Where were you....

[JJJ's Ulcer]

9/11 happened during my first week of college. I was going to school in Long Island, a train ride away from Manhattan. You could see smoke across the river. I remember trying to call my older brother who worked in finance downtown near the WTC and getting a busy signal all day. He was fine fortunately. We had a candlelight vigil that night on campus. Can't believe it's been more than 11 years. Still amazes me that actually happened.

 

[ChickenScratch]

9/11 - Woke up the morning to go to school (Queens College) and the backyard was filled with smoke. Turned on the radio hear the city going crazy, look out the window to the west and see the smoke coming from lower Manhattan.

The day Ronnie James Dio died. I can't even get into it I was so sad.

 

[Suirou]

John Ritter's death - I was on vacation with my family in Florida and I was enjoying my pancakes but right after that announcement, the pancakes doesn't seem to taste so good anymore.

 

[Edguy]

I was watching the regular children's show when some fools had to crash into the twin towers and replace my cartoons with extra news. Dang terrorists.

 

[E-Man]

[YT]terVwgTZ5Bo[/YT]

On a positive note I remember that I was at home watching the full NBA Finals when Michael Jordan won his first ring. It was crazy because at that point he was already seen as a superhero in my eyes, and I didn't realize that he hadn't won a title up until that point until I saw him holding the trophy and crying. Then I started to look at him as even more legendary because I knew that he was going to get more. Watching that man play back then was always something special. He is legendary in every sense of the word.

 

[Monsieur Xavier]

9/11, I was in holidays in Mexico, we learned the tragedy while visiting a site and didn't believed it until we saw it on TV at the hotel.

 

[TheDreamMaster]

I was watching the regular children's show when some fools had to crash into the twin towers and replace my cartoons with extra news. Dang terrorists.

You know, I feel like a lot of younger people probably felt like this but won't own up to it.

Honestly, being in 7th grade I was concerned about it, and it scared me. But I also remember that a lot of major networks reacted in interesting ways, and it led to thing slike Cartoon Network pulling my favorite show, Mobile Suit Gundam, from air, as well as some of the more violent Toonami fair. Most came back but MS Gundam never returned until New Years Eve, where they skipped to the very last episode of the show,skipping at least 15 more episodes, and then dropped it. It was a while before any other Gundam shows returned to CN if I recall.

 

[Kable24]

I was in the 6th grade at lunch when a teacher announced that the Shuttle Challenger exploded with Christa McAuliffe was onboard. It devastated my teacher because he was one of the teachers who signed up to go on that trip and was/is a huge fan of NASA and space exploration

I was at my grandma's when Reagan was shot. I remember watching it on the news.

I was getting ready for work when I learned Brandon Lee was shot on the set of The Crow

I was watching the PPV the night Owen Hart fell and died in the ring.

9/11 - I was sleeping and my wife woke me up just in time to see the 2nd plane slam into the tower.

 

[Pink Ranger]

 

[Edguy]

You know, I feel like a lot of younger people probably felt like this but won't own up to it.

Honestly, being in 7th grade I was concerned about it, and it scared me.

It belongs to the story that I live in Norway, so most things on the news are pretty distant to us.

 

[Mustang69]

Challenger explosion - I was walking down the hall in middle school and one of my friends was in the library watching a TV they had and this was on the news, having just happened.

9/11 - I was driving to work when the morning show I was listening to was talking about the first plane hitting the tower and still speculating if it was an accident. A few minutes later the second plane struck and at that point they knew it was a terrorist attack. All day at work they had a TV going with continuing news coverage.

Columbine shootings - Again I was at work when we saw news online about the two gunman opening fire. Not too long before I found out that my wife at the time was pregnant and my first thought was what kind of world were we bring our child into where they weren't even safe in school. I just happen to live in Colorado.

Aurora theater shootings - I was on vacation in Jamaica at the time but alot of my family had sent emails and called because they thought that I might have been there. I also got a few emails from coworkers since they knew I lived in Aurora but wanted to confirm I was out of town.

 

[TheDreamMaster]

It belongs to the story that I live in Norway, so most things on the news are pretty distant to us.

Fair enough, but I admit, I still don't here that answer very much and I know that if I was 12 in 2001, then there was a lot of younger kids who I'm surprised I never heard an answer like yours.

Actually, now I'm surprised American News Coverage was a big thing to interrupt cartoons in Norway.

 

[tzarinna]

I was at work when one of the actors came in and asked if we had heard about Michael Jackson.

At another job, I overheard a customer lose it once she heard about Whitney Houston.

 

[StreetWarrior]

I was in eigth grade when September 11th happend, in the middle of an English class. We would have been oblivious to it, but the principal made a few update announcements as events unfolded and a few teachers had the news on throughout the morning. Around 2:00, the school was put on temporary lockdown due to its proximity to a well-know Army base.

The thing I remember most is getting home that night. My parent's didn't talk about it. We went out to dinner (which I remember thinking was strange, being during the week and all - my dad worked early morning shift). We went to Pizza Hut and there was a kind of sad silence in the air. No one joked or talked very much. I was a little to young to understand how serious such an event had been. My dad is retired-military so he was pretty calm but I could tell my mom was a little shaken up.

I didn't learn about Aurora until I was buying tickets for the Sunday showing of the Dark Knight Rises on opening weekend. I felt a little nervous about going but, hey, a life spent living in fear is not living at all. I went to the Sunday AM IMAX showing of DKR and had trouble focusing on the movie, a little from sadness for the victims in CO.

I wasn't aware of Sandy Hook until my mother, an elementary school teacher in southern PA, called me kind of shook up a little after 6:30 the night of the shootings. I was preparing for an "end of the world" party for December 21st, buying nerf guns and spray paint at Wal-Mart, and I felt kind of guilty preparing to have fun while others were greiving.

Other than that... I have no national-tragedy experiences to share with my future children.

 

[E-Man]

You damn kids ruined my song!

 

[SpideyVille]

I live in NY and when 9/11 happened, I was in my 4th day at a new middle school where I didn't know anyone. I was already nervous and tense as it was because I was very shy and didn't make friends easily, not to mention that the school was in a bad neighborhood and it was the first time I ever had to go somewhere that wasn't close to my house on my own.

I remember early in the day, we kept hearing announcements from the principal calling students to the main office so they could be picked up. I thought it was weird but just shrugged it off. It wasn't until I went to lunch and heard other kids talking about stuff that they heard. There were rumors of a bomb going off, a helicopter crashing on the roof, a plane landing on top of it. It wasn't until we got back to class that we were told what happened, and at that point, it was just a waiting game to see who would be picked up next.

It was really scary when I got picked up my mom tends to overreact to things, so what she was telling me was there were planes and bombs and all sorts of stuff, and she was really worried about my brother who was working in the city, and my sister who was in the Marines at the time. She hadn't heard from either of them and assumed they were dead or something. Luckily that was not the case, and my brother's girlfriend, who worked near the WTC, had just had their first kid weeks before so she was spared. When we got to my stepdad's house, it was very eye-opening and shocking to see the footage. I remember being so bored because we didn't have time to stop by our house to pick up anything, and we weren't even certain of how safe it was to go outside.

I'll always remember that event more than anything else in my life because that was a true defining moment. I was only 12 at the time, which is the age that most people claim children gain full awareness of the world around them, so for me, I always consider that time to be a rude awakening because it shattered all of the illusions I had of the world as I realized that it wasn't as safe of a place I had thought.

 

[SpideyVille]

When Osama Bin Laden was killed I was watching TV when the news broke.

I was on my computer and had a baseball game on ESPN on in the background. It was weird because all of a sudden I heard chants for "USA!" in the middle of a game between two rivals, and the game literally stopped. Everyone was cheering while nothing was happening. But when the announcers spoke about it, it all made sense and was an awesome moment to watch how united everyone got as they heard the news live. It was also a great sight to see people in NY feel like they finally had their moment of redemption as they celebrated in the streets.

 

[JJJ's Ulcer]

I was watching the regular children's show when some fools had to crash into the twin towers and replace my cartoons with extra news. Dang terrorists.

I felt the same way when I was 8 during the original Gulf War in '91. I was pissed when Quantum Leap (my fave show in those days. Had good taste for an 8 year old) was interrupted to bring breaking news about the SCUD attack on Israel. It seems petty and selfish now, but that's how kids are.

I remember being scared during the original WTC bombing in '93 too. I can't even imagine how confusing and scary 9/11 would have been in a kid's eyes.

 

[ThDWgeek]

I felt the same way when I was 8 during the original Gulf War in '91. I was pissed when Quantum Leap (my fave show in those days. Had good taste for an 8 year old) was interrupted to bring breaking news about the SCUD attack on Israel. It seems petty and selfish now, but that's how kids are.

I remember being scared during the original WTC bombing in '93 too. I can't even imagine how confusing and scary 9/11 would have been in a kid's eyes.

I was only 10 when 9/11 happened, and seeing as it was something that happened so far away, the enormity of it, and the tragedy and fear it inspired never really hit me until a few years later when I was watching a documentary about it. I imagine that for most kids who were in New York at the time, and were old enough to have memories of it, it must have seemed like the impossible had happened or that the world was ending. To witness death and destruction on that scale must have been incredibly shocking, as they must have thought it should be impossible for buildings like that to be destroyed. It must have been a moment for a lot of kids when it really hit home at just how fragile everything really is, and that nothing lasts forever. I'd have hated to be hit with something like that all in one go.

Sorry for the rambling post, and sorry if I'm making wild assumptions about other people's reactions.

 

[JJJ's Ulcer]

Don't apologize. Sounds pretty accurate. I watched 'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close' recently about a kid who loses his dad on 9/11 and his reaction is similar to what you described.

 

[Edguy]

Yeah, the only even remotely similar event in Norway after WWII, was the 2011 bombing & shootings, but I was 18 by then, so it was quite another thing..

9/11 was just another thing happening far, far away.

 

[Mace Dolex]

When Gary Coleman died I heard it at work, we have CNN on all day, and the day started with him being hospitalized and later during lunch breaks I heard he died.

I heard about Christopher Reeve dying through my brother.

 

[danoyse]

I was watching the regular children's show when some fools had to crash into the twin towers and replace my cartoons with extra news. Dang terrorists.

You know, I feel like a lot of younger people probably felt like this but won't own up to it.

I felt the same way when I was 8 during the original Gulf War in '91. I was pissed when Quantum Leap (my fave show in those days. Had good taste for an 8 year old) was interrupted to bring breaking news about the SCUD attack on Israel. It seems petty and selfish now, but that's how kids are.

I was 7 when Ronald Reagan was shot. I was watching cartoons, and my mom was on the phone when she heard the news. She told my dad "Reagan was shot!" and he quickly switched the channel to one of the networks where we saw the news. I remember it being scary at first...but after about an hour I wanted to watch my cartoons again and my dad wouldn't change the channel back. Kids.

 

[DDS]

I was not quite 14 when Michael Jackson died. I was at a pre-season football practice that day, and somebody saw it on their phone during a waterbreak.

As for 9/11, I really don't have any distinct memories of the exact day, I was very young. I just have memories of our country going into war and trying to get Saddam and Bin Laden, when I was in elementary school.

The more recent Aurora and Newtown shootings definitely hit hard for me, because I was watching TDKR and going to school when both of those happen, just like those poor people. It's hard to think that, especially here on SHH!, something tragic like that really could've happened to any of us. You just never know for certain when a random day might be your last, but that's why you should just enjoy what you have.

 

[Lily Adler]

I remember I slept in and then my mom was calling my phone and told me Michael Jackson had died. 9/11 I was in class when the Principal came in and told us what happened.