If anyone is interested in sharing, I thought it might be nice to find out where people were this morning, 10 years ago. It's odd - in a way - that it takes a tragedy of this sort for people to have a common bond - but there are few such dates/moments where everyone is able to share like this.
I was living in the Roscoe Village neighborhood of Chicago. I was at home, going into work late that day - about ready to change and walk over to the El for the daily ride downtown to my office across the street from the then-Sears Tower.
My mom called and told me to turn on the TV.
I watched a little bit but still headed over to the El. Everyone was silent, kind of looking at each other (usually people generally don't look at each other). I got off at the Quincy stop in the Loop, walked a block and saw most everyone starting up at the top of the Sears Tower. The word was out that a plane was "missing" and supposedly headed toward Chicago. (This proved later, thankfully, to not be the case.)
Cell phones were jammed at this time. I walked a block farther to keep a block away from the Sears Tower (a presumed target) and then went into my building - the entrance of which is probably 200 feet from the Sears Tower (so averting it made little sense). My co-workers were heading out - being told they were welcome to go home. I checked in with my boss - the only one in the office planning to stay - and went ahead and headed home.
As it turns out, five people from our NYC office - our HQ is a couple of blocks away from Ground Zero - were killed that day (one was on a plane, three happened to be in meetings at the WTC and another presumably killed by debris). I didn't personally know any of them.
I was a senior in high school. I was in accounting class and our principal came over the loudspeaker and made an announcement. I didn't really understand the magnitude and didn't think anything would happen other than a fire and a messy clean up. I then went outside and played flag football in gym class, and when I came back in I finally saw footage and realize how bad it was. The second tower was just coming down then, and I couldn't believe it. The rest of the day, each class had the news on. My soccer game after school was canceled and I remember driving home and noticing how many people had American flags hanging from their porches.
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As a defense contractor in the DFW area, I was at work that morning. Someone was able to get a hold of a small portable TV and we all huddled around it to watch. No work got done that day. Most of us left early to go home to be with our families. Later, since we train the military, I got to hear firsthand about some of the military strikes against our enemies.
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