I was at SeaTac on a plane that had just started to be moved away from the terminal by the tug. They pulled us back into place and told us there would be a delay and we were welcome to exit the plane if we wished. Everyone got up to leave, but I was a young PFC who's boot leave was supposed to be done that day. I figured I'd stay seated and wait so I could guarantee I wouldn't be late to check into SOI later that day. After a bit a flight attendant came to tell me I should exit the plane as "it's going to be a while".

Walking into the terminal I immediately noticed how quiet it was. Like a lot of folks I figured a small cessna had clipped a building and it was nothing. All the television sets were off but in one over crowded bar all the channels were playing the first impact. I knew then I was no longer a peacetime Marine and that I'd be going to war.

Spent a week in Seattle because I couldn't get home and nobody knew when the planes would fly again. Blew through what little money I had from boot camp and eventually got a flight down to San Diego and made reported in.

Here's a fun fact: Every so often, bases with nuclear missiles run multi-day training exercises where they move live nukes from the igloos to the flight line and hook them up to make sure everything runs smoothly and everyone knows what they're supposed to be doing.

One of those exercises was taking place the morning of 11SEP01 at my first duty station. There were live nuclear missiles attached to B52s when the towers fell.

I was in the Virginia National Guard and a college student. I walked into class and the professor was there telling folks to go home. We watched the second plane hit live on TV.

I went across the city to a sister battery of my NG BN. I checked in there, and they notified my battery. I was on orders for the next few weeks. I spent the afternoon of 9/11 stringing c-wire around the Richmond VA armory, and the next couple weeks pulling guard duty at my battery's armory.

I was working as a security guard for the former sheriff of Broward County. My job up until that point had me
riding around in circles on a golf cart from 8p-4a, Monday thru Friday. Got off my shift and headed home,
walked the dog, and went to bed around 530a.

My dog woke me up in the morning by putting her paw on me and shaking me. That never happened before,
and I blew it off. Had my vhf 2 meter going on scan when I heard the RACES net call for plane spotters,
so I checked in, and was told to secure. I still had no idea what was going on.

When I finally made it out to the TV, at about 1030, I turned it on and saw the news on and these two
chicks from Deco Drive talking about America under Attack. I lol'ed and switched the channel, and saw
America at War. I was like, WTF, still groggy, and picked up the phone to call into work. I then called the local
recruiter and checked in, as I am DAV.

When I got to work that night, SUPs were coming around talking about critical infrastructure posts, and
the following Monday, I was in armed class. Ended up first at a Synagogue, with a pre-school. After that,
was posted to the New River at a boat launch facility. Which doesn't sound like much, but we kind of
expected some follow up attacks that never happened. Got my temp weapons license issued the night
before my 40th birthday.

Once we learned a little more about the Terrs, we realized that they were local to us, and, like everyone else,
they had been grounded. One of the pilots had a membership at US1 fitness, which is the same gym I belonged
to, a few blocks away. We might have been thinking that a Cole style attack was more probable than another plane
attack, and figured that maybe they'd try to launch a vessel from one of the boat ramps, and that's where I was.

Was on duty the morning we got notified that there had been a casualty in Afghanistan. Cops were on river patrol,
and the city had tightened up security, but for the most part, it was business as usual, until it wasn't.

No terrs, but a few armed robberies and a guy who tried to kill a cop.  I was a former Aircraft Electrical guy, 423x0.
I had relatively little experience doing anything with weapons, even though I used to shoot a lot. Nothing
duty wise until then. 5 days more until 18 years ago. Now, almost 58 years old, with a cancer diagnosis, and
I am glad I got to do something, albeit not much.  I almost did Blue to green, but in 2005 I had something happen
to my right lung called a spontaneous pnuemothorax that screwed me up. I was down for a while after that and
would not have been able to make weight.

I regret not being able to go, but I think what we were doing at the time was semi important. Nick Navarro was a hard
charger, and a real good cop. He was just a little guy, but he was scary. I was working part time at a pizza place
downtown in 2011, trying to finish off my A+ Cert, and his wake was being held next door.

The girl behind the cash register asked me to take off my sunglasses. I refused and got told to go home.
Took 10 years after the attacks to hit me. Never was able to finish my A+, and still am a licensed guard.

I tried to re-enlist that day.  They didn't want me.  

As a side note, today is 31 years since I left for Basic.

A very good friend of mine was home on leave and was supposed to fly to Germany (IIRC) but got shit faced the night before and was too hungover to make one of his flights. His flight was one of the ones that hit the towers.

I was in Kuwait.
It became a shit show real fast around there.

I was in Kuwait.
It became a shit show real fast around there.

That's an amazingly bad confluence of events.  Makes you think that all it would have taken to alter the timeline of that day was one long stoplight, a missed wake-up alarm, just anything to not put you in the wrong place at the wrong time

I was a reservist recently assigned to a new unit.  I was watching a little news before I headed out to the high school I taught at when the first plane hit.  Made it to school, was trying to teach third period Bio (everyone was pretty distracted, of course) when the Principal called and said he was patching a call to me.  Weird, the secretary always did that and never during class.  It was the admin officer from the unit recalling everyone to report asap, that night would be best (12hr recall).  
I left that day at a little before 1100 PT and didn't get off AD for 5 years.  Never went back to teaching.

2nd phase. MCRD PI.  2nd Battalion.  Plt 2089- SrDI GySgt Slatery

after moving PT, shower and chow, we were prepping for the day and the DI came out of the DI Hut and screamed

"we are going to war mother fuckers!"

immediately, base was locked down.   nothing in and nothing out.  Sept 13th I went to Dental for 4 wisdom teeth removal.  Novacain was being rationed for the rest of the recruits since no one was sure when the lock down was lifted so I got one shot in the roof of my mouth and 4 teeth shattered and yanked.

after graduation, and after my 10day, I went to SOI, SERE, then school, then off to one of the last 46 squadron to run the doors.  had standup orders 3 times for combat... I got orders to my next unit since the Ospreys were taking over slowly.

ended up in fuck hole Iraq

No shit, what unit were you with? I was with 2-14 Infantry.

110MI

I was in high school...private boarding school in upstate NY.

I didn't realize we were going to war when the first two plains hit. Classes were cancelled around 11:30, the guys from NYC went driving home (and bringing other students...it was the only time mixed male/female students were allowed off campus unsupervised).

Those 18+ went to a blood bank to donate. In retrospect that was pointless.

It didn't hit me what was happening till I saw a couple of airmen with an M16 (variant) standing outside a blood bank in Rochester (or maybe it was Albany...I don't recall).

Had a "Senior Survival" backpacking trip the day after. In the area before cellphones, it was a bit weird to be out in the woods and have no clue if we were at war or not.

That's awesome

House hunting in Warner Robins. Had just PCS'd from Andrews (89th AGS) to the 93rd ACW at Robins.  Hadn't signed into the squadron yet.  Had the TV on as background when I saw the news report of the 1st aircraft impacting the WTC.  Then I saw the news bulletin about the 2nd aircraft.  I called the squadron and was informed to stand-by unless notified to come in.  My wife was at Osan scheduled to leave within a couple of days...that got squashed.  She didn't make it out of Korea until near the end of the month.  I reported to the squadron after a few days and the unit was deploying OCONUS...I got left behind because I was a newbie to the aircraft, the E-8C, JSTARS.  At the time I had 20 years on active duty.

I had actually just retired and was working as a Force Protection/Anti-terrorism/Physical Security instructor for the MP School at Ft Wood, MO and was teaching a block of instruction entitled "Terrorist Operations." How ironic, huh?

The first tower had just been hit when our deputy director of training came into the classroom and asked if we had a TV. We did not and he said that a plane had just hit one of the trade towers. No big deal at the time. A while later he came back in and stated that the second tower had been hit. At that point we knew it was not an accident but we continued to train.

By lunchtime we were ordered to terminate the course and by the end of the next day all 40 students had traveled back to their duty stations. By the end of the week, a select group of instructors were wheels up with a military piloted C-10 enroute to begin a one month tour visiting designated DoD installations to conduct vulnerability assessments.

Suddenly our 3 courses became very important and very popular. Learned and traveled a lot in the 3 years I did this.

I was 7 weeks into Infantry Basic Training at Fort Benning, in a map reading class. We all thought it was bullshit until the CO came in and said “If you have family in New York or Washington DC, I need to see you outside.” Then he came in and told us what was happening. They turned on the TV, and a little while later the Twin Towers went down. You could say the mood generally changed after that point. We all knew it was serious then. There was some craziness that happened as the Army had to secure all its Posts-which were previously “open”.

Little did I know, that I would spend the next 2 9/11 anniversaries actually in theater-and that when it was all said and done I’d go to war on 4 separate occasions before my active duty service ended in 2010.

At this point, I’m not sure how many guys I was in Basic with ended up getting killed over there. I know of at least 3. There were probably more that I don’t know about. Whenever 9/11 crosses my mind, I remember them.

I skipped my college classes on 09/11/2001 and went to the USMC recruiter.

It was just another day, we didnt have tv access and very few got cell reception where we were.  We got back to Schofield Barracks in October and that's when it got real.

I was in the Mass Guard, we were activated and at FT Dix.  Training for SFOR10.  I was teaching a class on Claymore.  
Bosnia went from an easy rotation, to a pain in the ass. Good time, glad we went.  My M1114 made the cover of Army Times   lol

I didn’t read anything past the original post

I was in Groton Connecticut.

Submarine A school for fire control technician

We were on a smoke break outside when people started scrambling around.

We made our way back up to the classroom when a master chief walked in an told us the base on on lockdown. The pentagon had been attacked. And to go ahead and buy our national defense ribbons.

The barracks was a very large building , the lobby was at least two stories tall with a large staircase.

There were a few couches down there with a big screen tv

There must have been at least 300 of us kids in that room watching the buildings come down.

It was a pretty fucked up day for sure.

Every boat save the sea wolf made sea that day. It was a sight to see.

I was 21 years old

A later pic



Needless to say. We never got the revenge we wanted

Edited

Had a sales rep on the compound that was about to demo some new commo gear. Had just finished up a roughly year long training regime and went on mission status.

We new it was go time and it got busy immediately and stayed that way.

I reported to Fort Benning as a brand new Infantry lieutenant on September 9th, 2001.  That Tuesday I was reporting to my holding office (the Snowbird office) when it came on the radio.  It was very surreal.  I had to man a machine gun ammo range that day and was asked to find anyone at the range from New York or Washington.  The Fort Benning gate was jammed for miles.  I later was detailed to man a checkpoint, searching cars coming on to base every morning from 0400 to 1200.  They tried to rush us through my basic course and Ranger School.  I reported to Fort Campbell to join the 101st in August, 2002.  Four months later, I deployed and was a platoon leader when we invaded Iraq.

Naval War College, Newport RI sitting in class. Watched the whole morning live after the first plane hit. They shut us down for two weeks while implementing new security procedures. Everyone was calling their detailer trying to get orders back to the fleet but told "no joy".

Got back to the fleet in 2002. Deployed Jan 2003 and we covered Westpac for 8 months while the USS KITTY HAWK and her air wing participated in OIF. Big bummer for us.

Finally made it to Iraq in 2006/2007 as an Individual Augmentee. Was actually a very rewarding year.

Out of the guard for six years by that date in time.

Work LE and was on vacation leave out of town helping a coworker put a roof on his garage and grabbed some boxes I stored there before I moved away.   Finished up the roof on the morning of 9/11 and hopped in his boat and went across the river for lunch in Canada.  Checking in with Canadian customs around 11 was the first info I heard, customs guy asked how were we going to get home as the US border was just sealed.  



Tuned into the radio while eating lunch on the boat.  Went back across by boat watched ten minutes of TV, grabbed my bag and left to Albany.


In the service you were told to report in the event of an attack.   So that’s what I did to my LE job though.  It was surreal to be passed by a couple hundred troop car convoys on their way to NYC.  

Me too but we made a Marine insertion by boat.

I was 1 year into the Marines. I was at my duty station of HMX-1 in Quantico and was getting a root canal at Navy dental at the time of the attack. The news was on in the room and we saw the 2nd plane hit. They put a quick seal in the hole they were drilling into my tooth and sent me back to my platoon with a bottle of motrin. We were tasked with getting medical supplies airlifted to the Pentagon so the flightline was a madhouse of CH46s and CH53s being loaded and taking off. I was a MP and the concern was that there was going to be a hit on Quantico from the air or via the potomac. Everyone was recalled and put along the coastline with full body armor and M-16s/240Gs/249s/etc.

We worked that way for 24 hours with minimal breaks until we got augmentees from the basic school (grunts that trained the lieutenants). From then on we worked 4 days on 1 day off for 12 hour shifts so that we had double the amount of people on at any given time for about 2 months.

Being Presidential support, we then started going on POTUS missions like wildfire once GW started going around the country on his reassurance tour. It was insanity for about a year.

I was at 29 Palms in the middle of a 3-4 week exercise. A group of us had come in to use the combined arms staff trainer. Basically a sand table we used to practice fire support coordination.

We were in the middle of moving stuff around on the map when somebody turned on a TV. The first building was burning. Then we saw the second plane hit and knew it was not an accident. I remember being struck by the fact that there were no aircraft passing over that night. Sky was completely clear for several days.

When we got back  to Pendleton we learned pretty quickly that our deployment schedule was being accelerated. We ended up deploying about six weeks early.

Was the senior TAO onboard USS GEORGE WASHINGTON, we were in the Vacapes just came out of the shipyard doing shakedowns.
Turned north and headed to New York at flank speed.

Loaded the CIWS and the few missiles we had in the magazines, 7 total RIM-7s, two of which were exercise telemetry birds, no warheads
Went to flight quarters, caught a COD with some staff on it and a couple of F-18s with missiles on the rails.
The aircrews had been at work, any normal day, and just jumped in their jets and headed to the ship.
They didn't have so much as a change of underwear or a toothbrush with them.

The next morning we were in New York harbor flying armed CAP over the city.

A few other significant events in those first 48 hours.

The command and control was really fucked up the first two days, and the Navy and Air Force were not integrated AT ALL.
That caused several issues.

I was a platoon sgt in the Iowa National Guard.   But on 9/11 I was the SRO in a high school with 1000 bewildered students.  My next activation was February 2003 for Iraqi Freedom.  

kwg

I was a brand new 2LT going to flight training.  Now still in the National Guard Will have 20 years in less than a year.

I was assigned to the USMCR at 6th Comm BN in Floyd Bennett Field Brooklyn.  I was in my civilian school at SUNY Farmingdale when the first plane hit, then on my way home when the 2nd plane hit.

Got home just in time to watch the replay of the 2nd plane hit on TV and then see reports of the Pentagon.

Call went out for us to rally at either the Amityville NY detachment OR at 6th Comm HQ in Brooklyn.

When a few of us got word (through Civilian LEO contacts) that you were able to head in to the city (on the shut down highways) w/military ID and in uniform....we did just that.

There were a few of us, who, against orders, were on the pile that night.....Without so much as an N95 mask.

Driving down the LIE from EXIT 52 to the BQE on an EMPTY highway was surreal given the normal traffic you would see.  

Crossed the E. River on the Manhattan Bridge and parked down by City Hall and hoofed it from there.

We were "relieved" in the early morning hours of 9/12 and were volentold to move off site after the NY Army National Guard rolled in.

(Apparently there were a few individuals in "Marine T-Shirts/Gear" on the pile and either the ANG Commander or the NYPD ESU ordered all "Marines" off-site)

In hindsight, without an ounce of PPE it may well have saved us from any long term effects, but in the moment we were PISSED.

Our highest hope was to be helpful in SOME way.  Sadly, there was little direction....MUCH chaos and almost NO opportunity to assist with CAS-EVAC as we had hoped.

We mostly just stood around in AWE of the sheer devastation and helped guide some emergency vehicles through some tight areas, and moved around what debris we could.

When it was all said and done we lost (2) from our unit who were active FDNY/NYPD.

Sgt Maj Mike Curtain
Gunny Matt Garvey

May they RIP, but more importantly may WE never forget them and so many others who lost their lives that day and the days that followed since.

I was stationed at Ft. Drum, NY, DCO 1/10 AVN REGT. I was ETSing and posted up in HQ while my platoon was at PT. Cpt Patrick ran into HQ with a portable tv, he saw me and plugged in the tv to show me a replay of the 1st hitting the north tower. He said “we’ve been attacked!

Ft. Drum was in lockdown nobody allowed on or off post with minutes of the original broadcast. My old Motorola flip phone rang and my Sgt told me to meet with the platoon ASAP for weapons issue, and get to the hanger with the rest of the platoon.

After hours of walking around with an unloaded Colt M16A2, we waited, and waited. The upper chain of command was deciding weather not we should send a few OH58D (I) Kiowa Warriors to West Point, since they were defenseless.

I was definitely a day I won’t forget any time soon. We were volunteering to go help at Ground Zero, but they wouldn’t let us go, stating manpower issues if Ft. Drum would actually be attached.

Corporal in the Marines on 9/11. In the first wave to invade Iraq from Kuwait in 03. Back again in 04/5. Then again in the TXNG in 09. Fuck Iraq.

I was stationed in VA and going on leave THAT day.
On my way to my destination I had to drive by DC, pretty surreal.
All the exit ramps off 95 were blocked and milair was buzzing around.
I hopped on 70 and headed west which was bizarre as well because there was hardly any traffic.

I was in 5th grade at the time. We didn't know what was going on until our parents started picking us up from school, but on the drive home I could see the smoke on the horizon when we got to high points you could normally see NYC from. My dad was stuck in the city for two days following the attack. When he got home, he showered, changed, gave us all a quick hug, and grabbed his turnout gear and headed for the fire company (Engine 3) where he volunteered. They took the company van and drove into the city to work on the pile for a week before another crew (Engine 2) came to relieve them. I've always referenced wanting to prevent another 9/11 style attack as one of my major reasons for enlisting, and coincidentally I received word of my first deployment tasking on 9/11/14, 13 years to the day.

I was stationed at Peterson AFB in Colorado Springs, CO on 9/11.  We were in the middle of an Operational Readiness Inspection (ORI) and I was working in our Unit Control Center (UCC).  As I was arriving for my shift, I passed by the conference room and they had the projection TV on and the room was full of people watching what I first thought was a disaster movie. In about a minute, the second plane hit the second tower and I realized it was not a movie.  Everyone in the UCC at that point knew it was a terrorist attack. In about 30 minutes two F-16s from Buckley ANG base up in Denver were flying top cover over the base all day. AF SPACECOM, HQ USNORTHCOM/HQ NORAD, and Army SPACECOM (bLDGS 1, 2 & 3) were all three blocks down the road from our squadron UCC. We all thought they might be the next targets.  The ORI was endex immediately and we spent most of the day listening for aircraft and going outside to watch the skies for any inbound aircraft. Needless to say, I will never forget that day.

I had gone home to change to hit the gym.
The ex was watching TV when the news switched to a 'fire' in the first tower. I switched on the TV in the bedroom to see what she was yammering about and saw the second plane hit.
A few minutes later everyone was being recalled to work, and the base went on lockdown not long after.

Where, if you don't mind?

CD

I may just be the only person on Earth that doesn't think they saw the second plane hit the towers.

I did watch them collapse live.

Sometimes I wonder if people aren't conflating the drama of the collapse with the second plane hit.

Wow! Check my join date