The Newsroom - 9/11 Newscast

I was living in Ankara, Turkey at the time. I remember getting home from school and we were the first off-base Americans there in a long time. The embassy called and told us to lock the doors, no one in, or out. Not family, nothing. Don't let anyone in. make a password. Plan for the worst. Everyone was so worried about how the rest of the world would take it, they thought for sure that 2 american kids would be an easy target...Yet, we had the whole building watching us, all Turkish, all barely speaking a drop of English. They kept us safe and watched until our parents got home. There were a few turks that were pelting cars from the American Embassy that were driving people to their homes. The other turkish people would grab them and hold them down till someone could cuff/tie them up. They formed a wall around our cars, they covered the front of the embassy and base in flowers. They responded to a call of humanity. I will never forget it. Ever. The kindness, the empathy I was shown by a people that received nothing but hate for it, and stereotypes. That was the most influential moment of my life. I realized then that there is no good and bad groups. There are only good and bad people.

I remember that day so clearly, I was on a huge British Army exercise in Oman, we were in the mess tent watching CNN, as more people heard the tent slowly filled, the exercise forgotten. We watched the second jet impact, and the thing that struck me most was in this tent full of trained soldiers, nobody made a sound, nobody moved, as we watched this horror unfold.....then my Company Sergeant Major cleared his throat..."ladies and gentlemen, I don't know when, and I don't know where, but sure as hell we are going to war with someone....time to put your game faces on." On my last tour of Afghanistan (my fourth) I held the rank of CSM and I never forgot his words.

I was in barracks 517 on Camp Lejeune. We were told about the attacks. A few hours later our 1stSgt Diamond said to get your gear and be ready to go. 6 weeks later we were in Afghanistan.

Hell I was 6 years old when this happened. I can barely remember middle school (11-13). Yet I remember this day very well, hard to forget.

I was only 4 or 5 when this happened, yet.... "I'm not going anywhere. I'll be right here." sends chills throughout my body. this show is AMAZING. so honest and true and just down-right deep.

I was working in a West End theatre on 9/11 with a bunch of people I really loved and had a great time with. Got through the stage door in time to watch the second aircraft hit. The whole crew crammed into our changing room watching the coverage in mostly silence. A couple of hours later a colleague came in to work. She looked at us, looked at the TV, said - What are you watching? - The twin towers we say - Whats it about? - and I remember we all looked at her, she;d missed the whole thing and was standing before us in complete innocence. I remember having to summon a hell of a lot courage to explain the day. It wasn't the words I found hard, but the responsibility for stripping away that innocence. Its the closest I reckon I;ll ever get to being a news anchor. Her face was one of puzzlement, disbelief, shock and fear all in the space of a few seconds. Imagine that multiplied by millions.

I was 10 and just walking downstairs when it happened. My mom was watching it downstairs and after seeing me, turned it off and hustled me to school. I don't recall them ever mentioning it though for kids like us it was a smart move to keep us calm and allow our parents to process it before explaining it to us. In my case with my dad being an air traffic controller, it gave my mom time to prepare as my dad did not return home until late and he was in no mood to talk when he got home. The whole day all he had really said to anyone was when he called my mom during few moments he could break away and said 'turn on the tv, I will be home late'. It took him a few years to finally start talking about it but he still gets quiet when he does. Though he didn't talk with any of the flights, he did see their radar contacts (turning off a transponder doesn't make a plane invisible. it just prevents them from seeing altitude and aircraft identification. Even at low altitude they were still showing up intermittently). In particular flight 93's path straddled and went through the airspace where he worked while flight 77's was almost in the middle of it when it was hijacked. As an air traffic controller there's always some way they can help by providing information and such. In this situation, they were completely helpless and had a sort of front row seat to the entire thing.

God this was such a brilliant show.

A lot of people claim to be patriots... most of them aren't. A real patriot isn't ashamed to admit being afraid. A real patriot is humble and not arrogant in the face of disaster. A real patriot shows humility when others show anger. Though fictional... I give you a patriot.

I was holding my barely 2-month-old baby, watching as all this unfolded. I remembered suddenly being frightened as to this new, uncertain world I brought him into.

That was a rough day, I never look at a cloudless day the same again. When I do I remember 9/11.

My parents were married on September 11, 1993. They had coordinated their wedding with the Oslo Accords, hoping it would be remembered as a day of peace. I was 5 on 9/11. My grandmother and both my aunts were in New York City. My mother was on the phone almost the entire day. I wasn’t allowed near the television. My father had taken the day off from his newspaper and was itching to go back in. They told him he shouldn’t, so instead he spent the next two years training to be a firefighter. He was 45 when he finished his rookie year, and has now been in the service for 20 years. We had a fancy meal already mostly prepared and waiting. I remember eating that meal in total silence. I am sure the lights were turned on but for some reason I remember the kitchen being dark. I suppose they day just felt dark.

I was 9. I never thought I was really impacted by the event, except for the obvious changes to society and the nation. It wasn't until reading this comment section I realized that I can't hear or see plane flying overhead without thinking how it could crash into a building. I only now realized that's because of this event. I wasn't near it, I don't know anyone directly impacted by it, but the event is seared into my memory.

I can pinpoint the exact place I was sitting 4th grade. I forgot what happened 2 weeks ago but I will never forget any second of this day. Makes me cry every time I come back here.

I was a sophmore in HS when this happened, the school froze, the shock was so palpable, and I almost laughed, (a pure defense mechanism of disbelief, not to insult or dishonor anybody, but it was my way of dealing.)

My cousin died on the 99th floor of the North Tower and my father, NJPD Chief and surrounding NJ Police Dept immediately drove into NYC to help with the recovery effort. My mother a teacher, my sisters, and myself were stuck in lockdown at the schools. We didn't know Dad went into NYC until late that night when he finally called. It was not long after did we finally get confirmation that Ken, my cousin had died.

I remember 9/11 like it was yesterday. I had just got off school, got home and turned on the TV in Stockholm, Sweden and saw the first tower on fire, I saw the second plane hit and everything that happened after that. I called my mother the very minute I turned on the TV and told her what was happening in America. I remember everything in Stockholm stopped. Every store closed except for the supermarkets where people could buy food. The day of the attack the whole city shut down there was nobody out walking around it was like a ghost town. The big square in Stockholm was full of people the next day and dead silent. Flowers everywhere, people crying and American flags all over the place, hanging on walls, on buildings and on peoples backs. i have never seen anything like that in my life, how thousands of people can sound like the square was completely empty. It was without a doubt the most emotional sight I have ever seen. The only thing that can come close to how it was after 9/11 was after the truck attack in Stockholm that happened not to long ago.

My first child was born in January of that year. We were outside her maternal grandfather's house preparing to leave. I turned on the car radio to hear a plane flew into the towers. At first I thought it was a wayward, small, single prop plane, but as we drive home, the enormity of what was happening began to be revealed. I made it home and to a tv just in time to see the 2nd plane hit. I was a raw bag of emotions... and I have to say it was reassuring when our president addressed the nation giving us leadership and guidance. It paved a way forward, and I will forever be grateful for that leadership.

I remember this well. As soon as the second plane hit i grabbed my medical kit and waited for the phone to ring. It rang 2 mins later to put me back on active standby to fly out and help with the rescue. (UK Cave and Mountain Rescue) (Retired)

I was a senior in HS, was in the cafe for study hall. I remember the announcement and feeling like it was very vague. Wasn't until I got home that I fully realized what happened. It's crazy to think, I woke up that morning a typical 17 year old kid, I never imagined that would be the last time I'd wake up with our country not at war in some way.

I was 10. I remember I was in fifth grade, and my teacher, Ms. Hernandez, took a call on her cell phone and freaked out. She got up, went into the room next door to talk to the other teacher, came back, turned around, and went right back to the other room. She came back, and we were all so confused. I mean, we were 10 year olds. We had no idea that kind of thing could even happen. She went and turned on the TV in the room and just stood in front of it. The news coverage was of the first tower. A bunch of us stood up and went over to watch too because Ms. Hernandez didn't seem to care that we were watching. If I remember right, I think she had family up there. But I got up too, and I remember standing there watching as the second plane hit. And we didn't really understand until Ms. Hernandez started crying and the Principal came on the PA system telling teachers to turn their TVs *off*. Ms. Hernandez didn't turn her TV off, she just went into the other teacher's classroom again and a group of us watched with slowly dawning comprehension that something really, really terrible had happened. Ms. Hernandez finally came back in and turned off the TV, told us to sit down, and explained what she knew, which wasn't a lot, especially at that point. And as the day wore on, kids were picked up from school and I remember being so pissed off because *I* wasn't and I have family up there. I didn't want to be at school, I couldn't focus, no one could, and I just wanted to go home. In my last class of the day, they played "And I'm Proud to be An American" over the PA and my teacher cried. When I got home, I remember being so pissed off because my mom was home and she hadn't come to get me, but when I got inside, I just saw her sitting by the phone bawling her eyes out because she hadn't heard from my aunt yet. Thankfully, my aunt, who drove buses in the city at the time, hadn't left Staten Island that day. My cousin, who worked at the Twin Towers, luckily, hadn't been working that day either. My family was safe, thankfully. But we were very lucky. I can't imagine the pain friends and families of victims of that day went through. Especially because we still haven't identified all of them to this day.

I was 14 and had just got back from riding my bike.. India, it was evening.. the TV was on and my family was transfixed.. Then the 2nd plane hit... Next day my teacher who we felt was stone hearted just broke down in front of the class.. A bunch of young teenagers and no one knew what to say.. It's unreal how the world remembers what they were doing that moment in time

I remember 9 11 like it was yesterday. I just started secondary school (High school) and remember my science teacher had given me homework to do for the day after. Got home about 4 had something to eat and about to start homework about 5. my dad came in grabbed the sky remote and put on the news. Which my dad never watched I remember seeing it and feeling absolutely petrified even though it was not happening in my country was horrible seeing. And my dad speaking about the prospect of another war. I didn't do my homework and explained to my teacher I watched the news all evening. I also explained how I was feeling emotionally and she still gave me a DT. She was meant to be the nicest teacher in the school and I never looked at her fondly like others did after that. I remember most teachers was canceling lesson plans to talk about what happened and how students were feeling as it was a scary time. The minutes silence when you was seeing the toughest kids in the school cry taught me that we all bleed the same and can all feel pain even bullies have some form of compassion for others.

I was 7 years old and lived in India. I still remember seeing it on news at night with all my family. At first I couldn’t understand how and why the plane went into the towers. I thought someone made a mistake or something like that. Learned the word terrorism that day.

It was one of the first days of high school for me. I was in school, and I didn't find out until Geography. I remember Mr. Robertson telling us that we'd eventually find out that some bastards did it for some awful reason. But to remember that the world's changed after this, and it'll be up to everyone how it changes. I remember my music teacher whose name escapes me now. Mr Thorne? His son still hadn't been heard from by the end of the day, and he worked in the south tower. Man was on edge the whole time, but he was an amazing teacher. Son ended up being okay. I went home and watched the news for the rest of the day. It was the first news story I remember really clearly. That I remember following. I feel like to this day, I'm still following the same news story when I turn on the TV. I miss the days before it when I was ignorant about the world.

Most of the heartfelt comments left here are American origin. I'm not from the US but I can remember the succession of events on that fateful day so clearly, it feels like yesterday. I had just turned 8. It was my Grandfather's 71st birthday, as we expected him to visit us for lunch. The Northern Tower was hit at 8:46am, after which media coverage immediately spread around the world. Germany's time zone is 6 hours earlier than the East Coast, I remember my Grandfather calling at 2:55pm german time to switch on the TV. When it switched on, I remember my parents not talking for 3 straight minutes after a vivid conversation seconds before. At the time, the second tower hadn't been hit yet and it was unknown if this had just been a terrible accident. At 9:04am East Coast, 3:04pm Central Europe, the Northern Tower was hit, at which point the intention of a Terror attack had become so shocking, it was clear the Terrorist's pursued goal was humiliation. I remember seeing people jump to their death to not be consumed by flames. I've seen disoriented people with burns covered in dust clouds in the collapsed streets, some stumbling, some limping, some crawling. The most horrific pictures I've seen in my life. My grandparents generation's childhood was shaped by the city bombings of WW2, as they had to endure the loss of their house WHILE IN THE CELLAR of said building. That generation has a very unique kind of empathy for this hellish nightmare. So do I.

Very comforting to hear him say he would be there....I remember our public radio station playing the German Requim. They did not talk at all.

I was in 4th grade. Little innocent Canadian boy. I remember getting ready for school and my mom was watching the news. I'll be honest, I didn't grasp it when it happened. My town is isolated, and I wasn't jaded or knowledgeable enough. Thinking back, everything seemed so quiet, but I remember my teacher asking us to write about it in our journals. I knew there were bad people and I knew that there were still people trapped in the rubble.

If you've not seen this series yet go do so - it's great.

I was 5 years old, and i didn't understand why my dad wasn't coming home from the military base. He had to stay there, under lockdown to make sure his people were kept safe.

I wasn’t alive when this happened. I’m not American, and I disagree with the morality of the overall ramifications of the ensuing war. But the genuine selflessness and camaraderie of support through the darkness of that pain is chillingly beautiful

Those of us that are old enough to remember the days of Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite and Eric Severaid remember the days when so called "newsmen" were just that. They reported the news. No ranting and raving with "their" opinions. When Lyndon Johnson said "If we've lost Cronkite we've lost America" about Vietnam he meant just that.

I had just joined the Navy 6 months prior, I'll never forget that day. It was crazy, hectic and scary

I was in college at the time. That semester, I only had classes on MWF, and since this was a Tuesday, I was off. At the time, I slept with the radio on, and after the first plane hit the tower, the morning zoo people came on, reported, and laughed saying that it must have been a bad pilot (no hard feelings, though, they didn't know). I spent the next several days glued to the TV. Crazy time.

I was in Augusta, GA and was climbing out of the shower having had a great sleep in. I heard the DJ on the radio talk about the plane hitting the towers and I thought it was another bad joke as 2 LA DJs had just been fired a few days before for saying Justin Timberlake and Brittany Spears had died in a car crash. I turned on ABC (since I worked at the local affiliate)... immediately I dialed my mother who lived 6 floors above me in my apartment building... we watched until the first tower started to collapse at which point I told my mom I loved her and was heading for work. I got there and every desk, every phone, and every person was prepping the studio, finding out from sources, and I jumped in calling every contact person we could get to a phone. Augusta was a bit more in a peak because we are the closest major town to a place that makes part of the nuclear weapons program. We were concerned about the trains, we had to check Hartsfield-Atlanta as to air traffic and the various airlines. We checked hospitals and emergency services to find out if they had a plan... they were all adapting plans as NO ONE had planned for something like this... hell, a trivial as it sounded, we even checked on a show "Murder In Small Town X" as there was an NYC firefighter as a contestant. I remember bits and pieces as the networks tried to figure out how to give local affiliates time and we all learned how to identify various pronunciations for various bioweapons and chemical weapons (anthrax and small pox)... and then when we were getting stories about planes landing all over the world... rental cars being sold out over the coming week as people pushed for their loved ones... Would we be reinstituting the draft? I finally lost it when somebody told me "we can change how we are as a country because that is what the attackers want" I yelled that we had just seen what could be 25,000 people dead. We had estimates of the daily population of the towers. No number had even been guessed at because of time of day when the first plane hit and various other factors. Being from a military family, I knew we were about to go to war. I was sent home after the 11pm news so we had fresh people for what would be the next week. But I got home and called my mother and was up with her till 2am watching... As someone who worked in the promotions department, I was one of the ones who pulled footage together for packages and inserts. I was so grateful when the network called on day 4 or 5 and said to stop using the footage of the planes hitting as it had lost its news impact and would cause more harm for our viewers. But then the stories started coming in about flags, checking on and supporting the emergency services... all the home grown stuff showing the good acts of neighbors... the charity raising... the telethon with celebrities many the phone banks to say thank you that the only thing that came close was LIVE AID in 1985 and the Comic Relief events... it was truly a repeat of Pearl Harbor in terms of how this country tried to recover. I had tried to take a vacation to NYC and decided I couldn't afford it... my flight home was going to be at 11am from JFK after a stop at the Top of the World around 8am... Sept 11th... I still feel guilt that I couldn't afford that flight and thus wasn't there... I was working at a network out of D.C. 2008-2010... and every year I would help to bring the archive footage back for use in our computer records.... and every year I went home and cried... I feel kind of numb now... but I still try not to think about that day as it hurts so much...

I remember this day clearly and probably will for the rest of my life. I had just turned sixteen and had just gotten home from school and had turned on the TV, before heading out again (football/soccer practice). The first plane had hit and it was on every channel. They were still describing it as an accident, when out of seemingly nowhere, the second plane hit. I distinctly remember thinking that this no longer was an accident, even though the news anchor held on to that theory for a few minutes longer. The rest of the day was just horrible. We were just watching as everything unfolded; the third plane hitting the Pentagon and the relief felt, when we heard the fourth plane had crashed (I shamefully admit not thinking about the heroic people onboard at that time, something I reflected on often since). For us in Europe, the US had long been untouchable and was still very much the land of posibilities. My generation grew up on Desert Storm, the American economic upswing and the Clinton administration, and suddenly that country, we all in some way or another leaned on, was reeling. I guess, I grew up fast in those hours and lost a bit of the innocence of my youth. I have always and will always maintain, that the immidiate reaction to 9/11 (both in the US and abroad) was almost noble in all it's sadness and shock. I also remember how fervently support for the US was in those days (even amongst most European Muslims), but I suppose the first seeds of the division we see today were sown back then. 9/11 definitely was one of those dates, historians will come to describe as a watershed moment.

This year we will be mourning the 20 year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. To those who lost someone on that sad day, my wish to you is that the next 20 years will be filled with more joy and happier memories then you had 20 years ago. May God bless you, and smile down upon you to the end of your days.

Yeah, I didn't exist yet. I was born after everything happened. But just hearing second hand stories, watching the re runs. I don't think I'll ever know what it felt like to be alive during the attack. Everyone's stories does put it into some sorta perspective, but I really don't think words can describe how the everyone must have felt.

When fiction contains more reality and we live in an era where reality contains more fiction.

I was in the 7th grade that day, and just got into the classroom when they turned on the TV, it was just when the first tower got hit.

This was such a great show ... I was at work at Patrick Air Force Base as a contractor with AFTAC. We were on total lock down. Rumors we could be a target from off shore since we were right on the beach. Was an interesting time.

Just found out about this show today. I really wish I had HBO so I could binge the episodes online.

I was 3 years old when 911 happened in fact it was 3 days after my birthday and it took me nearly a decade to fully realise the brunt of what had happened being a Brit and all but I can’t help but think about how I can’t comprehend what those poor souls who were at ground zero when that day came.

I was in Iowa on vacation. I heard it on the radio and then was glued to the TV for a while. Saw the person I came to visit for a little bit then cut the vacation short so I could head back home to my family

I remember that day too. I was sick home from school and my mother was working from home that day to take care of me. I was sleeping in and was awoken by the phone ringing. I ignored it because I knew mom was home and then I heard say "What?! Oh my God!" She then came to my room and told me that the person that called said that a small plane had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York. I got out of bed and we turned on the TV and saw the first tower on fire and after my initial shock at what I was seeing I said "I don't know Mom that's a pretty big hole for a small plane." We still thought it was an accident at the time. She went back to the computer to continue working and I saw the second plane hit. I got up and told her what I had just seen and she came back to see it. I don't remember anymore specifics, except that I was still wearing what I had slept in until late in the afternoon and because we lived near a commercial airport we could hear so many planes landing. The air port was also had Air National Guard stationed there so being as sick as I was I wasn't thinking clearly and so I was nervous after every plane passed overhead. And because I was so sick I don't remember too many specifics about that day. Every year when the anniversary of that day comes up I watch the documentary specials on the History Channel or Discovery Channel. I think it's a part of me that wants to try to piece back together memories of that day. Also to remember the victims and the heroes of that day. But another part of me is glad that I was able to forget the horrors that I saw.

i was in 5th grade at school at the time. my mom pulled me out of school and i was completely oblivious to what was going on. we came home and she showed me the news after i asked her for like the 10th time why she pulled me out of school. i saw what was going on and she explained it to me. i didn't care. it didn't mean anything to me. i asked if i was going back to school if i could have the rest of the day home. she said i could have the rest of the day. so i just played in my room, still adjusting to the fact i was out of school so early and wasn't sure what to do because it wasn't part of my routine. years later i would meet my now best friends and find out that they were on another commercial flight watching the jets fly into the tower from their own plane when it happened. it took me years of friendship to talk logic into them to not be afraid to fly on a commercial plane anymore.

I was 3 years old when the towers were hit. I was at home with my father, my two sisters are at school and my mother was working across the river from the towers. I’ve been told that my mom called my dad to get my sisters out of school right away. 7 minutes later my mother witnessed the 2 tower get hit by the plane. She said it was the worst thing she ever saw. From what I was told since I was to young to remember the entire neighborhood was in my house that day in silence 30 plus people all sitting together and hoping that my moms friend who lived near the towers was okay and that my aunt who worked in the south tower was safe. Thankfully neither of them were in the city that day! But since we lived so close to New York phone calls couldn’t go through so we were unable to find out what was going on. It is a day that shaped the generation. My parents were shaped by Vietnam we were shaped by 9/11.

I was exactly 5 months and 4 days from being born, it's amazing to think that one of the 5 biggest events in US history is just half a year from when I was born and yet was already in history books by the time I entered 1st grade, I learned in a book what my parents saw happen, that's insane

The difference in the skies before & after 9/11 was unsettling. Any day before 9/11, I could look up and see airstreams practically stacked up. Like the Minneapolis and Chicago westbound to the westcoast traffic was flying 5 wide so the streaks were almost parallel. Then on 9/12... the sky was clear. No trails in either direction. And in the years since, never again were commercial flights traveling together like they used to. The routes have changed for security reasons.

I was in my Freshman year of college, getting ready for my Derivative Calculus class, and I remember I had on I think the Today show or whatever came on right after (I think it was Maury Povich--this was back when it went off air at 9AM, before they added all those extra hours to it), and they had just cut over right before I had to hurry out the door with news that a plane had hit one of the WTC towers. I had just read about this happening in the 1960s before so I was not really all that worried, thinking it was just a small airplane or something, and ran to my class. The TV was on when I got there, and it was on the news and then I learned it had been a jet airline that hit the building....then we watched at the second plane hit the building live on air. We all knew then. I will never forget that feeling. We continued class...as if you could continue class, and then we went to Chemistry. My chemistry professor (Ketan Trivedi, I will never forget his name until the day I die) had it playing on the projector for the 400-ish person classroom, and was redialing his phone over and over again. Then they told us class was cancelled (and several idiots cheered about that)...the moment we saw the crawl about the Pentagon and the plane going down in Pennsylvania. Dr. Trivedi told us the next class that he had been trying to reach his daughter, who worked for a firm on the 80th floor of Tower One. Thankfully she survived, but he had not heard from her until that morning, because back then cell phone traffic could easily be shut down with ]hundreds of thousands of calls happening at once.

I remember when I first saw the news of the 911 attacks, my first thought was it must be a movie trailer ... surreal

i was watching the first shrek movie with my brother on the day of the attacks. denmark so far from where it happened. i remember i was thinking it amazing and a bit cool to see at the time. the damagde and the death and the understanding of what really had happened came much later. a true day where the earth stood still and where we realised, no one is truely safe.

When was this episode happened?

I remember where i was when it happened. It happened at about 13:45 UK time, I was at school in the start of 5th period, had no idea what was going on at the time, I found out what happened once I got home and saw the tv.

I was working security doing a patient watch at a local hospital. he was in ICU, so he had a television, and we were flicking through the channels, and caught the coverage just after the first plane hit. We watched smoke come from the tower, and I thought about the old movie the towering inferno, and wondered if like in the movie, firefighters would struggle to put out a flame so high up. Then we watched as the second plane hit .... My shift ended and I had gotten into my car and turned on the radio when they announced the towers had collapsed, and I sat there and wept for about 10 minutes before I could drive home.

I live in Mobile Alabama in at the time I was in my early twenties and we were coming back from doing construction work on a residential home when it come up on the radio I wanted to go so badly but my health wouldn't let me even the Marines wanted me but if I could have filled out the paperwork I would have went God bless those who have passed

I was 13. A kid in 8th grade in Cincinnati, Ohio. My parents were both Delta flight attendants at the time. I didnt know if one of them was going on a trip after I left for school that morning. They were both off that day. They didnt turn on the TVs at school, but I later found out my mom and dad called the school principal once they saw the second plane go in to let them know had they shown us, that if my younger sister and I had gotten scared, that they were both home safe. I found out at 2 pm that afternoon from one of the neighborhood moms doing carpool, and i was the oldest of all the kids. She only told me when i was seated in the front seat. I knew what the Pentagon was, as my dad had taken me to DC earlier that year for the first time. I didn't know what the World Trade Center was. I pictured in my mind it was the relatively low to the ground NY Stock Exchange building. When i got home, i saw my mom and dad sitting in front of the TV, which they never did, they always had something else going on around the house. As NBC went to commercial, i saw a video of the second tower collapsing. I thought it was just a movie trailer of some sort. To my horror, I found out that this was real. 5 years later, I went into Political Science studies to find out why those people did what they did, instead of just being angry and hateful. Islam is a religion of peace and Al-Qaida bastardized it for their own selfish means. 9/11 is traumatic for me, but i will never forget it, as long as I live.

I was watching TV, 10, with my younger siblings. In Europe. Evening 80's shows had been replaced by a news ticker and the iconic image of one of the towers burning. Someone on the entertainment channel had decided to pipe in their company's news instead. I went: "Uuuuuh, *mooom?* I think something happened." Mom, walking out of the kitchen: "What do you mean something ha- Oh my god." Me. "Yyyyyeah. So... what... is this building?" Soon after, the second plane hit, and we all went: "...Is that a rerun?" No it wasn't. Of course, next day I did know what had happened. So did everybody on the planet.

There is a largish city an hour west of Sydney Australia called Penrith. One of its longest streets is called Derby street and I had a flat there. I was a teacher in Sydney and I would commute. I was watching the "Brothers in Arms" scene from the West Wing while all hell was breaking loose. It was late Sydney time and we got the first reports after this episode aired. I couldn't watch anymore after the second tower collapsed.

Aaron Sorkin sure does know how to bring on viewers emotions.

I had just finished a massive all-night project for work, right around 6am Pacific Time (9am in New York) and was ready for a long nap. Then my brother, on the east coast, called & said turn on the TV. No sleep that day.

I was in 2nd grade at Woodbridge Elementary in Mr. McCarty's class I had no idea what happened till I got out of school and saw a TV with the whole thing playing out. I was still too young to understand what was happening

I was finishing my shift at a casino in Biloxi, MS., and all the t.v.'s at the bars were all on the same station. Smoke was emanating from just one of the Twin Towers. I was so tired, and just wasn't understanding what I was seeing. By the time I got to my car and turned on the radio to my usual morning Cajun Comedy show, the Towers were only thing it was covering.

i was in 3rd grade when 9/11 happened

I live in north jersey, not right next to the city, but close enough that people commuting in was a regular thing. I was in between transferring colleges and at home in bed when my mom called home. My mom was a teacher, she never called home (and neither of us had cell phones at the time) for anything. Like that is literally the only time i recall her ever doing it. She told me to get up and go turn on the tv and nothing else. I saw the news on every channel. I didnt realize that it wasnt the same outside of the new york media market. We literally had nothing but news on every channel for a month. Like every parent broadcast company had news running on all sub channels. Like MTV had cbs news running on it for a month. A friend and I went to go donate blood in New Brunswick (where if you dont know NJ, is where the main campus for Rutgers University is) the lines were blocks long and people were outside telling people to go home if they werent O positive (whatever the universal donor is). Driving to and from New Brunswick in certain areas we could see the smoke from the towers. I mean id have to check a map, but i lived in the bottom south west corner of Union County, the train line doesnt run straight into NYC...its not like hudson county or bergen where you are right across the river from manhattan. Everyone I know has a story about 9/11. Like a friend of a friends dad worked in the WTC, and was going up to his office with collegeus or clients, and stopped to use the bathroom on the lobby while they went up. If he had gone up he would have died from the impact it would have killed him right away as all his colleagues who went up died.

I remember I was in school. 3rd grade, beginning of the school year. I'd already been bullied by other kids for being a bookworm, for being "smart", and for not being good at sports. But that day my life became a living hell. It was the first and last time I saw my parents crying when they brought me home from school, because they knew what was coming even if I didn't. Bullying became racism, racism turned into violence. We had bricks thrown at our house in the night, profanities yelled at me and my mother on the streets, kids calling me a terrorist and a bomb maker because I was smart and brown and hit puberty early, and worst of all, my middle school principal was a former Marine who had served overseas in Afghanistan the first time around. He was young, but he was also an angry, racist asshole who I couldn't believe was a member of the armed forces that I had been taught to respect and admire for their commitment to service. Sure, America came together that day. But it was white America that came together, and brown America that came together, and black America that came together, all separately. That was the day I realized that American exceptionalism was built on racism, xenophobia, and outright hatred. I'm not taking away anything from the innocent people who died on 9/11, nor am I taking away anything from those who erupted in cheers, rightfully so, when OBL was declared dead. But there was a frightening ghost in that picture of celebration: the ghost of racism. In a way, Osama bin Laden showed the world America's true colors for what they really were. And the US has been making more OBLs ever since. ISIS, the Taliban, al-Assad, Gaddafi, and hell, even Saddam Hussein himself - all of them can be traced back to the mistaken belief that the US is superior to all others. That hubris has caused untold suffering both here and abroad, in ways that we won't be able to see for another 20 years.

This is the reason Charlie love Will so much ... And protectes Will so much

Funny to think a news anchor staying on air at one time was a comfort..

I remember waking up the morning of 9/11/01 and looking outside my bedroom window, thinking I’ve never seen such a beautiful clear blue sky. Kids were disappearing from school all day. Didn’t find out what happened until they sent us home at the end of the day.

I was teaching history at our high school. We had the misfortune to have a fire drill scheduled while the events were unfolding. We live near a nuclear power plant and a plane (the one that crashed in Pennsylvania) was still missing. Some staff knew what was going on, some students knew but word spread quickly. I'm sure you can imagine what was going through the heads of a thousand students and staff during that drill. I don't think any of us got any work done with the kids that day. I just remember sitting with the kids and answering questions as best I could. I even told them that this could end up being their "Cuban missile Crisis" memory, the one they would tell their kids and grandkids about.

I don't remember this episode.what season was it?

I was in my 3rd grade classroom. My teacher turned the TV on and it seemed so unreal, like actually not real, to me at time that I just said "cool". It pissed my teacher off, but I still get a chuckle of how dumb dumb first reaction I had to 9/11.

I still remember this day vividly in my mind and still can't believe that it was actually nineteen years ago literally two months and four days from now. I was off school as I had caught a flu bug and we were set to move into our new home a few days after September 11th 2001 and all I heard as I was in bed was "We interrupt this program for a urgent news bulletin", and when it came on, I got helped sitting up in bed and just watched horrified as me and my mom were seeing people jump literally from the twin towers trying to save their lives but we knew they wouldn't. When the twin towers finally fell, it was like shock, like NOTHING had ever been done like this before...sure I had heard rumors that Al'Quaeda were behind the original bombing years ago when bombs were found in the parking garage of the world trade centers, but I had shrugged it off as rumors, nothing else.

This scene was never in the series. Where did you find it? Are you part of the filming, writing, producing or directorial staff?

I didn't see this episode on HBO ... Why

I was in kindergarten the year that it happened. So I don’t remember anything about 9/11. Only that my uncle to went to Afghanistan as a soldier and came back as an alcoholic. How can we still be picking up the pieces after all this time?

I was lying on the beach at Hilton Head. Didn't know about any of what happened until about 3 in the afternoon.

On my way home that day, I had a strange feeling like something really bad happened. Apparently I was right, when I got home, my whole family was sitting and watching just as the 2nd tower collapsed. The world took a turn I never thought possible that day and I wonder if we'll ever recover from it.

💔

Wow.

20 years later and we failed…… 20 wasted years for one admin to fuck it all up

I was in year 10 of secondary school (UK) aged 14, id arrived home to see my sister watching TV. Saw the clip showing the plane impacting the second tower and thought haven't seen this action movie before surprised its on at this time of day. It was only when I saw a familiar news anchor talking about it 20 seconds later that I realised and thought "oh my god..." I'd only started to learn about America in world history they seemed indestructible and yet this terrible atrocity happened.

I was at Camp Pendleton. That night myself and 14 other Marines got on a plane.

I'm 42 and in college with 20-somethings who don't remember the day. Last semester my Legal & Social Environments professor asked me, "Yes or no, do you remember exactly where you were and what you were wearing?" I said yes. I was unemployed after a cycling injury got me kicked out of college, living with my mom. I was wearing a Beavis and Butthead pajama shirt.

2nd grade returned from lunch to see our teacher crying with cnn on our whole rest of the Day was watching the news

Even though I was 3 I have a single memory of it playing with my toys on the floor while my mom watched the news not understanding why she was stunned thinking it was just a thing not even being able to process what I had seen

Newsroom is the best show I ever saw.

I was opening red lobster that day, talking to the bartender Kim i only remembered her name because of that moment.

i was 6 at the time, all that i can remember is that i was upset that my backpack went missing

I was in fifth grade.

I live in Colorado Springs Colorado Home to Peterson Air Force Base, Schriever Air Force - now known as Schriever Space Force, also home to Fort Carson Army base and NORAD and the Air Force Academy. When 9/11 happened the FAA band all flights every plane was grounded in the USA. Except 3 or 4 F-16s circling NORAD and our region. Was the scariest day for me and my family.

On a side note, when Charlie says "it can be lonely in here" to Will, it sounded like he was coming onto him. xD

It’s amazing how many stories I hear about people who were talking or reminiscing about the twin towers the day before the attack, and I’m not immune. On September 10th I was at a birthday party across the hall from my apartment and a photo album was on the coffee table. People were going through it and it was a trip to NYC and they had like 20 photos from atop the WTC, to which I brought over a stack of pictures taken from exactly the same vantage point. This was like 4am on the west coast, 3 hours later those buildings were no more. I had passed out and my neighbor woke me up beating on my front door he couldn’t believe it. I thought I was dreaming. We all woke from the dream that day

I was in the third grade Miss Mueller’s class. One student got picked up early that day by his mom. I had a Girl Scout field trip that day to a nature hike and it was my turn to bring the snacks, I brought these dinosaur gummy snacks that tasted pretty terrible. My Mom told me what happened on the home. I had never heard the word terrorist before.

Kennedy, 10th grade english,Martin watching tv in my room,bobby basic,ft.bragg,9/11,just home from night shift at supermarket

Was in primary 7 (11 years old) We got sent home early and I walked home and into my normally loud house witch was in complete silence my gran and her partner were just sitting there in shock watching TV then later that night I remember them both talking to me and explaining that the world was going to change and probly not for the best

All these stories "where were you when". Its almost, upsetting, how underwhelming my story is. About 9yrs old sitting in class in Washington State. Teacher told us what happened, maybe turned the TV on, cant remember. But I didn't really fathom the implication. Too young to fully realize.

I’ll never forget where I was. Actually wait … where was I?

Content aside, The Newsroom really does reflect the real newsroom everywhere when there's breaking news. People might be pissed about the infos that kept being repeated over and over, but its because at this point of breaking news, a running news, is that we still have limited information. We're learning as we go. We wait for the officials to make statements, but until that, we deal with what we have. Its a stressful thing to have

I swear I don’t mind to sound dramatic but at 8 years old when 9/11 happened I still see my childhood and how re and post 9/11. Even asa brit it was the first time I realised that our lives, our societies are forever straddling a knife edge.