Where were you on 9/11/01?

[Skalrag of Marshank]

I don't remember, I was 2 at the time...My grandma tells me we were living at Pennsylvania at the time, doing deputation, because my parents were planning on being missionaries in Chad, Africa, but now we just live in Michigan...

There is a teacher at our school, and her husband was actually in the South Tower when it was hit. He talked to us about it and showed us a couple pictures.

My science teacher's father was supposed to be in the area of the Pentagon the got hit, but there was construction in that area, so he wasn't there when the plane hit.

That's really a God moment.

[Log-a-Log]

I agree

[Tiria Wildlough]

Nobody told me what actually happened...
Anyway, I was probably a baby, in our flat in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, playing with an empty lemonade bottle.

[Folgrimeo]

I woke up to Mom and Dad watching the news on TV intently, being shocked at whatever they were seeing. Even after I saw the footage I didn't believe it was real. Took me a while to realize what happened. I always felt a little guilty for feeling essentially nothing. It wasn't until I saw some movie about two firemen in the WTC as the event was going on that I started to feel something, with the human element there and how demoralizing it'd be to know there are people that aren't going to be saved.

Actually I should probably feel guilty that I wasn't aware it was coming up. Just something I try to avoid because I didn't know or lose anyone on that day, so I don't think I'm "broken up" enough about it. I just move on, for what that's worth.

[Dawnwing]

Woh woh woh - what actually happened?
I was a baby at the time.

A terrorist group called Al Quaeda, under the direction of Osama Bin Laden, carried out an attack on the U.S.  They hijacked four planes full of innocent people.  Two of the planes, they crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, in New York City.  The towers eventually collapsed from the damage, destroying at least one of the other World Trade Center buildings and possibly damaging more, I'm not sure.  One of the planes, they crashed into the Pentagon. The fourth plane was likely headed toward Washington DC, possibly to crash into something like the Capitol building, but the passengers fought back against the highjackers, and the plane crash-landed in a field in Pennsylvania.  About 3,000 people died in the attacks - the passengers in the planes, the people killed in the buildings, the firefighters and paramedics who tried to help. The war we're in started not long afterward.

More information, including a timeline of the day's events, can be found on Wikipedia. You can also see on YouTube clips of that day's news broadcasts, or people's own videos, of the attacks. Note that this may be disturbing, though; it made me cry.

[Tiria Wildlough]

Oh, I see. My mum says that they've been hunting down Osama bin Laden for almost all my life. She gave me a holiday off homeschool when we heard on the  news that he'd been killed. It didn't mean much to me, because I did not previously know who Osama bin Laden was, but I was glad that he was dead, because he was evil.

[DanielofRedwall]

Today I only really learnt how terrible these attacks were. I've seen some shocking footage of it on TV and stuff, but only today have I fully understood this event in history.

[Agravaine]

On September 10, I looked out the window of my house and saw the towers standing for the last time.

[Icefire]

I was watching cartoons with my brothers when they were interupted by news of the attacks. I remember we got out my brothers fighter jets trying to determine which one "knocked over" the towers (I think we decided it was a blue angel ) and then we made towers out of blocks and knocked them over with airplanes...Obviously we had no clue what any of it meant or we wouldn't have been doing all that. I remember seeing the same clips over and over again, too.
It wasn't really until the past few years that I really understood what it all meant because I forgot about it then (I was 7) and didn't think about it again until it came up in history.

[Ottakar]

I was at work... my first non-summer job. So I didn't hear anything until I got home. It had been a normal day other than being a little quiet. We didn't have computers or tvs or anything in that place.

[The Lady Shael]

I was 12 and I was homeschooled in 8th grade. I remember I was running errands with my mom at the time. I remember hearing on the radio a plane struck the World Trade Center, then at the orthodontist and bank, watching the new updates on the TV. I was still pretty young to really understand the seriousness of what was going on, but I remember it didn't feel real to me until I watched the first tower collapse to the ground, like a stick of butter melting on a frying pan. My hand actually flew to my mouth in disbelief.

[Coobreedan]

I was probably in my cot upstairs asleep, unaware to all the terror the world was feeling.

[Hálig]

I was probably 2 or 3, and my mom picked me up from pre-k when she heard the news. I don't remember anything, but last year and this year in History we saw some pictures and read some articles. That really brought home the point.

[Nightfire]

Well, if we're both 14, and it was ten years ago, then that means we were both 4 years old, Halig.

[Log-a-Log]

Has anybody seen the Flight 93 memorial? To me, what they did is amazing. They had about a half hour to make a decision that they knew would eventually kill them, but they did it anyway. One of the most heroic things I have ever heard of