I was at my day job in a factory. My sister and I both worked there and she's the one that told me about it. She walked by real fast to tell me because she had left her position on the line to let me know. A few hours into the shift a lady that had a brother in Special Forces told us that he, along with the rest of his team, had left abruptly late the night before. I always thought the timing of that was odd. Either they knew something was about to go down or it was just coincidence.
My sister and I carpooled together everyday for that job and we normally just listened to music on the radio but that afternoon it was all news. We'd been stuck inside a factory all day and there was no tv in the break room. We only heard rumors that were spreading throughout the factory. Much of it was wrong. We got caught up on what had ACTUALLY happened on the ride home by listening to the reports on the news. I was still part-time at UPS so I only had a bout an hour and a half to sit down and watch the news at home before I had to be at the center to work on the local sort. It was business as usual only we didn't have to worry about most of the air for a few days because of the airspace being shut down. To this day it still blows my mind just how many people kept shipping NDAs knowing it wouldn't processed.
I live in Middle Tennessee and there is a strong military presence here because of the various Army/Air Guard bases, Army Reserve units, and Fort Campbell. That only added to the flood of info coming in. Once it was well known who we'd be targeting for revenge (I still think we'd gotten that ball rolling before the attacks actually happened) most everyone, especially the military, seemed to be itching for a fight.