I was reading another thread and question came to mind-

Did the events of 9-11 effect you/your WS's actions?

Someone mentioned that it was a wake up call. I just wonder if that was a common response to that day.

I live in NYC so it was HUGE here in all kinds of ways (and espically for me personally). From what I read at the time, it just seemed to be a blip on the map of life for many here. Or maybe i'm wrong.

Just wondering.

<small>[ January 16, 2003, 11:22 AM: Message edited by: Katie Scarlett ]</small>

Katie, Would you mind sharing your personal experience? I, for one, am very interested. I live on the west coast .... and I cannot imagine what you went through. My baby brother (46 years old) was in Jersey on business. He saw the events from his hotel. Then he went to the local hospital to help triage. He is trained as a community disaster team member for his local community in Oregon. Once Bro was finished there (about 16 hours worth) ... he drove his rental car back to Oregon! He was lucky enough to have already rented a car before the disaster ... and I understand it was impossible to get a rental after.

Please share your story ... if you would.

Pepper

KS,

Since I'm the one that mentioned it, I'll bump this thread up <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" /> for more responses.

I'm interested in seeing answers to your question as well. 9-11 impacted many people in many ways, and I think it IS sad that a lot has been forgotten since then.... yep .... a "blip on the map of life".

For me, it certainly reminded me of our mortality... that we never know what can happen to us or our loved ones... AND to really appreciate the freedom and love we have in this country. I remember when it happened, how much I wanted to reach out to the one who meant the most to me.... and I couldn't. I called a friend, and we shared and cried together in shock and disbelief. But, oh, how I wanted to talk to my H... and couldn't. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="images/icons/frown.gif" />

I don't know for sure why or how 9-11 was a contribution to my WH's decisions. I just know I asked him one time WHY he decided to come home and work on the marriage (on 9/25). He mentioned, as one of the reasons, that 9-11 was a wake-up call. Either I don't remember what else he said, or he didn't expand. Basically, I think it sorta jolted him into reality long enough for him to look at what he was doing.

Good question and reminder KS. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" /> Thank you.

<small>[ January 16, 2003, 01:22 PM: Message edited by: Faith1 ]</small>

Oh geeze -

I'll post as much as I can without having some huge post traumatic stress reaction.

I work in midtown Manhattan, that's about 5-6 miles from what is now known as Ground Zero. Back then it was just plain old WTC. On that particular morning I had a 9am meeting at 150 Broadway - across the street from WTC.

I was in the subway when the first plane hit and I didn't know anything about it. THe woman that I was having the meeting with got a phone call from her mother. Her mom told her "a plane hit WTC." We, honestly, were like "oh, that's sad-anyway." We thought it was a small private plane.

We turned on the radio (there was no news-just music) and continued with our meeting. A few (i'm breathing deeply now-I need to take a minute)

I havent told this story in a long time-it's strange to me how it comes back with complete since memory. I can still feel everything from that day.

Ok-sorry

A few minutes later we felt the second plane hit. It felt like an earthquake and everybody just froze.

I turned to another man who was sitting there and I said "that was a terrorist act-Osama Bin Laden. One is an accident. Two is terrorism. I'll see you later." I picked up my briefcase, dropped my business card on the desk and headed for the door.

The woman conducting the meeting said "i'm sure everything is fine, i'll send my secretary to check and see what's going on."

I turned to leave and out the window we could see falling debris, mostly papers and stuff. IT just looked like confetti. NY is such a dirty city that I might not have noticed papers flying everywhere except we were 20 floors up.

As I turned to leave the receptionist came into the office. She had been on the street when the plane hit. She was white as a ghost and her face had a blueish cast to it. She was crying and in shock and she said "I was on the street when the blast hit (she didn't know yet that it was a plane). The force of the blast was so strong that it picked up everyone on the street and slammed them to the ground. Don't go outside," she warned, "it's like Beruit out there."

I honestly wasn't sure what to expect, but I knew that I was not staying there. We had NO IDEA what what would be blown up next. So I jumped into the elevator and ran into the streets. Everything was covered with a fine white powder and the only sounds were the sounds of sirens and the sound/smell of something burning.

The streets in lower Manhattan are really narrow and close together so if you look up you can only see other buildings.

I walked to the corner and I noticed groups of people gathered in the streets crying, looking, buying cameras and taking pictures. You'd hear a swell of scream and crying and then I heard someone say "there's another one-oh my god!"

I turned around to see people falling from the tower. Some still alive, some on fire, ties flapping up over men's heads. It was horrible.

I ran into the first subway I found that was heading away from the scene. It was the A train (I think) to Brooklyn.

People had heard, but many had not seen anything. So people who hadn't seem were saying things like "think of the beach, don't think about it." There were people crying, people in shock, a few who had watch the planes go into the buildings. Just sort of a mixed bag of shocked people.

I cris-crossed Brooklyn until I got back into Manhattan. I came topside (ground level) at Times Square to discover that one of the towers had fallen.

People were astonishingly calm as they walked through the city. EVERY company in midtown had let out so it was just a mob scene of people calmly walking home.

I reached my mom from on my cell phone at about 10 or 11. She asked "are you okay?" Now keep in mind that I am usually cool, calm and collected under ANY kind of circumstance. I stood there on the corner on 42nd and Broadway screaming and crying into the phone "They're dying mommy, people are dying downtown. I saw them mommy, they just kept falling from the building. They're dying!!"

I was HYSTERICAL!!!!

She calmed me down, told me about the pentagon and told me to go home.

I walked about 20 blocks and happen to find a yellow cab. So I rode the rest of the way home while listening to the details of the attacks on the radio.

I made it home about noon. (Gave my cabbie a big fat tip) and went to find my son (and my friends).

MY son was 3 at the time and just happy to see me home. So I turned off the tv/radio took him to the park and for 3 days pretended like it didn't happen.

Friends left homeless in the attack slept over for a few days. So we just made a big pajama party out of it. We made a deal that we'd only turn on the tv after the kids went to bed and only for 10-15 min a night. So that's what we did until regular programming returned.

My son had no idea about the event until I took him to Ground Zero on the one year anniversary.

A good friend of mine worked on the 103rd floor. She was late to work that day (thank God).

There is a guy from my church who died and other people that I know through friends of friends. A few business associates worked at Cantor Fitzgerald and Euro Money. But I don't know anybody personally who died that day.

About 6 weeks later, a family member died in DC of Anthrax poisioning.

I guess when it rains it pours.

As one who witnessed the second plane hitting and witnessing both towers collapsing from a safe distance (midtown area), it was more than humbling; it made me realize that me and my problems were relatively insignificant. I often thought that had it happened say a year earlier, that things may have turned out different for me.

It happened the very day after my divorce was final and made things seem very surreal. I named one tower after me and one after my XW.

Katie,
I live in the Midwest, my home town growing up was less than 800 people, and I really can't imagine the scope of the tragedy.

Personally, my H is military, so it has impacted us much more on that level. He was in Desert Storm, in the Saudi desert, gone from home for 7 months. As units from our state have mobilized in the past year, he has volunteered to go with them, with my full support, and that of our teenage daughters--even though I've been relieved that his supervisors haven't allowed him to do so. Our older daughter remembers that her dad was gone a long time. The younger one viewed him as a total stranger when he came home from Saudi.

My H & I reconciled in 5/00, but I've often thought that if we had not...after 9/11 I believe I would have wanted to be with my H. And, even in reconciliation/recovery, it made me sure we had done the right thing.

If the oncoming mobilization of troops were to bring us another separation, a war separation is much different than when my H left because of the OW.

I know that I have shared this before but that was a while ago so here goes again. My FWH is a NYC police officer. We live about sixty miles outside of the City. On 9/11 we were in an in-between state, by that I mean it had been a month since the last d-day but I knew in my heart that he was still seeing the ow. That morning he was home, he was going in to work for a late shift because he had to have his car worked on. When the first plane hit he told me he had to get to work right away so we went to pick up his car and he left. He tried the best he could during the day to let me know how he was doing. When he got down to the WTC both towers had collaped already. I remember him calling me an telling me how everything looked, he was crying on the phone, he was so upset by everything around him. As a family we would go down to the WTC every Thursday during the summer for free concerts and we had just been there the week before. The last time I spoke to him he told me that he was fine and that he and a few other officers had to make sure no one went into 7 WTC due to that fact that they felt it would fall soon. That was at around 5:45. At 5:58 while watching everything on tv my kids and I watched 7 WTC collapes. I spent the next few hours waiting to hear from my H, calling his command to see if anyone had heard from him. It was a little before midnight when a doctor called to tell me that he was in the hospital with a broken knee and broken hand and some minor cuts. It seems that when the building fell they were too close and had to run to get away. He told me that everything went dark because of all the dust and dirt and they could not see anything. He fell over something, he is still not sure what, that is how he broke his hand and knee. He said he spent the next few hours just walking around looking for some one from his unit. He was in shock and got lost and was not found until around 11:30. We found someone from his command to pick him up at the hospital and bring him home early the next morning. While he was home recovering I caught him a number of times calling the ow and twice going to her house. I finally told him that he had to make up his mind once and for all, he could stay and work on the marriage, that meant going to MC together and no contact with the ow, or he could get out of my life for good. I had been though enough, between his affair and then the hell of 9/11 and everything he was going though after. He told me he wanted to stay and he would go to MC and end all contact with the ow. His job sent him to see a C when he was ready to go back to work and they realized then that he was going though PTDS and needed help. He started seeing a IC and taking anti-d, along with us going to MC. I have to say that 15 months post 9/11 he is doing 100% better, he is sleeping better and we are closer then ever. We are waiting for the police department to put his papers though for his retirement because all his doctors have said he will never be able to work as a police officer again. We have both said that 9/11 helped to save our marriage. For me it helped me to realize that I was strong, that I could make it on my own if I had too. For him I think that he realized that he loved me and the kids and wanted to be here more then any place else.

Hi Katie and everybody,

I'm a long time (1999) lurker, and I feel like I know you guys....

How did 9-11-01 change me? Totally, is all. My wife had not been satisfied with my sexual performance or appearance (not fat, but somewhat ugly) and had found herself someone better...

At 9:35 am on 9-11-01, I was at work at the Pentagon (2nd floor, D-Ring, Corridor 4) and had the need to use the men's room, and on the way back I thought I'd duck out into Center Courtyard and smoke a cigarette. I may be one of the few whose life was SAVED by that filthy habit (I've since quit). When Flight 77 slammed into the building....I was standing outside and I just can't describe the thoughts that ran through my head....an INCREDIBLE explosion (a bomb...I thought at first.....then this fine mist of kerosene (jet fuel) descended over the roof and down into the courtyard....I smelled it and was totally dumbfounded....I had NO idea what had just happened. I could write 100 pages on what happened after that....but suffice to say....I was NOT a hero.....but I helped out as best I could. My co-workers not so lucky....we lost over half of our office....killed outright. Among them, some very good friends.

I'll never know why I was spared that awful day...
But I was changed forever....I went home the next day (spent the night in the hospital) and said goodbye to my wife and kids (hers, from a previous M) and have not seen them since...
I gave her the house and support...and I moved aboard our boat. I know this is a decidedly
UN-MB approach to things, but I want just wanted her to be happy....without any interference from me. I found out that day how fragile life can be...and people just shouldn't waste it on "lost causes". Not that I don't really respect all of you for trying. I'm pretty happy these days...spend my free time planning my impending retirement....I'm going to sail my boat around the world (first leg...Chesapeake Bay to Tahiti, via Panama Canal). Solo, of course....I've realized that I can never again look to another to make me happy. That's my job, and mine alone.
I still love her, miss her, and wish her well, but 9-11 changed me in ways I never could have imagined.

Good luck to all of you....I hope things turn out well for all of you.

Love,
Bud