Gary Bauer Sees AA Flight 77 Hit the Pentagon on September 11, 2001

Gary Bauer's eyewitness account that he saw “the plane,” or “the jet,” fly “right into the Pentagon,” on the morning of September the 11^th, 2001, should be disbelieved in its entirety—it is a total fabrication, a deceitful, outright lie, in my humble opinion.

Bauer gave two in-depth interviews on his 9-11 experience---to The Charlotte World, a World Newspaper Publishing outfit specializing in Evangelical points of view, and MassNews, a free daily, which describes itself as the voice “for inquisitive moderates, liberals, conservatives and libertarians everywhere, with a special emphasis on news.…in Massachusetts,” but one with a clear conservative tone to it’s coverage.^*

* For instance, its founder, attorney J. Edward Pawlick, wrote a 2003 book called “Libel by the New York Times,” and in a brief “About Me” page online, he says,

“There was no way of knowing that the family which owned the Boston Globe and The New York Times Company had just installed a new Chairman, Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr., who had had a terrible childhood and was out to get even with his family by promoting gay marriage across the entire country, beginning with the state where they absolutely dominated the media. All his ancestors were "homophobes," Sulzberger said and there was some truth to that statement."

Both reports repeat essentially the same details in nearly exact language.

Bauer was driving into the District of Columbia on the morning of September 11^th*

*In something of a coincidence, he was on his way to a press conference being held in opposition to the radical Muslim government of Sudan’s persecution of Christians.

when his office calls with news of the strike to the second tower, the message carrying an immediate awareness of terrorism. Mr. Bauer realizes he’s in a “massive” traffic jam, stuck on I-395 for twenty minutes, and it has positioned him the nearest possible point of public access to the Pentagon. He realizes he’s in danger, when “all of a sudden,” he “heard the roar of a jet engine…coming up behind us on that major highway. And it veered to the right into the Pentagon. The blast literally rocked all of our cars. It was an incredible moment.” Elsewhere in the reporting Bauer calls “it,” the plane, and, the jet.^*

* Timing isn’t everything in life—you also need a good choreographer and a good scriptwriter.

With such a divine synergy to the “religious” Bauer’s first-person testimony, and given the overwhelming context of emotional catharsis generated by the New York attacks, it is no wonder Americans blithely accepted the chutzpah of Bauer’s claim, which along with other, equally suspect, eyewitness accounts, became one of the foundation proofs that a regularly scheduled American Airlines commercial 757 jet airplane melted into the Pentagon.

Did no one remember Bauer was the only Evangelical Christian leader who signed the Statement of Principles, for the Project for a New American Century, in June of 1997? Some of the other 24 co-signers include Dan Quayle, Lewis Libby, Zalmay Khalilzad, William J. Bennett, Jeb Bush, and the trifecta of Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Wolfowitz.

Although Bauer himself didn’t contribute to the famous September 2000 document REBUILDING AMERICA’S DEFENSES: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century, where the cataclysmic events of 9-11 were predicted as necessary to galvanize Americans into endless war through a “new Pearl Harbor,” it can certainly be said he laid the philosophical and moral ground work for Ground Zero.

That Bauer foresaw good fortune that morning there is little doubt in my mind. Along with other leaders of the religious right like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, and pro Zionist neoconservatives like William Kristol, Elliot Abrams, John Bolton, Douglas Feith, Richard Perle, and David Wurmser, they all, in my opinion, shared privileged foreknowledge of the events of 9-11 and contributed accordingly—-at minimum co-conspiring the aftermath to what Bush Family/C.I.A. nabobs knew about, nursed along, ultimately even navigated and “nuked”^*

* read “pancaked.”

the “Al Qaeda” plane attacks that struck America on 9-11. Although each held a different focus to their agenda, all anticipated manipulating an increase in power stemming from the drastic curtailing of American civil-rights during times of war.

Some theorist’s hypothesis hold that had 9-11 unfolded as fully planned^*

*the fourth plane was 45 minutes late in taking off

and the Capital and the House of Representatives were struck as intended, with a major loss of life down the chain of command, then an immediate martial law would have been declared in the United States.^*

*as it already secretly had been declared a few days prior by Governor Jeb Bush in the state of Florida.

Had that happened, the last five years of the Bush regime would seem like a pale shadow of the Fascism envisioned.^*

*Is it much of a leap for those who think the Constitution is being misused in justification of a “right” to murder unborn babies, then it could also be used to not justify certain rights, like first-amendment rights championed by the ACLU? Likewise, suicide bombers blow up on your city buses, understandably unsettling, but where does the feeling of powerlessness lead?

Bauer became the co-founder in 2002 of The American Alliance of Jews and Christians (AAJC), which unites American Jews with Christians in a stated goal “on behalf of traditional values,” but in practical terms the alliance is a trade-off—with Christians giving an unprecedented Messianic level of support for Israel^*

*with the freshly minted theological justification as necessary to fulfill Biblical prophecy leading to the second coming of Christ, which is now upon us. Pat Robertson thinks He’s coming in this lifetime. Pat Robertson is an old man.

in exchange for covert Jewish support for a move toward a militaristic American Judeo-Christian theocracy, one that, admittedly, gives them second-class status as “Christians-in-waiting.”

When a morally vacuous, incompetent, and drifting Bush 2000 political campaign came shopping, this alliance bought.

In a just-released working paper, THE ISRAEL LOBBY AND U.S. FOREIGN POLICY, by John J. Mearsheimer, of the University of Chicago, and Stephen M. Walt, of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, this alliance is called “The Lobby,” and it “includes prominent Christian evangelicals like Gary Bauer, Jerry Falwell, Ralph Reed, and Pat Robertson, as well as Dick Armey and Tom DeLay, former majority leaders in the House of Representatives. They believe Israel’s rebirth is part of Biblical prophecy, support its expansionist agenda, and think pressuring Israel is contrary to God’s will.”

The AAJC's Board of Advisers also includes Dr. James Dobson, Charles Colson, Pastor Rick Scarborough, as well as Rabbi Barry Freundel, Rabbi David Novak, Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, Michael Medved, John Uhlmann.

Strange bedfellows sometimes resort to strange rhetoric, like when the chronically foot-in-mouth diseased Pat Robertson acts more Zionist than any Jew, most recently when he claimed God visited a stroke on Ariel Sharon in response to his "giving away" Holy land.

Jews must have to be sanguine about the motivation behind this Christian support, recognizing a dynamic which once was described as being, “a three-act play with the Jews disappearing in the second act.”^*

*Oy.

Bauer has stated as much. He has had problems with scandal, both sexual and financial; in a financial one from 1996 he took a six-figure fee plus expenses from the Cult leader Sun Myung Moon to speak before the "Family Federation for World Peace," alongside Moon and his fourth wife. Bauer defended his speech by saying.

"I don't see why Christians should censor themselves out of any forum in which our perspectives can be heard. I disagree with the theology of many groups that I address; Jews, for example, who do not accept Jesus, or atheists,”

Bauer’s part in the wide-ranging conspiracy which manifested on September the 11^th, which gave the pretext for U.S wars of aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq, lays responsibility for the unfolding moral horror directly at his feet. The Old Testament Bible says, we know a man by his fruits.

This so-called “pro-life” activist, Bauer, is either morally neutral on war, or he actually likes it. Although God is no longer on America’s side anymore, if we are to judge the outcomes of war, it hasn’t stopped Bauer’s reflexive defense of even the most heinous crimes committed in His name, like Abu Gharib.

A piece Bauer penned for www.beliefnet.com, a broadly ecumenical web site which offers a Belief-O-Matic™ quiz that can tell you what religion you should be practicing, is titled simply, “FRENZY,” with the pull-quote: “Some people are willing to believe anything America’s enemies say while believing our own leaders are liars.”

In it, Bauer writes about “the apparent prisoner abuse at Abu Gharib,” chides Senator Kennedy for his criticisms by bringing up Chappaquiddick, bemoans those “who adamantly opposed the U.S. liberating Iraq to begin with,” and castigates a Kerry campaign for the gall that “used the scandal to fund raise over the weekend. How disgusting can you get?” Nowhere does Bauer use a term like “disgust” to describe the actual abuse of the Iraqi “murderers and thugs” who are having “a bad time of it in prison,” going only so far as to say “such abuses violate our own values,” and “appropriate” steps should be taken in response to “the mistakes of a few U.S. soldiers.” He fails to mention that only a small fraction of photos have been released, the others depicting scenes of abuse deemed too troubling for public viewing.

Bauer ends with a fearsome flourish, saying, “bin Laden and the other murderers plotting right now to kill thousands of us and our allies…continue on their mission to bring us to our knees using whatever tactic or weapon they can find. The odds of us being hit before the November election grow by the hour…”

An article at www.counterpunch.org published April 8, 2003, by Akiva Eldar, who also writes for Ha'aretz, is titled, Gary Bauer and Likud: An Unholy Alliance with the Christian Right. In it, Eldar writes,

“On the first day of the AIPAC convention, a man named Gary Bauer took the podium. He reminded the cheering thousands that God gave the Land of Israel to the Jewish people and, therefore, there is an absolute ban on giving it to another people. Bauer is not a member of the National Religious Party, nor of the Likud central committee. He's not even Jewish. He is a leading preacher from the Christian right in America, one of those who believe the Jews are The Chosen People and one day will even choose the right messiah. Bauer is a leading spokesman for arch-conservative policies, including a total ban on all abortions and favoring government funding for religious schools.

"These are the people generating the spiritual energy fueling George Bush's war on global terrorism. Evangelist Christians from South Carolina paid for the huge billboard on the Ayalon Highway declaring "There's no land for peace." TV evangelist Pat Robertson last week reprimanded Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, saying "Who do you think you are, handing Jerusalem over to Arafat?"

“With Christian friends like these close to the president's ear, the right-wing government in Israel does not need Jewish friends to rebuff political initiatives like the road map. But the Jewish activists are not giving up. The religious sources of the values that drive the Christian right are not preventing some Jewish organizations from turning them into a natural ally. Among those organizations are some that only a decade ago were thriving by exposing the anti-Semitic sloganeering in the sermons of some of their new-found friends.

Although Bauer is a lawyer and a civil servant and not a preacher, it is easy to make the mistake and call him a leader of the Christian right. He is a central nexus figure between politics and a religious political activism that has lost its soul.

9-11 The Smithsonian Museum Collects September 11: Flight 77 Hits the Pentagon

Airplane fragment in patriotic box

Description: Penny Elgas built a patriotic box to preserve this piece of American Airlines Flight 77, the plane that crashed into the Pentagon.

http://americanhistory.si.edu/september11/images/large/28_182.
Donation of airplane fragment: G। Penny Elgas presents her airplane fragment and the box she made for it to National Museum of American History curator William Yeingst.

Subtitle: Can this Gal Craft, or What?

Of all the eyewitness accounts that attest to actually seeing an American Airlines 757 hit the Pentagon, Penny Elgas’s 2767-word report is by far the longest and most detailed. It also has to be the screwiest—reading like a novel conceived by Linda Tripp on acid, it helps support a dozen theory-variants as it aims wobbly at the official version.

She’s grounded in digital reality 1927 words into her epic, when she confesses she phoned in her morning’s first-hand experience to radio station WMAL, going on air with announcer Chris Core, to offer a “somewhat incoherent” testimony that led Mr. Core to reply rhetorically on air afterward, “How weird was that?”

Her still unsettled written account combines a mixture of manic off-topic minutia with holes big enough to fly airplanes into. Although she let’s herself go in a free-fall of free association, she never actually uses words to describe the central facts of her case, but a thoughtful curatorial comment provides the salient details:

Context: Driving on a highway adjacent to the Pentagon on the morning of September 11, Penny Elgas stopped as she saw a passenger jet descend, clip a light pole near her, and then crash into the Pentagon. Arriving home, Elgas found this plane fragment in the back seat of her car (she theorizes that it dropped through the open sunroof). Feeling that it was her patriotic duty to preserve the fragment as a relic, she crafted a special box and lined it with red, white, and blue material.

http://americanhistory.si.edu/september11/images/large/28_315.

Source: Gift of G. Penny Elgas and American Airlines (Tax deduction: priceless.)

“Her” airplane fragment? Like catching a fly ball at Shea? Isn’t it essential lawful evidence of a heinous crime committed? “Feeling” her patriotic duty was to preserve the fragment as a relic?” How about “feeling” her way to the F.B.I. crime lab? All of these people are on the public payroll?

Thank God this lightweight fragment fell into the open sunroof of a car belonging to an experienced American craft hobbyist, one who instantly recognized it as a 20” piece of tail from a Boeing 757 airplane, and as such worthy of archival preservation if cleaned first of any fingerprints and dust. So Mrs. Elgas carefully washed the fragment in rare unguents and dried it with her hair, making it lustrous and desirable, coordinating it with her choice of patriotic chintz, and then making a neat solander box, which she has decorated with a bumper sticker message.

http://americanhistory.si.edu/september11/images/large/28_54.jpg
Detail of airplane fragment:
This piece of a Boeing-757, American Airlines Flight 77, was torn from the plane as it clipped a light pole on approach to the Pentagon. All fifty-three airplane passengers, six crew members, and five hijackers were killed in the crash.



15 cars, tree blocking the shot
http://criticalthrash.com/terror/P1010013.JPG
Best link, with a close-up zoom, very clear focus

Shocked passers-by, witnesses to the gravest penetration of American military might since December 7, 1941, exit their cars to stand in mute, solitary horror in the first seconds after American Airlines Flight 77 disappears into the limestone façade of an empty wing of the Pentagon office building undergoing renovation in Arlington, Virginia. Some turn away, unable to bear the full magnitude of what they see, while we almost hear over the gulf of space and time, the sounds of a repeating refrain, “Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?” Others stand manfully, with hands defiantly on their hips, or thrust casually into their pockets, exemplars of the American way of facing disaster. Mrs. Elgas’s adrenaline-fueled observations are surely taking place just outside the picture frame, in one of the controlled, traffic lanes in the foreground, keeping company with the damaged taxi cab, and the abandoned vehicle of the Catholic priest who jumped into action, where all the debris is strewn. All apparently await instructions from the hazmat drill captain for their sector, someone who possessed the necessary authority to shout out, “Everybody back into your cars!” and then, “Go, Go, Go!” so as to empty the roadway for the emergency first responders and set the scene for subsequent images, which will constitute our visual memory bank for that fateful day, September 11, 2001, the day war without end began.



http://americanhistory.si.edu/september11/collection/record.asp?ID=28

Bearing Witness to History

Statement from Penny Elgas
Personal Experience At The Pentagon on September 11, 2001
By Penny Elgas

I had an early appointment on September 11th, so I drove to work later than usual. I work at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation near the White House. I headed north on 1-395 to DC from my home in Springfield, Virginia and I entered the highway a little after 9am so that I could take the High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) express lane. As usual, traffic was very heavy and after I exited I-95, I found myself stuck in late morning rush hour traffic -- almost in front of the Pentagon. For most of my drive I had been totally focused on my radio and was extremely aware of the events that were unfolding in New York. Even though the radio reporters were cautious, I was already convinced from the first strike that it was not just an unfortunate pilot error. However, I felt that New York was under attack and I couldn't have imagined what would unfold in front of me.

Traffic was at a standstill. I heard a rumble, looked out my driver's side window and realized that I was looking at the nose of an airplane coming straight at us from over the road (Columbia Pike) that runs perpendicular to the road I was on. The plane just appeared there- very low in the air, to the side of (and not much above) the CITGO gas station that I never knew was there. My first thought was “Oh My God, this must be World War III!”

In that split second, my brain flooded with adrenaline and I watched everything play out in ultra slow motion, I saw the plane coming in slow motion toward my car and then it banked in the slightest turn in front of me, toward the heliport. In the nano-second that the plane was directly over the cars in front of my car, the plane seemed to be not more than 80 feet off the ground and about 4-5 car lengths in front of me. It was far enough in front of me that I saw the end of the wing closest to me and the underside of the other wing as that other wing rocked slightly toward the ground. I remember recognizing it as an American Airlines plane -- I could see the windows and the color stripes. And I remember thinking that it was just like planes in which I had flown many times but at that point it never occurred to me that this might be a plane with passengers.

In my adrenaline-filled state of mind, I was overcome by my visual senses. The day had started out beautiful and sunny and I had driven to work with my car's sunroof open. I believe that I may have also had one or more car windows open because the traffic wasn't moving anyway. At the second that I saw the plane, my visual senses took over completely and I did not hear or feel anything -- not the roar of the plane, or wind force, or impact sounds.

The plane seemed to be floating as if it were a paper glider and I watched in horror as it gently rocked and slowly glided straight into the Pentagon. At the point where the fuselage hit the wall, it seemed to simply melt into the building. I saw a smoke ring surround the fuselage as it made contact with the wall. It appeared as a smoke ring that encircled the fuselage at the point of contact and it seemed to be several feet thick. I later realized that it was probably the rubble of churning bits of the plane and concrete. The churning smoke ring started at the top of the fuselage and simultaneously wrapped down both the right and left sides of the fuselage to the underside, where the coiling rings crossed over each other and then coiled back up to the top. Then it started over again -- only this next time, I also saw fire, glowing fire in the smoke ring. At that point, the wings disappeared into the Pentagon. And then I saw an explosion and watched the tail of the plane slip into the building. It was here that I closed my eyes for a moment and when I looked back, the entire area was awash in thick black smoke.

I was not sure what to do next. Everyone started to emerge from their cars and, with looks of horror and disbelief, many began to beg for cell phones to call 911, to call family, or to call the story in to their newspapers. I continued to listen to the radio and everything was still about the events in New York. I was absolutely convinced that another plane was headed our way because there had been two planes at the World Trade Center and I felt that we were all sitting ducks on that road. I wanted the traffic to turn around. I didn't know what else to do so I got out of my car and ran back toward the highway yelling "Go Back! They just hit the Pentagon!" But of course, no one could move in any direction because traffic was at a standstill. A young woman in her 20's from the car in front of me was standing in front of my car and was visibly distraught and said she didn't know what to do. I told her that she was could come sit with me in my car for awhile and then I went to my car and started throwing everything from the front seat into the back seat to make room for her. I remember momentarily thinking that something was odd about the stuff as I tossed it back, but I didn't focus on it. Just then, a rather large man (from the regular traffic lanes) in a light tan military uniform bellowed to everyone within earshot. "Get Back In Your Car!!" So we did.

Then I became aware of people streaming out of the back side of the Pentagon and congregating on the sidewalks. It appears it was only a minute or two after the impact because they weren't yet looking at the crash site and seemed perplexed as to why they were outside. Perhaps only a few minutes lapsed from the actual time of impact to the time when someone was yelling at the traffic to "Go! Go! Go!" But it seemed like an eternity. As I began to drive, I heard a crunching sound (like driving on gravel) and I saw a piece of metal on the road about the size of a softball (it looked like a small conveyer belt-like roller with pins.) I remember thinking that I could puncture my tires - but in that same thought, I vowed to keep driving, even if I had to ride home on the tire rims. As the car moved slowly forward in traffic, I realized that I was still headed toward my office and I absolutely did not want to go there - my office is on Pennsylvania Avenue, just a few doors down from the White House.

So I made my way across the lanes of traffic and instead, I exited into the Pentagon's parking lot. I circled around to the right and came out under the road that I had just been on -- headed toward I-66 West. It was then that I realized that my car seemed to be shaking and I thought that perhaps I had punctured a tire. It also seemed that my car was moving extremely slow and that I might be stuck in 2nd gear. I looked down at the gearshift and confirmed that it was in "Drive". Then I looked up at my speedometer - and I was flabbergasted to find that I was traveling at over 80 mph and it felt as if I was not moving at all. My car tires were okay, but my little Dodge Neon was shaking because I never pushed it that fast before. I realized that I was still feeling the effects of the adrenaline rush and I forced myself to slow down.

As I drove, I remember being frustrated and thinking that everyone else on the road looked too normal and too unaware of the atrocity that had just unfolded in front of me. I turned off I-66 and when I reached the corner of Glebe Rd and Columbia Pike, I hear a terrible explosive noise (which I later was told was the sonic boom of our fighter jets). I thought it was evidence of another attack. Traffic stopped and people poured out of stores and cars and homes to look up to the sky. I turned on the radio to find out what happened, and heard that a WTC tower had collapsed. So I pulled over to the side of the road to catch my breath and sobbed for all the lives lost and for what seemed to me at that time like the beginning of the end. I turned south onto Columbia Pike and headed home - stopping once to attempt to use a pay phone, but all lines were busy. As I drove farther from the crash sight, emergency vehicles continued to zoom past me toward Arlington, Virginia and the Pentagon.

A Second Shock...

When I arrived home, I turned on every radio and TV in the house -- I'm not sure whether I was trying to drown out my thoughts or whether I was just hungry for news. I made a cup of tea to calm my nerves and called my husband to let him know that I was okay. I told him that there was a piece of the plane in my car, but for some reason, I couldn't deal with it just yet. I also called my son at college to reassure him that I was okay. Apparently, I made several cups of tea that I don't remember making because later that day I found four sopping teabags lined up on my kitchen counter. I believe now, that I was operating on “auto-pilot” and was probably in shock for much of that day. At some point I opted for quiet and turned off all the noise except the radio in my kitchen. Then I went to my car and faced that piece of the plane that was in the back seat. It appeared to be a piece of the tail. There was no metal on it and it was very lightweight -- all plastic and fiberglass. It was 22" long and 15" wide. I have no idea how it got into my car because I do not remember seeing any rubble flying around while I was at the crash site. I assume that it dropped in through the sunroof or flipped in through a window. The plane piece consisted of a layer of white paint, and layers of yellow and gray fiberglass as well as a thin brown corrugated material.

I gingerly picked up the piece and carried it into the house. As I entered the kitchen, I heard the radio announcer on WMAL state that it was an American Airlines flight and I thought to myself, "I knew that." But then the announcer said that is was Flight number 77 and he stated the number of passengers and crew and it hit me hard that the planes had been full of innocent victims. The radio announcer said that they were taking calls from people who had a personal experience to share. I dialed the station. I remember that I told them that I was "Penny from Springfield" and that I had a piece of the plane. The next thing I knew, I was on the air and Chris Core said "Penny from Springfield, What did you see?" I don't remember any of the rest of our conversation and coworkers who heard it said it was somewhat incoherent. The only thing that I remember is that at the end, Chris Core said, "How weird is that?" And I remember thinking that his comment didn't make me feel any better.

As you could imagine, I was in no shape to work the next day so I stayed home with my husband. All day on September 12th, I sat glued to the television and overdosed on horrible replays from New York and DC/Arlington. At one point, I unconsciously barricaded myself in a mound of sofa cushions and that's when I realized that I needed to find some mental relief. I talked to several coworkers and to a counselor from our Corporation's counseling program, as well as to family and friends. I wasn't too keen about returning to work, but I had a major project to roll out and I just kept telling myself that I would not let the terrorists succeed in terrorizing me further. I returned to the office on September 13th with several rolls of red, white and blue ribbon and a supply of pins. I began to make multi-colored ribbon loops and pinned them to the bulletin board outside my office with a note that they were available for anyone that wanted to wear one. On that day and the next, I posted over 160 ribbons and it was helpful to me to see them worn by so many.

On the One-Month Anniversary, October 11, 2001, my co-workers and I were still felt traumatized by the events of one month ago. I invited them to come to my office to watch the commemorative ceremony in New York via CNN on my computer. It was then that we learned of the Pentagon Memorial service planned for later that morning. A co-worker, Victoria Hebert, and I decided that we must attend it. We knew that it would be a heavily guarded event, and we didn't think that we would be able to crash it, but we felt compelled to try and get as close to it as possible. We left the office around 10:00 am for the 11:00 am service. We took the Metro to the Pentagon station and surfaced right up into the Pentagon Parking Lot. The event was held on the side of the building opposite the damaged side. We followed a few people that were in the parking lot and we were stopped at several checkpoints by armed military personnel but were always allowed to proceed toward the River Parade Area.

It was both unsettling and reassuring to see all the military personnel in their battle fatigues with guns drawn and machine guns strapped to their backs, standing atop HumVees and other military vehicles. The most unnerving view was later during the services, when we saw FBI personnel patrolling the riverside behind the bleachers -- with large guns drawn. One of FBI agents was dressed in black from head-to-toe with a tight black hood pulled over his head that showed only two white circles for his eyes.

There, we headed to the seating area reserved for ticketed guests. We passed through the metal detectors, but we were turned away when we couldn't produce a ticket. Fortunately, they directed us to seating that was set aside for the public in the grassy area just below. There were chairs, bleachers, large-projection screens and an excellent sound system. We chose seats at the top of the bleachers and from that vantage point we could see the roofline of the Pentagon with its large flag draped down from the top (and armed snipers walking along the roof).

We visited the "wall" of American Heroes which was a three-panel board containing the names of each of the dead from the Pentagon disaster and an obituary for each. It was at this wall that Milegro Arcega of the local NBC news interviewed us. Mr. Arcega and his cameraman were extremely respectful. The interview was not aired, but it was another opportunity for us to express our anguish and to heal.

The Pentagon memorial service was very moving and personally very helpful. My co-worker and I were so glad that we were able to be a part of it. After the service, we made our way to the other side of the building, through the parking lot and up onto the grassy embankment not far from where my car had been on the morning of September 11th. Victoria and I climbed up the embankment with reverence, but I was unprepared for the overwhelming anguish that I would experience when I turned around and viewed the gashed building again in the sunlight, for the first time since September 11th. God Bless America!

May her story survive the eons of time and serve to awaken those who slumber yet.