Even after 20 long years, the United States still grapples with the horror of the September 11, 2001 attacks, where Al Qaeda terrorists claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 Americans and altered modern political dynamics forever.

On the 20th anniversary of the greatest calamity in America since Pearl Harbor, survivors and witnesses of the attacks across the globe took to social media platforms to narrate where they were when the country was under siege. 

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Jerry Dunleavy, a journalist with Washington Examiner, on Twitter, started a thread where people confided their individual recollections of the day.

Dunleavy wrote:  “I’d just begun freshman year of high school. Saw a crowd around a TV in the Vice Principal’s office— one of the World Trade Center buildings on fire. Skipped my 1st class ever & watched 2nd plane hit on live TV.”

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Many like Dunleavy couldn’t initially understand or evaluate the long-lasting impacts of the attacks or hadn’t reached the age to do so.

Hence, Tyler Olson of Fox News wrote: “I have no memory myself, bc I was 3. More adults each year have no memory of 9/11. That’s why I try to watch full, uncensored video every year.”

However, some, rather many, felt the pangs of these attacks up close. Kelsey Bolar, now Senior Analyst at Independent Women’s Forum, was “terrified” as the events unfolded on the black-letter day. “On 9/11 I was 12 years old. Because so many of my classmates’ parents worked in NYC, including my dad, my school didn’t even tell us what happened. They just ordered buses to send us home. Rumors of bombs quickly circulated and I was confused and terrified,” Bolar narrated.

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She returned home to her mother and sister and was glued to the TV, as the events unfolded. “My mom assured me she’d heard from my dad and while he was stuck in NYC he was safe,” Bolar said, “but I later discovered that two of my classmates’ dads who worked in the WTC were not.”

“I will #NeverForget the trauma, fear and innocence I lost that day. It changed me for life. I will also Never Forget the heroes who stepped up and sacrificed so much. As a young girl, I was only beginning to understand.”

While the live footage played out on the television, many muddled up in their drawing rooms hoped and prayed their family members, friends or loved ones weren’t among the many lives lost on the day. The Citizen reporter Robert Harding recalls, “It… reminds me that my sister was in NYC on 9/11. On that day, I got out of school and my dad mentioned that he was having trouble reaching my sister. It was only because I had just visited her that I felt she was safe.” 

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He adds, ” I knew she was OK. (And she was.)”

Furthermore, Harding writes, “Every 9/11, I think about what it was like that day for so many who got off at that subway station to go to work. They did not get back on that train. They did not go home to their families.”

Even after two decades, what is understood is that the wounds and the horrific memories are still very fresh. Even as America paces towards an everchanging future, many are yet to heal and no one is ready to forget.