Osama bin Laden Killed: Tinley Park Reacts

Julie Shaunnessey was in a car.

I remember I had just taken the kids to school and had stopped at the Clark gas station on Oak Park. Sat and listened to the radio as they announced what was happening. I will never forget that day.

Michelle Esposito-Koler was teaching a class.

I did not even know until one of my students walked into my classroom and told me an airplane flew into the twin towers in New York. I turned on my Internet and the devastation was everywhere. My students - all 25 of them - crowded behind my desk and we watched the horror that was happening.

And I was in a basement apartment in Missouri, watching one of the darkest days of America's history on a static-filled television, hoping I hadn't just seen what I knew I had.

In the wake of the death of Osama bin Laden, we reached out to our Facebook fans for their memories of Sept. 11, 2001. It was that day that the World Trade Center was destroyed, taking with it 3,000 American lives.

Kathy Smith shared this tragic moment with her young daughter.

My daughter was almost 2 and we would wake up every morning and snuggle and watch Dora and Disney cartoons. I must have fallen asleep watching Leno or Letterman because when I woke up I turned on the TV and through eyes still half-asleep saw the towers, still up but in flames. Needless to say, Dora never made an appearance that day. But I did hold my baby girl a little closer and called everyone I loved. Glued myself to any TV with coverage and could barely function through shock and tears. God bless America!

Read more stories on our Facebook page and share your own. Where were you? What were you doing when you heard? And how has that terrible day affected your life since?

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Throughout the day we'll be collecting reactions to bin Laden's death, through video, through interviews, through talking to local veterans. If you have a story you want to tell, comment below or e-mail pauld@patch.com.