story2036.xml

story2036.xml

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2002-09-10

As a Naval officer with 17 years of service, I feel I have been lucky in my career ?one the luckiest days of my life being Sept. 11, 2001. Like many people, that day changed my life. But my life changed for the better because I have more to be thankful for this year than in my entire career, as well as my entire life.
I'm thankful for my job and my good fortune. For my wonderful family and friends. Mostly, though, I'm thankful I made it to my 36th birthday -- which was Sept. 18, exactly one week after I walked away without a scratch from my desk in the Pentagon the day the plane crashed into it. That plane stopped just 20 feet from my office. I was 20 feet away from being a terrorist casualty.
That day started as pretty much all days at my former command, the headquarters office for the Chief of Naval Information. It was my first day back at work after having completed a week of packing and getting my house for sale in preparation for my move to my next duty station in Naples, Italy.
We watched as the initial reports came in about the first Trade Tower being hit. Then we watched as all nine televisions in our office broadcasted the second plane crash as it happened. At first we were all dumbstruck. We then started to air our opinions about what could have been the cause and how awful it was. After watching for a few more minutes, I walked back to my desk thinking how it would be a slow news day for the Navy. I had picked up the newspaper ? the Sept. 11th edition of the Washington Post ? to read about the events of the world, but I had put it down to check my email when we felt the building suddenly jolt and heard the muffled, sickening thud of the impact.
People looked around startled as someone yelled, ?What the hell was that?!??
I immediately turned around from my desk to look out the window and saw concrete flying along with dust and smoke billowing everywhere.
Someone yelled back, ?I don?t know, but I?m getting outta here!?
The fire alarms started to sound as we began to evacuate the office. Since we had moved to the new section of the building six months before, we had participated in a few evacuation drills. People seemed to treat it like that, moving toward the center courtyard outside at a quick, orderly pace with the type of chatter heard from people filing out of a movie theater after a show. Before leaving my desk, I had the presence of mind to gather my coat, hat, PDA, important papers and my purse. Later, I was so very thankful I did that. Some people went home that day without keys, wallets and many other important items.
I saw an office co-worker on the stairs as we left. She truly was pale. I asked if she was OK. Her stammering, stumbling words tumbled out of her mouth. She was shaking with shock. As she spoke on the phone with her husband, she'd seen the plane coming straight at us. I tried to calm her down as we got outside to the courtyard, not even stopping to consider we?d just walked away from a terrorist attack. I still had no idea how close it had been to my office.
Upon reaching the outdoor courtyard, I immediately reached for my cell phone, like every other person evacuating the Pentagon that day -- workers like me. But also admirals and generals, service secretaries, contractors, vendors, visitors on tour, and people applying for jobs. Most walked out or were carried out. Some were trapped until the crews could dig out their remains. Some of those people I knew.
There was a lot of confusion. Offices tried to account for people, but no one knew exactly where to go. We wandered around the inner courtyard of the Pentagon looking for co-workers as the black mass of smoke expanded up and out. I knew what had happened, but I didn?t know how bad it was. Someone ran group-to-group asking for people with CPR qualifications and medical training. I didn?t think, I simply handed my purse and briefcase to a co-worker and went to help.
As those of us who volunteered to help with the triage tried to do what we could, everyone else was told to leave as quickly as possible. Evacuating the building never crossed my mind ? I couldn?t have walked away.
I started off trying to calm people who were injured and in shock. People were walking around in a fog of incomprehension. Some were missing shoes; some had debris in their hair. Some wore ripped pantyhose or shredded uniforms. Some were bleeding. Some were in need of immediate medical attention or they?d probably die. Many people had trouble breathing. They needed to clear the debris out of their throats, so we took water from the courtyard restaurant, which everyone had always called ?Ground Zero.? Other people tried to help dress burn injuries or simply keep the injured calm.
It was comforting to see a few people I knew working by my side, but many other people I saw helping that day were faces I knew only in passing while walking down the Pentagon corridors day after day. Rank didn?t matter. We all worked together to get done whatever needed to be done. When we finished one task, we ran around until we could find something else useful to do.
We ran through the empty building corridors grabbing every fire extinguisher we could find. The extinguishers were being emptied as fast as we could get them to the fire. But it wasn?t enough to do any good. We were desperate to help in any way we could. Those of us were there because, like all the others responding to the call, we had to do something. Anything. It somehow helped us cope with what we were going through.
Then came the word there was another plane inbound, they didn't know what its intentions were, and to get out now. We looked around at each other. This was the most scared I have ever been in my life. We didn't know which way to go, but we knew we had to get everyone out.
We used whatever we had as stretchers. We grabbed what we could, and we ran. Despite our overwhelming desire to not go back into the building, we had no choice but to go back through it -- it was the only way out. I helped carry out a woman who couldn?t walk. It took about 12 of us to carry her on large flat board with wires and nails hanging off it. I punctured my finger on a nail as we half-walked, half-ran down the corridor trying to keep our patient calm enough to get her out of the building as she sobbed with shock the entire way. The other Navy woman who helped carry the ?board litter? was in a skirt and heels, which she kicked off to keep up with us. She preferred to go barefoot rather than letting go of that board. We did make it out.
We set up a second triage out on the grass along the Potomac River. Calls for oxygen, dressings, needles -- we needed so much but really didn't have enough. I tried to answer every call for help I could, but I felt hopelessly inadequate. We were told to stay under the cover of the trees ? just in case. I truly felt like I was in the middle of a war zone.
We took down a list of casualties. We dug out flat rocks and branches to stick under the wheels of the emergency equipment to keep it from rolling downhill. My hair, put up neatly that morning, had come down when I?d lost my barrette. My uniform pants knees were stained with grass and dirt. I didn?t think about it. I just kept going. I tried to answer questions from scared parents and co-workers. Did such-and-such get out? Do you know where a working phone is? Where are we supposed to go?
I left the triage site when someone yelled for help in getting to a hospital. I jumped in the passenger seat of a man?s car with a doctor in the back trying to save a woman barely gasping for what air she could get. We drove like maniacs in a faded silver Subaru hatchback station wagon with the tailgate bobbing up and down because the makeshift plywood stretcher was hanging out the back.
I felt the full weight of one life on my shoulders. She was relying on my memory of the quickest way to the hospital in my neighborhood.
The doctor was yelling, ?GO, GO!? We screamed off toward the hospital.
At first the road was free of traffic because of the police roadblocks. But that didn?t keep people from standing in the middle of the road, gasping in disbelief at what they were watching. Once we passed all the roadblocks, the streets were completely crammed. Columbia Pike was like a mall parking lot during the height of the Christmas rush, but much less orderly. The driver blasted the horn as I hung half my body out the passenger window waving my arms and screaming for people to get out of the way. We made fitful progress through the traffic. The entire way the doctor kept alternating between telling the woman to hold on and demanding to know how much farther we had to go.
Dodging our way in and out of snarled and oncoming traffic, we desperately fought to save one life. I realized that our success with navigating through what would normally be unremarkable D.C. gridlock would make all the difference to that one woman. I realized how precious life is -- how short it can be. How it can end so quickly, and how so many daily decisions could end up making such a monumental difference.
Once we turned onto George Mason Drive, traffic had changed from the Christmas parking lot to the gridlock reserved for especially foul beltway pileups. It wasn?t moving at all. We kept honking, screaming and waving, fighting for every single foot of progress as our survivor fought for every single breath. I was so scared she?d die. I felt it would be my fault. That?s when I got out of the car and started running down the street. I screamed and banged on each car, startling each driver by the sight of such a disheveled crazy woman in a dirty uniform. Some people saw me coming and just moved. Others seemed to be sitting in their cars in a state of shock, probably listening to the news. I screamed, banged, and ran; screamed, banged, and ran until I could no longer do it. I had no strength left.
The Subaru with the plywood stretcher passed me as I knelt in the grass median of the four-lane road to catch my breath and gather my will while cursing my lack of strength. After a minute or so of resting, a nurse in a small car yelled out if I wanted a ride to the hospital. I ran around her car and dove through the open passenger window. And we started fighting again. I screamed and waved and she honked our way to the hospital. On the way we passed an ambulance crew who looked to be administering oxygen to the woman from the Subaru. I remember thinking for a brief moment of hope that she might live. But there were still other pressing tasks on which to focus ? like getting this nurse to the emergency room so she could do her job.
We drove like screaming maniacs until we came to a screeching halt in the hospital parking garage. The nurse ran to the emergency room while I plodded out of the garage, attempting to gather my wits. Once I got to the hospital, it hit me I had nothing else to do. I also had no phone, no money, not even an ID card. I walked over to a reporter waiting outside and asked if I could have 35 cents to call my parents to tell them I was OK. Without a word, he pulled out a handful of change. I walked on shaky legs into the emergency room. After assuring the staff I was fine, I went to a phone and called a friend?s house to leave a message. I knew cell phones weren?t working but her pager would beep when she got a message at home. Within an hour, my friends and family knew I was alive.
I stayed at the hospital the rest of the day helping where I could, but I most remember others helping me. A hospital worker who spoke broken English with a heavy Hispanic accent insisted she buy me something to eat and drink. A medical salesman insisted on giving me cab fare so I could get home. They were strangers, but somehow Washington?s city attitude softened that day as people did things they?d have never thought that morning they?d do. Despite everything that happened, I still wish I?d gone back to the Pentagon that day. I wish I could have helped more. I try not to dwell on that choice.
I did go back to the Pentagon once after the attack to retrieve the last of the personal items off my desk. I and four co-workers waited about an hour for our turn to be escorted into office spaces that just 10 days before had been the newest, brightest section of the Pentagon. We dutifully put on protective clothing, plastic gloves and masks. We carried flashlights and boxes, which we were instructed to not put down anywhere inside. It was dark, dirty and wet. Even through the masks, the stench was awful.
The newspaper from Sept. 11 was untouched on my desk, but now with a coat of black sooty grime and mold. It seemed odd that it still sat in the same spot I left it, detailing news from what seemed a lifetime ago. After placing in my box the few items I had left on my desk, I went over to the window. I had stood at that window many times looking up at the sky and across the small driveway to ?C? ring. The last time I?d looked out that window was just after the plane had hit. Ten days after the blast I stared speechless at that ring -- "blast-proof" glass was shattered. Burn marks scorched the recently renovated walls. And a huge hole gaped in the steel-reinforced first floor wall. It was then I knew how close I'd come to dying.
I transferred from Washington, D.C., Oct.1 and arrived in Naples, Italy, Oct. 8. I have many feelings about what happened that day, as well as what my life was like the 20 days until my transfer. I was amazed how the city came back to life in stages. My office went right back to work handling the endless media calls and requests for interviews. The more than 4,000 displaced Pentagon office workers found ourselves working wherever we could find a place. My office squeezed 15 people into an office in the Navy Annex usually full with just four. The staffs made up new phone listings. We all tried to do business as best we could with what we had. All the while we were acutely aware that just down the hill, past the media camps, was the building we?d worked in that now looked like a burning ax had cracked it open.
And life went on. I sold my house Sept. 13, on schedule. Relief workers set up tents in the parking lot to serve food to rescue crews. People called into radio stations asking what they could do. Streams of people came to see the huge scar in the building. Memorials of flowers, candles and hand-written messages sprang up all over, especially on the hill overlooking the Pentagon.
It?s interesting that the side hit was the one that faces Arlington National Cemetery, just across the road. It serves as a reminder to me that I swore to give my life in the service of my country, and I now know the full gravity of that decision I made 17 years ago.
Other people who died that day didn't swear an oath. But they still paid the greatest price for our freedom. We are all defenders of each other's freedom by virtue of being an American.
Many things changed for me on Sept. 11th. In some ways I?m still numb. It?s hard to believe I walked away unharmed when I was directly in the path of destruction. In a way it?s hard to no longer be there to see the new construction rising from the ashes. In my mind?s eye, the Pentagon is the same jumbled wreck it was the day I left -- the black, gaping hole in the wall still visible from my office window. But the reality is my former office is now back in the same space it occupied before the attack. It may not be business as normal, but it?s certainly business as usual.
Despite everything, my desire to serve others is stronger than ever. My priorities have shifted. My definitions of many things changed -- heroes, sacrifice, courage. ... how family, friendship and love are of the utmost importance. How God became a central figure in many peoples? live following that day.
I am so very thankful that I was there that day, because I made a difference to one woman whom I'll never know. I?m thankful the Navy trained me on how to handle a crisis. I am thankful for my family and friends who immediately started trying to call me and have continually supported me in the difficult days since.
I'm thankful for the Pentagon building designers and renovators. I am thankful to the people who fought the terrorists on that last plane and chose to die for me. I'm thankful not just for having made it to Naples safely, but also for the people here who continue to help me and have come to mean a great deal to me in my time here.
And I am most thankful for being alive. I believe I survived the aftermath of Sept. 11 in great part because of the things I?ve been taught throughout life by my parents, church, teachers, friends, supervisors and by the Navy. Life is the greatest gift we have, and ?with love? is the best way we can live it. I think I knew this all along -- a terrorist attack reminded me of it. I now know beyond a doubt that the best way to serve our friends, family and country is through the things we Americans are taught to value and defend: honor, courage, commitment and love.