My story isn't as moving as yours, Watcher, but it is a little spooky that some things are similar. 

I was also in the Navy...1997-2006.  On 9/11 itself, I was in...of all things...Safety Petty Officer school.  We just went to school that day, nothing out of the ordinary, and per the instructions given by our facilitator, we were studying quietly.  Someone came into the classroom and announced that the World Trade Center in New York had been hit by an airplane.  Subsequent interruptions created some confusion; one tower was hit, both towers were hit, something about the Pentagon and something about Pennsylvania.  Our facilitator knew that between the multiple interruptions and the obvious fact that something significant had happened, and told us to go to a room with a television in it.  We saw the video of the first tower burning and the second being hit over and over...until the towers came down.  *That,* we saw live.  Someone in the room remarked, "Welcome to World War III."  Myself, I would have told you at the time that I couldn't believe it was an attack.  Looking back, I know now that I just didn't *want* to believe it...and, well...who would?  I even asked out loud if it was some kind of horrible mistake.  I was assured that it was indeed an attack.  We were dismissed for the entire week soon thereafter.  My ship of the time was scheduled to leave on a deployment soon thereafter...so, after a couple of days patrolling around New York, a couple days in Norfolk to pick up any final supplies..we were off...on schedule...but without the originally-scheduled Med cruise.  Someone in my duty section during the two days before leaving remarked that they were looking forward to the ports we would be hitting.  I had to tell them that that entire schedule had been scuttled--which my Division Officer, who overheard these remarks quickly confirmed.

After leaving to cross the Atlantic, one of our chiefs pointed out during quarters that someone was missing.  9/11 had killed the grandfather of someone in my division.  So, as you can imagine, every FC onboard had a lock-and-load attitude on that cruise.

One thing that I always thought was really smart of...whoever decided to do it...was the fact that the closed-circuit TV system continually replayed footage of the towers being hit, and falling.  That kept everyone in the proper frame of mind, I think.  You must know as well as I do, Watcher, how monotonous the days aboard a ship at sea can be.  It's unspeakably easy to forget why you went there in the first place. 

Anyway...that's all I can think of, to tell.

Conor

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"Faith does not fear reason."--Pope Pius XII

"But it should!"--Me

I was awakened by a knock on my door.  It was a girl I'd been hanging out with, but we weren't dating yet.  She told me that the tower had been hit by a plane, but nobody knew for sure what was happening yet.  Basically, we sat in front of the tv for most of the day watching as the whole thing unfolded.

Somewhere around 4pm, I asked, "Have you noticed how the media has been changing their story all day?  At first, it was Osama Bin Laden, and now they're talking about Hussein.  Those two hate each other, don't they?  Hussein doesn't have any al-Qaeda ties... he couldn't, could he?  Aren't they enemies?"

That was my first suspicion that something was amiss.

As far as atheist influence, I can say it didn't have a whole lot of direct influence on my activism.  I've always been more concerned with the cultural and personal effects of theism than the political.  I'm pretty sure people will always find reasons to kill each other, even without religion, but I think it's possible that people might be nicer to each other at work, and at home, without theism.

The Q-21 display system?  Only one system?  I worked on the UYH-3, UYK-43, RD-345, etc., etc.  I might have some of those names messed up.  Been a few years.

So you were an Aegis Display Tech I think?  I was an Aegis Computer Tech.  We were combined with the display techs on my ship.

I had been off the night before and was watching Good Mornig America - they broke into something they were doing to say there was a fore in the WTC due to a plane crash. Later they were talking to someone who thought it was a missile. At the time, they were filming the 2 towers - one burning - then you saw the other plane hit. Then we all knew it was terrorism.

9-11 pushed me towards reading more about religions of the world. It was right around that time that I realized my 'non-belief' wasn't as strange as I had begun to think it was...the religions were strange.

As for my 9-11 moment, I was pulling into the parking lot at work, listening to Mancow (think howard stern for chicago*but not as funny) and they started talking about how a plane had crashed into the WTC in New York. I smiled, I thought it was some prank they were pulling. Well, I turned off my car and went inside and begun working. 10 minutes had passed as some frazzled women in the office started chattering about what they heard on the way to work, I listened as they described the events they heard on the local AM station ... which confirmed what I had written off as a joke! We basically sat around the TV all day watching as things happened.

Meh, Connnor and Watcher, I was a Boatswains Mate, '90-'94 on the wrong coast (West Coast).  I got to spend some time in Desert Storm though.  Yay for that.  Anyway, my 9/11 story isn't quite as interesting as yours, Watcher, since I wasn't even on inactive reserve at the time.  I was, however, on a flight from Minneapolis to Dallas, with a connection to El Paso that morning.  We got to Dallas ok, but the flight monitors said all flight were "Delayed".  It wasn't until I saw the F/A-18's (I think they were anyway, those suckers were moving!) patrolling the airspace around the airport that I thought maybe I should find out what was going on.  Got to a T.V. just in time to see the second tower fall.

As far as affecting my atheism, it really didn't.  But I did feel an overwhelming urge to re-enlist.  Yes, I'm an atheist and a patriot.  For all it's faults, religious crap, intolerance, and status as one of the most hated nations on earth, I do love my country.  My wife convinced me that fighting a war was a younger mans game, however, so I did not in fact re-enlist.  I admit I didn't really think all that much about the religious implications of the attack until a year or so later.  And that did affect my activism.  The fact that people are willing to kill innocent civilians over a perceived slight to their religion indicates a level of intolerance and bigotry that I had hoped the world had moved beyond.  I was wrong, and with the current push by the religious right with things like HR 888, apparently we're not that far off from the same mindset here.

Off-topic a bit, but that's the basic problem with religion.  It's divisive by it's very nature.  "My god is better than your god", "heathens burn in hell", "infidels should be beheaded", "no, I don't think atheists should be considered citizens".  At it's core, religion says "I'm better than you because I cling to my particular brand of unproveable beliefs" and rationalizes killing by presenting a mindset of "we're doing what god wants us to".  Anyway, don't let this ol' Boats ramble on too much.

~M

I was at work.  My mom had called me to tell me someone crashed a plane into the twin towers.  I thought to myself 'that's a major fuck up.  How the hell did that happen?'.  Then another secretary got a phone call from her daughter saying a second plane had hit.  I knew then that this was  no mistake.  We all had the internet up at our computers to watch what was going on.  My friend who lived in Portland OR called me - she couldn't get a hold of her family and she had some close family friends that worked in the towers.  There wasn't anything I could do to help her because after I hung up with her I couldn't make any more calls.  All the lines were busy for hours.  Our boss finally let us leave early and go home.  

As I was driving a bunch of police cars were speeding past me with their lights on - heading to the city, I guess - can't be sure.  There were also alot military planes flying from Fort Dix.  Later that night we drove up to High Point - you could see the smoke still billowing from 40 miles away. 

Afterward there was just so much confusion.  I had friends who couldn't get in touch with loved ones that lived in the city, I had friends who worked in the city and couldn't get out.  I know people who lost loved ones in the towers.

I sometimes feel very keenly... unsafe when I go to work.  There are always cops, National Guards and other military roaming around the train stations, the subways.  The random bag searches are a bit unnerving, as is the fact that they sometimes have very large guns on them (sorry, I know nothing about weapons, lol).  And sometimes when the skyline comes into view, I still look for the towers.  Habit, I guess.