[Cory]

I was in my sophomore year of high school.

I go to sleep every night with music on, so I awoke at about 6:00 or so, and instead of hearing music like normal it's some talk show. I'm pretty out of it because I just woke up but I heard something about a plane hitting a building.

The rest of my family was just waking up, so I ran downstairs and turned the news on just in time to see the first collapse and couldn't believe what I was seeing. When I yelled upstairs for my family to turn the TV on because the WTC just collapsed, nobody even believed me for a good 15 seconds.

I went to school, and we pretty much didn't do anything the entire day. We just watched the news the whole time, and discussed what was happening.

I'll never forget the images of those planes crashing into the towers, people jumping from the tower, and then their subsequent collapse. Probably the most horrifying moments of my entire life.

Along with the horror came selfless acts to help others. The passengers of Flight 93 made the ultimate sacrifice to stop the terrorists from striking their final target. The 343 firefighters, 23 police officers, and 37 Port Authority officers who perished in the collapses, ran into the burning buildings to save people when everyone else was running out. These people are all my heroes.