Saturday, September 10th, 2011
Where were you?
REMEMBERING 9/11
By Daily Standard Staff
"On the morning of the 11th, I was at my desk when I heard an office mate hang up from a phone call and yell 'My God, we've got to get out of here. They've hit the Pentagon and the Washington Monument." - Tom Montgomery, a Celina banker who was in Washington, D.C., on 9/11
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"I heard the news standing near the school office while the students were at recess. I stopped in the office to listen to the radio broadcast and just felt complete shock. I remember making a great effort to be cheerful and 'normal' with my little students." - Angie Woods of St. Henry, a St. Marys City School teacher
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"I first thought something went terribly wrong with the plane, like a malfunction. One (plane) could have been an accident, but a second plane ... you knew it was something planned." - Cindy Jollif, Celina
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"We were just standing there (watching the TV) when the second one, aired live, hit the other tower. It was so unreal ... We kept thinking about the people in the planes and the buildings ... We stayed glued to the news the rest of the day." - Al and Maxine Shafer, retired Celina couple
"The (school) announcements came on and said something about Washington, D.C., and being in second grade, I didn't understand it. We were told that some people stole a plane and flew it into buildings to hurt us." - Cathy Delzeith, a senior at St. Henry High School
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"Disbelief is what I felt, and after the second building was struck, anger as I realized something was definitely wrong." - Al Solomon, Auglaize County sheriff
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"It was early in the morning and I was driving back to Columbus on U.S. 33 with (my children). I heard about it on the radio. We pulled over at the rest stop, and I cried for a while ... Then I called my husband to make sure he was OK. He was working in downtown Columbus ... there was the fear that other cities could be targets as well." - Karissa Rutkowski of Van Wert, a former Celina-area worker
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"It really hit hard on the older population. Some asked me to turn (the TV) off; it reminded them of wars." - Nurse Patrice Grieshop, Joint Township District Memorial Hospital, St. Marys
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"I remember spending the rest of the day with my middle school students watching the broadcast in stunned silence and talking about what was happening and how they were witnessing the world changing before their eyes." - Jud Lehman, Coldwater teacher
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"At 8:45 on Sept. 11, 2001, I was traveling from Alexandria, Va., to Washington, D.C., via the subway system. Someone got on and said a plane had hit one of the skyscrapers in New York. When we arrived at Pentagon station, we were told to stay put due to a 'security issue' above ground ... People were screaming and crying as I emerged from underground. I could see the awful sight of black smoke billowing up from the Pentagon a mile away. The sight of a fighter jet screaming low overhead produced one thought, 'What is happening to our country?' " - Mary Rampe, Celina
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"I was teaching government class and two attendance girls came in from the office. They told me that The World Trade Center Towers had been struck by a plane. I thought, as did the rest of the class, that it was just an accident and was wondering why they seemed so concerned. ... I turned on the television in my classroom just in time to see the second aircraft strike. We all sat in stunned silence ... " - Bill Sell, Celina
- Shelley Grieshop, The Daily Standard
