Profiles of courage: remembering the horror and the heroism inside the Pentagon, at Ground Zero and at the crash site of Flight 93 on Sept. 11

Insight on the News, Sept 16, 2002 by Jamie Dettmer, Sheila R. Cherry, Daniel George

Absence, loss and deep anger all are part of Sept. 11, 2001. Lives snuffed out--children left without fathers and mothers, parents without sons and daughters. Three thousand die and tens of thousands more are affected directly, left to mourn and to go through their lives alone, hanging on as best they can to the memories of what their lives were like before those planes were flown into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon ... and that field in Pennsylvania.

Although the mental picture of a loved one will become less clear over time, the memory of loss will stay firmly fixed in the minds of the bereaved and in the collective mind of a nation that hadn't suffered so grievous a blow since Pearl Harbor.

No one living in America at the time of the terror attacks ever will forget where they were when they heard the news. The mind-numbing images of planes striking those working symbols of American industriousness and greatness--the Twin Towers and the Pentagon--will stay etched in our mind's eye.

These are memories of loss, but memories of fortitude and human kindness, too. Of firefighters and rescue workers risking all to protect and serve. Of colleagues who thought of those they worked with before considering themselves. And of the brave passengers who fought the armed hijackers to crash an airliner into a field instead of into Congress or the White House.

We all lost, but we all gained--fortified by the profiles of courage.

In the weeks and months that followed, another legacy was nurtured--one of unity. The nation has fought back, righted some of the wrongs and pursued a war against those responsible for perpetrating terror against the innocent. America still is coming to grips with how to fight that war, how far to go and with what methods and aims.

And as the country struggles to find the moral path, individuals seek also to come to terms with their losses or experiences. They remember--we all remember.

RELATED ARTICLE: Dan Stanley.

Dan Stanley, who was then the deputy assistant secretary of the Army for mobilization and training, was in his E-ring office in the Pentagon just north of the helipad when the hijacked aircraft struck. "I had CNN on in the background that morning, and the story of the first crash in New York had popped up with the scenes of the burning tower. We were watching as the second plane struck and the first words from my mouth were, `Osama bin Laden.' My military exec said, `Who?'

"We immediately had ordered the full staffing of the Army operations center knowing that we would have to assist the civil authorities.

"I had been pacing around my office and just had begun to step into the hallway when the building shuddered and there was a deep rumble. I felt the pressure change, instantly knew what that meant, and either threw myself back into the office or was thrown back. I watched as a fireball and debris went flying down the hallway. Then it was quiet. And as I looked through the smoke and haze I saw outlines of people moving.

"Immediately I evacuated my people. I thought a bomb had gone off--intellectually I could not yet accept it was a plane and was worried about a possible second bomb. I was thinking, `How did they get a bomb into the Pentagon?' Above all I was thinking about my job, about mobilizing our forces, about securing the homeland.

"A human river soon was moving out of the building. Some clearly were nervous, but it was a very orderly evacuation. Outside there was a huge oily fire and black smoke. I learned later that two members of my staff attending a meeting just down the hall had been killed.

"Most of us were lucky. We had been due in August to move to new offices very near the point of impact, but the work was behind schedule. Mercifully so."

Stanley continues, "9/11 changed the focus and nature of my job. In a split second we went from a peacetime Pentagon to a wartime Pentagon.

"Remember that in the months before 9/11, [Defense] Secretary [Donald] Rumsfeld was locked in a contentious dispute about shifting the priorities and structure of the military. He was winning the argument intellectually but meeting resistance. That changed in one day. The questions he had been asking all along now became crucial: How do you prosecute a war against terrorists and how do you prevent attacks on the homeland?"

Stanley immediately was working night and day to plan and oversee mobilization of the nation's Army reserves. Today his office is just down the hall from that of Rumsfeld, and he is deputy assistant secretary of defense for Senate affairs.

--JD

RELATED ARTICLE: Rick King.

Around 9 a.m., Rick King walked home from his convenience store to watch the coverage of what was happening in New York City on Sept. 11. By the time he made it home both towers had been hit. The Shanksville, Pa., volunteer firefighter then returned to his store and talked to some customers about what was happening.

King called his dad, who lives in Ohio. "As I was talking to him, the Pentagon was hit." That's when things got scarier, he says.