Where were you 6 years ago today!

[Muku]

Seeing as how today is the 6th anniversary of 9/11 ok technically it happened tonight our time here in Okinawa, I want to ask everyone here to add their thoughts, and memories, about where you were and what you were doing 6 years ago. Also how did you feel when you first heard about 9/11 and the attacks on the WTC, and the Pentagon, plus the failed attack as well.

How has your life changed?

Let me start, remember vividly the night that the airplanes were crashed into the World Trade Center. I was at my local hangout with friends, we were having our monthly moai gathering. Well anyway the TV was on and i recall looking at the TV and asking my friend "Hey what movie are you watching?" as I could never recall ever seeing a movie where an airplane had crashed into the WTC. Any he said "It's not a movie it's the news". I was like wow wtf is going on? And just as that thought crossed my mind the second airplane hit. I was shocked and my next thought was WWIII had started, somebody with more guts than brains was starting a war with the US and that was the first shot.

How prophetic that thought was looking back it. Yet it hasn't been the war that I was thinking about back then anyway. I remember the anger, frustration, concern and fear that I was feeling as well. I went home, turned on the TV and stayed up pretty much the entire night watching the drama that was unfolding.

My life today hasnt changed much other than things now cost me more money. Particularly gas. Not all of it is due to the wars but indirectly it is.l Also I have lost a couple of acquaitances and people that I knew when I was on active duty. We werent very close but for me at least it still was a loss. I can not imagine the pain and frustration millions of people around the world are feeling because of this conflict.

At first I thought that "they" were guilty, meaning the regime in Iraq. They just had to have WMD's and believed the information that the government was putting out. Yet over time I have also come to realize that this war did not need to be fought in the manner that it is today. Too many people are dying on both sides in what was truly preventable.

I pray for the people on both sides of this war, not only in Iraq but Afganistan and anywhere else people are at war.

Where were you? What were you doing? How has your life changed?

[P_chan]

I just remember waking up for class (I was in college at the time) and turning on the tv. I was still groggy and my vision was blurry. At first, I though it looked like a factory was on fire. There are a lot of oil refineries in my area and they catch on fire and explode now and then. Then I realized what had happened. I was shocked and wanted to stay home and watch the news to see what would happen, but I went to class anyways. I remember leaving for class just after the plane hit the pentagon. My classes didn't get canceled, but I was in the lounge during my break watching tv. Still remember some assholes wanted to watch MTV and BET instead of the news.

[DougP]

I was here 6 years ago. In the military at the time. Sitting in the dayroom in the barracks while a typhoon was raging on outside. Someone was flipping through the channels on the tv when we came acroos CNN and there it was. Right after the first plane hit. Then a little bit afterwards the second one hit. Soon after that myself and a couple of others went out in the typhoon trying to raise our SATCOM and HF antennas on the roof at work. It worked and we were online. After that the commcen was up and running 24/7/365. Before that they used to close shop for christmas and typhoons. After that no time off.

My life has changed but more or less because I've aged 6 years and got married since then. Those two things alone can change anyones life:)
I'm not religious by any means but I do hope that those responsible and everyother person connected in someway or another burns in what ever hell they believe in. Also the same goes for anyone who cheered and or laughed at the victims' misfortune.

[Ammoyankee]

Same for me... I was here locked down in TC1E!

[dk]

I was at work doing research for a story or something. I remember googling and things slowed down to a near halt. I just couldn't pull up anything on the internet for the life of me. Then my parents called my cellphone and asked me if I heard what was going on? I said no, and they thought that an accident had happened in NY but that whatever was happening, it was big, and that I should go home.

I had plans to go out with a good friend that night, so I did the "aww come on, I already have plans tonight" thing, but after spending a few minutes reading up on the online news, I knew they were right. So I came home and was pretty much glued to the tv for 48 hours straight and glued to the internet for about a week.

Felt like a zombie the whole week. Just walked around confused as hell not sure exactly what was going on or what was going to happen, but knowing that some very big changes were about to be made.

Scary times.

I also half-expected to see a terrorist strike on Kadena (my office was near Kadena), so I remember I was scared going to work for about a month.

[TheNoNamedOne]

I was in Kansai Airport. Just flew out of Detroit about18 hours prior. There was a huge typhoon in Okinawa then so flights to Okinawa were canceled. I was sleeping on an airport bench in the terminal and at about 1 a.m. a JAL counter lady came over to me, woke me up, gave me a blanket, and told me I could go watch one of the big screen televisions they had set up on another floor. I remember thinking, "Why the hell did she tell me to go and watch TV?"

When I did get up at about 6 a.m. I went to the McDs to get something to eat and kept seeing these sureal scenes on the tv hanging on the wall in McDs. As always Japanese have sound turned off, so still wasn't understanding. Thought it was an early morning variety show hyping a new action movie.

Then back out in the terminal I met a lady who when we were in the baggage check line the day before she said she was going to Hawaii. I asked her why she was still here. Then she told me all flights to the U.S. had been cancelled. Told me why, and then I went to find a tv until the flight to Okinawa could depart.

If my plane from Detroit had only been a few hours late, I would have been stranded in the U.S. for another 2 weeks.

[DoctorP]

I was at home, here on Okinawa, surfing the net when the news flash came up on one of the Japanese channels. I switched the TV over to AFN, then I only had the one AFN channel, and watched the coverage for about 3 more hours.

[ryukyuboi]

Yup, here on Okinawa online late at night with the typhoon blowing outside. I was probably hoping I would not have to work the next day due to the typhoon. I had the tv on in the background. AFN broke into a live coverage and Bryant Gumble was talking. He was reporting that it was a clear and sunny day in New York, and that a plane had crashed into the WTC. Just seemed like an accident at first, although he was questioning how a plane would crash into this building on such a nice day weatherwise. Little facts were known at that time. But when the second plane crashed into the WTC, the accident theory was over in my mind. This had to be a planned event. Then came the news flash that the Pentagon had a plane crash into it as well. It was then that I thought the USA was under attack from some country. I stayed glued to the tv for hours on end watching and following the news at it unfolded. I wanted to call a friend of mine to tell them to turn on the tv and watch, but it was very late and I decided not to do that. I was not able to connect online to most of the news sites in the US when I tried. I became worried that the US was now in a war and kept wondering if more attacks would be happening? Where would the next attack be? Okinawa? I really couldn't believe it when I saw the towers crumble and the smoke and ash scatter all over NYC. That was so sad. I thought tens of thousands of people must have been killed. Some images you don't forget - like that one, for me.

[socalheart]

Where were you? What were you doing? How has your life changed?
I was in Anaheim, CA at home asleep. My cousin FOB in Las Vegas, NV called me. She started the conversation with, "What do I do?!" She was freaked out. I did the whole half asleep response of "Huh?" She told me to turn on my TV to watch the news, because there was a big accident. Still confused, I turned on the morning news station I normally watched while getting ready for work. I sat there on the phone and was shocked to be watching the first tower smoking. I didn't know what or where it was right away. "Holy sh!t" and "Oh my god" were the only things I could articulate while reading the video captions. While trying to calm my cousin and convince her to take the kids to school and go to work, the second plane hit the second tower. Again, shocked silence. She calmed down enough, and we hung up.

I proceeded to call work. They said to come in, because nothing had happened on the west coast. I went into work, dragged the little TV from the boss' office to my desk and watched the news all day. The boss was right though, nothing happened on the west coast, because the whole east coast and 75% of the rest of the country shut down. Most of our business was done on the east coast. So, I was essentially paid to watch the news that day. Throughout the morning, news about the Pentagon and the plane that went down in that PA field were interspersed between news about the WTC. It was definitely a horrible day for America.

I didn't know anyone on the east coast at the time, but I knew people who had family there. So, I called them instead of my family, who were in CA with me or on Okinawa. My friend's dad was in Manhattan at the time for work. Later that night, he heard from his dad who had been on Manhattan, but not near the WTC.

Since then, my life has changed a little bit at a time because of 9/11. I realised how important it is to tell your family and friends how much they mean to you often. I'm not a super mushy person, so just figured people knew. I think I became a more positive person about things in general. It proved to me that every moment of everyday means something to someone you know somewhere.

[Tempestuous]

I also half-expected to see a terrorist strike on Kadena (my office was near Kadena), so I remember I was scared going to work for about a month.

Yeah, that part was wild, guess it even made stateside news (the Kadena threat) So our families back in the US were even more concerned.

As for us,
We were sitting in lock down from a typhoon watchin some family movie.
We had just finished it and flipped on AFN for a weather condition update and they were showing the first tower smoking.
We were puzzled trying to figure out what kind of movie they were playing to then hear Tom Brokav's voice and realize it wasn't a movie. We sat there looking at it and watched the second plane fly into the second tower.

[Honduh]

bootcamp sitting in a classroom.