Sir:
As you already know by
now, all of us in the front office made it
out safely after yesterday's
attack. I wanted to relate to you
something of what we
all experienced, from a first-hand
perspective.
At 0900, Admirals Guter
and Lohr, all the Aides and EAs, and
several AJAGs were in
Admiral Guter's office for the weekly AJAG
meeting. We were discussing
several issues, when word came in
that the World Trade
Center had been attacked. We turned on the
TV in the Admiral's office,
and saw live the scene of horror as the second plane smashed
into the South Tower. Everyone in the
room let out a collective
gasp, and stared in momentary disbelief. After coming
to grips with what we were watching,
Admiral Guter quickly
took control of the meeting. While leaving
the TV on, we moved to
the next issue for discussion. Several
minutes later, with a
warm DC sun shining through the windows of
what we all considered
was the unassailable fortress of our
defense establishment,
a deafening explosion sounded. Just as we heard the loud crash,
a shock wave ripped through the building,
shaking the walls and
jarring our bones where we sat. "We're under attack," and "We've
been hit," were the first audible
responses after a split
second of stunned silence as our minds came to terms with what
our bodies had just felt. What we were
watching on TV in New
York had just happened to us. Sir, you have
been in this building.
The plane struck the OPPOSITE side from
where our spaces are,
and still we were battered around with
tremendous force. That
should give you an indication of the
strength of the blast.
Immediately, the word
spread through this massive complex to evacuate. We all left
the office, calm mostly because we were
still in shock over what
was happening. For the most part, the evacuation was orderly.
But we heard shouts and screams, voices
shouting "Oh my God!"
and "Get the hell out! Out! Out!" Panic was spreading through
some, many running in all directions
through the corridors.
One area of the building had lost power, was dark, and black with
choking smoke. Word of the fires, and
collapsing ceilings and
bulkheads were carried throughout. Balls of flame and swarms of
debris shot through rings E, D, and C at
the affected area, tearing
through bulkheads, people, and even the spirits of those
anywhere in the building. Through the mass
of bodies, pressing against
each other from every direction, I found my Admiral up ahead.
We had been separated by the sweeping
current of blues, greens,
and khakis. Fighting through the press, I reached him.
He was calm, and resolved.
As we headed down the
ladder well from the 5th deck, he told me
to make sure we had everyone
out. We had. We finally made it
outside, through the
river entrance. Crossing the grass yard with thousands of others,
we felt the warm sun and saw ahead of
us the gleaming white
of the Washington Monument across the
Potomac. Turning around,
I looked upon a war zone. Thousands
were still pouring out
of the building. From our angle, it seemed half the building was
throwing huge clouds of black smoke into
the air, covering much
of the sky. After staring at our burning building for a few minutes,
it was really setting in that we had
been attacked. My mind
thought of the trip to Pearl Harbor a few
short weeks ago, and
our tour of the ARIZONA Memorial. Was this
what those sailors had
felt on that day-the shock, confusion, surprise, and then horror
at the slow realization that they had
been attacked suddenly
and without warning? I didn't know, but I
imagined it must have
been somewhat similar. The crowd assembled
stared aghast...the shock
was fast turning to anger, and a temporarily impotent
desire for vengeance. Then soldiers and
sailors were running
past the throng, shouting for doctors, medics, and corpsmen.
They had turned the North entrance by the
POAC into a morgue, triage,
and temporary care facility for the
injured. There were many
of them.
Shortly after the call
for medical help went out, word spread
that another plane was
detected headed straight for the Pentagon.
The ETA was 10 minutes.
Just as the World Trade Center was hit
twice, so were we to
be, it seemed. We were too close to the
building. Orders were
passed to get even farther away. In a scene from a movie, literally
thousands of Navy, Marine, Air
Force, and Army officers
and enlisted ran from the building grounds, hopping bushes
and low walls, jumping down steps two and
three at a time. Along
the river the hill slopes down away from
the Pentagon, and it
was there, in that natural trench, that
thousands threw themselves,
hitting the dirt and laying down....taking cover
from the imminent second attack. Just as
some were screaming,
"Why do we have no air cover!?" F-16
fighters out of Andrews
AFB, their wings visibly packed with
missiles, screamed overhead.
They flew in circles over the Pentagon and the District,
with word, we were told, to shoot down
ANY airliner that came
into the area, no matter how many were
onboard. I looked up
and thought, this indeed was
war....Thousands of my
fellow citizens were dead in New York, my
headquarters was burning
and collapsing in smoke and rubble
before my eyes, and jet
fighters were flying combat air cover over our capital for
the first time in history. I myself saw two
people collapse outside
from apparent heart attacks as we took
cover and awaited the
imminent second attack. Thankfully, it
never came. Personally,
I suspect that that plane that crashed outside of Pittsburgh
was headed not for Camp David, as the press
had speculated, but for
us at the Pentagon.
Sirens from police cars,
fire engines, and ambulances screamed
everywhere. Helicopters,
military and police, filled the sky
overhead and deafened
our ears. Busses packed with medical personnel brought in
from Bethesda and Walter Reed skidded around
armed barricades and
raced to the center of the carnage. We ran
into RADM Craig Quigley,
the Pentagon spokesman, and he stuck
with us for a while.
He was as confused as the rest as to what was happening. Dozens
of us surrounded a man who had a portable
radio, thirsting for
ANY news as to what was going on. A report came though, later contradicted,
that the State Department and
the Treasury had also
been hit. No one knew what was going to happen next, or when
the attacks might end. We were gathered
outside the Pentagon,
watching it burn, still feeling the shock of the blast, and we
felt impotent. No one knew what to do. We
could only make sure
others were safe, help those who were injured, and rage inwardly,
pining for a deadly retribution. We
had somehow survived
a sneak attack while too many others working
very close to us had paid with their lives.
We would never be
the same.
Late last night, Admiral
Guter called me at home. His message
was simple. "Chris, we're
going in tomorrow." "Aye, Sir," I said.
We sent the message to
the rest of our troops. My apartment building is only a few
blocks from the Pentagon, and I walk here
to work everyday. This
morning, at 0545, in the same uniform I
had worn when we were
attacked, I headed across the street to my
office. Parts of the
building were still burning, smoke billowing upward in the
pre-dawn hour. Police, military and
civilian were everywhere,
letting no one near the building
without a Pentagon pass.
But DOD workers, military and civilian,
were heading in. We were
sending a message...."You will not
frighten us; you will
not stop us, no matter what you do."
Passing through security,
I entered the south entrance of the
building. Smoke and black
soot were everywhere, a cloud chocking
me as I passed through.
I walked through the NATO corridor, the
end of which I could
not see through the smoke. But I was not
alone. Others were walking
in alongside me, faces grim with determination. No one
spoke, no one laughed. Only the echo of
footsteps on the ash-covered
floors could be heard throughout.
Passing through SECDEF
corridor, the smoke cleared. I could see
through the windows into
the inner courtyard, jokingly referred to as "Ground Zero."
It was no longer a joke, but had become
reality. I stopped in
my tracks and stared. Fire engines were in the courtyard. Smoke
was still pouring off the roof, and fires
still burned on the opposite
side. The grassy areas of the courtyard were being
turned into makeshift morgues, body bags
covering the lawns under
the trees laid out in rows like at the
national cemetery not
far away. They weren't full, but were
obviously ready for what
the rescue crews would find in our building once the collapsed
wreckage was cleared away.
All along the walk to
our office, corridors were covered in black
ash and cordoned off
with yellow police tape. But I am here in
our spaces, as is the
ENTIRE front office. We smell smoke, we have soot all around,
and firemen are yelling at us to leave, but
we are here for now.
It is amazing that we have power in our part of the building.
I want to please Sir, ask you to pass on
my thanks for all my
friends down there who called my home and
left messages for me
yesterday. I could not return all the
calls, and the phone
lines in the area are still jammed and not
working properly. Please
thank everyone for their concern and
prayers. May God be with
those who yesterday and today gave their lives in this,
America's latest war.
Very respectfully,
Chris Ludmer LT, JAGC,
USNR Aide & Flag Lieutenant to the Judge
Advocate General