September 11th...

[Super Dave]

It was a Tuesday.  

I didn't work until noon on Tuesday's at the trailer place, and, regardless, every morning I took my oldest son to school.  He was in Kindergarten.  My youngest wasn't in school.  He was three.  When I left my former job, I looked for work where I could actually spend more time with him.  At the trailer place, I had all morning with him and all day Thursday.

So, every morning at about 732AM, we'd all get ready to go take Alex to school.  Put on shoes, well, I'd put on three pair, jacket if necessary, backpack, jump into the van.  

I'd put them in back.  They were like little kings in the rear two captains chairs.  It was fun to watch them talk in my rear view mirror.  

Lots of people would go through this round about area to drop off their kids.  Surprised that someone didn't get hurt, really.  Seems like everyone was in a rush.  I mean, it was crazier than an endurance race pit.  I'd park in the lot that was a decent walk from the main entrance of the school.  The three of us would walk Alex into school.  Well, John, he liked being carried, or just liked being up higher, I don't know.  I usually ended up carrying him.  It was fun.  He's six now, and I still do it...it's kind of fun.

I gave my oldest a kiss and a hug goodbye and watched him dash away.  We went back to the van.  Strapped John in, started the van.  I usually always leave the radio on, so it came on after the engine started.  When I was young, I always complained about being able to fall asleep, so my dad would sometimes let me go to sleep with a little transitor radio by my head.  He'd have it on a local (Omaha) AM news station.  So, it seems that I still like AM radio at times.  The reports were coming in that there was a terrible accident in New York, and that a plane had hit a building.  The new morning news guy for WTMJ in Milwaukee had worked for ABC News in NYC, so he had real first hand feel for things happening there and all around.

I just kind of sat there with the van running.  John kind of wanted to talk.  He was ready to go home, but I asked him to be quite for a moment.  I have some minor experience in airplane stuff, and it didn't seem right that a plane would accidently hit a building.  Now it was being reported that it was the World Trade Center that was hit.

[Super Dave]

We drove home, and I moved quickly to get inside.  Again, from school when I was a kid, I always watched Good Morning America.  I like Charlie Gibson.  Seems like someone I would know in real life, and even enjoy seeing, talking with...some of the media guys are just fakes to me.

I could see the serious concern in his eyes and in his tone.  I really can't say at what time it was, but I think I was watching when the second plane hit.  There was lots of talk about how many people might actually be in the buildings.  I think I remember hearing the number of 42,000 people.  I had a couple of burns on my legs from motorcycles, and they weren't pleasant...I felt for the people in there.  I thought to myself that they have to get to the top of the Trade Center buildings.  They could be saved there couldn't they.  

I don't know when someone finally brought up terrorism on this whole thing.  Then it was brought up that terrorist bombed the World Trade Center in 1993.  Honestly, I did so much racing and traveling that year that I really don't know what happened in the world then.  I really shook me that I didn't remember something like that, but the press guys ought to know.  

Yeah, the terrorist thing made sense.  What was next...

Pentagon, planes grounded.  

The DC stuff had me concerned.  A very good friend of mine worked in DC with the Air Force.  He was talking about retiring.  On a whim, I gave him a call at home...

He answered, which surprised me.  "Yeah, they sent us home.  They said that the plane that crashed into the ground was coming to hit us at the National Security Agency," he told me soberly.  

He was in the Persian Gulf War I.  He was on an AWAC's plane in Iraq immediately before and as the war was started.  About twelve hours before that mission, they had a briefing for the crews where they told them about their mission.  They would be in Iraq as the war started and that they would have no escort.  Their combat life expectancy was about fifteen minutes.  They were instructed on what they were to do, and following the briefing they would prepare their last will and testamant, letters, etc.  My good friend told me that it was the most surreal moment of his life.

It was good to hear that he was home.  We were able to talk to each other during the first Gulf War for free via phones they had available in Saudi Arabia.  I'd watch nine Scuds drop out of the sky live, and then my friend would call saying that they were landing in it....he didn't get to see it as he was in back...now he was here at home and we were talking again.

Terrorists.  

How organized were they?  Were there going to be more plane problems?

Who do you attack?  

[Super Dave]

I was thirty-three.  I had to get deferrments and all just to get into the Army National Guard.  I wanted a military carreer about as long as I can remember.  Something about seeing pictures of my dad as a sailor in Korea during that war.  I joined the Nebraska National Guard because they had an long range survealance detachment...basically, I signed up as 11Bravo1Victor - Airborne Ranger.  I had to get all these waivers from my doctor, interview with the detachment, all kinds of people that put their faith in me that I wanted to do it.  No problem.  Something happened and I couldn't get in under that skill.  So, my alternate was to go in as a radio guy with the same detachment.  Then more problems...I guess I have some color blindness...I went in as a truck driver with the intent to get in the door, and then go to airborne school etc...

Would I be needed?  

Then it dawned on me...

Would my boys be fighting in this war?  

My father was born on a farm in central Nebraska in 1933.  When Pearl Harbor was bombed, he would have been eight.  He had a cousin named Jim.  He was killed flying over the Himilayan mountains.  When I was born in 1967, he gave me the middle name of James to remember him...

All those years of carrying the thoughs of his cousin Jim to put in my name.  Would my boys have those experiences?

[Super Dave]

My mother and father-in-laws were now retired, so they came over on Tuesdays to watch John for a few hours before my wife Amy came home from teaching high school.  I had called my wife to make sure things were ok.  She knew all about it.  Told her that Mario, my friend in DC, was ok.

I watched the buildings collapse.  

It was amazing as an engineering spectacle to me...

And it was the worst horror that I have had the experience to watch...

You knew that maybe that some people might have been able to get up top, even though I though they said they couldn't rescue them, I thought, for some reason.  Surely, you had guys humpin' big packs of equipment trying to save someone.  

I went to work pretty numb.  We had a TV that day.  The images weren't very different from what I saw in the morning.  Really, I was shocked at how quickly the whole thing transpired.  

For most of my life I lived in the shadow of Offutt Air Force Base just south of Omaha, Nebraska.  We controlled the switches for the nuclear arsenal.  We were ground zero.  For I think nearly fifty years, the Strategic Air Command maintainted an undergroud command post there.  It wasn't spectatular.  Really, it wasn't very deep underground.  But the thing that they had that was special was Looking Glass.  Looking Glass, or "the Glass", was a plane that flew constantly over the United States.  The crew on board had all of the capability to make a nuclear retaliation a reality.  

In the eighties, 60 Minutes made an example of us.  They did some human side interviews with a family that lived in Omaha...the father worked for Mutual of Omaha...the big insurance giant that hosted Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom (was always funny when people from New York or someplace that would come to Omaha thinking that Jim was gonna be there being pulled around by some wild African boar or something).  They simulated what would happen to Omaha if a nuclear missle hit the Stratigic Air Command's underground headquarters.  They used some old file footage of nuclear tests along with some of their film magic.  It ended with images of the family's childred lying dead in a school playground with nuclear radiation burns.

[Super Dave]

The Japanese figured that after Pearl Harbor that they would be able to defeat us by hitting us hard.  Really hard.  Then we, the American people, would get lazy kind of like we do, and we wouldn't want to continue.  The Japanese didn't want to, like, take over America, they just wanted some stuff that we had control over.

I think the terrorists had the same thoughts about Americans too.  They figured that if they kept up the hits, that we'd loose interest and roll over.

The difference is that they don't want some of the stuff that we have...

They just want me, my wife, my kids, my children's future children your families all dead.  They have no understanding of the value in reason or the actual worth of human life.

I will never forget September 11th...

[K3 Chris Onwiler]

Wow.  Dave, you could be a writer.  That is without a doubt the best thing I've read by you since I started looking at this board.

[K3 Chris Onwiler]

I was at work.  We headed out to do a job, but realized that we'd forgotten some necessary tool.  When we walked back into the plant, the secetary told us that a plane had hit the WTC.  We flipped on the TV, and four of us were watching.  There were the foreman, the secretary, my co-worker and me.
Aside from the concern for people in the building, the others were laughing about what kind of moron pilot could screw up that badly.  I stated that NO pilot could screw up that badly, and that terrorists had been sporting hard-ons for the WTC for a long time.  THAT sobered up the mood in our breakroom...
Then the second plane hit.  I said, "We're at war."   I walked outside to call my wife and my mom on the cell phone.  Then I realized that my Dad was flying!  I found him at home.  His plane wasn't airbourne yet when it all hit the fan.  Thank God.
An hour or so later, I was sent to guard the water tower next to the Islamic Mosque.  I had a radio so I could call the police if any terrorists tried to climb the fence and destroy the tower.  I knew that this was highly unlikely, but I also knew that if it DID happen, the real question would be whether or not I could alert the police before I was killed.
I worked nearly 24/7 for the next few weeks.  We slept in shifts, doing nothing but guard duty on the water supply.  We had no weapons, and as it turned out, we didn't need them.  On the night of the 12th, a group of several thousand flag-waving white people decided to march on the mosque.  We watched as police dispersed them.  The Mosque's neighborhood eventually yeilded several men who were arrested by the FBI for collecting and funneling funds to terrorist organizations.
My boldest memory from the days following 9-11 were the bright blue skies with absolutely no jet trails in them.  I'd never seen that in my entire life, and probably never will again.

[Eric Kelcher]

Ouch that event has touched so many people and time has frozen for them.

9/10 is my birthday and I work Mondays at my brothers' bar. I managed to avoid the birthday shot/drink/beer until about 11pm then it hit in a mad rush as my buddies and frequent customers bought drinks and shots I lost count woke up in the kitchen not feeling so well at 3am. from 4 to 6 I got to hear the stories of what happened in that 4 hour period. Boy did I feel weak and ineffective and totally helpless,  if my friends and brothers had not been there what could have happened to me. I decided I was still in no shape to drive home so took the invite from my brother to spend the night at his place. Get there at about 6:30 for some reason I wanted to watch the news to go to sleep to. As I am falling off to sleep they cut in with the info about a plane crash into a building in NYC. Oh Hell no not again. (My best friend is a pilot for Swiss Air and the tragedy of just a few years prior of a Swiss Air plane still was on my mind as he had flown that plane a week before and his roomate had flown that plane to NYC before its doomed flight) So I am on the phone instantly Chris is out, so here goes the plan again I call his sister and brother waking them up as they are west coast. As I am talking to his brother the second plane live goes slamming into the building. What another one!!!??? Was that a Swiss Air? Finally about 10am we sort out that Chris is not flying and reports are they were American Airlines planes. What was happening in the world? Why was it happening? Will it happen again? kept floating through my head.

Less than a year later I was determined to live my life to fullest and do everything I wanted to and took off on a vacation with Chris for 4 weeks and flew with him on his rotation to China. Chris and I then spent the 1st anniversary in DC It was a very sobering year and I have sworn I will remember and be prepared to stop anything like that from happening again, which means alcohol is now a modest consumption never to be consumed in excess again.

[Dawn]

On September 11, 2001 I was working for a communications company at the time.  The sister of one of my co-workers called and informed us of the first plane hitting the trade towers.  Immediately I hit the news wires on the Internet to try and get more information.  Some said it was a small twin engine plane, others said it was a jet...  So much confusion.  I was thinking "Oh my, what a terrible accident."

Then the second plane hit.

Then I knew it wasn't an accident anymore.  I remember feeling the same sensation as when the Oklahoma City bombing occurred and couldn't believe it was happening again.  My heart ached for all the families.   The Internet news wires weren't much help so many of us went down to watch the TV in the break room.  We weren't concerned about answering the phones; no one was calling us anyway.  

The Pentagon was hit.

I thought, oh my God, how many more?  Who's next?  I started to pray.  I prayed for those who were on the planes, those who were in the air, those who were on the ground, and the families that would soon be dealing with a tremendous loss.  - - I prayed for our President. - - I prayed that he would be a strong and compassionate leader, one that would investigate what happened and not respond in a knee jerk way that would put this country in more danger than it already was.  

Renee...  What would I tell her?  Is the school letting the kids know what is happening?  What would her reaction be?  Would she still feel safe?  

Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania.

I called my girlfriend who's daughter was in school out there.  She had just gotten off the phone with her daughter and all was well, but she was still very scared.  We talked for a while and prayed together.  I offered to take care of her animals if she needed to head out there to pick her up.

Paul called.  We talked about how we were going to discuss this with Renee.  We discussed how this was going to impact our country.  We were thankful that we lived in a small community.  We discussed what preparations we would need to do if our country did go to war.

Three years later....

Lives were lost, thankfully the death toll wasn't nearly as high as it could have been if the planes hit an hour later.  Our president was compassionate and thoughtful and did a wonderful job of keeping this country pulled together in its time of mourning.  We showed the world that we are a strong and resilient country.

I'm proud to be an American.

[Super Dave]

Wow.  Dave, you could be a writer.  That is without a doubt the best thing I've read by you since I started looking at this board.

Remember one of the reasons why I know Mitch...

There was an offer...

Comes from the heart too, so that's easy stuff, right?

Dawn, I'm with you...proud to be an American!  GBUSA!

[boo181]

Like most people I was at work. At this time I was working for my dad as a construction manager for his companies. Every tuesday morning we had a staff meeting to discuss what was to happen that week, when houses were to close, when inspections were, etc. There are four of us in this meeting, myself, my father, our markrting director(who is a retired navy officer), and another construction manager. My stepmom calls and tells my dad that someone  just flew a plane into tower 1. We all look at each other kind of funny and go about our business, stepmom's not the best at giving details and dad's bad at listening to anyone when he's trying to work. Couple minutes later she calls back back and says tower 2 has been hit by a second plane, instantly eveery thing stops and we know whats going on. We all leave and go to our homes to turn on the t.v.(we didn't have one in the office at the time, we do know). On my way home I hear on the radio about the plane that hit the pentigon and the first person that comes to mind is my friend Dans father who is a lobbiest and fly's back and forth between Des Moines and New York and D.C. Dan's dad is one of those people who is responsible for me being the person I am today. I call Dan, his dad just returned home from D.C. that morning. Releived my thought turn to what else could happen, and I have to call my mom, who lives in Colorado Spring about 2 miles from Cheyan Mountain. All of her neighbors are military and most work there. Mom answers the phone and tells me that the entire town is on alert and its dahm near impossible to go anywhere. That same day I had similar thoughts driving threw Des Moines. Driving by Fort Des Moines, which is mainly a recruiting station I saw something I never thought I would. Armed guards, I mean ARMED guards, not a couple of guys in uniform with a nine mill. on their hip. Full combat dress, helmets, flack jackets, M16's, every thing. And 2 M1 Ahbrums(tanks) blocking the entrys.

Ever sense that day our world has been a very different place, and I at least look at things very differently than I did. I try not to take any thing for granted and try to do every thing i've ever wanted so as to not ever wonder what I could have done.

As a result of this day we all know that it is the driving reason why we are at war. One of my very best friends is an Army Ranger that is in Iraq rite now, he's in the 194th airborn out of Camp Dodge in Johnston, Ia.

I will never forget that day or what it means in our history as a country. I've never been prouder to an American.

GOD BLESS THE USA