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

I was in 1st Tank Battalion, 29 Palms California. I worked in the company office when the news came on. We all got quiet as can be, then we went home and prepared our gear for the possibility of deployment. I didn't deploy until September, 2002 and was stationed at 9th Comm Battalion, Camp Pendleton Ca. <br>

I was stationed at Fort Campbell, Ky and was in Air Assault School when the planes hit. They released early&nbsp;and I went back to the company just in time to watch the 2nd plane hit.

Home, watching the end of Good Morning America,  When it ended , GMA, NEWS BROKE, live and watched everything go down shocked but I new right away our nation was under  attack  and the world just changed for the worst forever!

I was a SGT on recruiting duty at the Beaumont North Station in Beaumont, TX. I was pursuing my bachelors degree at the time and was sitting in a classroom at Lamar University when it happened.

Hohenfels,Germany. 38th Eng. Didn't really know what to think. I felt sorry for the families.

I was preparing for Drill Sergeant school trying to get my paperwork in order. I was Driving from where I worked at Malone 1 on Fort Benning to an M16 range to get my qualification taken care of. I turned on the radio and heard them talking about the WTC being bombed. I asked myself why are they talking about stuff that happened in 1993? Then they broke in with the second tower getting hit. On the way back to Malone 1 I heard about the Pentagon. I thought to myself this is a coordinated attack.

I was in my 6th grade math class. My teacher put it on the TV. The entire classroom sat in silence and watched as the second tower was hit. I looked over and saw Mr. Wilson with tears falling down his face. At that moment I had the biggest since of fear come over me. I was scared but even as a child I was also angry.

Heck, I was sitting in 11th grade Marine Biology with no TV.   I remember leaving class and hearing people talking about the two towers begin hit.  In my next class, a current events class where only two weeks before we were talking about the lack of domestic terrorism, we were glued to to the TV and all the events unfolding.  The teacher effectively threw out the syllabus and we started following current events.  It definitely shaped my decision to enter the military. 

I was a part of MDW EN who when in to the Pentagon on 9/11

I was stationed in Cypress, CA as a detailed recruiter at the end of my three year tour. I had just been selected for Sergeant First Class and was looking forward to my impending PCS to Italy. On my way into work that morning (The East Coast was three hours behind the East Coast) I was listening to the local radio station when they interrupted the morning show to announce that a second airplane had hit the world trade center. I thought it was a joke and turned off the radio. When I got into the station our station commander (SFC) asked if we had all heard the news and then he turned on the TV and we tuned into CNN. To our amazement the reports were true. Needless to say we did very little work that morning and our company commander and 1SG came around to brief us on how this was going to change recruiting. We all speculated if the draft was going to return, if people were going to be afraid to join now, if they were going to replace us with civilian recruiters so we could support the coming war effort. It was emotional and almost unbelievable. I would compare it to when Pearl Harbor was attacked during WWII.