21 years ago today…

As I write this post, our country came under attack 21 years ago, seem like yesterday. While I am fortunate to not have been directly affected by the attack, our community, like so many around New York City, Washington DC, and those where the brave soles on Flight 93 lived, lost dozens of fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, and so on.

I work at a suburban University on Long Island. Such a spectacular early September day, cool temps, crystal clear skies, when the news broke, I rushed to the roof of our tallest building where I knew I could see the city skyline. What I saw broke my heart, one of the most iconic symbols of New York was ablaze, smoke pouring out over the Atlantic Ocean as far as the eye could see, the horrors that followed in the minutes and hours later not even imaginable.

So let's pause for a moment, hug loved one's and remember those lost that day and since, defending this great nation, and too the diseases brought on from inhaling the toxic soup in the air that day.

Bob

I recall my parents talking about Pearl Harbor and the day JFK was shot and seeing the emotion and sorrow in their eyes.  I could not relate as these were only things I heard about or read in history books.

I see the same thing in my children when my Wife and I talk about 9/11.  We lived through it.  Our kids only know our stories from that day and what the history books say (Actually today, it's more like what the internet says vs a hard cover book).

Gentlemen, thank you for sharing your remembrances.

Let us all do our part to help future generations understand something that we pray to God they will never have to experience.

God Bless America

Yes,, this is a great thread and We live in the best country on earth, we need to Thank God everyday for our freedom. I was in college SIU, Southern Illinois University  (1963) when President Kennedy was shot, and the on campus loud speaker announcing system rang loud when this very tragic event took place in Dallas. 9-11-2001 was a sincere wake up call that we need to Not take our freedom lightly and be so thankful for our First Responders, Firemen, Policemen, Doctors, Nurses, and our great Military. We need to always pray for our country. Happy Railroading Everyone

Lots of memorial services here in north jersey today. RIP to all those that were lost 21 years ago.

@biscuitag97, that’s a beautiful CSX 911 First Responders Diesel, I have one also and I love the saying, “Never Forget”, it’s so true. Happy Railroading Everyone

To all of you, and to biscuitag97 and leapinlarry, we surely appreciate your 3 rail tributes to our First Responders...very nice.  To all, God Bless America, never forget, keep this country strong...stronger than ever, and pray for peace.

America's still standing.

And Bin Laden is still dead. 

George

I will never forget. in addition to our first responder heroes .... ordinary, family people from all walks of life .... slaughtered by evil.

I knew nothing was going on until mid-afternoon. I was clearing brush behind the house we had just bought in northern New Jersey. I saw a fighter fly over head, I thought to myself "How cool is that!"  Then I went inside to get something to eat and turned on the TV.

Yesterday at Giants Stadium, the entire crowd joined in and sang our National Anthem together before the Jets game ..

JETS TWITTER

I went into the subway on 6th Ave. (Avenue of the Americas) at 23rd St., with a clear line of sight to the twin towers at about 8:30am... all was good.   When I ascended the stairs of the subway in Tribeca there was smoke coming from the towers and you could distinctly smell fuel in the air.  I went into Bazzini Nuts to pick up some coffee and muffins to take to work and asked what had happened... nobody knew other than it was terrible.   Within a few minutes the news announced that it was an airplane but they did not know what type.  I became anxiety ridden as I walked over to work... and, when I got there ...told everyone to go, to go home.   It was a horrible, horrible day that I will never forget.  Godspeed to the Victims, the first Responders and their families.

My brother was the chauffeur for his ladder company in Brooklyn. He was going  off duty when the first tower was hit. All off going crews were held over city wide, and everyone was mandated to stay at their station. The oncoming crew took the ladder and responded to the World Trade Center. The off going Ladder and Engine crew commandeered a NYCTA bus and as they went across the Brooklyn Bridge, saw the first tower collapse. It wasn’t till after 1 AM on 9/12 that we learned, from my sister-in-law, that my brother was still alive and that he hadn’t perished, like 343 of his brothers. Amidst all that destruction, there was a single pay phone operational, on Vesey Street, that that the responders were using to call their families.

I was in my office in midtown Manhattan overlooking the East River when my brother called me from Oregon saying a plane had hit the tower. I went to the office around the corner to see both towers burning. Many coworkers and I watched from our high rise offices on 42nd street as the towers burned, and then collapsed.

Later that afternoon a phalanx of police and national guard escorted us to Grand Central where they packed us into trains home, in my case CT. The trains were dead silent despite the crowding as we all tried to assimilate what we had seen. One memory stands out. Part of the emergency plan was that every station along the way had emergency medical tents set up to aid the wounded. But they were all empty. There were no wounded. Only the living and the memory of those we lost.

I worked on a overnight shift in a data center downtown at South Ferry. Left the building garage around 8:25 AM.  To this day I thank my lucky stars that I went up the east side of Manhattan to get up to the G. Washington Bridge.  If I went my normal route up the west side, it would have placed me next to the towers on West St right about the time of the first hit.

I still can picture in my mind the daily night view from my office of the steady convoy of flatbed trailers hauling debris (mostly steel beams) being taken to a pier on the East River where everything was loaded on barges to be disposed of or placed in storage for future examination.

But the most disturbing scenes were when there was a flatbed rumbling by with a crushed NYFD truck on it. Was a very depressing time downtown.

I am glad I can talk about it and GOD BLESS all those who perished.

So thankful for your memories of that terrible day, couldn't help tearing up a bit as I read. May God bless America.

Can't imagine what NYers felt on that day.

I recall thinking that Chicago's highrises were next!

I was one of the first to arrive on 9/11....I survived...my co worker and friend KEITH ROMA NYFP 120 did not...NEVER LET IT BE FORGOTTEN....

R.I.P Frank E. Koestner 102nd Fl. Cantor Fitzgerald.

I remember both of the Kennedy assassinations' and the MLK's murder, as if they happened, yesterday.

I watched the Trade Centers being build, commuted through them, attended many breakfast meetings up top where very few if any survived, and still become tearful whenever I watch the carnage of 9/11 in lower Manhattan, Dallas on November 11, 1963 or Los Angeles in late June, 1968.

The Twin Towers, in my opinion, were the most beautiful structures ever built.

May all the victims of such savagery, which is now being repeated in the Ukraine and elsewhere, rest in peace.

John E. Nagurney, Fordham U. '72 , St. Johns U. (Law) '78