20 yr anniversary Sept.2001 memories

Alright so most of us aren't a local Einstein, walking mathematician, calculator, and encyclopedia. But at least we got got memories right?

In the year 2001 911 trade center 20 yr. anniversary.

I had seen an article of the USS Cole that the terrorists had taken. Including how they had destroyed blowing up Buddha statues. After I read this in the Orange County register I knew this group of terrorists would do more damage to the United States.

This is because I was getting monthly Christian news articles. These articles were already warning us to watch out for these terrorists. The only one I knew was Saddam Hussein. But I didn't think they would attack anything bigger than a supermarket etc.

So I was at the shopping center in Orange County Calif. I saw this woman fully dressed in Islamic attire garments. I soon quickly remembered the USS Cole and my Christian letters warning us of the

al-Qaida and such similar terrorist groups. I asked God right there this. If there's going to be terrorists attacks I pray that I'm not near whatever happens. I'm not hoping others will get killed. I do believe they'll go after someone sooner or later.

I actually though did briefly talk to some Muslim people in those years peacefully. Since there's an Islamic shopping center near where I was. . The area is a melting pot of Spanish, Whites, Asian, Blacks, and Middle Eastern in other parts of Orange County. Including its well known UCI medical Irvine facility known by professional doctors nationwide respectfully. .

A few weeks later Sept. 11th. I came out of my room and turned on the TV. I saw the planes crashing into the 2 Trade Center towers. I wasn't expecting the terrorists to do something this overwhelming and terrifying upon us. It changed my way of thinking.

But all of a sudden people had US flags all over. People for once were acting kind and patriotic after the attack. At night after I left Bally's Fitness I saw people lining up on the sidewalks with candles and prayers. I was scared. Maybe this is the end times. Maybe the Antichrist would arrive soon. . After this attack I knew we'd be now constantly monitored world wise etc. . At least I did eventfully realize this was a major end time event that will lead us to the tribulation within probably our lifetime. . This event alone would propel not only America to a biblical end time scenario but even the rest of the worlds nations. . I've never seen people so scared in my life praying to God. I was nervous for awhile myself to say . .

Now I'm asking others what are your memories of the September 911 attack on America?. . What was life back then 20 yrs. ago when you saw this happen? What did you think after seeing or hearing this news? Did it change your life or thinking? What about others around you also? . Since it's the 20th yr. anniversary share any Sept.11th memories. What's your take around this September time in 2001?. . Anything at all about this attack you remember yourself and your experiences feeling concern etc TV, news reports on the 911 and all what happened then. . Let talk about how we felt about this event 20 yrs ago. What we can remember at our best.

I was 12 so my memories are vague but knew from what we were hearing it must be serious as we were listening in on public radio in a small little 1 room k-8 school in Nebraska. The teacher was distressed and in tears as I remember.

thought I’d share this old news column. She had another one that was very inspirational right after this one.

God Is BackIn the wake of an atrocity, he shows he hasn’t forsaken New York.
-- The Wall Street Journal: September 28, 2001. Peggy Noonan

God is back. He’s bursting out all over. It’s a beautiful thing to see.
Random data to support the assertion:
In the past 17 days, since the big terrible thing, our country has, unconsciously but quite clearly, chosen a new national anthem. It is “God Bless America,” the song everyone sang in the days after the blasts to show they loved their country. It’s what they sang on television, it’s what kids sang in school, it’s what families sang in New York at 7 p.m. the Friday after the atrocity when we all went outside with our candles and stood together in little groups in front of big apartment buildings. A friend of mine told me you could hear it on Park Avenue from uptown to downtown, the soft choruses wafting from block to block.
You know why I think everyone went to Irving Berlin’s old song, without really thinking, as their anthem for our country? Because of the first word.
I find myself thinking in mystical terms of President Bush’s speech to Congress and the country, and I know from conversations with many people that I am not alone.
It seemed to me a God-touched moment and a God-touched speech, by which I mean, in part, that little miracles surrounded it. A president and staff who had no time to produce something fine and lasting, produced it. A president who at his strongest moments had betrayed a certain “I’m kinda surprised to be here” vibration had metamorphosed into a gentleman of cool command—the kind of command you sense in a man who understands he ought to be there, should be leading, can trust his own judgment and rely on you to respect it. A great but wounded country heard exactly what it needed to pick itself up, dust itself off and start all over again.
Mr. Bush had a new weight, a new gravity, a new physical and moral comfort. You could see it. A man who had never been able to read from a TelePrompTer before used the TelePrompTer like a seasoned pro, which is to say like a man who didn’t need one.
Mr. Bush found his voice, just at the moment when people tend to lose theirs. He didn’t rely on bromides or high flights or boilerplate; he gave it to you plain and hard with the common words of a common man. He said, “We will not tire, we will not falter, we will not fail.” He said, “They will hand over the terrorists or they will share in their fate.” He said, “These demands are not open to negotiation or discussion.”
He talked just like George W. Bush.
He found himself amid the rubble.
He talked of prayer like a man who’d been praying, and who understood that tens of millions of Americans and others throughout the world were his powerful prayer warriors. They prayed the right thing would be said and done. It was. And now we feel we have what we needed, hoped we’d have, weren’t sure we had: A true commander in chief.
All of this is quite wonderful, a tribute to President Bush and the men and women who work so hard for him. But he, and they, could not have produced that great night alone, and he, and they, would be the first to say it.
In the early days after the blast, I visited several of the memorials that have sprung up around town, in Union Square and in the heart of Greenwich Village. I was struck, at first, by the all the religious imagery, especially traditionally Catholic imagery—mass cards, pictures of the Sacred Heart, little statues of St. Anthony and St. Francis, pictures of the Virgin of Guadalupe, votive candles, prayers written on envelopes and pieces of paper grabbed from a desk.
Then I realized there was so much because so many of the firemen and policemen who died were Catholic—Italian and Irish and Puerto Rican men from Queens and Staten Island, from Jersey and Brooklyn. It was their families and friends who had brought the mass cards and the statues of St. Anthony, by tradition the patron saint of missing things, in those early days, when they were still hoping that someone they loved would emerge from the ruins.
On Sunday I watched Oprah Winfrey at the wonderful Spirit of New York special at Yankee stadium. She prayed aloud—a lot of people prayed aloud—and Bette Midler made everyone feel better just by singing.
That morning I had gone to our local mosque, the biggest in Manhattan, on East 96th Street to show sympathy and regard for people who might be feeling frightened and defensive. I watched as men prayed on their knees facing Mecca.
Then a friend came over and we talked about the speech she was going to make at a memorial for a friend of hers who’d died at Cantor Fitzgerald. He was a friend from her Alcoholics Anonymous group. I asked her what she wanted to say, and she said she wanted to tell the rest of the group that the friend they’d lost had always arrived everywhere early. He was early at AA meetings, and he used to greet the newcomers at the back.
On Sept. 11 he was early at work. After that he probably got early to heaven, where he was probably greeted himself—by Bill W., the great man who was one of the founders of AA. She wanted everyone to know that their friend and Bill W probably had a great conversation about how meetings are held these days, and about the importance of having greeters in the back for new arrivals and first-timers.
I wasn’t surprised by what she said, not only because I know her faith but because some little taboo or self-editing or reticence has lifted in the past few weeks. People are feeling a little less self-conscious about integrating their actual thoughts about their faith into the actual statements they make to friends and family, to coworkers and colleagues.
That’s a great thing. In my little town that’s a kind of miracle too.
I was thinking the other day: In 1964, Time Magazine famously headlined “God Is Dead.” I hope now, at the very highest reaches of that great magazine, they do a cover that says “God Is Back.”

I was 19. I worked until midnight so usually slept in. My 14 year old sister woke me up yelling, "The world is ending!"

I remember watching the plane crash into the towers but that's about it.

I was living in NYC on 9/11. The fear and confusion was immense. Families, friends and neighbors were together as one. No politics, no racism and no division. We band together and prayed.

The black trail of smoke lingered over our sky's for days. Seeing and hearing F15 Fighter Jets patrolling NYC was a reminder that the World will never be the same.

For the next 3 to 6 months after that horrific day, hearing the Church bells ringing constantly for funerals to mark finale closer to the families who lost loved ones. Some Families never received their loved ones bodies, they just had memorial services in their honor. So much grief and heartbreak.

20 years later and it feels like it just happened today!

I WILL NEVER FORGET!

I was 21. My cousin living in NYC rang us at around 4am our time, to say he was safe.

I went to work at the engineering Library...it was all on the news. We didnt do much work that day, I think everyone was horrified. My workmate said it was like a watching movie scene (movies always have dramatic set pieces especially in NYC)

I didnt know anything much about al-queda or connectng it much with militant islam but I knew that there was tensions in the Middle East thanks to US involvement. I thought that something had set them off, but wasnt sure what.

When Bush appeared declaring another war, it was like oh here we go again. But I dont think anyone wanted to get involved in anything like that...if they wanted to start World War Three that was their chance but our sympathies lay with those innocent lives affected.

Nzers never forgot those killed in gallipoli in the first one when there was a world war scrapfight that made no sense to us.

I was sitting at my desk at work and heard on the radio that a commuter plane had hit the World Trade Center. No mention that it was a commercial aircraft, I thought it was a small plane. A few minutes later I heard that another plane had hit the other tower. At that point it was obvious that the US was having a terrorist attack. I finished the work day but my heart really wasn't in it. It was a sad day. I was 46 years old at the time and single.

Remember that, when people were holding hands and praying? I wish this country were like that again. I was cleaning the house and the TV was on. I saw the emergency news come on and sat down to watch as the second plane hit. I was stunned. I quickly called my cousin because i knew she works in the area. Shes a Russian translator. Couldn't get in contact w her all day. That night she finally got thru and told me she had just left her office at the Trade Ctr to walk to her new office. They were instructed to walk the bridge across the Potomac. She just wanted to be home w her husband and son. He is a Naval instructor and lost many cadets that day. He was in a different part of Pentagon and felt the explosion and watched black smoke fill the sky. Me and my husband and girls prayed and prayed. It was such a sad, scary day.