For so many, the emotions surrounding 9/11 are still strong -- even more than two decades later.
That also means many people who are adults today were not born yet when the attacks happened.
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“I wasn’t even alive to see it,” said 20-year-old N.C. State junior Olivia Holbrook.
That is the case for most students at our local colleges now.
Time created a measure of distance from the 9/11 attacks for people Holbrook's generation. It also makes it hard to appreciate how daily life changed after 9/11 – because that changed world is the only one they have known.
Still, Holbrook understands how it impacted others who lived through it.
“You feel for the people around you who are affected by it,” said Holbrook.
Leslie Walker is also 20. She remembers learning about the 9/11 attacks in school.
“In the mornings before class, we would have a silence,” said Walker. “It's really scary to think about [how] it was so sudden.”
Cierra Diaz is a student at N.C. Central. An older, non-traditional student, she was 4 years old when the terrorist attacks happened. She does remember it because she was there.
“It was scary, dark clouds,” said Diaz.
She was walking with family members in New York when the towers came down. They had to run to safety.
"The big cloud of dust came down to the street and covered everything and everybody – it was black," said Diaz. "All I remember is us being pushed into a corner store with my dad.”
That experience stayed with her as well as the lesson she took from it.
"Life is short and it can be gone in a minute, a second," said Diaz. "Tomorrow is not promised.”
Diaz is now a sergeant in the Army. She said she has a desire to make sure others are safe and to protect her country.