This study furthers the discussion of teachers as public servants who are essential to the maintenance of the democratic state. The study demonstrates how teachers' actions on September 11, 2001 in New York City show the essential qualities of public service, including selflessness and placing the needs of others above their own needs. By focusing on the personal, emotional and professional responses of teachers to the attacks as compared to the same responses of individuals in the private sector, the study shows a specific contrast, particularly in the professional responses between teachers and student teachers in public service and individuals in occupations in the private sector. The second objective is to include the voices of women, primarily elementary teachers, but also women in the private sector, in the historical narrative of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. Hopefully, this inclusion will encourage the use of personal accounts and narratives in the study of historical events (M. White,1965; H.White, 1980). [Abstract has been modified to meet ERIC abstracting guidelines.]