re: Where were you on 9/11/01?

Happy Birthday

Home sick from school.

Port Harcourt Nigeria with really spotty internet. One of my best friends was giving me updates via a chat service. My boss was the only other American working there at the time for our company and thought I was fricking with him when I told him what was going on (1st plane hit). Once the 2nd plane hit he got a call from corporate to lock down all the ex-pats at the staff house. None of us had seen any of the news footage up until the point we walked into our staff house. The rest of the ex-pats were Scottish besides myself. I will never forget the complete stunned reaction when we all saw it together on TV. The Scottish guys, each and every one of them, gave me a hug and offered condolences.

Sophomore year of HS. Spanish class when the 1st plane hit and History class for the 2nd.

6th grade 2nd period English. Principal came in and said two planes have just flown into the the WTC in New York. Couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

Freshman year health class. Came downstairs heading to history class and our CC coach was watching the news on the cafeteria. Remember thinking some idiot in a Cessna hit that big of a building. Got to the next class and we were all informed of what the real story. We watched the news all day. Saw the second plane hit live. Then another teacher came into the room and told the history teacher that the pentagon had been hit, the Shanksville. Really didn't know if it would ever end.

Had a golf match after school and remember noticing the lack of planes in the sky (lived in NW Ohio so we normally saw a lot of traffic coming to a from Chicago), noticed many gas stations were posting $4/gallon gas.

Loire Valley in France. Wife and I had spent most of the day riding bikes around the quaint little villages. Going back to our hotel the owner told us what happened.

Next day of our trip we went to Normandy. Seeing the flag at half mast with all those gravestones in the background is a feeling I'll never forget.

Paris the next weekend was tense. Soldiers everywhere. Luckily for our flight out that following Monday we didn't have to fly into Canada first. A lady that sat next to us paid someone 5K to take their seat so she could get back to console relatives in NYC.

Sophomore year at LSU.

I saw something about it on the news as I left my room and went to a 9 AM class. Nobody even mentioned it. Walked out of class and all hell was breaking loose.

At home sleeping.

Was working nights and didn’t know shite until I woke up around 1:00pm.

I was doing electrical work renovating a local elementary school. As soon as the 2nd plane hit the job superintendent confiscated all the radios on the job so we would "stop standing around and get back to work". We all hated that a-hole.