Stories from Bob's Life

September 11, 2001 started out for me like for most Americans like any other. I was living in Annapolis Md and left home at 0530 for my 45-50 minute commute to my job in the Pentagon in Arlington Va.

I was the Senior Military Advisor to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations/Low Intensity Conflict (in short, Sr MA to ASD SO/LIC) and our office was on the E Ring off of South Parking.  I had an assistant, or Jr MA, US Army Major Brian Butcher who had take that day off for a family event. One of us had to get in early every day to get things ready for my bosses Dan Gallington and Bob Andrews – so that when they arrived, their message board was ready, the coffee was ready, and their schedule for the day printed up on a small sheet of paper they could carry in their shirt pocket. These were the sorts of things I’d had secretaries do for me in my previous job as Commander of Naval Special Warfare Group Two. Now it was my turn.

On that day the schedule was light – white space on the calendar that morning but a few appointments in the afternoon, so I decided to do my workout in the morning – something I rarely was able to do.  At that time the Pentagon’s gym was called the POAC – short for Pentagon Officers Athletic Club, harkening back to many decades ago when the gym was for officers only – but for many years it has been available to all ranks and civilians. (There is a new facility now which I haven’t seen).  So I headed to the POAC and began with a four mile run out and around the USMC memorial which is adjacent to Arlington National Cemetary and planned to hit the weight room briefly afterward.  I recall on that day that as I rounded the USMC memorial on my run to head back, I heard gun fire from the cemetary, certainly associated with the burial of a veteran nearby.

As I was returning to the POAC, I recalled an appointment that had emerged for that afternoon for one of my bosses, that had not been included on the calendar, so at the check in desk as I entered the POAC, I asked to use their phone to call my office to have them add that appointment to the boss’s calendar.  The duty sergeant told me that the calendar had been wiped clean and that they had been trying to reach/find me for half an hour.  “Why? What’s up?” I asked.  I was told about the plane flying into the World Trade Center and that the supposition was that it was terrorism. ASD SOLIC was the office responsible terrorism policy on the SEC DEFs staff.  I told the sergeant that I’d shower and be right up.

So skipping the weight room, I went to my locker, took a quick shower and as I was getting dressed, the alarm went off that indicated a fire or a bomb scare.  I didn’t take it too seriously since we’d had lots of bomb scare drills in recent months.  I casually finished getting dressed and as I was exiting the POAC to enter the Pentagon, I ran into hundreds of people, hurrying to leave the building.  I asked – what’s up? I was told a plane had hit the Pentagon.  What kind of plane?  They didn’t know – maybe a piper cub.  We were at the Eastern entrance, on the opposite side of the building from where the plane hit, so there was no impact felt and people on that side of the pentagon didn’t yet know, but knew they were directed to leave the building. Most knew by then about the two planes that had hit the Twin Towers and assumed this evacuation order was related, but as I came out of the POAC, the people I spoke to had little idea that a commercial airline had just flown into the Pentagon.  We were all directed to head to the Potomac River.

Because I was the Sr military advisor to the Assistant Secretary of Defense – essentially his Executive Assistant, I knew I had to find him to be available to assist. I decided to head around the Pentagon to my office’s bomb scare/fire rally point, or maybe even get into my office.  As I headed from the Eastern Entrance to the South side of the Pentagon, I joined two women who were also part of ASD SO/LIC and we stayed together. One was Jill Heineke – don’t remember the other. As we turned the corner toward South Parking we saw that the entire parking lot was filled with black smoke, including our assigned muster point. We then realized that this was indeed a bigger event than a piper cub hitting the building, and decided to join everyone else heading to the Potomac.

While we were trying to find more of our people and heading to the river, I tried to call my wife on my cell phone but couldn’t get through – the lines were all busy.  Not long therafter, I received a call from Brian Butcher from home, and seeing what was happening on the news, he asked me me if he should come in to work. I told him no – our offices were inaccessible due to the fire and smoke, that I was not in touch with nor knew where our bosses were, and I was unsure what i was going to do.  But I did ask him to call my wife and tell her I was OK which he did, which was the first she’d heard from me. Our next door neighbor had come by to ask her if I was ok, and though she hadn’t heard from me, she said yes – she was sure of it.

When we got to the Potomac River, there were of course thousands of people there who had evacuated from the Pentagon, and rumors were rampant about more incoming planes etc.  We still didn’t know about American Airlines flight 77 , nor the extent of the damage it had done when it flew into the Western side of the Pentagon.  Shortly after arriving at the river I heard an NCO was walking around asking in a loud voice if anyone had seen or knew the whereabouts of Colonel So and So.

I asked him if he could get through the cordon back into the building and he said yes. I said we’re coming with you.   So I and the two ladies I was with followed him back thru the police cordon around the pentagon – I was in uniform and the police were still trying figure out what their job was (this was less than half an hour after the plane had hit), so when I told them we needed to get back inside to find our boss, they waived us through.

I and the two women I was with went into the building and it was eerie – it was completely deserted.  The Pentagon has lights on and people in the halls 24/7/365.  It ALWAYS has people working and moving in the hallways – I’d never seen it completely empty.  We went to a vending machine and got some snacks and I recall throwing the wrapper on the floor – just because I could – thinking of the Far Side cartoon of two guys fishing, looking up and seeing mushroom clouds in the distance, and  saying, “Well, there goes the limit!”

The two women went down to Ground Zero – the plaza in the middle of the Pentagon to assist with recovery efforts -named “Ground Zero” because it was probably the first target of any future Soviet Nuclear attack on the US.  I headed to the Pentagon’s Executive Conference room looking for either of my two bosses.  When I got there, a small staff was managing the facility and had on the VTC an image of the National Military Command Center where the Sec Def (Donald Rumsfeld) was sitting and trying to manage the chaos.

They however were struggling as the acrid smoke from the fire was seeping into the NMCC and making breating and concentration difficult.  Soon after I arrived at the Executive Conference Center, Rumsfeld and a couple of his main advisors to include the ASD for International Security Policy JD Crouch – widely regarded as one of Rumsfeld’s most trusted advisors. As or soon after Rumsfeld arrived, Bob Andews, the Deputy ASD SO/LIC one of the two men I worked for also arrived.  The conference room was small perhaps 10’x15′  included a conference table and a bank of 8-10 VTC monitors on the wall. In there were Rumsfeld,  Bob Andrews, JD Crouch and a Col I didn’t know sitting at the table, and I was standing off to the side, in case I was needed. Vadm Giambasitani, Rumsfeld’s EA was busy trying to organize a response team, outside the small conference room. The VTC’s were connected to the “war rooms” at the FAA, CIA, NSA, White House Sitroom, FBI and some others.

I recall seeing Rumsfeld looking up at the wall of monitors with a shocked and even confused look on his face.  At that point, no one knew what was going on. The FAA rep told us that there were 7 or so airplanes in bound from Europe to JFK or to San Francisco from the Pacific which were not responding to IFF (Identification, Friend or Foe) inquiries.  At that point I don’t believe we knew of the United Arilines flight 93 crash in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

My memory gets fuzzy at this point.  I wanted to help and offered my assistance to Vadm Giambastiani to help with organizing a response HQ.  I recall that he was trying to set up liaison cells to the various government agencies that would be dealign with and planning a response to this crisis. Also there was concern about another plane hitting the capitol and we’d been told that Wash DC government buildings were being evacuated.

I don’t recall what I did that day, or how I may have contributed. I hung with Bob Andrews and we were concerned about whether Dan Gallington, our boss, was OK.   I do have two specific memories of that afternoon.

1. Later in the afternon, I recall seeing on TV for the first time the Twin Towers being hit and collapsing.  That was my first viewing of the attack.
2. A special forces officer. a captain I believe, came into our center and was covered with soot and bleeding slightly.  I recall standing next to him as he shared with Sec’y Rumsfeld in the passageway what he had seen where the plane hit the building.  Apparently he was walking across the parking lot to the Pentagon to go to work, and heard an airplane behind him, looked back and saw it coming in low toward and over him, a wing clipping a street light in the parking lot as it flew into the building and exploded.  He said he ran to the building which was burning furiously – a full tank of jet fuel had ignited – and was helping people who were jumping out of the windows near where the plane entered the builing.  He said that the fire department arrived soon after and he helped them until they told him to leave.  When I saw him relating to Secy Rumsfeld what he had seen, he’d just come from the site.

At about midnight that night, I drove not home – 45 minutes away to  Annapolis –  but to my parents’ home in Mclean about 20 minutes away.  When I got there, I sat up with my parents for a little while, told them about my experiences that day, went to bed and got up 4 or 5 hours later and went back to the Pentagon.  I recall that somehow I got back into our offices, though that wing of the building was closed, because I had to make sure the safe’s were closed and locked. But the fire was still still burning in the Pentagon, so only “essential” personnel were expected to come to work. My boss Dan Gallington was certainly an essential person, so was able to connect wtih him and I stayed with him during the day, and that night, I walked with him to his home in Alexandria and stayed with him and his wife and daughter. I stayed with Dan two nights before I went home.

Epilogue 

For the next several days, until the fire was put out, I was one of the few people who came to work in ASD SO/LIC to handle the organization’s business.  The whole DoD and the country was in shock and still trying to figure out what to do and how to respond to this tragedy.  At one point I made the mistake of asking for a watch bill so that all others could help me and the few of us still coming to work assume some of the burden of ASD SOLIC business.   Dep ASD SO/LIC BG Denny Heijlik chastised me justifiably for not stepping up to the responsibilities of my role. I agreed with him so withdrew my request.  As the proverbial dust settled, I became engaged in planning for alternate locations and processes should the Pentagon have to move to an alternate site due to a dirty bomb or some other terrorist/enemy activity that would make the Pentagon itself unworkable.  That was interesting work.

I attended a memorial ceremony a year later, on 9-11 2002 to honor and remember those who had died and been injured in the plane crash into the building. I sat in the stands next to a woman who’d been on the phone with her husband working in the Pentagon, and they were talking about the twin towers attacks, when the phone went dead.  That was the last conversation they had.