The country song asked, "Where were you when the world stopped turning?"

For many area residents, they remember where they were and what they were doing when they learned of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

On the fourth anniversary, many of them said their world has changed since then, and so has America's image of itself and its neighbors.

Where were you?

Becky Dillow, of Ironton, said her elderly mother was living with her on Sept. 11, 2001. It was she who alerted Dillow to follow the events unfolding in front on the television screen.

"She was sitting in her rocking chair and she said 'Becky, come in here, I think something bad has happened.' When I walked in the living room and saw the TV I knew right then 'something bad' really had happened."

That 'something bad' was the hijacking of four airplanes, two of which were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center.

A third airplane was flown into a wing of the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.; a fourth plane crashed in a field in rural Pennsylvania when passengers tried to overtake the terrorists who had commandeered their plane.

Like the death of President John F. Kennedy and the attack on Pearl Harbor, people old enough to remember those events can recall with great detail where they were and how they learned of the terrorist attacks. For many, what started out to be a very ordinary day ended up a national nightmare.

Jeri Holzhauser said she was at work in the Auditor's Office at the Lawrence County Courthouse when a caller informed her that an airplane had hit the first tower of the World Trade Center.

"My first reaction was that this was just an accident," she said. But when other planes were turned into killing devices, the gravity of what happened set in and the mood at the courthouse went from business-as-usual to utter silence.

Jamie Willis, of Deering, said she was ironing and her young children were watching cartoons when programming was interrupted. "When the first plane hit the first (World Trade Center) tower, it didn't seem real," she said. "But I kept watching."

As the planes then struck the second tower, then the Pentagon and a fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania, the unimaginable became reality.

Mike Wilson, of Ironton, said he was helping a friend cut tobacco at a farm in Wilgus when he heard the news.

"I guy I was working with heard it on the radio in his truck," Wilson said. "I didn't believe it, really, until I got home and watched the news."

Ann Fields was watching the morning news that day and the incident with the first plane escaped her notice until her daughter called and said that an airplane had hit a building in New York. How did she feel, watching those events unfold?

"Just despair," she said as she recalled 9-11. "I couldn't help but think, 'oh, those poor people.' It was so shocking. I was in disbelief."

Couldn't happen here?

Americans were accustomed to seeing the carnage of terrorists on television and in the newspapers: Pan Am Flight 103 was brought down by a bomb over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988. Terrorists bombed the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon in 1983. The list of terrorist attacks and victims is long. But what set the 9-11 attacks apart from other events was that it took place on American soil- a change of location for which most Americans were not prepared.

Willis said she had not thought much about terrorism until 9-11. "It was always 'over there'," she said. "But suddenly, it was 'over here'. That made it more real."

Holzhauser agreed, saying that prior to 9-11 "terrorism did not even enter my mind much at all."

Fields was more emphatic.

"I never thought something like this could happen here," she said. "I just thought it wasn't possible. I didn't think they could get to us to do something like that."

Change in perception

Most say 9-11 was a monumental event in U.S. History for many reasons: The war on terrorism began, in the aftermath The U.S was plunged into another war in the Middle East and terrorism became an issue people talked about more and thought about more.

"I think that before 9-11, America felt pretty invincible," Holzhauser said. "After 9-11, we realized we are more vulnerable."

Dillow said 9-11 made us aware that we could be touched here at home by the hand of a terrorist, that "our country can be unsafe, there are people in the world who don't care for us."

Willis, Holzhauser and Fields said they pay more attention to the news now, and what is going on at home and abroad.

"I look at what's going on these days," Fields said. "I'm more prepared to listen to what's going on."

Fields said she thought Americans have also changed in

positive ways since 9-11.

"I think we've become more compassionate and I think we keep our eyes and ears open more, now," she said. As for Fields herself, she said 9-11 made her more sympathetic to others who have faced terrorists attacks since then, such as the London, England and Madrid, Spain bombings.

"I can sympathize with what they're going through. Maniacs did to them what they did to us and they didn't deserve it, either."