story3243.xml
Title
story3243.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Date Entered
2002-09-11
911DA Story: Story
I was commuting to work in Washington and had just passed the Pentagon when I heard on the radio that the first tower had been hit, and then the second. I thought immediately of the Hindenberg disaster as the radio eyewitness kept saying "Oh my god, O,my gog."
I was at my desk, working on a daily news fax I produce when I heard that the Pentagon had been hit.
My office is two blocks from the White House, so every time we heard a loud noise, a helicopter or figher jet, we wondered if more planes were on the way. My co-workers and I heard that the Shanksville plane might be headed Washington's way and that fighters had been scrambled, so we greeted its crash with a mixture of emotions.
My brother had just moved into his new office in the Pentagon. He had been in the Gulf War and Bosnia, so we were pleased he was in a safe posting. In fact, his office was hit and many co-workers killed instantly.
Though thrown from his chair by the concussion, he was unhurt (saved by a reinforced cubicle wall) and managed to escape with several of his office mates.
I knew none of this as I worked to collect news for my fax newletter (all, it turns out, related to 9/11) and placed calls to my family for word of my brother.
I also talked with my boss, who had come down from New York that day for a conference. His brother, it turned out, worked on an upper floor of the World Trade Center,his foot in a cast from a previous injury and thus with limited mobility.
For hours we had no word from, or about, either, so we hoped for the best but feared the worst.
His brother, too, miraculously survived.
I was at my desk, working on a daily news fax I produce when I heard that the Pentagon had been hit.
My office is two blocks from the White House, so every time we heard a loud noise, a helicopter or figher jet, we wondered if more planes were on the way. My co-workers and I heard that the Shanksville plane might be headed Washington's way and that fighters had been scrambled, so we greeted its crash with a mixture of emotions.
My brother had just moved into his new office in the Pentagon. He had been in the Gulf War and Bosnia, so we were pleased he was in a safe posting. In fact, his office was hit and many co-workers killed instantly.
Though thrown from his chair by the concussion, he was unhurt (saved by a reinforced cubicle wall) and managed to escape with several of his office mates.
I knew none of this as I worked to collect news for my fax newletter (all, it turns out, related to 9/11) and placed calls to my family for word of my brother.
I also talked with my boss, who had come down from New York that day for a conference. His brother, it turned out, worked on an upper floor of the World Trade Center,his foot in a cast from a previous injury and thus with limited mobility.
For hours we had no word from, or about, either, so we hoped for the best but feared the worst.
His brother, too, miraculously survived.
Collection
Citation
“story3243.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed December 27, 2025, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/14250.