I was working grounds for Santa Clara. I left early in the morning and was oblivious to the whole tragedy until my boss showed up on my job site to give instruction, there he informed us of what had happened. He said that someone named "bin Laden" was responsible. I lived in Thailand as a missionary from 1998 till 2000, I missed the USS Cole attack, the African Embassy bombings, and knew almost nothing of "Al Qaeda". That changed, quickly.

The next day working in the park was so eerily quiet. The lack of any aircraft in the sky made the silence rather painful.

I was in Cabramatta a western suburb of Sydney, Australia on September 12th -- it was still the 11th in the US -- in my flat when I first heard about the attacks.

It was my morning study time during my first full p-day of my mission in the field, and my zone leader called to tell us to stay indoors. My two companions and I thought that it was a joke since it was my first week in the mission field. Anh Bao (we were Vietnamese speakers with names in the language) who was going home back to Arlington, Texas jokingly replied to Anh Cuong over the phone, “Strike that from my list of places to see.” I asked him what he was referring to. He said that he was not going to see the Empire State Building in New York because a plane flew into it. Anh Phuc joined us in conjecturing that it was some small private plane. “What damage could that do?” we smirked.

Later, Cuong called back telling us that we could go out after our study session but to stay away from American places like Maccas (Aussie for McDonald’s); we still thought it was hilarious that the joke was still going. Somehow I talked Bao and Phuc to go for a run before we did our grocery shopping. We went for a jog around part of Cabramatta, and then proceeded down John Street towards the pedestrian mall and the Woolworths grocery store.

As we passed the Bing Lee electronics store we could not help but notice the images on the numerous TV sets of all different sizes on display through the front window. We stopped; it was not a joke.

Airliners, large ones, were flying into the World Trade Center. Immediately I became concerned about my father who was a Continental Airlines pilot at the time and for my sister who works for Delta Airlines; it was a strange relief to see the four flights listed on the screen were two American and two United.

How sad. How scary.

I was shampooing my carpets when my neighbor called and said, "turn on your TV."

I watched the last 20 minutes of United 93 yesterday on A & E, boy what a movie. It was so painful to watch.

One thought I've had recently as I've reflected on the events of 9/11 is that Bill Maher was partially right. The men who flew those planes into the WTC were not cowards.

They surely were misled and their motives were evil, but it had to take some kind of crazy courage to do what they did.

On the other hand, I don't see the soldiers who shot the missiles into Afganistan were cowards, either. As I was watching the movie, I wished I were on that plane, that I could fight physically against what happened. I think everyone does.

They were shooting missiles from thousands of miles, but I bet they would have preferred to be there in person to punch someone out in defense of our country.

I remember stumbling toward my bathroom to shower and get ready for my college classes the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, when I noticed my roommate and a friend staring blankly at the TV. My roommate looked at me and said, "World War III just started."

That may have been a stretch, but what I saw on TV that morning was just as horrific.

It still does not seem real. It still breaks my heart. And I still mourn for those who had to choose between jumping to their deaths or burning alive.

Two months earlier I had stood at the top of one of the towers, taking photos of New York City below. I almost didn’t go to the World Trade Center that day but I’m now glad I did.

As I watched the buildings fall over and over again on TV, I wondered what would have gone through my mind if a plane slammed into that tower while I was standing at the top. If the attacks had happened just two months earlier I would have been one of the victims.

Unfortunately the man responsible for one of the most tragic events in U.S. history is still at large because we chose instead to go after those who had nothing to do with it. I wonder how the war in the Pacific during World War II would have turned out had we gone after another country instead of the one that attacked us at Pearl Harbor.

Sept. 11, 2001, was my generation’s Dec. 7, 1941. Maybe my roommate wasn’t so far off in his initial assessment.

Unfortunately the attacks of five years ago are now being used as an excuse to do away with those rights our soldiers fought for in WWII. The terrorists’ real victory was not when thousands died that day; it is continuing every day that we lose essential freedoms at the hands of our own governments because of those attacks.

That is no way to honor those who died that day.

God bless their families and the other survivors.

On Sept. 10, 2001, I lived in a country where I felt safe and was making my dreams come true finishing school at Utah State University in Logan.
On Sept. 11, 2001, everything changed.
I was walking to school that morning when I heard the news come over my headphones radio. I didn't understand exactly what happened until I arrived on campus on saw the horrific scenes on television. Trying to understand what had happened with the first plane crash-- I witnessed the second plane fly into the second tower.
I didn't know how to feel. I didn't know if I should cry, throw-up or run to the nearest phone and call my family back and tell them I love them. Was this the end of my country? Was this the farthest my life and dreams would be able to go?
The country was humbled that day. People were nicer, church attendance throughout the country grew and life seemed like it would be OK again--perhaps even better.
It's been 5 years since that dreadful day and we're the same prideful people that we were back then. There's a couple of tall buildings missing from the New York skyline, but what else has changed? It didn't take our country long to forget God and focus on buying the shinniest new car with fancy wheels, or making sure we had the latest fads to wear or the biggest house.
Not much has really changed since that day.

I was in bed after a long night with my 9-month-old daughter and my 3-year-old son when the worst scenes I've ever beheld in my life flashed across the television. I was instantly afraid, not for me, but for my children. What would this do to their future? It scares me still. The country I once knew is not the same, and my children will be growing up in a world that is more vulnerable than ever in history for world war that has the weaponry to wipe mankind of the face of the earth. I don't know that I will ever feel completely secure again.