I don't necessarily know why I'm doing this, but I did want to put it somewhere to help me grieve. This is my own personal reflection on what happened. Once again, I work at the Pentagon. The morning of the attack, I was in our office, checking email (including sending a message to my mom that we were fine after the WTC incident). That morning, two spouses of employees called them. Then someone came in and said that we needed to leave because a bomb had gone off. As we were preparing to leave, a relative in my business called and was told we were evacuating. We left in an orderly fashion - I went with a coworker and wanted to see her to a Metro station. We headed down to Pentagon City, which appeared to be closed, passing two women that were weeping. We then passed a hill which obscured our view of the Pentagon - all we saw was smoke coming up from it. Lots of people had parked their cars and were simply looking. I thought that it was just a small bomb - I'm so glad I didn't look and see the collapsed section. The coworker saw a retired Navy medic who hugged her for a second before heading off to help. We then walked over near Arlington Cemetery, where the Marines from Henderson Hall told us to go in. We were trying to get to the other side of the cemetery (near the Metro stop), so I walked up to a guard and asked for directions. He gave them, then told me to stay within the gates - his words were "it might make the difference between today and tomorrow". As we were walking to the other side of the cemetery, the coworker talked about an experience she had with a coworker who had had a stroke and died a few days later. I kept asking her if she was ok (she has asthma), and did my best to joke and stay upbeat - I was running on cruise control that kept me focused until I was safe. We made it to Rosslyn, where we deduced that the trains were running. I made sure the coworker was ok, asked her if she wanted me to go with her to Union Station, then gave her a hug, watched the train depart, and left. I walked back to my apartment and started calling people. First up was my mom, who had been told by the relative that we had survived the initial blast. As I finished talking to her, I started choking up. Then it was on to email, where I started mass postings to friends and got a few more phone numbers of people close to me - I also responded to my father, whose email subject was "please call or send an email advising that you are OK". Called them, choking up at the end of talking to my sister (whose husband was in lockdown at his AF base) and brother, who cried at the end, which he almost never does. I called my aunt, uncle and seven-year old cousin, and did my best to reassure him that I was ok. Then I methodically went through my old emails, sending things to friends to let them know I was ok. One friend that I called said that she just started hyperventilating when she heard of the attack and was worried for me. I couldn't sleep at all - I just kept getting up from bed to check emails and call people. The radio station just kept on playing reassuring songs (on now is "Wonderful World"). I called a friend who's in training to be a priest - he said that it seemed like a movie. After thinking about it, my stock response became "Yes, it is. And, like any movie, the good guys are going to win in the end." I finally went to bed.
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