At 9:00 am that morning, I was awakened by my floormate in my dorm at The College of New Jersey who screamed, "A plane crashed into the World Trade Center!"  I immediately pulled the covers off my body and rushed across the hallway. As both of my other floormates gathered in her room, we all witnessed the second plane crash on television. Wondering how a pilot could be so careless as to crash into a large glass skyscraper on such a clear day, the three of them left for class while I stayed behind.

At 9:28 am that President George W. Bush, in his statement to the nation, revealed that the destruction caused to these 110-story landmarks in the heart of New York’s financial district was in fact an act of terrorism. In his address, President Bush said, "The resolve of our great nation is being tested. But make no mistake, we will show the world that we will pass this test."

Thinking that the worst was over, I hopped into the shower to get ready for the day. As I brushed my hair after showering at 9:45 am, with the news on in the background of course, I learned that the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. had just been attacked as well. Standing in my bedroom with my wet hair dripping on the ground, I was in shock. I felt as though I were watching a movie clip and not the news. How could this be happening? I thought to myself, these are images that only Hollywood creates; this doesn’t happen in real life. But it was happening. And it would not be the last of the disastrous events to take place that day.

Just minutes later, the United States Federal Aviation Administration announced that all flights departing from US airports were to be grounded. This was the first ever-national grounding of aircraft. But at 10:00 am, there was nothing to stop one of the towers from collapsing in NYC. I watched as the dust and smoke filled the streets and the debris fell down to the ground. The dust began to clear enough for me to see the south tower in its own fragile state standing alone. A landmark I had passed often when visiting New York City was gone. Half an hour later, all that was left of the World Trade Center collapsed, leaving terror in the streets and a thick cloud of dust in the air.

Again, I thought to myself that it couldn’t get any worse. But once more, I was wrong. Dead wrong. At 11:29 am, United Airlines reported that one of their planes crashed near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Officials were almost certain that all passengers would be dead.

My eyes were glued to the television from that moment on as reporters learned of speculations that Saudi-exile Osama bin Laden was to blame after having said three weeks ago that he would engage in an "unprecedented attack" on the U.S. Officials also speculated that a Middle Eastern organization called the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine was taking credit. The whole truth was still yet to be found.

I was just one of the thousands of students here at The College of New Jersey (TCNJ) in our small corner of central New Jersey who watched history in the making on television. Students in the Brower Student Center gathered around a small television to watch every moment of the news. A usually noisy environment was instead a room of complete silence. It was the first time that I had witnessed such fear and concern on the faces of the students at this college. Not even in our own time of strife within our community when race divided the campus did I see everyone come together as they did on this day.

At 3:30 pm, the Student Government Association initiated a gathering on campus on the steps of Loser Hall in response to the events of the tragic day. It was at this gathering that my peers and I realized that we would remember this day forever. Never would we forget where we were when we heard about the terrorist crashes that brought down the mighty WTC, just as our parents never forgot where they were or what they were doing at 12:31 pm on November 22, 1963 when John F. Kennedy was assassinated or just as our grandparents distinctly remembered the attack on Pearl Harbor at 8:00 am on December 7, 1941.

But on this day, the students of The College came together to help on another and to show our patriotism. In the words of our institution’s President R. Barbara Gitenstein, "Let us support one another. And love one another. And love our country." It couldn’t be said any better.

Later that evening, explosions in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, were reported. Americans assumed that these were US strikes of retaliation. But they in fact weren’t. However, it was speculated that bin Laden, who lives in Afghanistan, may be linked to these explosions as well.

At 8:30 pm, President Bush gave his first ever Oval Office address. As Americans nationwide watched with attentive eyes and ears, his words rang victoriously throughout the nation. "These acts shattered steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve," President Bush said. It is this statement and this address that will remain an important piece of history.

Once the address came to an end, reporters returned to coverage of the search for survivors in the NYC rubble and the hunt for the attackers. It was revealed that cell phone calls from passengers on the hijacked planes had that terrorists, in groups of three to five, were armed with box cutters and knives.

Lights continued to illuminate the New York City skyline when I finally went to sleep at 1:00 am on Wednesday morning, 14 hours after the day of terror began. Neither reporters nor Mayor Rudy Giuliani of NYC himself were certain of how many deaths to expect. One was thing was certain, however. The city would not sleep tonight.

©2001 by Melissa Steiger

Melissa Steiger is a junior journalism major at The College of New Jersey.

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