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

I was assigned to A co 8/101st Discom. I was attached to B co 7/101Avn Regt deployed to Kosovo getting a coin from the infantry Colonel. I walked into the chow hall and watched the replays on the TV. Still to this day I can't believe it happened. I was able to perform the fly over at this year's super bowl and got to go on a tour of the memorial where the two towers once stood. It is truly amazing.

I was in Williamsburg, VA, just starting a rating (MOS/AFSC) review to determine where my career field was going to be going in the next four years. As we started a break, my phone rang and my wife told me what was going on as I looked down off of a balcony at the different versions of every flag the Continental Army and the US has ever used.

Needless to say, my career field focus REALLY changed that day.

I was sitting in my college dorm room. I was a  National Guard SMP Cadet trying to decide between a career as a MEDEVAC Pilot or an Infantry Officer. As soon as I watched the event unfolding on my television I knew that my military carerr had changed inexplicably. To this day I am resolute in my opinion that I am a better Officer, Soldier and Person due to the experience I have gained in three overseas combat deployments and months of training and preparation resulting from that sad and terrifying day in September.

I worked at NORAD/USNORTHCOM...

I was already out of the Army by then, but still married to a Soldier.  He was at Camp Casey, Korea.  I was on vacation with our son, my mom and sister, and some family friends at the Outer Banks.  We only turned on the tv because one of the kids wanted to watch a videotape.  When her mom turned on the tv, it was just after the first tower had been hit.  Needless to say, the tone of the vacation changed and we did nothing for the rest of the week other than watch tv.

I was doing telephone triage at the Primay Care Clinic at Scott AFB.  One of the patients calling in told me "a plane just hit the twin towers"....I was thinking a single engine Cessna or something.....went to the TV and saw the mayham....called the wife and told her to stay home (she was getting ready to leave base with our infant daughter).  Good think I caught her.... in 15 minutes we went from FP Normal to FP Delta.....and didn't come out of that for 3-4 days. Was a MESS getting on/off base for a few weeks!

I was the Wing Intelligence NOCIC for a AMC wing at Scott AFB,  10 minutes after the first impact I was in the Crisis Action Team meeting working out what we needed to do,  I was there for the rest of the day and late into the night.  I remember it like it was yesterday. 

I was the 25th ID(L) G3 Air Drop Zone Safety Officer at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. My faher who lives outside of Tucson woke me up with a phone call.

I had been out for almost 9 years at the time.  I was working for a company doing sales service.  I was in the at a strip mall in Green Bay Wisconsin.  I can remember only a few other events as to where I was at that exact moment, and that was in a hospital corridor where I worked while still in High School, and that was when Reagan was shot. And at my kitchen table when the 111's took off from RAF Lakenheath England to bomb Tripoli in response to Flight 103 over Lockerbie.

I was a PFC stationed at Schofield Barracks that day. My sister called me up and woke me up in the middle of the night telling me to turn the news on and asking if I had spoken to some friends and family that lived/worked near there. I saw the second building hit live just a few minutes after turning the tv on. One friend was at his girlfriends uptown and not around the corner from it where he lived. My father had a meeting that was canceled in building 2 at 9:30. And another friend of mine was going to tower 7 for his first day and was running late, luckily. I was able to also get hold of my mother who was preparing for a huge influx of survivors that never showed at NYU Med Center.