i thought a lot about what to write here. i forgot a lot of it. i won't write about IT, though. i refuse. i've been inundated with it. right now i'm tired of hearing about it & i'm tired of well alot of stuff that that most importantly. - winsomekitty

i glanced outside at a calm, perfect day. the sky was blue, and verdant trees were swaying gently in the breeze, but inside, scrolling at the bottom of the tv screen:
AMERICA UNDER ATTACK
FOUR PLANES HIJACKED
THIS JUST IN FROM MANHATTAN: WOAH!
WORSE THAN PEARL HARBOR
BOEING 757 LANDS ON DEFENSE SECRETARY'S DESK
PENTAGON PARTIALLY COLLAPSED, REDUCED TO RECTANGLE
GLOBAL ECONOMY IN JEOPARDY
EMPIRE STATE BUILDING SAYS: I'M THE TALLEST AGAIN!
UNIVERSE BURNS TO GROUND
PLANE SLAMS INTO WORLD TRADE CENTER
PLANE SLAMS INTO WORLD TRADE CENTER... AGAIN
yea, it happened twice. if anything's more surreal than watching a domestic 110-story skyscraper being razed by terrorists, it's watching two domestic 110-story skyscrapers being razed by terrorists. two different buildings leveled by two different planes! it happened twice, in the same day! that's amazing to me. - perceptions

A year from now, ten years from now, people will be writing books about where they were when the sky fell.
It just hit. It just hit so hard that I think I am going to pass out.
So many people... dead.
Gods.
God bless America.

Kadin says:I think it's OK to be a little confused just now. - jaxraven

woke up about an hour ago (7:30am PT) to the tragedy happening in NY and DC. footage from the Pentagon looks like the kind of footage i am so used to seeing from the middle east---the kind where people are running around after a major bombing. i have to admit now and at this point that i was naive, that i thought that kind of scene...that kind of carnage wouldn't make it here. at least, not since oklahoma. so much time had passed that i fell into a sense of safety. this is awful. just awful. - penmaster

holy shit. today was such a nice day, too. i . . i just cant even comprehend what it means . . .whats gonna happen. i just hope that nobody i know or anyone they know is hurt. god. amazing. just amazing. - Cahill

War, to say it bluntly and mildly, is STUPID! I don't understand why people could get mad enough or be twisted enough to kill 25,000 people or so... and then of course, themselves. Illogical idiocy, dowlike. Now... to top it all off of course, the US is probably going to go off and atempt to turn whoever did all this into a big smoking hole in the ground and make themselves the great heroic avenger type people... I have mixed feelings about that. I disagree with using violence to solve problems, however, people who use violence and carnage like this to start, probably won't respond to reasoning and such.... so hum.... but over all, I don't like the idea of a practically imminant war.
Scared? No. Sad? Yes. Going to be praying? as always, but probably more. - sillygoonboy

i can't believe these terriost acts. when we got out of school, early mind you, i was watching the news, watching the plane crash into WTC, and just crying; bawling like a baby. my little sister had to hold my hand. can you imagine an 11 year old being braver then me? what provokes people to do such terrible terrible things. Children have died! little kids, who'll never grow up to experience their potential. it's too horrible for words. now the city is under terriost warning, and i can't help but feel so scared. so i put music on, watch movies when the thought occured to me...what about those families that can't put music on and forget all about it? i feel so blessed and so sad at the same time. - suddengrace

911...twin towers bombed, some scarey shit..little too close for comfort. But I feel safe here...unbelievable to see those buildings go down, unreal. SO many people died and their families and shit. Vows to get revenge don't help and seem like a lost cause. - raventales

I woke up with Mikey yelling at me to get my lazy ass up and watch the end of the world. I was so completely confused as to what was going on. I just sat there, staring at the TV as this all unraveled before my eyes...I couldn't look away, for a good half an hour I just couldn't look away. Our country, the big "super power" that it is...got it, and got it good. While watching the WTC crumble to the ground, I didn't even think of any of the obvious things. Mikey had to tell me to call my parents and tell them that I was safe. Luckily I was in NJ when this whole thing happened...I very well could have been in Manhattan because I have a tendency to disappear to there. After I got snapped back to reality and contacted my parents...I thought of Joey, Patrick, Peet...all of my friends from NYC and those that work there...I was very worried, but I figured that they'd be alright. (They all are, luckily.) So yes, we just sat around watching the news for hours. I just can't believe that this happened...so many people are dead, so many innocent people. - watchmefall

good lord, the world is crazy.i've given up on watching the news because my mind won't accept it anymore.i was going to ask if everyone was ok, but everyone is patently not ok.i can't fathom this. that many people just can't be dead. - greylady

Right now I am watching the billowing smoke from the WTC terrorist plane crashes into the buildings. I can see it from where I am sitting at my desk. Both buildings were hit. The first was a hijacked American Airlines flight out of NY (I flew AA yesterday) and the second was a commuter plane. It is suspected that they are the same terrorist group. We don't think they had finished evacuating anyone but the lower floors by the time the second plane hit as the crashes were 20 minutes apart and it takes a long time to go down all those stairs. I can also hear many ambulances and fire trucks outside. Our building is currently sealed. Thank God I am a few miles away from downtown and safe -- hopefully no one at our WTC location was hurt although I don't see how they can't be.
that was an email I sent my family earlier. I am back at work as we are all needed to work the phones. This city is a war zone. A woman was in the streets yelling and crying "Please God don't drop!" I wanted to hug her but was scared to.
NYC Dlanders, please check in. I pray everyone is ok. - sidewaysrain

I spent the last half hour trying to remember who said what at my high school reunion this June. I'm trying to remember which of my friends are now dead. Friday night Paul asked me when was the last time I really cried. Now I can tell him. - futilehorn

I remember just after the second tower fell yesterday, I saw one of the fire fighters hurl his helmet violently into the street as he began to storm uptown. It didn't occur to me until later that night just why he was visibly more upset than the civilians. The fire commissioner could barely keep his composure at the press conference last night. I overheard at the diner today that we lost a whole company out of Squad 61 over near the square. I remember visiting that fire house as kid in the cub scouts, getting a tour and being allowed to try the pole. - futilehorn

This is something I wrote last night, as I stared out my window and watched what remains of the World Trade Center towers burn. It's nothing special, but we must remember what a great land we live in, and that people truly have goodness inside them. More to come later, but this is all I can manage right now.

Somehow, the air just smelled different that day.
How were we to know what happened mere blocks away?
People stared into the sky, to see a billowing cloud, black with terror.
A fire, perhaps?
Yes, a fire.
But not the fire of fault, of carelessness.
It was the fire of rage, burning for our land.

The phones buzzed, the radios blared on the street corner,
But somehow, every man reached out to his brother.
The rooms were crowded with souls praying that it wasn�t so.
But the announcer couldn�t lie,
And neither could the gaping holes.
The holes in a building, yes,
The holes in our will that would long be remembered.

The sirens rang, the people ran, each heart beat a little faster.
People asked, �What could lead a person to this?�
A mistake? Depression? Or the will of something more?
The flames licked into the sky, the smoke billowed around us,
And the masses stared, each one with a prayer in his heart.
Meditating on the best, but fearing the worst.

And yet, even in the worst, there was a glimmer of hope.
The man without a home, standing on the street helping the rich,
The woman stooping to pick up a child caught in the smog.
Their determination, their courage, their virtues supreme,
They are the reason for our land.
So fly your flags, and tell the young not to fear.
The tower may fall like Babel, but the spirit will remain.
And those that died here will serve as a reminder, as a consecration of the human spirit.
We will not forget.

They can destroy all our buildings,
Still, our community will line up for miles to give of its lifeblood,
Destroy our monuments, let your planes fly, let the flames swell,
Because only we know,
You can never destroy the spirit of our people. - spacemuppet