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11 years ago just about this time of day!

Discussion in 'History Forum' started by gafinfan, Sep 11, 2012.

  1. gafinfan

    gafinfan gunner Club Member

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  2. RoninFin4

    RoninFin4 Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    I remember it like it was yesterday. I was a sophomore in high school walking into Ms. Allen's Algebra II class. Our school had TVs in each class that would turn on whenever there was breaking news. As soon as I took my seat a minute or two before class started, we saw the hole from the first plane. One of my classmates, my friend Fadil, a practicing Muslim, walked into class. Everyone was silent just watching the TV.

    Somebody asked Fadil what the Quran said would happen in an event like this. Fadil said that they'd try to strike at the nation's tallest tower and heart of the government. By the end of that math class, the 2nd tower had been hit along with the Pentagon. Very eerie to think about still to this day. It was almost like getting a futuristic play-by-play of what was happening.

    I bumped into one of my friends in the hallway after that class. His dad was supposed to have had a meeting at the 2nd tower that day. Fortunately, his dad had gotten sick the night before, called off the meeting, and stayed in his hotel room. Fortunately, that was as close as I ever got to knowing someone directly affected by 9/11.

    In a military related story about 9/11, I took a class in college on the history of military aviation. My professor was a staffer at Wright Patterson AFB in Dayton, OH (I went to the University of Dayton). She said that most military personnel were on leave, so an F-15C was scrambled from WPAFB in order to intercept Flight 93 and try and bring it down safely. They launched the F-15 out toward Chicago not realizing the plane was coming back into Cleveland air space. The F-15 was rerouted and was told to try and intercept Flight 93 at all costs. It went to full afterburner flying relatively low over downtown Dayton (F-15s and F-16s from WPAFB routinely buzzed campus pretty low - a cheap thrill for them I guess, but never at full burner). Apparently the F-15 generated a sonic boom going past Dayton that rattled and shattered some windows, causing the Dayton PD to think a bomb had gone off.

    My professor explained that the area surrounding WPAFB was generally in the top 10 potential targets just about every time they war-gamed a potential Soviet Invasion. So, the Dayton PD had developed contingencies for some similar scenario (apparently in nearby Springfield, OH, the town where my parents are from, there's an Air National Guard base that was staging depot for nuclear warheads during the 1960s-1980s, thus why Dayton and the surrounding area were on the list).

    So, even though the real attacks were in NYC and DC, there was still a scare all the way out in Dayton, and Flight 93 crashed before the F-15 could intercept it. Scary to think how quickly the chain of events happens in real-time. I'll never forget that day.
     
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  3. Laces Out

    Laces Out Well-Known Member

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    I was at my parents house confused why Peter Jennings was on ESPN. I watched it all in terror. I remember the local coverage going nuts because POTUS touched down at Offutt AFB and fighter cover was flying over the Omaha Metro Area. I was 18 at the time and freaked out on multiple levels. One was for the sheer horrific nature of what was going down, and the other was remembering registering for Selective Service and thinking it would actually come down to that.
     
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  4. Fin D

    Fin D Sigh

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    I was bartending at Universal Studios.

    I went in to the uniform area and everyone was staring at the tvs. I noticed there was a fire at the World Trade Center. Thought nothing of it because I had to get to my station. Picked up my till and the keys went to my bar clicked on the radio just as the first building collapsed. After the second collapsed, they said Disney and Sea World were closing. I grabbed my till and keys and locked up. Told my boss I was leaving. They announced the park was closing as I headed out.
     
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  5. padre31

    padre31 Premium Member Luxury Box

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    Eh, was on the job, heard about it, but we stayed open and just listened to the radio coverage.

    Seems like looking through a straw for me though, seems so long ago to me.
     
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  6. Ohiophinphan

    Ohiophinphan Chaplain Staff Member Luxury Box

    I was sitting in my office at Church. We were having a Clergy meeting planning a community Veteran's Day service. We were a temporary homeless shelter and the Cable company had given us free cable TV so I had a TV in my office. We turned it on just in time to catch the second tower hit. The clergy in my office stopped, prayed, and immediately set about planning a community service for that evening. At 7 we met in the Community Auditorium with a dozen clergy and about two thousand folks from the area.

    I remember it like it was yesterday. Of course I also remember where I was when we heard about the Kennedy assasination....and Challenger......and Columbia....and Reagan being shot. We have done this too often!
     
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  7. gafinfan

    gafinfan gunner Club Member

    Lord isn't that the truth.

    I was in an ECM-C class at Great Lakes when Jack was shot. We were all shocked beyond words and of course we went on full alert.

    It was my off day on that Sept morning and I was on my computer blind to it all until my youngest daughter called and said Dad are you ok ... I said sure ... she replied we are under attack and the Twin Towers have been hit by planes turn on your TV! My first thought ... girl you are out of your mind as I turned on the TV just as the first tower came down.

    Add in the Cuban Missle standoff and the Bay of Pigs mess along with some South China Sea war games ... very interesting times indeed!
     
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  8. RoninFin4

    RoninFin4 Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    To sort of come full-circle with 9/11, I actually finished reading the book "No Easy Day", in which a former DEVGRU Navy Seal with the pen name "Mark Owen", who was on the Abbottobad raid to capture Bin Laden, detailed how it went down. It was very interesting to see just how far off-base the CNN's and Fox News' of the world really were with regard to that mission. It's a quick read, but in my opinion, exceptionally well-written. Certainly gave me a sense of closure, if you will, on coming full-circle from the 9/11 attacks knowing that they were able to get Bin Laden.
     
  9. Boik14

    Boik14 Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    I was away at college. My suitemate used to leave the TV on all the time and he would fall asleep to it. I didnt care cause I sleep through fire alarms anyway. Anyway I wake up around 9AM that day since I had class at 10 and the TV was on. I'm cleaning that morning crust out my eyes and I see a plane hitting a building. My first thought was "Great, my roommate has is now watching cartoons". Than I see the news anchor come on and well if that doesnt wake you up, you should check your pulse cause you might not be alive.

    So then my second thought was: "Oh crap, Mom works a few blocks from the WTC." Luckily Mom was getting a cup of coffee at the time watched the plane hit the South Tower, called my dad who works a mile away from the WTC and they both took a cab back to Long Island since the trains closed down pretty quick.Certain bridges were closed so they had to hitchhike a ride but that worked out ok. I couldnt get through to Mom's cell right away so I pretty much worried all day since I was away out of state at the University of South Carolina. I was very happy to hear from my parents that day as you would imagine since I know people who were less fortunate and lost a distant cousin who I never met (apparently I had family I didnt know about at that time). All I remember was feeling very angry and empty that day that someone would come after us like that without provocation or reason other then the fact they were religious zealots who felt we had no right to exist.
     
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