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

On the rooftop of a 15 story building in Jersey City watching one building burn as another plane struck Tower 2. Life changing moment, military service came in short order. 

I had just came off a rotation at JRTC and recovered our vehicles from Ft. Drum on 10 Sep, on the way home one of the M988 blew a head gasket and I stayed back trying to recover it. It was a long way back to my Unit near West Point and having no doors on any vehicles recovered from the rail-head operations it was colder than the heater on that thing could keep up with even with the hose stuck into the uniform.

I got terrible sick and woke up the next morning to see tower one on fire, changed the channel because I didnt find it funny. When I realized all the channels were showing the same feed I called up my Unit and reported in. We took all high axels we had and picked up coordinated supplies to be dropped for future rescue operations that followed for a long time.

On our way down to NYC we could see and smell the smoke of the rubble from the Tappan zee  bridge and reality set in.

I was in the high school. 10th grade social studies I think. After the first tower hit, they turned on the tv in our classroom and we watched the news for the rest of class. I remember getting goosebumps over my whole body as I watched the second tower get hit. It was a weird feeling. A mixture of shock and anger like I had never felt before. While I didn't know at that moment decide that I was going to join the Army, I do think that that was the moment when I decided that I wanted bad things to happen to bad people.

3rd week of Basic Training

Had just completed morning PT while in the Marines.

621st AMOS, McGuire AFB, NJ.  We had just gotten to our building from morning PT and started our daily routine of checking, rechecking, rerechecking our equipment and testing new equipment.  Our commander came out to the warehouse wheeling a TV and called us all over to watch.  He had seen coverage of the first plane hitting and we all saw the second plane hit live.  At that moment he told us we had 48 hours to have all teams prepped and on planes headed for undisclosed locations.  Unfortunately for one of our teams they were on the tail end of an exercise in North Africa and got a call that their trip was being extended.  

I was sitting in the Falcon DFAC in Fort Bragg when I watched the second aircraft strike the twin towers. The day prior we had assumed DRB 1 so I knew for certain we were gonna get the call to deploy forward. We never got the call in the days and weeks that followed 9-11 but we were ready to respond had they call on us.

USS Carl Vinson, deployed

I was on patrol in Bosnia. The TOC came over the net saying to put on our body armor (which was only carried as a part of riot gear and stored in a tac box in the back of the HMMWV) and return to base immediately. We had no clue why. When we got to the barracks, a Soldier that stayed back was watching TV and we asked what the hell was going on to be told to put vests on. All he could do was point at the TV. Shortly after, we heard troops would go to Afghanistan. Although we were about a month from redeploying, we unanimously decided screw that, put us on a plane to Afghanistan. Of course that didn't happen, but we were all for it....

I was in middle school. An announcement came over the intercom that I was being picked up early. I was excited and thought I was getting picked up to go to the movies which my dad did sometimes. I got just outside of the school with my dad when the principal came over the loudspeaker that the school was on lockdown until parents arrived. He took us home and we sat and watched the news. From that day on, I knew I was going to join the military as soon as I was old enough. I turned 17 a few years later and shipped off to basic.