a pin drop"
 
I didn't know anything happened until around 7pm that day. I was working for a landscaper at the time,didn't have phones or anything like we have now. I heard something on the radio in the work truck going to the last job. I was confused as to what was being talked about. Came across this elderly lady I stopped and asked. I'll never forget her response. "Oh it's just terrorist,I just hope this doesn't effect getting my check" It's amazing to me that during a deadly terrorist attack the most thing you are worried about is money. Kind of sad if you think about it. We sure are a "Me" society.
 
I was sitting at the breakfast bar having breakfast with the wife when we saw the first plane hit and then saw the second one hit and I said to her "something bad is happening" and than watched it the rest of the day !! will never forget that day !!!!
 
Working on a remodel of Harrah's Casino in Kansas City. We watched on the TVs in the sports bar. We sent our laborer to our company office about 45 minutes away for job supplies and he returned about 30 minutes later empty handed. He said "I can't get to the office, they closed Kansas City", which was true the local government had all interstates and highways closed into the city. Luckily I had happened to gas up that morning, I remember the lines at all the gas stations being extremely long. All waiting to pay $9 a gallon, due to price gouging.
 
I was working on repairing my silage bagger and sent the wife to town for parts. She heard about it and I went to my grandmothers to see what it was. Spent the rest of the day just watching the news. Hard to imagine anyone could kill so many innocent people. Tom
 
and the sad thing is how the younger ones now could care less most have no idea about it when you say something about it you get that blank stare
 
This will be convoluted but make sense if you follow to the end.

I was working as a vendor in a Wal Mart store about an hour from home. The store had changed all their display TVs to the news. I stood and watched for about 20 minutes and decided I needed to head home. The company I worked for sent out messages for everyone to go home and stay home.

Now the convoluted part. The company I worked for at that time always had a National meeting in August. I do not remember the exact date we were meeting that year but I know it was late August. Everyone who was more than 4 hours out had to fly to the meeting. Three weeks before the meeting I informed my boss lady, I had a gut feeling something BAD was about to happen. I told her I would NOT fly to that meeting. She was disappointed but said she would check back with me the week before the meeting. She did and my gut felt fine going to the meeting. I went to the meeting. The afternoon of 9/11 she called me and asked how did I know something was going to happen!

One of my co workers from another team lived in Boston. He flew out of one of the adjoining gates from that airport on 9/11!

When talking with him at later meetings he told of his flight being escorted by F-16s to their destination. He told of how they were disembarked from the plane and stood on the tarmac, surrounded by guards with automatic rifles. How their luggage was searched on the tarmac. He also said it took either 3 or 4 months to get his car from the airport parking lot.
 
I was working up a quote on a large thermoformed plastic piece for a customer. I was in the upstairs office when I heard some hullabaloo coming up from the downstairs lunchroom and I got down there in time to see the second plane hit.

No one seems to remember years before when an Egyption pilot said "Allah is great" and dove his load into the sea.
 
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