I watched it taped 3 days later because we didn't find out about 9/11 until 9/14.
I had joined the Army and left for Ft Benning the first week of August 2001. We were one month into Basic when 9/11 happend. They did not tell us. We already had no TV, but suddenly one day they stopped letting us make our daily phone calls and cut off our mail. The whole base went to THREATCON Delta.
We didn't even know how to break down our M16s yet, and they had us at every road and fucking dirt trail into the place 24/7, with bomb dogs and pole-mirrors, checking cars. They wouldn't tell us why. We thought the Chinese had nuked Washington or some shit. Some kids went AWOL. It was pretty panicky, I mean most of us just joined for college money. Clinton had just left office and the US didn't seem primed for any war.
One morning the company Captain pulled all the platoons down to the commons below the barracks on Sand Hill, rolled out the ancient A/V dolly, and we got to see the planes fly into the buildings.
Yeah I was at Knox the next summer, and one day in like week 8 we got our DS to relax a minute and we asked him what basic was like during 9/11. He had some wild stories about how the privates reacted. Some went into full meltdown that they'd be going to war and shit. Crazy stories.
I think the Brass didn't know how to handle it, no one was sure what exactly was happening so they just "turned off the lights" and put all the recruits in the dark, everywhere.
Some of those guys in my platoon were just kids on the delayed entry program -- 17 year olds between their Junior and Senior years of high school. They go through basic early, then as soon as they graduate they go directly into active service. Some of these kids were freaking out, they couldn't even talk to their parents. No phone calls whatsoever.
Keeping everyone in the dark when something is obviously, terribly wrong, was not the way to instill trust in your fresh guys. It really opened up the cynicism for all of us when they finally did tell us, and we were like "why the fuck were you insidiously hiding this?"
Morale went through the floor because we already learned, just 4 weeks in, that we couldn't trust them anymore.
I remember getting off a graveyard shift. I had a 25 minute commute and always drove home with the radio. Normally I'd be listening to music but in the breaks they kept bringing up a fire in one of the towers believed to be caused by a "small plane." Didn't sound like a big deal, but I turned on the TV when I got home and saw that second plane hit a few minutes later. I remember the rest of the day as feeling surreal and a shock to the conscious.
Same. I had a doctors visit in Westchester at the time (close to NYC) and when I got there they were all talking about it. When I got home I had the news on all day and saw the plane hit the 2nd tower live. Saw it coming and it was like something out of a movie. I also remember when TWA Flight 800 blew up. Watched that on the news all day too.
I watched it live. It was my first semester of college. It was heartbreaking
I watched it taped 3 days later because we didn't find out about 9/11 until 9/14.
I had joined the Army and left for Ft Benning the first week of August 2001. We were one month into Basic when 9/11 happend. They did not tell us. We already had no TV, but suddenly one day they stopped letting us make our daily phone calls and cut off our mail. The whole base went to THREATCON Delta.
We didn't even know how to break down our M16s yet, and they had us at every road and fucking dirt trail into the place 24/7, with bomb dogs and pole-mirrors, checking cars. They wouldn't tell us why. We thought the Chinese had nuked Washington or some shit. Some kids went AWOL. It was pretty panicky, I mean most of us just joined for college money. Clinton had just left office and the US didn't seem primed for any war.
One morning the company Captain pulled all the platoons down to the commons below the barracks on Sand Hill, rolled out the ancient A/V dolly, and we got to see the planes fly into the buildings.
Yeah I was at Knox the next summer, and one day in like week 8 we got our DS to relax a minute and we asked him what basic was like during 9/11. He had some wild stories about how the privates reacted. Some went into full meltdown that they'd be going to war and shit. Crazy stories.
I think the Brass didn't know how to handle it, no one was sure what exactly was happening so they just "turned off the lights" and put all the recruits in the dark, everywhere.
Some of those guys in my platoon were just kids on the delayed entry program -- 17 year olds between their Junior and Senior years of high school. They go through basic early, then as soon as they graduate they go directly into active service. Some of these kids were freaking out, they couldn't even talk to their parents. No phone calls whatsoever.
Keeping everyone in the dark when something is obviously, terribly wrong, was not the way to instill trust in your fresh guys. It really opened up the cynicism for all of us when they finally did tell us, and we were like "why the fuck were you insidiously hiding this?"
Morale went through the floor because we already learned, just 4 weeks in, that we couldn't trust them anymore.
I remember getting off a graveyard shift. I had a 25 minute commute and always drove home with the radio. Normally I'd be listening to music but in the breaks they kept bringing up a fire in one of the towers believed to be caused by a "small plane." Didn't sound like a big deal, but I turned on the TV when I got home and saw that second plane hit a few minutes later. I remember the rest of the day as feeling surreal and a shock to the conscious.
Same. I had a doctors visit in Westchester at the time (close to NYC) and when I got there they were all talking about it. When I got home I had the news on all day and saw the plane hit the 2nd tower live. Saw it coming and it was like something out of a movie. I also remember when TWA Flight 800 blew up. Watched that on the news all day too.