The date that split time

For everyone who lived through Sept. 11, 2001, the day separates relative peace from an era of fear. Some got a call to action. Others lost their innocence.

Maryland sat in the middle

The three crash sites, lower Manhattan, the Pentagon in Arlington, and a field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, ringed the state. Marylanders became heroes, victims, witnesses and survivors.

The chief said go

Stephen E. Allen Sr. watched the first tower fall on TV and knew his answer. He was BWI's safety chief, working part time for the federal Office of Emergency Preparedness.

At Stewart by nightfall

Allen drove from the airport to his home in Bowie, then to New York's Stewart Air National Guard Base, where first responders were gathering that same night.

Thirty-two days on the pile

The Prince George's County firefighter supervised more than 500 emergency workers and countless rescue dogs at the World Trade Center site. Walking the perimeter took 45 minutes.

“It was pretty tryin', of course. Because of being a firefighter, it hit home with me quite a bit.”

The kindness that faded

For weeks Allen could not enter a restaurant without a free beer or meal. In November he brought dozens of crab cakes and soup back to Ground Zero to return the favor.

“Just between you, me and the gatepost, it's a shame that attitude couldn't stay with us.”

Humvees down an empty I-295

Aarion Franklin got the call to muster 30 minutes after the North Tower was struck. His Maryland Army National Guard unit loaded weapons and gear and rolled toward the Pentagon.

The building was still burning

Franklin and his company stepped out to a V-shaped chasm pouring acrid smoke. They secured the perimeter and set up a command center in the middle of it.

A bell for every body

Rescuers rang a bell each time they pulled someone from the wreckage, and the crowd went quiet. Over time, the bell rang less often.

A general's missing office

One general looked at the torn-open wall and saw where his own office had been. He said through tears that his staff had been inside. Volunteers brought coffee. Outback delivered meals.

“I think about all the lives that were lost that day and just think about how uncertain life is.”

Out of the wrong subway stop

Lacy Pica Nugent, then 22, stepped out at the World Trade Center station into a swarm of running people. She ducked back onto the train and rode one stop further.

Her knees buckled

From her office on Broadway she watched the second plane hit and explode. She ran into the street, then into another building, seconds before debris turned the blue day black.

Strangers taking turns

Nugent huddled in a small Chase office with strangers passing a phone around. She called her parents in Baltimore and her sister in D.C., then waited hours for the evacuation order.

A six-pack in the West Village

Walking out along the East Side Highway, she met a woman her age who could not get home to Brooklyn and took her in. They split a Bud Light six-pack and cried for hours.

“Through bravery and kindness you can see your way on the other side.”

Lizz drove to the recital

Honor Elizabeth Wainio, 27, taught her kid sister Sarah about Blondie and ABBA. She drove from New Jersey to Towson to watch 13-year-old Sarah dance.

The vote on Flight 93

Wainio boarded at Newark for a San Francisco meeting. Passengers and crew voted to storm the cockpit rather than let the plane reach the U.S. Capitol.

“They're getting ready to break into the cockpit. I have to go. I love you. Goodbye.”

Pulled from gym class

Sarah saw her principal, her father and a police officer sobbing in the lobby and knew instantly. Now a filmmaker, she fears history will remember only New York.

Men for others

Daniel Walker McNeal, 29, of Towson worked on the 104th floor of the South Tower. He left his mother a voicemail promising to get the heck outta Dodge, then the second plane hit.

“Everything I could've dreamed I would have in a son was verified in Dan.”

The plane that disappeared

Robert Boehlert, a kindergartner in Syracuse, loved a red- and blue-striped toy plane. Back at school that week it was gone. His teacher said only, we had to take it away.

“In some limited way, I comprehended that it was a scary moment.”

Take off your hijab

Zainab Chaudry, 20 and a month into pharmacy school, got a call from her frightened father. Days later someone yanked her hijab in a crowd, and a rock cracked her car window at a traffic light.