Firefight: Inside the Battle to Save the Pentagon on 9/11

Firefight is primarily about the heroic efforts of the firefighters at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. What is of interest to us is the attack on the Pentagon described by the authors, Patrick Creed and Rick Newman. They write:

- "The plane crossed Washington Boulevard, . . . traveling more than 500 miles per hour and was less than 30 feet off the ground."

- "the planes wings knocked over several light poles that line the road."

- "As the Flight 77 flew nearly to ground level, its right wing sliced into a 750 kilowatt generator . . . The plane's right engine ripped a hole in a fence near the generator . . . the left engine grazed the grass . . . Both wings began to break apart, hurling metal fragments into the air."

- "The nose of the plane hit the facade, . . . about 14 feet above the ground, going 530 miles per hour."

- "The airplane's tail, 45 feet tall, was still attached to the plane as it plowed into the Pentagon."

- "Along the outer wall, 21-inch-wide concrete columns, . . . stood every ten feet, . . . The impact of the plane knocked out eight of them completely, and severely damaged two others."

- "The body of the hijacker who had been flying the plane ended up in the D Ring about 107 feet from the point of impact."

- "The punch-out hole . . . was created by explosive energy".

In my article "What really happened at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001," published by The Wisdom Fund (twf.org), I debunk the theory that Flight 77, a Boeing 757, struck the Pentagon.

At the Dept. of Defense (DoD) News Briefing on September 12, 2001, the words "American Airlines," "Flight 77," "Boeing," "Dulles," and "passengers" were not mentioned.

Standing in front of the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, Jamie McIntyre, CNN's senior Pentagon correspondent since November 1992, reported: "From my close up inspection there's no evidence of a plane having crashed anywhere near the Pentagon. . . . . The only pieces left that you can see are small enough that you could pick up in your hand. There are no large tail sections, wing sections, fuselage - nothing like that anywhere around which would indicate that the entire plane crashed into the side of the Pentagon. . . . It wasn't till about 45 minutes later . . . that all of the floors collapsed."

Arlington County Fire Chief Ed Plaugher, incident commander at the Pentagon on September 11, corroborates Jamie McIntyre's report. At the September 12, 2001, DoD briefing, when asked: "Is there anything left of the aircraft at all?" said: "there are some small pieces of aircraft ... there's no fuselage sections and that sort of thing."

Victoria Clarke, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs - "presenter" of the DoD briefing, did not contradict Chief Plaugher.

Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, who from her fifth-floor, B-ring office at the Pentagon, witnessed "an unforgettable fireball, 20 to 30 feet in diameter," was called for stretcher duty. She describes "a strange absence of airliner debris, there was no sign of the kind of damage to the Pentagon structure one would expect from the impact of a large airliner. This visible evidence or lack thereof may also have been apparent to the secretary of defense, who in an unfortunate slip of the tongue referred to the aircraft that slammed into the Pentagon as a 'missile'. "

Barbara Honegger, military affairs journalist at the Naval Postgraduate School, writes that NORAD's: "Gen. Larry Arnold, revealed that he ordered one of his jets to fly down low over the Pentagon shortly after the attack that morning, and that his pilot reported back that there was no evidence that a plane had hit the building."

Similar skepticism among the firefighters is noted by Creed and Newman.

They write in Firefight, "Denis Griffin . . . had been working in the aftermath of the attack all day, and seen wreckage that looked like it could be from an airplane, but there were so many wild stories going around that he wasn't sure what to believe."

Two statements in the book by Creed and Newman are striking:

- "FBI photographer Jennifer Combs (formerly Jennifer Farmer) went far out of her way to pull hundreds of photographs from archives and narrate all of them".

How did they get access to these photographs, when others have Freedom of Information Act requests pending for these photographs and Pentagon videos?

- "Plaugher came by . . . "We think it's al Qaeda," he said, citing a villain many of them had never heard of."

What would cause Plaugher, Fire Chief of Arlington County, to make such a statement so soon after 9/11? Plaugher was the incident commander at the Pentagon on 9/11. He now serves as "a key member of the IAFC Terrorism Committee."

It should be noted, that to this day, the only passenger lists made public have no Arab names on them, Bin Laden is not wanted for 9/11 at the FBI's Most Wanted, and the only evidence offered by the government to substantiate their claim of a Flight 77 having struck the Pentagon is a fuzzy video that proves nothing -- indeed the flight recorder data released by the government shows that a plane flew about 400 feet above the Pentagon.

This is a powerful, minute-by-minute account of the attack on the Pentagon on 9/11 and of the struggle to save the survivors and fight the subsequent fire. The authors have gathered together accounts from many firefighters, rescuers, and pentagon staff and woven them into a riveting account that is both horrific and awe-inspiring. The book is well-written and the authors' clear descriptions brought the scene to life. For anyone who is interested in 9/11, firefighting, or surviving a disaster, this book is highly recommended.

When you think of the horrendous events of September 11 2001, you can't help thinking of the towers of the World Trade Center, burning and then collapsing and killing thousands. The visual record of the events is enormous. The same goons that brought down the towers, though, were also responsible for the crash of American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon. That act of terrorism is understandably overshadowed by what happened in New York, and more attention seems to have been paid also to United Airlines Flight 93 which was brought down in Pennsylvania, kept from hitting its target by brave and resistant passengers. Still, the Pentagon crash killed 59 passengers and crew and 125 people in the building. Evacuating the survivors and fighting the fire were huge tasks that were carried out with remarkable success. Over a hundred victims were transferred to hospitals, for instance, and only one of them died. Many of the rescuers were in serious danger, but none of them died. The success story is told in full in _Firefight: Inside the Battle to Save the Pentagon on 9/11_ (Ballantine Books) by Patrick Creed, a firefighter, and Rick Newman, a journalist. This account is big, but through the almost 500 pages, there is enough heroism, conflict, skill, and necessarily grim humor to make it a fascinating look at rescuers at a "career fire", the greatest challenge of their professional lives.

The account starts with three firefighters on station, those who had the dull assignment of being at the Pentagon's helipad where nothing ever happened, and suddenly, "The plane was flying straight at them from the west, rapidly filling the sky like some kind of surreal 3-D video game." The plane, almost 100 tons including 11,000 gallons of jet fuel, slammed into the side of the Pentagon at 530 miles per hour and expended all its kinetic energy within eight tenths of a second. The fire at the Pentagon was more complicated than a comparable fire at, say, a warehouse or apartment building would have been. It was a work location, with thousands of employees within, and there was no way just to shut down the work for the day and evacuate. Another problem peculiar to the Pentagon was that there were so many secret documents and gadgets within. Some papers were just floating away in the winds. Others remained in safes that had melted closed so documents could not be retrieved, or they were sealed in safes that require two people to open, when one of the two might be dead or missing. A particularly difficult problem was that fire got under the thick slab of concrete covering the roof, with these flames proving the most intractable because they were inaccessible. It took three days to make sure all these were out, by the exhausting cutting of trenches in the roof as fire breaks. The roof housed the satellite linkages for everything the Pentagon does. If that electronic equipment had been touched by the fire, the Pentagon would have been cut off completely. It is a long, tense fight to get the roof fires under control. The problem of high-ranking brass was compounded by the White House, which wanted to show scenes of firefighters marching directly into the most dangerous areas of the disaster for debris removal rather than working from the most stable outer areas inward as safety dictated. This dangerous micromanagement was stopped only after a debate with White House officials.

There were plenty of other bureaucratic conflicts during the huge operation. Firefighters in the middle of keeping the blaze under control, were amazed to see an FBI agent run up to them and yell, "This is a crime scene! Don't touch anything!" Eventually boundaries were drawn, and the cooperation became admirable, between firefighters who were used to breaking in and doing fast rescue work, FBI agents who wanted pristine evidence, and even eventually contractors who worked on the demolition of the mess and the reconstruction of the building. _Firefight_ reads well as an account of many motivated professionals with diverse individual goals working toward one big one. It also has plenty of grim descriptions of the dangerous work those inside the building had to do. One section deals with a firefighter inside, carrying his hose, who "... had trouble keeping his footing, tripping over debris every time he tried to turn. There wasn't a flat surface anywhere, and he felt like he was fighting a fire in a junk heap." There are many descriptions of finding bodies, or even more often, body parts: "There were only parts of skeletons, with no evidence of arms or legs. The bones almost looked as if they had been stacked in a pile - like cordwood, it seemed..." There is also some comic relief, as when a military officer, requested to find some Gatorade for the firefighters, borrowed a sledgehammer and went to a vending machine, yelling "This is a national emergency!" smashing the machine and liberating all the drinks. There are many memorable scenes in this fine book which adds an important dimension, often an inspiring one, to the history of that terrible day.

"Shoes. Bits of clothing. Wallet-size photographs. A suitcase. They were routine objects, unremarkable in ordinary life, yet it was hard to look at them. He felt a confusing mixture of sadness and anger that had been simmering inside, rapidly coming to a boil. As he sat on the bucket, engrossed by the sight of the everyday belongings on the ground in front of him, Titus realized that his feet were still dry. He was grateful for the small comfort." Patrick Creed and Rick Newman describe a FEMA worker's observations of the FBI evidence recovery operations on September 12, 2001.

Patrick Creed's firefighting background and Rick Newman's writing talent combine to provide an incredibly detailed look at the efforts of the men and women who fought to save the Pentagon after Flight 77 crashed into the building.

The story begins from the perspective of the Arlington County Fire Department, the "first responders" for the Pentagon. Fire Chief Ed Plaugher, the initial incident commander, quickly finds himself coordinating efforts in four different sections of the Pentagon, the largest low-rise office building in the world. To add to the confusion, the FBI arrived to investigate the crime scene; FEMA arrives to aid in the recovery efforts; and the incredible outpouring of individuals and organizations who simply want to help. By 6 pm on September 11, almost nine hours after the attack, the command structure is announced and the first signs of synergy among the various agencies finally emerge.

The tales contained in this book range from the heart-wrenching to the downright humorous. Even with such a tragic event unfolding, it's hard not to laugh when you read of Nero the rescue dog who almost snaps at a wasp flying around Vice President Cheney's hand.

The book's 463 pages go very quickly, as the book is very well written, although readers with a weak stomach should be prepared for some gruesome descriptions in the book. This book is an outstanding tribute to the men and women in blue who led the rescue and recovery efforts for the Pentagon.

"THE NOSE OF THE PLANE HIT THE FACADE JUST BELOW THE TOP OF THE FIRST STORY, ABOUT 14 FEET ABOVE THE GROUND, GOING 530 MILES PER HOUR. A DEAFENING BOOM SHOOK THE MORNING AS A VIOLENT CONCUSSION TORE THROUGH THE AIR, JARRING BYSTANDERS. THE COLLISION PRODUCED A FORCE ON THE PASSENGERS FAR GREATER THAN THAT FROM ANY HIGH-SPEED CAR CRASH. PEOPLE BECAME PROJECTILES. BONE SEPARATED FROM FLESH. BODY PARTS FLEW AS IF FIRED FROM A CANNON."

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September 11, 2001 the day America was violently and savagely attacked by terrorists on its own soil in the Continental United States. A preponderance of all the publicity that has followed the multiple attacks has been directed toward the World Trade Centers. After all, that was the first attack and had many more casualties, and the Pentagon which manages our worldwide military forces, has uncounted security issues, which by all common sense should not have as free access by the outside world. And that's what makes this book by author's Patrick Creed and Rick Newman even more remarkable in its detail and scope.

When the Pentagon's design was unveiled in 1941, "its size and secrecy had made it one of the most intriguing buildings in the world. The structure was notoriously huge - its SIX MILLION SQUARE FEET of office space was three times larger than the Empire State Building." After the crash of Flight 77, fire crews were alerted from all over the Washington area, and as they all headed to the Pentagon, many of the men and women involved weren't even aware of what had transpired at the World Trade Centers. From this point out is where this story will add another dimension to every American's memory of this historical day of terrorist evil. When you are done reading this testimony to the way America's citizens, including but not limited to Firemen, Military, FBI, FEMA, construction workers, crane operators, policemen, and everyday American citizens, responded to our countries darkest hour, you will forever be able to see a `GIANT-SILVER-SIDE" to this dark cloud of cowardice against our citizens. I purposely said "SILVER-SIDE" instead of "lining", because the way our beloved American's performed was too bright to be nothing but a lining.

As the Firemen arrived at the scene there were people running in and out of buildings, fire and smoke billowing to the sky, portions of the Pentagon were destroyed, multiple floors had pancaked down upon each other, and some floors were hanging by unknown forces. There were critically injured and burned people in need of immediate medical attention. Captain Jennifer Glidewell, an Army nurse along with an assistant tried to give medical care right in the main court yard. As things slowed down for a moment, a scene played out that made me proud to be an American, and I believe set an example for the type of spirit and teamwork that America needed to recover and fight back as a country. A man approached Captain Glidewell in a blue Air Force uniform. He was THREE-STAR-GENERAL P.K. Carlton, who was the Surgeon General of the Air Force, the service's top doctor who was at a meeting on the other side of the Pentagon when the building shook. He didn't know what had happened. General Carlton was on the way to the clinic to see if he could help. "On the way, he ran into two burn victims, their clothes and skin smoldering. Carlton was wearing a flame-retardant vest, and he hugged each of them to put out the remaining fire." "By the time Carlton found Glidewell, most of the initial urgent care patients had been evacuated." "An enlisted man came racing out of the building and said: "General, if you want to see where the dying is, come with me." The General said, "I'm going in!"

Craig Powell was a Navy Seal at the Pentagon in civilian clothes when the plane hit. He saw two women on the second floor trapped by fire. He had no way of reaching them to get them out. Craig gathered several people around and told them to form a human net. Five or six people gathered around and put out their arms. Powell told the first lady to jump and "the moment she jumped, however, the human net disintegrated. Some of the people jumped back; human instinct, Powell knew. Unless you were trained for it, it was extremely difficult to overcome bodily instincts and stand in the path of a heavy object descending upon you." "The woman ended up coming straight down at Powell, who caught her by the hips and brought her to the ground, roughly but safely. A second woman appeared in the window. "Come on!" Powell shouted, even though he was now a one-man net. As she climbed out, he could see that she was very large. "Oh man," he said, preparing himself. "This is gonna suck."

There are countless individual stories of heroism, bravery, street-sense-survival, and more than anything, the absolute refusal to give-up. The problems and humongous obstacles that are encountered, range from "BLAST-RESISTANCE-WINDOWS" that had been installed in most of the Pentagon's windows, and in many cases it's a shame they worked. Employees couldn't get out through them and Firemen couldn't get in. They also had the laws of Physics working against them. The fire was well over 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit... water turns to steam at 212 degrees Fahrenheit... at 1,000 degrees water can EVAPORATE IN MID-AIR! It was so hot that cement was melting from the ceilings.

Incredibly, right when the workers are finally making headway, they get ordered to evacuate the Pentagon because they are told a second high-jacked plane is within twenty minutes of Washington D.C. The tale is so gripping that the reader almost forgets that "we" (readers) historically know what happened to that plane, and yet, you're literally on the edge of your seat as shaken as the workers.

In addition to all the physical issues, there was also the problem of protecting documents that were "MORE" classified than top-secret! The military had over 300 classified safes that had either melted closed so the combinations wouldn't work, or they were (just like you see in the movies) safes that needed two people to open, and one of the people were dead or missing. And the deeper into the firefight and salvaging the Pentagon they got, the more pieces of human bodies they would find, often in heart-breaking-gut-wrenching condition. As I read this book, I was so engrossed in this unrelenting story, that when I had already read over one hundred pages, I couldn't believe that the story had only reached the first two hours after the crash. This narrative, will literally transport you from wherever you are reading it, into the inferno at the Pentagon. The best compliment I can give to the author's, is to relate a sports analogy: When you go to a ballgame, when it's over, if you don't even remember anything about the umpires or referees, they've done a great job, because the game isn't about them. This book is so well written, and so finely researched and documented, that you never even think about the writing style... because you are "THERE!"

THIS IS A LANDMARK EPIC BOOK! CONGRATULATIONS TO THE AUTHORS!