September 11

I was a sales rep at the time. I was at a customer's house in Arcadia, Florida and it was on the news when I got to their house.

I stayed there for hours.

Don't really know that I did other than just consume all the news I could after it happened.

Learning more about it through the day, or more accurately, what the media told me to think about it that day, I took it as Muslims hating on the biggest champion of individual liberty in the world and wanting vengeance for "us" trying to spread "freedom".

Holy shite was I wrong about our government.

But, at the time, I was never more "patriotic".

At the office. Was told a plane flew into the building, wasn't thinking jetliner much less two. Was surreal.

On the way home that evening some young kids were playing football in the street and thought, 'your lives have been forever altered'. As was ours, son did 2 tours - safely, thank goodness

Was on the bus coming back from Statistics exam headed to the dining hall. 2nd plane hit as I was in the lobby of my dorm. Went upstairs and woke up everyone on my hall. We all watched in the lobby of the dorm in disbelief. UGA cancelled all classes that day at around 10am. We still had football practice, but Richt let us out early. We were suppose to play Houston that weekend (it got cancelled like every other sports game) so he wasn’t concerned. Watched in the locker room for a bit, then went back to the dorm and everyone was still there in the lobby. I don’t think at 18 we all knew exactly what it meant, but we did all feel a sense of pride in our country.

I’ll never forget. I watch all the shows every year. The 4 part, Inside 9/11 is my favorite with all the details and narrator’s voice. Voices from the Tower is my 2nd choice.

God Bless America.

I was a sophomore in high school in Long Beach and my brother was driving me to school for some reason that morning. Got about 100 yards from the school and some guy called into the radio station we were listening to and said "Did yall hear about the plane that flew into the World Trade Center in New York? Not sure what happened but there was definitely a crash." Me and my brother looked at each other like "Damn! Thats weird." Went into school and as more details came in everything just shut down and we watched it on TV all day. I dont think we even changed classes that day.

I remember watching WTC 7 (or was it 5?) fall once I got home.

Unreal.

9th grade keyboarding class. A fire alarm went off right as the day began which felt weird because we’d just had a fire drill the week prior. This one was different though, I always assumed they pulled the fire alarm so they could gather all the teachers and let them know, we were outside much longer than normal and I remember some of them visibly upset as we went back to class. As soon as we got back in they turned all the TVs on and a short while later then entire school watched the second plane hit live.

Middle school science class.

I had no idea that this day would come to define so much of my life. From the 20 year war to the FBI agent reading this post, most everything started from that day. I don't think this country will ever be united again like it was on 12 Sept 2001.

Home, got a call in the morning from my brother who had just swore in to the US Army on Sept 10, 2011; literally the day before

He called me and said "Wake up, we're being bombed"

My wife and I were in a motel in Texarkana, Tx., on our way to Dallas. I woke up early, lit a cigarette, and turned on the TV. The second plane hadn't hit yet and the newspeople were talking about an accident. Woke up my wife just in time for us to see the second plane hit the building. I remember the lack of traffic on the interstate and not seeing any airplanes in the sky. We were in the Book Depository in Dallas later that day and met some Germans who were wondering when they would be able to fly back home.

One month out of Bootcamp and had just checked into my first school

I living in Australia at the time, so when things started happening it was around 10:30 at night. I had just gone to bed, and the wife (no pics) had Fox News on low for background noise. It was the only American news we got down there. When the first plane hit, the news broke in and the wife woke me up and said a plane crashed into the World Trade Center. I was half asleep when I looked at the tv. I could see that the skies were clear, thought it was a Cessna or something that hit, and said 'That must have been one shithouse pilot." I laid back down. Meanwhile, my brother-in-law turns on the news in the living room. Still half asleep, I hear him yell "frick!" That is when the second plane had hit. I got my arse out of bed then and called my folks in Baton Rouge. I stayed on the phone with them, and they were watching Fox as well so we were seeing the same news as they were. Things started to unravel at that point with the Pentagon, the crash in Pennsylvania, and rumors such as a bomb at the Capitol Building and Treasury Department. Evacuations of large buildings and landmarks in all of the big cities. It was all so hard to believe. I stayed up and watched television until 3:30 that morning. The last thing I saw before going to sleep was Bush making his remarks at Barskdale AFB.

I only slept for two hours and woke up to go to work. Taking the train into Sydney, everyone was quiet and had their nose in the newspapers. For the first couple of days at work, people kind of acted weird around me since I was the only American there. It was like they wanted to talk to me about it, but wasn't sure if they should. We had a tv on in the office all day for the next few days.

There was a condolence book that you could sign at the U.S. Consulate in Sydney that I went and signed. My brother-in-law worked for the New South Wales Fire Brigade at the time. A couple of months after the attack, they donated a new fire truck to the FDNY and shipped it over. Everyone was unsure how big the conflict would be; in those first few months I wondered if I would be drafted and have to return to the U.S. I was 22 at the time.