Where were you during 9/11? What has changed in 20 years?

I was attending a Base In-Processing brief at Ramstein AB, held at the old E-Club, when I saw the news unfolded on one of the TVs. Shortly afterwards, I was re-assigned to base security forces as a Readiness Augmentee for the next few months. I was one of the few non-security NCOs assigned to Ramstein's busiest gates. It all felt surreal but participating in various training exercises in Korea months prior really paid off. It kept me sharp and vigilant on the job.

I was on my way to basic training

I was a SSG stationed in Hohenfels, Germany with the 1-4 Infantry (OPFOR).  We had just finished repairing the companies vehicles from their after ops PMCSs and were headed back to the office when the Team Chief met us about half way (which of course never happened unless something was up).  We got the news and were sent home. We spent most of the night watching the news and videos. Coming in the next morning the line was backed up for a couple of miles.  I was very surprised by all of the work that was done overnight to create vehicle inspection areas. The Army and the world have never been same. "Never Forget".

I was knee deep in C-130 propeller maintenance with the 314th MXS at Little Rock AFB when it happened. Shop all but shut down as we watched it unfold and waited for orders.

I was participating in a war fighting exercise that morning in Germany.  We had the TVs on like any other day and the rest is now history.  I worked in a Division ACE at the time.  Once we determined what happened we spent the next 72 hours working.

I was in my physics class for nuclear power school in South Carolina. I still had a few more months before being sent to prototype in New York.

i was on my third day of hometown recruiting-no one showed up and i spent 2 hours waiting for the recruiter to get there, finally i got fed up and went home to my wife, an hour later my buddy from ait called me and said to turn on the tv.thats how i found out. my recruiter called a while later and told me to stay home,don't wear anything military.

I was a PFC back then when the Company Commander called an immediate formation in the motorpool. He said there had been a plane crash into the World Trade Center and the first thing I thought was "What is the WTC and why is this important".  Most all of us thought it was just a prop plane or something.  He released us to go call family so we knew it was something outside the norm.  So we went into the chow hall on CFK in Darmstadt, Germany and the cooks had it on the TV. 

No one got food (I can't remember if it was lunch or after 1300 I believe it was after), no one was sitting down.  We watched the second plane hit and after a few minutes a MSG came in and said GTFO and report to your companies for ammo draw. 

If you were in Germany during this time you had to pull a lot of patrols and security because all family housing and facilities off posts (there were dozens in Darmstadt alone) had no fences, blockades, etc.  So the whole Battalion for awhile was pulling guard duty until we could secure those locations.  A company was called up to go to Afghanistan and later iirc we left 2 months prior to OIF kicking off.

Sitting at my duty station next to my Gunny who was a survivor of the Beirut bombing.

HHC 1-229th AVN REGT at FT Bragg had the morning off. We were coming in in the afternoon to do  a convoy live fire range. We had a formation in are motorpool at 11 am or so. During this formation are commander told us we had been attacked and by July we were in Afghanistan.