Palmetto Proving Grounds

I was still asleep, taking the 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. shift where I worked. My wife woke me up & said a plane had hit the WTC. I thought it was a Cessna like the one a couple of weeks earlier had done in Florida. But when I turned on the TV, I was glued until I had to get ready for work. Needless to say, there wasn't much work going on that day. In fact, my company had just contracted with a phone-pay service that was destroyed that day. So we couldn't even take payments over the phone for the few people who were calling in to do so. It was more than surreal.

Was in my bed, freshman year at Carolina. Mom called and said u need to get your ass to class, because we're going to war. Cut it on CNN right after the 2nd plane.

Freshman in high school. When the first plane hit I was in math class and our teacher refused to let us turn on the TV. Went to English class and watched the rest of it live. I will never forget how I felt; i had never been shaken to the core like that and hopefully never will again. Really hard to describe those feelings, and I didn't even know anyone who had been immediately affected by the attack.

God Bless America

On the tarmac at LaGuardia on a Delta direct to Charleston. Had been at Standard & Poors and Moodys in meetings the day before. We took off between the 1st and 2nd strikes. Passed the towers approximately 45 seconds before the 2nd strike, watching from the window when it happened and not knowing what we were seeing at the time. Made it as far as Norfolk before we had to set down. When we landed, the pilot advised that we had been right in the area of the second jet and they had been looking for and trying to identify the jet in an effort to assist the air traffic controllers. When I got inside and talked to my wife on cell, she advised that the towers had collapsed. I could not even believe it at first.

In my 6th grade math class, Mrs. Powers. Always thought she was a legit teacher. I remember her turning the TV on and watching the news during class time. Couldn't believe what had happened.

Same here. They ended up letting us go home early. Our complex was viewed as a potential target.

It took me all day to get through to my family in NY. My cousin worked in one of the buildings in the WTC complex. Once I finally got ahold of him, he told me he had walked through one of the towers (can't remember which) about 45 minutes before the first plane hit.

Also talked with my ex-fiance (we were trying to work it out at the time) in Greensboro, NC. There were concerns in her area about the airport possibly being a target because the airport was a fuel depot or something like that. Went up to see her that weekend and saw firemen on one of the overpasses with an American flag. Everyone had their lights on, and blew their horns when they saw the flag.

I also remember the day we started bombing Afghanistan. I was at the NASCAR race in Charlotte (maybe a week later?). Everyone had the mini American flags on a stick. Just before the race started, the announcer came on and said: "Your attention please. Our troops have just started bombing Afghanistan." Loudest eruption I've ever heard.