One week before 9/11 I was standing outside of the WTC with my family. We were planning to head up to Windows of the World for lunch at the top of the towers. My oldest son was 7 at the time. When we arrived inside the lobby (deciding not to go up to eat because the line was too long) my son asked "What would happen if bad guys attacked us?" I asked him to explain what he meant. He told me that he was refering to an external attack by air.

From my background, I was able to explain to him (in words that he could understand) that a surprise attack would be impossible because we have constant, redundant AND overlapping monitoring of 100% of our airspace by both military and civilian air controllers, and we have interceptor aircraft stationed throughout the country on stand-by so that any potential crisis would place our national defense system on full alert within minutes. I had direct connections to implementation of the newest and most advanced military crisis management center so I could speak to this with confidence.

On the morning of 9/11 I was tuned into a local NYC radio station, listening to a traffic reporter who was monitoring the towers after the first impact. When the 2nd impact occured, like everyone else, I knew that it was an attack. I was horrified. There were reports of hijackings but I couldn't figure out how it could possibly have happened. Interceptors act immediately, yet the 2nd hijacked plane didn't strike until at least 20 minutes after the first impact. I reacted similarly to everyone else and I wanted a defensive US response, but I couldn't shake the issue regarding the air defense failure, especially after the Pentagon was struck more than an hour after the WTC attacks. The shoot-down of a plane over Pennsylvania certainly disturbed me, but it made sense under the circumstances, except for the fact that the media and government turned around and later claimed that the 6 mile debris trail and break-up was the result of passengers overpowering the hijackers and crashing the plane.

Ultimately, my concerns led to my digging deeply into NORAD (North American Air Defense) and FAA procedure. I learned that in the 12 months prior to 9/11, every errant and non-communicative aircraft in CONUS (Continental US) airspace had been successfully intercepted by NORAD. There only failures all occured on 9/11.

I also learned that in the spring of 2001 the White House had officially announced that air intercepts must be approved by the office of the Vice-President, where in the past they had all remained within the military chain of command. I also learned that the Northeast Sector for NORAD (NEADS) had begun a long-planned virtual wargame on the morning of 9/11 that placed false contacts on radar screens, which operators had to decipher and track. As part of the exercise, the false blips were hijacked airliners with their identification transponders turned off. At the same time, NSA (National Security Agency) was running an exercise that simulated an aircraft or missile attacking the Pentagon.

A third exercise was not simulated. It involved the relocation of interceptor aircraft from the Northeast Sector to the Northwesat for a real-time training effort.

I also learned that another White House announcement placed the office of the Vice-President in charge of all anti-terror training.

In terms of military command, it was also reported that prior to the attacks, the General in charge of the NMCC (National Military Command Center) at the Pentagon, and the general in charge at NORAD, had both been replaced by junior officers at the last minute. The junior officers were unfamiliar with correct procedure and were unable to execute the standard response drills and approvals without proper chain of command authority. Throughout the attacks, the head of the military - Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Richard Myers (Genral Myers) was unreachable. His unchallenged claim is that he was busy at a meeting on Capitol Hill with Senators and was unaware of the attacks until it was all over.

Although these items were readily identifiable in the public domain after a few weeks of dedicated searching, none of them were addressed by the 9/11 Commission and nobody has been held accountable for their failures on that terrible morning.

There is much more damning information than this regarding the events of the morning, but these items highlight my concerns and they frame how 9/11 has changed me. It's been a huge eye-opener, enabling me to fully understand that as citizens, our safety is not assured by our security systems as much as it is by the integrity and motivations of those whom we choose to serve us. When we allow our media to frame our elections, and we choose the candidates who are portrayed most favorably by the camera lens and reporters, we risk choosing a leadership who has an agenda that pays lip service to security, but in reality, will use security to create fear in order to propel an unAmerican agenda.

9/11 has made me realize with certainty that our highest levels of federal government have been usurped by private and foreign interests. When the need arises, they will attack us again. Using their media (FOX/CNN/PBS/ABC/NBC/CBS/MSNBC etc) they will use the attacks to motivate more of our children into combat for an unAmerican agenda.

@ pogden297: We weren't justified, we had a greater international sympathy, but we weren't justified by going in and killing innocent people in the process.

And you know that the attacks on 9/11 had a direct impact on the fear Bush & Co. propagated to get support to go to Iraq, without it, many more people would have taken a closer look at the bogus claims of weapons of mass destruction.

Maybe if they would have said, "Look, Sadam's a tool and real bastard. Let's kick that sonnabitch out, establish a pro-Western democracy, and then we will have a much easier time being able to get the energy we need to continue to support our way of life and security," I would have still been against it, but appreciated the honesty.

I thought we invaded Iraq for control over the fourth largest oil reserve in the world?

Aaron, I'm with you on Iraq, but the fact is the people who perpetrated 9/11 were trained by Osama Bin Laden out of Afghanistan. The Taliban there suported Bin Laden's efforts. Going into Afghanistan was completely justified.

Iraq though had nothing to do with 9/11 but our government didn't sell the invastion of Iraq because of 9/11. People are getting confused. We invaded Iraq because Saddam Hussein supposedly had weapons of mass destruction.

When the first tower was hit, I wasn't even aware. I was a junior in high school and was in the gym with several other juniors/seniors and a good portion of the freshman class as part of an orientation program our school had just started. All I really remembred was a voice coming over the PA simply stating "Attention, we are under a code Red. Repeat, we are under a code Red." Makes our school sound like a boot camp...it wasn't. Teachers ran to the gym doors and locked them quickly. A short while later someone came in and was speaking to the teachers. The only thing I heard out of the conversation was something about a 'helicoptor' (? apparently mistaken). A parent came walking into the gym as well (thought those doors were locked...). I quickly recognized him as my friend's dad (she was a freshman at the time) and found her for him. He then rushed out of the building with her.
By this point my heart was speeding up a bit. This obviously wasn't a drill (we had a couple 'code red' drills since the McVey execution near our school).
I don't know how long it was, but we were finally released from the gym and allowed to go to our second period classes, which for me was geometry. Of course, there was no lesson taught. We were lucky enough to have a TV in every classroom. I wasn't in my seat but barely a minute when the second plane hit (or the replay was played.)
The only other class I really remember being in that day was Spectra (American Gov't/Econ class). As each student walked in, they went straight to their seats and remained comepletely silent the entire period. Even Mr. Mann. I believe it was then I knew this one day was going to alter all our lives permanently. Mr.Mann was a serious guy. Sure he could joke, but when it came to such an event in history no one should ever laugh about, you yourself didn't even want to take a chance of laughing about it outside of class. You learned to respect the events that happened. So just his behavior when entering class that day was enough for me.
At one point in the day we were all evacuated out to the football field due to a bomb threat on the school (such a loving town isn't it?). A friend of mine I could tell was near tears and trying to hold them back. I asked if she needed a hug...turned out she had family up around NYC somewhere and was worried about them.
After school, I went to work. Believe it was only my second night working at DQ. We didn't do much. Just watched the massive line build at the gas station on the corner. My mom had stopped buy to see if the store had closed early and I needed a ride home. We stayed open our normal hours. My mom came to pick me up that evening after work and drove over to the theater so that I could see if I was still scheduled. It was in that short drive...not but a 2-3 minute drive...that I found out my dad had moved out and my parents were getting a divorce.
At that point, I had no words....nothing to say.
After everything that had happened in that one day, I felt numb all over.
I felt numb for a week or two. Eventually I told myself I'd had enough. I was going to live my life and enjoy my life. That was when I finally started to come out of my shy shell and started having a lot more fun.
So, I guess 9/11 altered my personality in a way, I became much more outgoing.
It still floors me to this day how far hatred from just one party...even one half a world away...can alter an entire country. But it altered it for the better...in most cases. There are still some points I disagree with, but then there's always my motto in life...."Everything happens for a reason..."
What is that reason? Eh. You'll find out eventually.

9/11 had the opposite effect for me. It showed how ugly this country can be in times of fear.

I too was in high school with Chris. Calculus class. I was terribly afraid, but not for war or another attack. You see, father had left that morning on a plane to NYC. Could it be his?

Thankfully, he wasn't on that flight and had gotten into the city earlier.

As Chris said, students chanted "WAR!" down the halls, and I was ashamed. Ashamed that young men were so hungry for blood, not even knowing the enemy.

Plainfield is the proud home of the Islamic Society of North America. A beautiful building filled with people who were never anything but open, accepting, tolerant and kind. I had even attended a fasting and prayer session with them during Ramadan, and never once felt that I was unwelcome in their place of worship.

Two students in our class, twins, Musa and Esa were with me in the hall later that afternoon, after reports that "muslim extremists" were responsible. Their father was the director of the religious group.

A student came up, pointed at them and said, "You're fucked now!"

Musa and Esa were the best students at that school. High grades, kind, lots of extracurricular activities, including film club. (Musa is now a powerful documentary filmmaker, and I would encourage everyone to purchase his movies.)

But it didn't matter, that day they were outsiders, brown kids, killers.

How horrible. As a nation we were so ready to round up anyone with the last name of Syeed and put them in camps as we did to Asian Americans during WWII.

Soon, police were sent to the temple to stop people from destroying the building and harming those inside. Then, the FBI instigated the members of the church and the family who were always pillars of a "Community of Values" as so many signs like to boast.

We went to war on a lie. The people who orchestrated those awful attacks were from Saudi Arabia, not Iraq, not even Afghanistan. But we couldn't bomb Saudi Arabia, not with all their oil and deep-seeded ties to the Bush family.

9/11 was an inside job, not in the sense that it was done by our government, but in the sense that it was carried out by people inside our country, working and planning in plain sight, a failure of our security, not of our armies.

Today, we've gone to war with two countries, for no good reason, with no connection to the attacks, wounding or killing nearly 1 million people, displacing untolds more.

We didn't only loose 3,000 innocent people eight years ago, we lost our dignity as a peaceful, rational nation.

I moved to Indy for the first time Aug 20th. On Sept 9th at 9am I was getting ready to go to the airport, as I was going back to Brazil for a very important business meeting. The cab driver called me and said that all fligths were cancelled, and told me to turn on the TV so I'd better understand why. I feared that my year in US would be a nightmare for my family. It ended up not being so, and 3 years later we came back, and still are here. On that sad morning, 8 years ago, I completely fell in love with America and its very brave people.

I was in the same halls as Chris, actually stopping by the band room, and I remember thinking that this must be a movie. I have been serving in the Navy since 2004. If you knew me in high school then I have said enough, and you already know how this changed me. NEVER FORGET!