The Little Things About 9/11 I Still Remember 25 Years Later

There are some days from childhood that have almost completely disappeared from my memory. I couldn't tell you what I wore, what I ate for breakfast or what happened at school on some random Tuesday.

But September 11, 2001 wasn't a random Tuesday.

Twenty-five years later, I can still remember the little details from that morning. I remember where I was standing. I remember what was on the television. I remember the drive to school and the feeling of sitting in a classroom trying to understand something that none of us were prepared to understand.

And I remember how quickly an ordinary school morning in El Paso became a day none of us would ever forget.

What I Remember About the Morning of September 11, 2001

I was getting ready for school that Tuesday morning and, at that point, my biggest concerns were probably homework, friends and an upcoming fall dance.

Then I walked into the kitchen.

We had a small television in there, and the news was on. One of the World Trade Center towers was on fire after a plane had crashed into it.

At first, I didn't understand what I was watching. I don't think any of us did.

Then the second plane hit.

That's one of those moments that has never left my memory. Suddenly, whatever explanation you could come up with for the first plane didn't make sense anymore. Something terrible was happening.

But I still had to go to school.

On the drive there, the radio was filled with coverage of what was unfolding. I can even remember listening to Buzz Adams talking about it on KLAQ as my mom drove me to school- frantically changing from station to station trying to get the latest info.

It's a strange memory to think about now; twenty-five years later, now I work alongside Buzz every morning. Back then, though, I was just a kid listening from the car and trying to understand what was happening.

How 9/11 Unfolded in an El Paso Classroom

When I got to school, everyone was talking about the attacks.

The problem was that we were kids. We knew something awful had happened, but words like "terrorism" didn't really mean much to us yet.

Our teachers seemed to understand that this wasn't going to be a normal school day either.

Lesson plans were pushed aside. Televisions were turned on. Instead of whatever we were supposed to be learning that Tuesday, we watched the news.

We saw the towers fall. We heard reports coming out of New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. We watched adults try to explain something that was difficult for adults themselves to comprehend.

And even though El Paso was thousands of miles away from the attacks, it didn't feel completely removed from what was happening.

Fort Bliss is part of this community, and military families are part of El Paso. My own family had loved ones serving in the military, so there was another question hanging over everything: What was going to happen next?

At that point, nobody knew.

The 9/11 Memories That Remain 25 Years Later

It's strange what your brain decides to hold onto.

Twenty-five years is a long time. There are countless days from that period of my life that I couldn't reconstruct if I tried.

But I can still picture that little television in the kitchen.

I remember the second plane hitting. I remember the radio on the way to school. I remember sitting in a classroom with other kids while we watched history unfold on television without realizing just how much that day would change the world we were growing up in.

And now an entire generation has grown up knowing September 11 only as something they learned about in school.

For those of us who remember it, though, September 11 isn't only a chapter in a history book.

It's also a collection of little memories: a television in the kitchen. A car ride to school. A classroom full of kids staring at a screen.

Twenty-five years later, those are the things I still remember most.