nmah232.xml

nmah232.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-08-19

My name is Kim Roberson, and I was part of 9/11. On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was working in my office on the 7th floor of the Arlington County Police Department. When I arrived at work just after 9 a.m., there were already 8 people in my office, watching my television. I was the public Information Officer for the ACPD, and had the only TV working on the 7th floor. I had seen the incidents at the WTC on the TV in my apartment as I was dressing for work, and had called ahead to my co-workers, who were not aware of what was happening. As I joined my coworkers in my office, we watched in horror as people fled from NYC. A friend and co-worker who had the morning off paged me just before 9:30 a.m. with the words "Are you watching this?!?!" Little did we know that we were about to become a part of "this". Then, at 9:40 a.m., a fellow co-worker came running to my door. "A plane just hit the Pentagon". He says we looked at him like he was speaking some foreign tongue. He repeated his comment again, and we all got up and fled to the closest window. You see, the ACPD overlooks Ft. Myer and Arlington National Cemetery, which are the only things separating us from the Pentagon. I distinctly remember 2 things from that moment: seeing the cloud of black smoke, and hearing the police radio in the next cubicle going crazy. The dispatcher was calling units to the crash site as we watched the incident unfold.

As a civilian, I was not allowed to respond to the Pentagon, but I watched my friends and co-workers go, without a thought to their own safety. They went to do their job...to protect the people who lived and worked in Arlington County. And, as I watched everything on TV, I was terrified for them. Phones didn't work. Cell phones didn't work. Our two-way pagers were the only way to talk to one another. And that was how I found out what was going on at the scene, and that my friends and co-workers were safe as the day progressed. Luckilly, not one of them suffered an injury during their two week rescue effort at the Pentagon. On September 12, I got my first, up close look at the Pentagon. I'll never forget the smell of standing infront of the impact point, or the sight of the rescue workers searching high and low for victims. We were the lucky target. I remember thinking "I cant even imaging, seeing what I'm seeing and feeling what I'm feeling, what the people in New York must be going through." As I look at the rebuilt Pentagon today, I can close my eyes and see what it looked like almost one year ago. And I'm amazed at how far we have come in such a relatively short time. And I also realize just how far the people in New York have to go.

As we approach the one year anniversary, I find it hard to believe a year has passed. And yet it seems so long ago. I remember where I was when the Space Shuttle blew up. I lived through Hurricane Andrew. But nothing has changed the way I look at life as much as one hour on a sunny September morning in 2001 has.

I think the sacrifices of all of the men and women who died trying to save strangers should be remembered. The firefighters and police in New York...the men and women on flight 93 in Pennsylvania. And the men and women in Arlington County, Virginia, who did their best to save the people in the Pentagon.

I put a flag on my car. When I moved into my new house, I hung a flag outside. When Arlington County Police created a specially designed commemorative sticker in the shape of a Pentagon, I put it on my back window. befroe that day, I had never put a bumper sticker on my car. And when I was given another Pentagon shaped sticker that labeled me as a Pentagon rescuer, I also put that on my car. I am proud of my part in 9/11, and very proud to be an American.