story9479.xml
Title
story9479.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Date Entered
2003-09-06
911DA Story: Story
I used to work for the Defense Department. On 9/11/01, I was in the Pentagon cafeteria getting coffee when I heard people talking about a plane crash in New York City, and it sounded like a terrible accident. I left the cafeteria and ran into an Army sargeant that I knew well and he told me "World Trade Center... both towers... one plane each." I ran up to my boss' office in the "E-ring" and walked in to find two of my colleagues watching the breaking news on TV, with the Trade Towers on fire. We knew who must have done this.
As we watched, it occurred to me that the day might not be over, since we knew that Al Qaeda often liked to try simultaneous strikes in different locations. As my thoughts were swirling in my head and I began to focus on the fact that we were probably already in a War on Terrorism, I felt the building shake. We called it the "thud" on the side of the building where I was (nearly the complete opposite side of the building from the impact). I knew we had been hit. My colleagues spent the next couple of minutes in denial, until the TV broke away from the story in New York, to show our building with thick, oily black smoke pouring from it. The mental loop went through our heads over and over, a surreal disconnect of realization that we were actually in the building that was now on the news around the world.
After another minute or two, people began shouting in the hallway. We had been hit. By what, we did not know, but most assumed that it was another airplane. Could there be more? We filed outside and the alarms were sounding. Standing on the parade ground, I turned around to see the black cloud I had seen moments earlier on the television. Wondering what might be next, we heard the Defense Protective Service police shouting for us to get away from the building -- another plane was coming. I made it to my car and drove up the George Washington Parkway, finally getting home a few hours later, after stopping at a payphone to convince the operator to put me through to my parents in Boston.
On 9/12, no one returned to their office at the World Trade Center. We returned to a Pentagon still on fire at 7am, to continue the fight. My office reeked of jet fuel. We did not yet know that we would be facing a war on many fronts or that anthrax would further scare the nation a month later. And, two years on, we have a long, long way to go.
We will never forget.
As we watched, it occurred to me that the day might not be over, since we knew that Al Qaeda often liked to try simultaneous strikes in different locations. As my thoughts were swirling in my head and I began to focus on the fact that we were probably already in a War on Terrorism, I felt the building shake. We called it the "thud" on the side of the building where I was (nearly the complete opposite side of the building from the impact). I knew we had been hit. My colleagues spent the next couple of minutes in denial, until the TV broke away from the story in New York, to show our building with thick, oily black smoke pouring from it. The mental loop went through our heads over and over, a surreal disconnect of realization that we were actually in the building that was now on the news around the world.
After another minute or two, people began shouting in the hallway. We had been hit. By what, we did not know, but most assumed that it was another airplane. Could there be more? We filed outside and the alarms were sounding. Standing on the parade ground, I turned around to see the black cloud I had seen moments earlier on the television. Wondering what might be next, we heard the Defense Protective Service police shouting for us to get away from the building -- another plane was coming. I made it to my car and drove up the George Washington Parkway, finally getting home a few hours later, after stopping at a payphone to convince the operator to put me through to my parents in Boston.
On 9/12, no one returned to their office at the World Trade Center. We returned to a Pentagon still on fire at 7am, to continue the fight. My office reeked of jet fuel. We did not yet know that we would be facing a war on many fronts or that anthrax would further scare the nation a month later. And, two years on, we have a long, long way to go.
We will never forget.
Collection
Citation
“story9479.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed December 8, 2025, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/19318.