Carlos Perez had no idea why his 8:30 a.m. Public Speaking class was cancelled, but Florida's sophomore wideout shrugged and took the bus back to his Gainesville apartment. He turned on the television. That's when he saw the World Trade Center towers on fire.

"The twins!" he thought in a panic. "The mellisos!" That's what he and his two brothers called them growing up across the river in Hoboken. Then it hit him: My brother works there.

At 8:30 every morning, Danny Perez, 28, walked through the mellisos to get to his IT job in the World Financial Center. News reports said the planes crashed into the Towers at 8:45 and 9:02. Carlos told himself Danny was all right.

The phone rang. Danny. He had the day off. He was calling from his front yard, where he watched the twins collapse. The connection broke. Carlos returned to the television.

Four planes were missing. One had just hit the Pentagon. Carlos shivered again. My brother works there.

Euris Perez, 24, is a Marine stationed at Henderson AFB. On occasion, he went to the Pentagon for meetings. This time, the phone did not ring. Carlos waited for four painful hours until his parents called. Euris was OK. He'd been released just before 10. On his way home, he watched American Airlines Flight 77 plummet into the Pentagon.

The next day, Carlos practiced with the Gators. But while teammates' thoughts gradually turned back to football, Carlos couldn't get his mind off the mellisos. "We would go out to a park near them every Fourth of July," he says. "They were there. They were always there."