Being that Hawaii is 6 hours behind the East Coast, many of us were asleep. Brady [my BF at that time] and I were sleeping when we received a phone call from his best friend in California. It was hard to determine what the hell she was saying because I could hear her crying. She told us to turn on the TV and sure enough, it was happening before our eyes.

I was nervous because Brady lived in Coast Guard housing. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to leave housing and go home.

I called my mom to let her know what was happening and she told us to come home right away. We packed up our stuff and went to my house. What normally takes 5 minutes took us about 45 minutes because they were doing a thorough check of everyone's cars.

I immediately thought of my sorority sister and her husband. They had left Hawaii on September 10th and they were on their way to their new home in Washington, but their flight took them to LAX first. It was a while before I found out they were okay.

What scared me the most was when Brady gathered his uniform and his weapons. At that point we weren't sure if they were off to go somewhere. He got the call to go in as soon as the sun came up.

I didn't bother going to class that day. I knew there was no way in hell my professors were gonna force us to go in on a day like that. My boss called me to tell me that I should stay home considering I didn't know what the hell was going on with Brady.

It's a day I hope I never have to re-live again.