I remember very clearly where I was on 9/11. I was in my freshman English class at the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Shortly after my 9 am class began, someone came and notified us that there had been a terrible aviation accident and a plane had crashed into the WTC. Our class dismissed early and I went to the computer lab to read about the crash online. CNN, Fox News, and all other news sites were down due to too much traffic and I became suspicious.

I arrived at my apartment 20 minutes later and tuned to CNN just after the 2nd plane hit. There was no doubt that it was an act of terrorism. Friends and family started calling and I spent the day glued to CNN in disbelief. I spent the day calling and recalling friends in New York and family that might be heading there to make sure they were ok. All my classes were cancelled on 9/12 and I awoke in disbelief, wondering if what I had experience the previous day had really occurred or was just a terrible dream.

Later on 9/12, I found out that a childhood friend of my mom’s, a person I had grown up with, worked in the South Tower and was killed on 9/11. Weeks later, after Bush gave his speech and aircraft carriers and fighter planes left for Afghanistan, it was hard to believe that terrorist, living in caves had come half-way around the world and killed so many innocent Americans.