The Only Plane in the Sky

by Garrett M Graff

  Staff Sgt. Christopher Braman: At that point I met a lieutenant colonel, Ted Anderson. He’s a leader in my eyes. He kept saying, “My general didn’t die on my watch. My general didn’t die on my watch.” He had come out and he was delirious.

  Lt. Col. Ted Anderson: I got as close to the building as I could, trying to find a door that we could get into. We found two women out on the ground next to the building. They had been thrown out by people who were rescuing folks inside. One woman was conscious. The other was unconscious. I picked up the conscious lady. She had a broken hip and was in horrible, horrible pain. Both had been terribly flash-burned. The fire was bearing down on us. The heat was horrendous. I told her it was going to hurt, and I picked her up and threw her on my back. She screamed in pain. I ran her about 400 yards to the other side of the helipad. Chris Braman carried the other lady. We laid them there and other people came up to render aid. Chris and I ran back.

  Staff Sgt. Christopher Braman: There was an opening adjacent to the point of impact. We crawled through—the firemen went with us. You couldn’t see anything. It was so dark that I was told they call it “country dark.”

  Lt. Col. Ted Anderson: Inside we screamed for people to come toward our voices. We couldn’t see anything. The smoke was billowing, and it was hard to breathe. I got on the floor and I felt my way down the wall. I felt a body right in front of the door. It was a woman, extremely heavyset. She was conscious. She was bleeding from the ears and the mouth, and she was definitely in shock. She was pinned against a wall by a huge safe. It was a six-drawer safe that had fallen and was wedged up against her. We had to try to get her out. It seemed like forever, but we were finally able to pull her free. We had to drag her from the building.

  Staff Sgt. Christopher Braman: It was so hot inside you could feel the heat. My face was burning. All I had was a T-shirt and an undershirt, that I ripped off and put over my face.

  Lt. Col. Ted Anderson: Chris and I went back into the building and were trying to figure out what we were going to do. I noticed this bright flash that went by me. I thought it was the ceiling caving in. I heard Chris scream, “Help me.” It was a person on fire, trying to get out of the building.

  Staff Sgt. Christopher Braman: We jumped on top of that man, and we put him out as best we could.

  Lt. Col. Ted Anderson: We picked him up immediately and carried him out. We got him as far away from the building as we could and gently laid him down. He was burned—horribly, horribly burned—from the top of his head all the way to the bottom of his feet. He had no color in his eyes. They were all white. I could see it was a civilian because he had a suit on. You could see that he had a white shirt on, but the whole front had been burned away. The back of his collar was still affixed, the belt to his pants was still affixed and melted into the side of his body. Everything else was charred black down the front.

  * * *

  Lt. Col. Rob Grunewald, information management officer, U.S. Army, Pentagon: The plane came into the building and went underneath our feet, literally, by a floor. A friend of mine down the table, Martha Cardin, yelled for help, and I told Martha, “I got you, Martha. I’ll come get you.” Where everybody went and how they get out of the room is very unique, because those are where decisions are made that are fatal, or cause injury, or cause mental fatigue, or great consternation. A bunch of my officemates that were in that meeting went in one direction and unfortunately didn’t make it. The person that sat to my right, the person that sat to my left, apparently went out the door and took a right, and they went into the E-Ring, where they apparently perished. A decision to go in one direction or another was very important.

  Maj. James Phillips, Defense Protective Service, Pentagon: If the plane had hit any other part of the building, there would have been a lot more devastation. Ironically, the part that was hit was the newly renovated wedge.

  Philip Smith, branch chief, U.S. Army, Pentagon: It was truly a miracle that the plane hit the strongest part of the Pentagon—it had been completely renovated to all the new antiterrorism standards—and it was virtually unoccupied. In any other wedge of the Pentagon, there would have been 5,000 people, and the plane would have flown right through the middle of the building.

  Lt. Col. Rob Grunewald: As we got out of the conference room, we were into the cubicle farm. It’s the typical Dilbert office space, where you have tens and hundreds of cubicles in various different configurations: four desks here, six desks here, a corridor here, a hall here, a row here, an aisle here, 20 here, copier room, fax room, enclave over here. So now, on our hands and knees, in the dark, it was trying to keep yourself oriented, Where do you go? Where is safe, and how do I get there? The plane was burning on the floor below us. As we were crawling, the floor buckled, and there was flame coming up through there like a blowtorch.

  Capt. Darrell Oliver, Quadrennial Defense Review Office, U.S. Army: We formed up on litter teams to assist in getting others out of the building. The flames had gotten too severe for us to go back in, and the firemen directed us to stay at the door. They would bring individuals out, and we would get them to the triage area. One of the first individuals we got was severely burned on both arms. The firemen carried her to our litter and put her down. We had to position her on the stretcher, and in order to position her on a stretcher, we had to touch her. Her skin was as white as a piece of paper. As we touched her, her skin was coming off in our hands.

  Lt. Col. Rob Grunewald: The smoke was beginning to get very thick, and was coming down further and further and further, and we were crawling on our hands and knees. You can’t see where you’re going, and because of the force of the blow, there were chairs thrown about, there were desks thrown about, file cabinets had fallen over, and copiers and faxes and walls. I pushed things out of the way. Martha was holding onto my belt, and we kept going.

  I kept crawling through the corridor into the brand-new cafeteria, which wasn’t even open yet, because we had just moved into the renovated space. At that point I realized that there was no more fire, there was no more smoke, and we were relatively safe. I got up. I gave Martha to some people. I said, “Martha, I’m going back inside to search for some more people.” She advised against it, but I did it anyway, though I didn’t get far. By that time, the smoke was down very, very close to the ground so you couldn’t see. It was quite obvious that if I was to go back in that I would put myself in harm’s way.

  * * *

  Sheila Denise Moody, accountant, Resource Services Office, Pentagon: I was in a state of shock. I was still seated at my desk with my hands on my lap, and I really hadn’t moved other than from the force that pushed me back a little. Burning debris from the ceiling fell and landed on my hands. I shook my hands, I got up out of my chair, and I started to look around. Everything around me was on fire.

  Louise Rogers, accountant, Resource Services Office, Pentagon: Everything went black. The only noise was the crackling of flames, and it was sheer devastation. I remember the grit from the soot in my teeth. I looked around, trying to figure out how to get out—fortunately, being at the fax machine, I was standing in front of a table, a worktable, that was in front of the window. Then I tried to figure out if I could get my feet out of the debris. I picked up one foot after the other and walked over to the table. The window had been blown out by the impact, and I climbed out.

  Sheila Denise Moody: I was trapped in my cubicle space with nowhere to go and no way to get out. There was another coworker who was seated in the cubicle behind me and she cried out, “What’s going on? What’s happening? Is anybody there?” I said, “I’m here, I’m here.” She said, “Who is it?” I said, “It’s me, it’s Sheila.” She said, “My skin is on fire. I feel like I’m burning.” I told her, “I know it hurts, baby, but we’ve got to find a way to get out of here.”

  Louise Rogers: As I was walking out the window, the very first Pentagon police car came around the building. He saw me, stopped, and walked toward me, and told me to sit down in the back of the police ca
r. I told him, “I saw someone else in the office that couldn’t get out.” She was alive—I didn’t realize that not everyone was alive at that point—but she was having trouble. He came back with some help, some others, to get her out. She went into the intensive care ward, but she was one of the ones that didn’t make it.

  Sheila Denise Moody: I could see a window to the right of me. It was too far up. I was able to reach it with my hand and try to bang on it, but the glass was too thick. When I hit the window, I left a blood print of my hand on the window. I didn’t even realize at the time that I was bleeding. I said, “God, I don’t believe you brought me here for me to die like this.” No sooner had I spoken those words than there was a voice I could hear through the smoke. “Is there anybody in here?” I called back to him, I said, “Yes! We’re here!” He said, “I can’t see you.” I said, “I can’t see you either, but we’re here. Please keep coming.”

  With those last words, the smoke and the fumes started to take my breath away. I couldn’t speak anymore, and I started to cough and choke. Coughing and choking, something ran through my mind and said, Clap your hands. I started to clap my hands together as hard and as loud as I could, hoping that he could follow the sound. I could hear a fire extinguisher.

  Staff Sgt. Christopher Braman: There was a woman on her knees clapping her hands. She couldn’t breathe. I reached for her, reached through the clouds.

  Sheila Denise Moody: Just for a split second through the smoke, I could see the silhouette of a figure. I stepped over some debris, reached out through the smoke, and there was a hand reaching back, and he pulled me out.

  Staff Sgt. Christopher Braman: Her hands were stuck up in this position, her face was covered full of ash. I was told later on that’s a natural fetal position for burn victims. The colonel and I ran her to safety.

  Sheila Denise Moody: When Sergeant Braman came to the smoke calling, “Is there anybody in there?,” my voice was still the only voice that called back to him.

  Staff Sgt. Christopher Braman: Colonel Anderson and I went into the building at least four times. The heat inside was so hot it felt like the sun kissing you.

  Sheila Denise Moody: My rescuer is Sgt. Christopher Braman. In talking to him in the months since then, I found out that he actually came into the area that I was in on his third time into the building, trying to get in to see who he could help and save. Of all the people that he was able to pull out and able to help, I’m the only one who survived.

  Lt. Col. Ted Anderson: We were getting ready to make entry again, and the firemen stopped us. Other firemen showed up and they physically restrained us and pulled us away from the building. I was completely and totally out of my mind at that point, reverting to full combat mode. So did Chris. He had been in the Ranger regiment. He fought in Mogadishu. As far as I was concerned, this was a combat situation.

  Staff Sgt. Christopher Braman: We were so jacked up on adrenaline. Colonel Anderson kept getting into fights with different authority figures—firemen, military, it didn’t matter who it was. There was no question that this was another battle zone.

  Sheila Denise Moody: It was chaos. People were running in every direction and they were crying. They were screaming. I went to the line where they had people who were wounded. As I was walking in that direction, I heard someone call my name, “Sheila!” I looked up and it was Louise. She was sitting in the back of a police car.

  Louise Rogers: There were more and more people coming out, and we kept moving farther and farther back out of the way until we were sitting back up against the guardrail at the highway.

  Sheila Denise Moody: I think they ended up putting like three or four of us in the back of the ambulance and taking us to Arlington Hospital.

  Louise Rogers: By that time I wasn’t feeling too good. As soon as I got into the ambulance my hands started to hurt—there was a burning pain. I said to the medic, “Well, this is starting to hurt.” Then I passed out. I don’t remember much of anything for days after that.

  Lt. Col. Ted Anderson: A three-star general showed up, along with a couple other generals, and I explained to them what was going on. This three-star general basically felt the same way I did, and he went to the on-site fire commander and said, “Look, I will take full responsibility. We need to make an attempt to go in and get our people out.” He was overruled by the fire captain. I have since come to know that the fire captain was correct to do so. I am now certain that they saved my life and I’m certain they saved Chris’s life as well. My whole outlook on the American firefighter changed that day. Those guys were the real heroes of the day for me. I have talked to firemen who later went into that area, and there was no way out. That last burned guy we brought out was the last person to come out of the building alive on the exterior side of the Pentagon.

  Sheila Denise Moody: We lost 34 coworkers that day between the accounting division, which was the office that I was in, and the budget office, which was right across the hall. That area sustained pretty much a direct hit from the airplane.

  Dennis Smith, maintenance inspector, Pentagon Building Manager’s Office: I had turnout gear, fire department self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA). I had air for an hour. I was sweeping every room to see if anyone was still alive. As I made my way through the smoke and flames, there was water all over the floor, nine or 10 inches on the floor because the pipes had broken. Stairwells were like waterfalls. There were body parts floating around. I saw a foot, a torso, a lady hanging upside down from a chair. Someone’s head sitting on a file cabinet, totally burned. I found people sitting at a conference table totally charred. I found a man standing with his arms up in defense, leaning against the wall. Apparently, he saw it coming. He was totally burned. I went floor to floor on the collapsed fourth corridor side and yelled to see if anybody was still alive. I didn’t find anyone.

  Capt. Robert Gray, Technical Rescue, Station 4, Arlington County Fire Department: Jet fuel was in everything. It was laying on the film on the surface of the water that we were walking through, so it made the gear smell.

  Lt. Comm. David Tarantino, physician, U.S. Navy: The flames and the smoke were too intense by that time, and even the rescue crews couldn’t really penetrate into the buildings. Not too many people were brought out after that.

  Capt. Robert Gray: It was really remarkable because you’d be on the second or third floor and you’d find a room that was absolutely pristine. It’s surrounded by complete destruction. The duct work down on the floors, the file cabinets completely ripped apart. And then one room just like this, where there’s not even but a light layer of smoke on the wall. The flags, magazines sitting on the desk. It was how the gas mixed with the air and vented through the buildings under pressure, and then blew certain areas up and preserved others.

  Capt. Charles Gibbs, Arlington County Fire Department: The military had their corps people with stretchers and all that, but there were no people.

  * * *

  In the minutes after the Pentagon attack, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld found himself torn between his official role—which called for him to lead the nation’s response—and his human desire to examine the crash scene and help the injured men and women under his command.

  Aubrey Davis, officer, Protective Service Unit, Defense Protective Service, Pentagon: The secretary was walking fast, and we were walking fast with him. As we proceeded down that hallway, a colonel ran up with a cut on his forehead and said, “Sir, it’s dangerous, don’t go down there.”

  Gilbert Oldach, officer, Protective Service Unit, Defense Protective Service, Pentagon: We were in smoke and finally saw that light. The doors were open and the sun was coming in. You could see the light.

  Donald Rumsfeld, secretary of defense: I saw the field out there sprayed with pieces of metal.

  Aubrey Davis: I remember the secretary reaching down and picking up a piece of the plane with the name of the aircraft or something on it. He said, “This is American Airlines.”

  Donald Rumsfeld:
Oh my Lord, the whole place was burning. People were being pulled out and stretchers were being carried to ambulances.

  Aubrey Davis: The Communications Center kept asking where the secretary was, and I kept saying we had him. They couldn’t hear.

  Victoria “Torie” Clarke, assistant secretary of defense for public affairs: Several times in the next half hour or so people would ask where the secretary was. The answer was “out of the building.” We took that to mean that he had been taken to a secure location. But he had gone out to the site.

  Mary Matalin, aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, White House: There was a real concern in getting information about the casualties at the Defense Department. At first, we thought Secretary Rumsfeld had been hit, then we heard he was pulling bodies out of the rubble. We couldn’t quite get a location on the secretary of defense.

  Joe Wassel, communications officer, Office of the Secretary of Defense: There were people to our left sitting on the grass. They were starting to set some triage when we heard someone say, “Hey, I need some help.”

  Aubrey Davis: I recalled that Secretary Rumsfeld had been in the navy. He was like the captain going down with the ship—he was going to make sure everything was OK before he went back.

  Donald Rumsfeld: I tried to get some folks to help out and helped out a bit myself. I talked to some people about what had taken place.

  Aubrey Davis: At one point someone ran up to the secretary asking for help. The secretary asked him what he needed, and Rumsfeld motioned to his communications guy, Joe Wassel. He said, “Tell him what you need.” He said we need helicopters and such. We were still trying to get the secretary off the site of impact. We heard that the Park Police helicopter, Eagle One, was going to land to take him out of there. He said, “No, if they land they will use it to transport the injured.”

  Donald Rumsfeld: I decided I had done what I could, there were enough people there, and went inside.

  Victoria “Torie” Clarke: The next thing we knew he had come in to the command center—dirty, sweaty, with his jacket over his shoulder.