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#2497 | Friday, September 13th 2002
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Hello all, I'm a Union-Ironworker from Washington D.C. We are proud to say that we are the ones that were there installing the windows(blast-resistant) and structural fortifications to the pentagon that dissmal day. This is the first time I've shared this with anyone other then my family and collegues.
Well, I'm not very good at this because it still brings a tear to my eyes.First, I'm sure some of you know how close you can become with the people you've worked with all your career.(say some 27 years). You know, that was one of the most beautiful mornings. I remember that as I sat down to have my coffee on the curb with the guys. Then the noise of the plane clipping off the light poles, then the explosion as it hit the building. I can still hear my apprentice "Damn, someone crashed on the parkway" What else would a young man of 22 yrs. think? I knew the feeling in my stomach that it was a tremendous explosion from the concussion and the smell of diesel fuel.From experience, I knew to take cover from what might be another one.
To look around and see the expressions, that are burned in my memory,like the ones from childhood that you would see in scary movies.
Well, its kinda tuff talking about it, but we had a couple a guys that were working on the second floor about 60ft. from the center of impact that just happened to go to HomeDepot to get some things Rick needed for a home project. Rick and Joe were just coming into the parking lot when the plane hit the building. There was a brother, a steamfitter , that lost his life that day and another that was blown down one of the corridors. He got bruised and scuffed up a little bit.
To make a long story short, we all went to the union hall the next day and volunteered to aid the rescue workers in D.C. and New York city. All the men you seen with the cranes and cutting torches were all my brothers doing what we do best!
God, what would I give to set that man down in front of the men and women that were working in all of those buildings that day. The unsung heros!
Well, you all know shes about ready to open for business as usual,and we can all thank the labor force for those 60, 70, and sometimes 80 hr. weeks since 9/11/01 and you'll never know by looking at the pentagon that someone tried to destroy her.
Well, "GOD BLESS AMERICA" and all the brothers and sisters that built this great country!
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Old | 49 | District of Columbia
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#2399 | Wednesday, September 11th 2002
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September 11, 2001 was a Tuesday, and on Tuesday mornings I volunteer at an organization in Washington, DC which provides meals for homebound persons with AIDS. I took the underground metro to where I volunteer, leaving home around 8:30 am and arriving there around 9:00 am. My supervisor was not around, so I just started doing my job of packing meals for delivery. The kitchen is very noisy, and although a large radio was turned on quite loud, I could not hear what was happening. People would go to the radio, listen a while, and then make exclamations. I really didn't pay a lot of attention. Then around 8:40 am people started leaving the building, and becoming curious, I did so also, and saw a great deal of black smoke coming from across the Potomac river. I asked a woman what had happened, and she told me a plane had crashed into the Pentagon. I saw she had been crying. She also said two planes had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York. I asked her if they were small planes, and she said no, they were large commercial airliners. This was the first I knew of what had been happening. I started to panic not just from the shock, but because my patner worked at the US courthouse in Washington, and there were rumors of car bombs going off in front of the State Department, and that the Mall was on fire. I called my partner, and he said he was OK and was going to stay at the courthouse though everyone was told to leave. He said he felt safer there than on the streets, where it was mass panic. I remember the rest of the day in kind of a daze, finishing my shift, going home on the metro (which I was surprised was running), walking my dogs, and being glued to the TV. I remember making chili for dinner and my brother from California sending an e-mail to make sure I was OK. Most of that day that I remember was not really being afraid, but how quiet it was, except for never-ending sirens, helicopters, and military jets flying over. As well as armed soldiers on the street corners of the Capitol Hill area I live in. A day to remember indeed. I wasn't sure there would still be a world in another month, but here we are a year later, September 11, 2002. A world still so much the same, yet so very different. I haven't been to New York since the attacks, and want to go there. I don't have the answers to the endless questions raised by 9-11. I just hope the rest of the much-hyped new millenium is a big improvement over it. As corny as it sounds, we're either going to learn to live together, or we're all going to go up in flames.
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Christopher | 53 | District of Columbia
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#2299 | Wednesday, September 11th 2002
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September 11, 2002
My name is Anthony Nigrelli, and I'm a law librarian at Arnold & Porter in downtown Washington, DC. I was working the morning of September 11 2001, when one of my coworkers said "a plane has hit the WTC in NY". We quickly gathered around the TVs in our library and I could not believe what I was seeing. I'm from NY, and my brother lives in NYC and recently had an interview in one of the towers.
Then the rumors began to fly around the firm - a bomb went off on the national Mall, the Old Executive Office Building was on fire, there was a car bomb at the State Department. One intrepid coworker and I ran up to our roof to see if we could verify any of these rumors, but we could see that the smoke from the Pentagon was blowing around and leading folks to believe there were multiple sources of fire. It was quite a view from up there, but kindof scary since our building is adjacent to the FBI and we were hearing about a 4th plane headed for DC.
People started to evacuate downtown offices, the streets were jammed, and I was worried about my girlfriend Jean Riedlinger who works closer to the White House. The phone lines were jammed, but I finally got through and we decided to walk home to my Cleveland Park apartment. It only too an hour to walk home, and it was a surreal walk with the smoke from the Pentagon present and soldiers and Humvees deploying in DC. We didn't want to take the Metro because we heard it had shut down, which later turned out to be untrue.
Later that afternoon, after finally hearing that my brother was OK and not in the vicinity of the WTC that morning, I got antsy and tired of watching CNN. I decided to take a bike ride as close as I could to the Pentagon and see what was hapening firsthand. I rode around the now-deserted streets, which were eerily quiet, to the tip of Hains Point in SW DC, just across the Potomac from the Pentagon and National Airport. The airport was quiet, and there were a couple dozen commercial jets just parked on the runways, and the river was completely free of any traffic. the plume of smoke from the fires at the Pentagon were blowing right over me and I could smell the jet fuel/melting plastic smell distinctly. After while, I left for home, and realized life in Washington wouldn't be the same again.
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Anthony | 37 | District of Columbia
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#2266 | Wednesday, September 11th 2002
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Around 8:46am, I arrived at the Pentagon Metro Station to catch the subway to my job at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. Once at work, I learned that one, then another, passenger plane had slammed into the World Trade Center. At 9:40am, my office building,located across the Potomac River from the Pentagon, shuddered. Instinctively, I looked out my office window. All I saw was enormous ball of black smoke and red/orange flame. I began to cry...
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C. | 30 | District of Columbia
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#2014 | Tuesday, September 10th 2002
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I was at home in AZ, and had awaken my son to get ready for school. I was scheduled to work the 12-8pm shift at my job, so while my son prepared for school, I turned on the TV and sat back with my morning coffee. When the broadcast told of a plane striking the World Trade Center, I thought, "What a terrible accident!", but as I watched the second plane strike the second tower and the other reports came in about the Pentagon and Flight 93, I knew this was no accident. Being recently discharged from the active duty Air Force, I immediately called the Air Reserve Personnel Center in CO and told them that I was ready to come back to duty. The following month, I was on my way overseas to finally do the job I had trained to do. In Feb of 2002, I was transfered to the Pentagon in DC where I am today. Rather, tonight; because I am working the night shift on 9-10-02 keeping watch over the nation and preparing to honor the victims of 9-11-01 in the morning.
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David | 35 | District of Columbia
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