My sister was an intel officer at AMC headquarters at Scott AFB. She called about half an hour after the planes hit, around 6:40ish that morning. My Dad came down, opened my door and said "Jena, a plane hit the World Trade Center." I was awake instantly from a dead sleep. I went upstairs and watched it all unfold with my mom, sitting on the end of her bed.

The only thing we could think or say about when the first one went down was "All those people.... all those people." And we just kept crying well after the second one went down. There just wasn't much else to do.