Memories from 9/11

When terrorists attacked the United States ten years ago, watching from a distance, it seemed both hard to believe and sickeningly real. As part of our coverage on the anniversary of the September 11th attacks, WPLN has been collecting memories around Middle Tennessee.

Teresa Jenkins:
“The first memory I have of 9/11 I had just had my son a couple of hours before. He was born on September the 10th. I was in the hospital, and I woke up and I was watching the television while I was holding him, and I remember they were talking about a plane had went through a building. My first thought was ‘Okay, maybe the pilot was sick or maybe the pilot was under the influence.’”

Stephen Talley:
“I had been in the Navy probably about nine months, and I was stationed in Earl, New Jersey. And I was cleaning brass on the ship; I was a deckhand. People were running past me telling me the World Trade Center had been bombed. And I didn’t believe it; I kept shining brass. And I looked up on the deck and noticed there was nobody topside on the deck but me still shining brass.”

Samir Almoteie:
“I was working in Manhattan for a long time before I moved to Nashville. So it’s not only imagination: It’s like I was living there. I put myself, I put my family in the place of any family. It was so bad, hard feeling, really hard feeling.”

David Scarborough

David Scarborough:
“I was working out in the yard and my girlfriend come over and said an airplane had hit a building. I didn’t really do nothing then. She come back out a few minutes later and she told me that New York was being attacked and they flew another plane into a building. I went in and seen it on TV and that just shut me down. I was stunned, I couldn’t believe it.”

Ed King

Ed King:
“Well, we were here in this building, in the L&C Tower. One of the things I remember that day, is coming outside I was met by a Metro cop that told us that the building also had a bomb threat. He pointed a shotgun at me as I started to go back in and said, “get away from that building.” And we were pretty scared because the thought was that several buildings all through the United States was probably under attack, so we were really scared about that.”

Leslie Barrett:
“I remember thinking on the way to work, it was a beautiful day out, the sky was totally blue, and I remember thinking it’s a gorgeous day and thinking about something that I had to do for work and worried about that. And after the planes had hit the World Trade Center, it’s like, my problems are nothing compared to what’s going on here.”

Alexandra

Alexandra:
“I was in high school, McGavock High. It was crazy. Everyone had a lot of questions, myself included.”