story922.xml
Title
story922.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Date Entered
2002-07-20
911DA Story: Story
I left Norway only three weeks before the September 11th attack. Im was a foreign exchange student in Oklahoma City, and i didnt really know much about US's relations to terror and their relations to the rest of the world.
well..it was 1st hour in biology. As we were working, our teacher said that a plain had crashed into the World Trade Center, and that we had to come and see it on tv. I didnt understand much of what was going on. I just saw a tower with smoke coming out of it. Then another plane crashed in the other tower, and even another plane had crashed into the Pentagon. During the day, when we were watching tv in all the other hours, i realized that what happened today was terrible. What affected me most of all, were all the people i saw jumping out of the windows in the tower, and the collapsings. I got frightened because OKC was mentioned on tv, and i thought something might could happen here too, reagarding to the bombing six years ago.
I wrote notes from tv down in my book to try to understand why this was happening. My question was: why would somebody do this to America, what have they done to deserve this. (I write "they", because im not a American citizen).
As a matter of fact, this day was the day that decided the rest of my year in OKC. My IECs (contactpersons) was going to keep me in their family after my first host family went wrong. So it was a happy day for me, but was sorry for all the American people that the attack affected.
Now I've been beck in Norway for Two months. Ive read Norwegian articles about the terror attack and for me, its special to think that i really was in the US when the attack happened. I was there and i participated in your pledges. I went through the days after September 11th, just as you. It made me to a new person somehow, and im happy that i got to be there during that time.
well..it was 1st hour in biology. As we were working, our teacher said that a plain had crashed into the World Trade Center, and that we had to come and see it on tv. I didnt understand much of what was going on. I just saw a tower with smoke coming out of it. Then another plane crashed in the other tower, and even another plane had crashed into the Pentagon. During the day, when we were watching tv in all the other hours, i realized that what happened today was terrible. What affected me most of all, were all the people i saw jumping out of the windows in the tower, and the collapsings. I got frightened because OKC was mentioned on tv, and i thought something might could happen here too, reagarding to the bombing six years ago.
I wrote notes from tv down in my book to try to understand why this was happening. My question was: why would somebody do this to America, what have they done to deserve this. (I write "they", because im not a American citizen).
As a matter of fact, this day was the day that decided the rest of my year in OKC. My IECs (contactpersons) was going to keep me in their family after my first host family went wrong. So it was a happy day for me, but was sorry for all the American people that the attack affected.
Now I've been beck in Norway for Two months. Ive read Norwegian articles about the terror attack and for me, its special to think that i really was in the US when the attack happened. I was there and i participated in your pledges. I went through the days after September 11th, just as you. It made me to a new person somehow, and im happy that i got to be there during that time.
Collection
Citation
“story922.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed December 23, 2025, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/18462.