To make the story seem more American, out the last date as 9/12/11.

Whoa. That's powerful. I was only three when this happened, but... Damn it, you've made me cry again.

You've got the emotional stuff down pat. Beautiful.

I usually steer clear of reading 9/11 fics. I lived it so there is no put myself through it again. However, I also liked how you handled One Minute For One Day so I decided to give it a shot. That being said I have mixed feelings about this piece. Here are my comments:

1. "I was just passing the window when I saw a dark blob flying over the city before taking the shape of a plane." People didn't realize it was a plane in the beginning. They didn't know what had happened. People couldn't believe what was happening.

2. "I ran down to the streets, where hundreds upon hundreds of people stood watching the towers burn, crying," - After the first tower was hit people stood like this for a moment before the towers threatened to fall. Once they did people started running to get away from the plume. People walked, they turned around and tried to get off the island in any way possible. I knew people who walked from the Business District back to Queens and Harlem. Queens is a solid 15 miles and Harlem is 10.

3. "It's not what was there that caused Alfred to drop his glass to the carpeted floor with a loud crash. It was what wasn't there. The Towers... they weren't there... of course, they had collapsed, he knew that... but seeing the skyline without them?" This is beautiful. It is the single most powerful paragraph in the entire piece. To this day I still look for the Twin Towers on the sky line. Nicely done... BUT the fires at Ground Zero burned for months. So when Alfred was looking at them, he'd see smoke in the the tower's place.

4. I love your recounting of the solidarity from nations around the world. That show of friendship was made me cry several times in the aftermath and brought tears to my eyes when I read it here in your piece.

5. And I wasn't sure to mention it or not... but if Arthur had seen the second attack on tv the phone lines would have already gone down. It's good that you mention not being able to get in touch with Mattie later, but you need to push your timeline up a little.

6. I love that Alfred is a writer.

All in all I think you have some real gems in here, but a lot of stuff that isn't accurate and if you're trying to give a recounting of that morning you might want to go through and make some edits.

- A New Yorker

I feel kind of strange reviewing this-I swore I wasn't going to read any 9/11 stories, but got a tip from KitakLaw and gave it a try.

I have to say, I cried.

This story was an excellent mix of the facts, emotions, and side stories of that day. I was afraid of the cliches that normally result from 9/11 (Alfred all the sudden collasping in a world meeting, etc.) but this was completely different and you saw the event not just through the nation's eyes, but any American's.

Thank you so much for this...

I just want to say that of all the 9/11 stories that went up recently, I deliberately chose to read yours. Why? Because after seeing how you'd handled writing the Battle of Vimy Ridge, I knew that I could trust you to take the history seriously and only make things as angsty as the actual events would warrant.

Given that, there are a few things I really like about this. First of all, you didn't just dwell on Alfred even if he was the narrator - I LOVE how, even in the midst of the attack, he was looking out for someone besides himself so that as the reader, I end up doing the same. I also think that you didn't overexaggerate the physical aspects of this - my experience reading Hetalia fics geared at tragedies like this is that the descriptions can get rather graphic at times, and I love how you only gave a brief nod to the blood involved but then moved on with the plot. The addition of a human character was neat, too - it shows the attachment that Alfred has with his citizens.

I think you really did do your best to be sensitive about the issues here (with the warnings and how you wrote things and all) and I just want to commend you for that :)