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#732 | Wednesday, February 6th 2002
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Ironically, on September 10 I had been looking up airfares to Scotland because I planned- and still plan to- visit there this coming summer. There is an email that says the price of an airfare, which I sent at 1 a.m., Sept. 11.
I went to bed and got up for my Modern Social Problems class here at Georgetown College in Kentucky. It was 8:45, and normally my roommate would have had the television on. But of all days that week, she did not have it on. I also did not check my email that morning, which I normally do.
Outside I noticed how perfectly blue the sky was, and I thought it would be a great September day. When I got to my 9:30 class, the professor entered and immediately said, "I'm sure you all have heard about the planes crashing into the World Trade Center." We all looked at him in astonishment. He said that he didn't know a lot of details, but it looked like a terrorist attack, and that if we found bin Laden was behind it, America would seek justice.
All of the classrooms are supposed to have televisions, but ours did not. We went ahead with class as normal and got out at 10:45. On the way out several people told us that we were having a campus wide meeting upstairs from where my classroom was located, and also that classes were cancelled for the rest of the day.
Before I went there, I went across the hall and called my mom, who lives about an hour away from me. She told me that the towers had collapsed, and that a plane crashed into the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania. "It looks like an all-out terrorist attack!" she said.
At the campus wide meeting, we listened to updated news and prayed for our nation. A newscaster from the nearby city of Lexington was there anyway to give a talk on women in the media industry, but, of course, that is not what she talked about. There was a question and answer session afterward. I remember how one of our college's main administrators talked about how he hoped we would not lash out at Arab-Americans. It was especially moving because he is Lebanese-American. I also remember students and faculty alike asking questions about war, martial law, the draft (two male students asked about it), casualities, culprits, etc.
We adjourned and I went to lunch. My friends and I said we didn't feel like eating, but we knew we had to. I remember a student in front of me on her cell phone who was trying to get in touch with her family and was sobbing. I also remember how a big-screen television was brought into the cafeteria and everyone was watching it. The TV stayed there until January. I went back to my room and watched TV. I didn't call my family much because the local news said to stay off the phone lines.
We met as a campus again at that afternoon for more prayer and discussion. Then, I went to a campus prayer vigil at 6 and one at my church at 7. I don't think I slept well that night. The next week it was hard to concentrate on my school work because I was always looking at the news on television and on the internet.
My heart went out, and it still does, for those who lost loved ones in this tragedy. Luckily, my family does not know anyone who lost their lives that day. We do know someone who was abiout a mile away from the Towers, and we do know a woman whose son escaped from the WTC.
We have a new tradition of painting white benches in front of each of our dorms on campus. Soon after the attacks, we painted those benches with a patriotic theme. In front of my dorm, we have a bench with the NYPD logo on it. Others painted flags, and one painted the New York skyline with the words to a Christian praise chorus-"The day is dawning and I am just rising/I pray my hope won't fail, my hope."
The date of 9/11 touched all American lives and calls all of us to not take anything for granted.
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Marie | 21 | Kentucky
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#716 | Saturday, February 2nd 2002
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I was watching Sky News here in the UK and was going to get myself a shower before leaving for work later in that afternoon.
It was about 2PM UK time, when the presenter Kay Burley started to say "And now from the World of Sport...." before fading out of that sentence and saying "We have initial reports in that a plane has crashed into the World Trade Centre" in NYC. The little Red and Blue box came up on the bottom of the screen, while she rambled on about what was happening. Then we finally got the pictures over here from the CNN footage.
I thought it was little more than an accident at first. That soon changed. It is probably the most horrible thing I have ever experienced while drinking a cup of tea, but actually seeing the second plane hit the other tower made me realise that this was the biggest occurance in my relatively short lifetime.
I realised that there was going to be hell to pay. I remember seeing George Bush's face in agony after he was told of the news. I remember having a cup with the NYC sky line which my parents had brought back from a holiday there.
I rang my friends and work colleagues to see if they knew what was going on. I panicked, because the city in which I live, Hereford, is home to the SAS camp. What if they attacked here like they attacked the Pentagon?
My emotions on that day were really in a bad state. Not being an American, I probably did not suffer as much, but as a citizen of the free world, I was suffering as much as anyone.
God bless America. The British people support you in your time of grief.
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Al | 21 | United Kingdom
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#631 | Monday, January 14th 2002
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I was at work on September 11th. I came across my boss and a co-worker saying a plane hit the WTC. I was in shock. What a tragedy. I left work to go sit in my truck and listen to the news. I heard a second plane had hit and the Pentagon had been hit. It hit me like a ton of bricks...my home was under attack. My eyes swelled with tears while my heart filled with pride as news gathered about my fellow AMERICANS being heros. I went home and tried not to look at the images on the TV. At first glance I lost control, I have not been close to the same since. I will never feel the way I felt when I awoke that day. And yet I can only think of my fellow Americans, lost, living, and yet to know. God bless AMERICA and her heros.
AMERICAN made, AMERICAN till I die.
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Joshua | 21 | Maine
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#607 | Thursday, January 3rd 2002
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I had just woken up about an hour before I had to attend a class and my roommate had turned on the television to CNN and they started to show some footage from the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York. I didn't have any reaction but shock at first because I wanted to find out all of the details. It wasn't until the day was over that it all sank in.
I felt bad for the lives of the families of the lives of the workers that were lost in the bombings. What I am more angry about is the fact that the United States is so egotistical. We are all about ourselves and most of everything we do is for selfish means. These terrorist attacks were perhaps a wake up call to us, letting us know that there are other people in this world with needs that need to be tended to as well.
I have seen many people with flags either hanging on the mirrors of their cars, sticking to the back of them, or hanging from their porches. I think it is uncanny how many people didn't truely feel patriotic until the attacks happened. I have always felt patriotic but I think after it has happened I will be more charitable and think more about the other person more. I didn't purchase a flag because just because a person has one doesn't mean that that person is more patriotic. People that have flags want most people to think that is the reason why them have them.
I hope that these attacks have changed the way that each of us as well as our president handles things such as our dealing with other people. I hope this causes us to be less ignorant and put the concerns of others before our own.
GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!
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Reggie | 21 | Washington
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#551 | Thursday, December 20th 2001
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I live in Australia, so while the events happened in the early morning in America, it was the late evening here. When it all started, I was at home, sitting at my computer, online as usual, chatting on IRC, reading email and webcomics, generally nothing exciting. A couple of people mentioned the event on IRC, but I didn't think much of it, assuming it just to be a minor accident or similar. It was about 11pm here when someone actually phoned me to turn on the news and have a look, so I decided to see what all the fuss was about. I was glued to the TV for the next few hours as events unfolded, discussing it in chat rooms and forums, trying to wrap my mind around it. The whole time, it felt like something out of an action movie, not something that would actually happen in real life.
I watched live as the second plane collided, and then as the towers both collapsed, shocked all the while. That a human being could plan such events sickened me. By about 3am here, things had settled a little, and I headed off for sleep, since that day was the first of a new course I was doing.
I sat in my home on the east coast of Australia and watched events live, talking about them in realtime with people across the world.
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Glen | 21 | Australia
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