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#980 | Tuesday, March 12th 2002
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I was still 21 when the attacks occurred but my birthday was coming up on September 26th. I feel like I was one of the last people in the U.S. to find out. I was asleep in bed at noon (3:00 EST) when my mom called me on her separate phone line from downstairs. She said to get up already and proceeded to tell me the news. As she always did so I wasn't paying much attention until she said that the WTC had been destroyed. I said what do you mean destroyed, it's still there isn't it. She said no it's completely gone and the Pentagon has been attacked. I had only one thought right then, I said to her "The Taliban. Mom, it was the Taliban." I hadn't turned on a TV, radio, nothing. I've known about them and how they've made people suffer for years, but it was the first I'd heard of Osama Bin Laden. That day, as I watched grown men cry, I worried about all my friends in Connecticut, which we had moved away from 2 months earlier. I knew early on we'd go to war, which was actually a big relief because I knew someday someone would have to remove the Taliban.
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Lorie | 22 | Nevada
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#927 | Monday, March 11th 2002
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We live in Reno, NV. My husband was doing his usual routine with our dogs in the morning. I was in the shower when I heard a message form my co-worker to turn on the TV now. That we were under attack... I jumped out of the shower, towled off and ran downstaris to the TV where I saw my husbands face in disbelief...then I heard Katie Couric form the "Today Show" say: "If you are just tuneing in two planes have hit the WTC's" and another has hit the Pentagon... it was crazy. I thought it was something old, I didn't really know that much about the towers. Then my husband tells me this is live, and then the 2 tower collapsed... I was in total disbelief. I just started crying...I called my mother she was hysterical...all she kept saying was how did this happen how??? I could not answer her. I didn't know.
I remeber my drive to work was so erie...everybody had a weird look on their face...at work everyone was shocked and they sent us home to be with our familes...so all I did was watch the news and over and over watching the planes hit the towers...it was unbeliavable.
Today, I feel it's only a matter of time before I will wake up to anotehr terrible attack on the US. I do not fear, I know God is watching over this great country and we will only get stronger and persevere even more. God Bless America, and may the dead always be remembered and thought of as heros. Because they are and will never be forgotten.I am blessed by the Lord above to be alive and I am thankful to the Lord for allowing me to live through such a tremendous time in the World's history. God Bless America and the World. ~Carin Acuna
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Carin | 28 | Nevada
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#888 | Sunday, March 10th 2002
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I was asleep when the attack started since it was around 5:45 am from where I live. Coming from Las Vegas, NV, USA, I lived in Pacific Standard time zone that is three hours away from New York, Washington D.C., and Pennsylvania. I did not know about the attack until I came to history class that morning. It was around 7:45 am when my history professor notified the class of the attack, and had us listen to the radio. I was in a state of shock and wondered what happened, or if it was real. I thought it was another WTC attack like we heard about in 1993 and when Timothy McVeigh bombed Federal building in April 1995, but it was more serious than that. My professor told us that this was more serious attack than ones in the 1990’s and the nation started to change before the class that morning. She learned about the attack during her meeting earlier in the day. I did not know how serious the attack was until I saw the news on TV after the class.
When I came to work, my supervisor and coworkers told me about the attack, and said it was serious. Have I not been in class that day, they would have been the ones who told me instead of my professor? My supervisor learned about the attack when one of his relatives from Pennsylvania called him earlier in the morning, about 6:30 in PST and 9:30 in EST (Time zone of NYC, Washington DC and Pennsylvania). He had the radio one because people he knew were in middle of the attack and he felt empty. Luckily, his family members, relatives, and friends were left unharmed. The situations after the attack upset him since many laid-off workers in Las Vegas area applied for jobs through his company. I work for a restaurant that does not depend on tourism like many businesses in Las Vegas did.
The situations in Las Vegas became tense because most of our businesses and industries depended on the use of airline industry, and Las Vegas is a city of entertainment, casino, gaming, and tourism industries. All of these industries depended on airline industry to bring in more customers and businesses. Recently, many laid-off workers are running out of luck of finding new jobs to replace the ones that they lost, and there unemployment insurance is running out. I read a newspaper article today that two laid-off workers are living in fears and uncertainties since they did not have luck with finding job, and they are facing with the loss of unemployment insurance, unless if federal government would extend their benefits another 13 weeks. One worker stated that she worked for that same company for 20 years, but it did not save her from getting laid-off.
There had been complaints that older or minority workers had been laid-off in larger number than younger or European-American workers. I never work near the Strip, so I do not know what it is like working down there. My friend in other state lost his job although he gave his loyal services to same company for many years, and he did not tell me about it until a month ago. He was too ashamed to tell me this and did not respond to my Christmas cards and newsletter. His family is stressed out these days because he had harder time finding new job to replace the ones he lost. My coworkers felt the impact of lay-offs and the fears and frustration people had since the attack.
We also blamed Osama bin Laden and his cronies for making our lives harder. I felt angry when I read religious comments that God wanted it to happen to teach us some lessons, or that he wanted us to get down on our knees and ask him what he wanted us to do. Many people complained about religious messages. I am a member of an online group where somebody complained about the religious message I sent one time, because he felt tired of his coworkers pushing religion in his throat for years. When we learned from reading newspaper and watching news on TV that whatever Osama bin Laden and other terrorists did was not for God, we felt relieved. We also felt relieved that Muslim people and people of other religion did not condone whatever these terrorists did on September 11, 2001 and anytime before or after the attack.
I learned to take one day at a time and keep on doing whatever I wanted to do in my life. I also learned that we could not rush in our life achievement, and we could take one day at a time and be proud of our smaller accomplishments rather than waiting for us to finish our bigger accomplishments or waiting for something more significant to come to us. I noticed that other people learned similar lessons. With the support of their families and friends, they adjusted well than expected or thought they would.
I met several people who lost their family members or relatives at WTC. One young man came to bus in tears one night because he learned that one of his cousins had been missing in WTC, and he had not call anyone for more than a week. His relatives were worried and panicked for more than a week, and the rescue workers still looked for people who might be stuck in the wreckage. Unfortunately, the last survivor found in wreckage was found on a Wednesday after the attack (about two days after the attack), and his cousin had been missing for more than a week. I listened to him for more than an hour. He rode bus to visit one of his friends because they wanted to cheer him up and comfort him. I saw him again about two months later, and he was doing fine.
My older friends have relatives and friends in East Coast. They were worried about losing their loved ones at first. When it turned out that everyone they knew were all right, they felt relieved and visited their relatives in Boston for Thanksgiving. My supervisor came to Pittsburgh on October to watch football game and to visit his old friends and relatives. He said that people were fine as usual, bus some people felt more stressed out about the Anthrax attack and that many New Yorkers are out-of-work since the attack. Some businesses took weeks to recover while other lost their businesses altogether due to the attack.
The last six months had been stressful for me. Other people in Las Vegas felt stressed out too. We lived our lives as unusual unless there were big interruptions like being laid-off from our jobs. Job market is not good these days, so I could not find second job with confidence like I could last year. My coworkers tried to get jobs at the new Wal Mart store opening up in few weeks, and they never heard from their personnel office for job interviews. We noticed that many companies tried to give higher priority to laid-off workers before they hire somebody who still have job. I gave up on seeking second job since October, because I noticed that many hiring manager felt stressed out about giving me a second job if laid-off workers had been more desperate for jobs for weeks.
I hope the next six months will be better since we learned our lessons and had chances to recover from our losses. I hope the less six months, more laid-off workers will have jobs, and the economy will get better. I also hope our countries as well as other countries will get more of positive results from our recent war against terrorism.
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Lisa | 36 | Nevada
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#873 | Sunday, March 10th 2002
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I live in Las Vegas, Nevada. I'm in seventh grade. I woke up at about 6:30 and as usual, stumbled around, plugging in my curling iron and getting dressed. I turned the radio on and heard the announcer saying, "A plane flew into the World Trade Center!" I thought to myself, Yeah, right, and I figured it was a joke. I went downstairs and told my mom to turn on the TV to make sure it was a joke. But it wasn't - it was horribly real. I watched, shellshocked, as the second plane flew into the towers. At school, we watched the news all day and I heard someone say "Who cares?" I was disgusted. Later that day, I got a migraine headache and had to leave school. I felt better a few hours later and went onto a Harry Potter messageboard that I go on often. There were a ton of people talking about it - people from America, England, Canada, and hundreds of other countries. In the next few weeks, I was scared and angry. My best friend was scared too - her grandparents had flown from Boston to Las Vegas on September 10. I'm still scared, still angry, and things have changed.
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Dana | 12 | Nevada
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#444 | Monday, December 10th 2001
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I live in Massachusetts but at the time I was visiting a friend in Las Vegas. I recall that I was in the shower when I heard the phone ring. I jumped out of the tub and grabbed a towel, threw it around me and ran to the kitchen to scramble with the phone. My girlfriend, who was working at the time, called to tell me about two plane crashes that hit in New York killing many. The information was a bit sketchy since she had just heard about it herself and I was half awake. She suggested that I turn on a radio so I popped the power switch on the radio in the kitchen to tune into the disaster that had seemingly just occured. I don't recall the exact time but it was apparently long after (about an hour later) the actual impact time. I guess I was sleeping in bed at the actual time of impact, blissfully ignorant of the deaths of many people and of an incident that would rock the foundation of the world and the peace that we all have taken for granted. It was only a few minutes later before I felt compelled to see the details on TV. I turned on the tube to see the disasterous images which further confirmed my feelings that we were at war and that something had happened which was significant and profoundly wrong.
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Eric | 35 | Nevada
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