At the community college taking a class. That was an odd day indeed.

In a cave making videos

I remember waking up that Tuesday morning to my radio alarm. I remember in a semi-dream state asking myself, "why is Peter Jennings on Mark and Brian?" I was then awakened by a telephone call. It was my mother telling me "Don't go to work!" I asked her why and she said, "turn on the television." I did and saw the images of the towers burning. I later learned that two of my work colleagues were on the plane that hit the Pentagon.

I tried to call into work but when I picked up the phone I could not get a dial tone. I drove into work, which was right next to the Los Angeles airport. The facility had been closed for security reasons. The world was never the same after that.

I was a 19 year old sophomore in college. I had to give a speech in my public speaking class at 9:30 CST that morning. I was practicing and didn't have on the news. As I walked to class, I noticed there was no one out, and then my roommate walked by me. She told me that the Pentagon had been attacked, but didn't mention the WTC. I didn't hear about NY until I got to class. The person behind me said something, and I turned around like "what?!?" I didn't give my speech that day.

It wasn't until the tenth anniversary that I started to heal. I always felt weird about it, somehow incomplete. I watched every special, saw every documentary, but something felt off. I was reading an article about the anniversary, and it included tons of pictures from around the country on the day. There was a photograph of a group of college kids in Utah standing together and looking up at a TV in their student center. Something released in my chest when I saw it. I finally saw something that reflected my memories of the day. I was able to process that I wasn't alone that day. Many of us had that same experience at campuses all across the country.

It changed the course of our lives. It was the end of our childhoods, the end of our innocence. Our experience was unique and overlooked, but we had it together.

First part of the day I was at work. Two hours later I was renting a seventeen passenger van and driving up to New York City. Went to work at ground Zero at 7 the next morning. Left New york on June 27th of 2002. I was working for FEMA as a Mass Fatality Specialist.

At work Bluewater nursery we had radio on in our rm children were asleep so we could follow the dreadful advents

I was working in my father's pharmacy. Couldn't believe my eyes. It still saddens me whenever I come across a footage of that incident. And some people here have the nerve to say "only two buildings were knocked down, and a tiny fraction of a percent of our population were killed". Un-fucking-believable!

I was teaching on 9/11. When I heard that a plane had hit one of the towers at first I didn't think that much of it. I had heard of small planes hitting buildings before. Then I saw the videos and realized the scale of the thing. That ended the lesson. We started over the next day.

In kilby state penitentiary waiting to go to my assigned camp. I was on my way out the door and saw it on the tv.

I was at my then girlfriends house listening to the Mayor of New York claiming that God had a purpose for sick carnage.