On the morning of September 11, 2001, North Carolinians began their day much like everyone else in America. People headed to work, children arrived at school, military personnel reported for duty, and televisions carried the usual morning news. Within hours, everything changed. Although the terrorist attacks took place hundreds of miles away in New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, North Carolina quickly became connected to the tragedy in ways that would shape the state for decades.

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One of the earliest direct connections unfolded while the attacks were still happening. American Airlines flight attendant Betty Ong, aboard hijacked Flight 11, placed an airphone call to the airline’s Southeastern Reservations Office in Cary, North Carolina. Calmly and professionally, Ong reported that something was terribly wrong aboard the aircraft. She described injuries, difficulty reaching the cockpit, and what she believed was a hijacking. Employees in Cary listened as one of the first critical reports from aboard any of the hijacked planes came through their office. Only minutes later, Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. When a second plane struck the South Tower, Americans everywhere understood that the country was under attack.

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Across North Carolina, people gathered around televisions in homes, schools, offices, restaurants, and businesses. But in a state with one of the largest military populations in the nation, the attacks carried an additional realization. America was almost certainly going to war. At Fort Bragg near Fayetteville, home to the 82nd Airborne Division and some of the nation’s most important special operations forces, September 11 would soon become the beginning of a new era. Soldiers who had been training for rapid deployment suddenly faced the possibility of real combat. In the years that followed, thousands of troops based in North Carolina would deploy to Afghanistan, Iraq, and other locations connected to the War on Terror.

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Eastern North Carolina felt that change especially deeply. Camp Lejeune and the Jacksonville community became closely connected to the wars that followed 9/11. Marines and sailors repeatedly left their families for overseas deployments, while similar scenes unfolded around Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, Marine Corps Air Station New River, Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro, and other military installations across the region. For people living in these communities, the wars were never distant events seen only on television. They were part of everyday life. They meant spouses leaving home for months at a time, children growing up while parents served overseas, and families anxiously waiting for phone calls and homecomings.

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There were also painful losses. Military funerals, memorial services, wounded veterans, and Gold Star families became reminders that the consequences of September 11 continued long after the smoke disappeared from lower Manhattan. Communities such as Fayetteville, Jacksonville, Goldsboro, and Havelock carried the emotional weight of repeated deployments for years. Some service members deployed multiple times, while many returned home physically or emotionally changed by what they had experienced. Today, one of the strongest physical reminders of North Carolina’s connection to September 11 stands at Lejeune Memorial Gardens in Jacksonville. There, visitors can see an actual steel beam recovered from the World Trade Center. The piece of twisted steel creates an almost immediate connection between eastern North Carolina and Ground Zero. It also serves as a reminder of the Marines, sailors, soldiers, airmen, first responders, and families whose lives were forever changed by what happened that morning.

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The effects of September 11 extended far beyond military communities. Airports such as Raleigh-Durham International and Charlotte Douglas were affected when commercial aircraft across the nation were grounded. When air travel resumed, passengers encountered a completely different security environment. Increased screening, tighter restrictions, longer lines, and eventually the creation of the Transportation Security Administration became part of normal travel. Security also increased around government buildings and military installations. Procedures that once might have seemed excessive gradually became part of everyday American life. 

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A generation of North Carolina children also grew up in the shadow of September 11. Some were too young to remember the attacks themselves, yet they spent their childhoods in a country transformed by them. Many would later join the military and serve in conflicts that began as a direct response to an event they remembered only through television footage, classroom lessons, and stories from their parents. Twenty-five years later, perhaps that is what makes North Carolina’s September 11 story so important. The attacks did not happen within the state’s borders, but their consequences certainly did. They were felt in an American Airlines office in Cary while Flight 11 was still in the air. They were felt at Fort Bragg as soldiers prepared for missions overseas. They were felt in Jacksonville, Goldsboro, Havelock, Fayetteville, and military communities throughout eastern North Carolina as families watched loved ones leave for war.

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The effects can still be seen today in memorials, military cemeteries, veterans, and families who remember the sacrifices made during the two decades that followed. In Jacksonville, a piece of steel from the World Trade Center now stands beneath the Carolina sky, hundreds of miles from where it once formed part of one of America’s most recognizable buildings. Its presence is fitting. September 11 happened in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania, but North Carolina lived with its consequences for an entire generation.