By Rudi Williams
American Forces Press Service

"For a brief moment, you could see the body of the plane
sticking out from the side of the building. Then a ball
of fire came from behind it." -- Sept. 11 hero Air Force
Reserve Senior Master Sgt. Noel Sepulveda

WASHINGTON, Sept. 30, 2003 - Many courageous military and
civilian men and women have been honored for their
actions after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on
New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

But only one member of the Air Force received the
Airman's Medal, the nation's highest award for heroism
not involving combat with an enemy. He also received the
Purple Heart for his injuries.

Senior Master Sgt. Noel Sepulveda, 53, a Hispanic-
American member of the Air Force Reserve, was a medical
inspector at the Air Force Inspection Agency, Kirtland
Air Force Base, N.M. But on Sept. 11, 2001, he was
working at the Pentagon as a reserve program manager in
the Air Force Strategies and Policies Office.

On that Tuesday morning, Sepulveda -- who was the
office's first sergeant as an additional duty -- went to
nearby Washington's Bolling Air Force Base, just as he
did every Tuesday morning, for a first sergeant's
meeting. He needed to be back at the Pentagon to take a
test at 9:30 a.m., so he left the meeting early, revved
up his motorcycle, and headed back to the Pentagon.

Heavy traffic delayed his arrival until about 9:25 a.m.
Since he was running late, he didn't have time to cruise
the huge Pentagon parking lot looking for a parking
space, so he asked a DoD police officer for permission to
park closer to the building. The officer told him to park
by a light pole in an open area near Route 27 that
parallels the Pentagon.

Rushing toward the building, Sepulveda called the testing
center on his cell phone to let instructors know he was
en route so they wouldn't lock him out. To his surprise,
he was told that all testing was cancelled for the day.

The woman who answered the phone said, "Haven't you
heard? The World Trade Center in New York has been hit!"
He told her a radio report he'd heard made it sound like
a small aircraft hit one of the twin towers by accident.

"No, no, no!" the woman exclaimed. She told Sepulveda it
was a passenger jet, it was no accident, and now both
towers had been hit. "We think we're under a terrorist
attack," she said.

When the startled sergeant reached the door to the second
corridor, he was told the Pentagon had gone on alert. "As
I started running back towards my motorcycle, I could see
the plane -- another plane -- coming down," said
Sepulveda, who is now noncommissioned officer in charge
of the Fit to Win/Wellness Clinic at the Pentagon's
Dilorenzo Tricare Health Clinic.

As he reached his motorcycle, Sepulveda noticed the
aircraft wasn't following the normal flight path down the
Potomac River for Ronald Reagan Washington National
Airport. Instead, it was coming over a distant hotel,
headed in the direction of the Pentagon.

"It seemed like the pilot was scrambling to keep control,
and I watched as he dropped lower and lower," Sepulveda
said. "Then he dropped his landing gear and started
coming down even faster and lower.

As it came down, the plane was hitting light poles, the
sergeant said. "Then the right wheel hit a light pole and
the plane popped into a 45-degree angle. The pilot tried
to recover -- go back vertical, but he hit some more
light poles.

"He dipped the plane's nose slightly, and then smashed
into the building," said Sepulveda, who was presented the
Airman's Medal and Purple Heart by Air Force Chief of
Staff Gen. John P. Jumper at the Pentagon April 15, 2002.

Sepulveda said the wings disintegrated, and then
disappeared. "For a brief second, you could see the
fuselage sticking out of the side of the Pentagon,"
Sepulveda recalls. "Then, all of a sudden, this ball of
fire comes out from inside.  It looked like it was just
coming from inside the building, engulfing the fuselage.
And then the fuselage was all gone."

Sepulveda said the sweltering heat felt like it was
engulfing his body. "Then, suddenly, it felt like
somebody grabbed me, put their hands on his chest, picked
me up and threw me back against the light pole I was
standing by," he said.

"The back of my head, my back, and all that hit the
pole," he said. "Small pieces of shrapnel from the
airplane hit my motorcycle."

When he managed to get up a few minutes later, he ran to
the impact site to try to help people trapped inside the
building.

"I went up to one of the windows that had been blasted
out and started screaming, 'Is everybody out? Is there
anybody in here?'" Sepulveda said.

He saw a man, his hands and chest badly burned,
staggering toward him. That man was the first of about
eight people, including a 2-month-old baby, the sergeant
pulled out of the burning building.

A man wearing a torn, blue shirt with bloody sleeves was
walking around outside, seemingly in a daze. Sepulveda
asked him if he was OK and the man said, "Yes. We just
needed to get people out of there," Sepulveda recalled.
"So, I went back in and started pulling people out. He
would take them from that point out to the side."

While inside, he met up with Pentagon police officer
George Coldfelter near Corridor 5, and they started
working together getting people out of the devastated
area. Coldfelter handed Sepulveda what he thought was a
bundle of rags, but what turned out to be a baby.

"When I opened the bundle, the baby was limp -- didn't
have any life at all," he recalled sadly. "So I started
doing CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) as I'm running
out towards the window to hand him to paramedics.

"I slapped the baby on the back one last time, and
suddenly, he started crying," Sepulveda continued. "That
made me feel a helluva lot better, because I was handing
out a boy (who) was alive and crying.  Apparently, one of
the young ladies had come in that day to register her
baby for the daycare, and had brought him into the office
so that her friends could see him. She was just coming
back from maternity leave, and she wanted folks to see
her baby."

He waded back through the debris to pull the baby's
mother to safety. "We kept pulling people out until the
fire department arrived and told us to get out because
the building was unstable," Sepulveda said.

As he and other rescuers were coming out of the burning
building, a fuel bladder near the heliport exploded.
Shortly after that, a fire engine was aflame. Sepulveda
speculates that the gasoline tank exploded, shaking the
building even more, which made that area collapse about
30 minutes after the airplane slammed into it.

Told to stay out of the building, Sepulveda ran to
another section of the damaged area where he'd heard that
people were coughing and screaming, and couldn't get out.
"So we made like a human chain -- me, a couple of state
police officers, and several Army and Navy folks over
there," he explained. "We made a human chain by grabbing
onto each other, walked up the stairs and led people out.

"Then they told us we had to leave that area because
there's another plane possibly inbound," he said.

Sepulveda and other rescuers rushed to a nearby tunnel
and set up a triage area for potential victims in case of
another terrorist attack. Meanwhile, people kept telling
them another plane was 20 minutes out, 10 minutes out.

"By about noon, I was on U.S. Route 27 above the tunnel
with a bullhorn, trying to get everybody organized," the
sergeant said. "Everybody wanted to help, but nobody had
taken time to organize anything."

With his voice amplified by the bullhorn, he asked how
many doctors, nurses and people with medical experience
were in the crowd. "I told the first person in line to
get the names of every person with medical experience and
tell me how many people we had," Sepulveda said.

Suddenly, he heard a voice saying, "Sergeant, get over
here," said Sepulveda, who turned in the voice's
direction and saw Air Force Surgeon General Lt. Gen. Paul
K. Carlton.

"I said to myself, 'Oh my Lord!' I'm in deep trouble
now," the sergeant said. "The general says, 'Sergeant,
will you tell me what the hell you're doing?'"

Sepulveda explained that he'd set up red, green, blue and
yellow areas, each color representing the severity of
injuries. For example, the red area meant people were
seriously injured and needed treatment and to be
transported as quickly as possible. Yellow meant the
injured people could wait a bit for treatment.

"The general asked me, 'Where the hell did you learn
that?'" Sepulveda said. "I said, well, sir, I was a medic
in Vietnam and during Operation Desert Storm, so I have a
little bit of experience in this area."

The general said, "Great!" and called over the civilian
healthcare director and told him,  "Here's my on-site
medical commander," according to Sepulveda. Then, the
general told Sepulveda, "Sergeant, you're going to be my
on-site medical commander and coordinator with the
civilian forces with everything that goes on here."

From that point on, Sepulveda said, he coordinated all
the medical assets at the site from the 11th to about the
22nd of September, when the building was turned back to
the building engineers and the FBI closed everything
down.

Everything was happening so fast, and his adrenaline was
pumping so strongly, Sepulveda said, that he didn't
realize he was injured. That afternoon, he told a Navy
doctor, "I've got this wicked headache, and I'm having
problems from time to time focusing." The doctor told him
he should get checked out after they finished helping
people injured in the terror attack.

"I had a knot on the back of my head and everything
else," Sepulveda noted. "Apparently I had what's called a
subdural hematoma, which is pooling of blood in the
head," he explained. "It wasn't something that happened
quickly. They told me I had probably had a pinched vein,
and just a little bit of blood was dripping out at a
time. That was about a month later when I went to the
flight surgeon's office and he discovered that I'd had a
subdural hematoma."

Sepulveda said he doesn't remember passing out, but
medical professionals told him he had to have lost
consciousness, at least briefly. "They said with the
wallop I received, there's no way that I wouldn't have at
least lost consciousness for a brief moment," he said.

Sepulveda was born in Sangerman, Puerto Rico. When he was
9 and his mother came to New Jersey, he went to Spain to
spend time with his grandparents. He joined the Air Force
on April 12, 1969, when he was 19 and living in Passaic,
N.J.

Arriving in Vietnam in February 1970, the sergeant
returned to the United States on a litter in July 1972.
He was wounded while serving as a medic with the Army's
1st Cavalry Division. "The Army didn't have enough medics
to put on their Huey helicopters," he noted.

The Huey he was assigned to was hit while hovering about
50 feet over what the crew thought was a wounded American
soldier. "It bothered me when I looked down and saw
people putting the patient on the litter face down,"
Sepulveda said. "Secondly, they scurried back under the
canopy, and that wasn't right. Usually, you put a patient
on a litter on his back and one person looks up at the
winch operator, so they can signal the operator if the
litter starts spinning."

He told the pilot, "I don't like what I'm seeing here,
something just doesn't wash right." The pilot asked him
what he wanted to do, so Sepulveda opened the winch
mechanism and let the litter drop a little bit.

"When the litter dropped, the person on the litter rolled
and looked up at me," he said. "That's when I saw that
the man was laying on a weapon. He was trying to come up
to the helicopter with a weapon.

"I said, no he ain't, and dropped him," the sergeant
said.

That's when the enemy started firing mortar rounds at the
helicopter, and one hit the tail rudder.  "Since I was at
the door and didn't have my safety harness on, I fell out
of the helicopter," Sepulveda said.

"I was hitting tree branches on the way down and broke my
right hand, busted the lower part of my left leg and some
ribs," he said. "I was in pretty much of a mess."

Falling out of the helicopter actually saved his life.
"Because I fell out of the helicopter, I was the only one
that survived," he said. "When the helicopter was hit, it
exploded, and no one aboard survived. So, if I had taken
the time to be safe that day, I wouldn't be here talking
with you right now. I guess God wasn't ready for me."

The other helicopters in the formation opened fire and
cleaned the area. "I guess somebody dropped down and
brought me back up, and then we took off," he said.

Sepulveda spent about five months in the hospital at
Yokota Air Base, Japan, before being flown to Tripler
Army Medical Center in Honolulu and later to Travis Air
Force Base, Calif. It took him about a year to fully
recover.

During Operation Desert Storm, Sepulveda served with the
822nd Aero-medical Staging Squadron, now called the 920th
Rescue Wing, at Patrick Air Force Base, Fla.


By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

 WASHINGTON, Sept. 4, 2002 -- Sept. 11 was a day when Americans rushed
to the aid of each other.

 New York firefighters and policemen rushed into the World Trade Center,
military and civilian personnel rushed into stricken offices of the
Pentagon, medical personnel in New York and Washington rushed to their
duty stations.

And America's Air National Guard rushed to protect the United States
against a terrorist enemy who turned passenger jets into guided
missiles.

Air Force Secretary Jim Roche and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John
Jumper unveiled two paintings honoring that moment at a Sept. 4
ceremony in the Pentagon. The paintings, by Rick Herter, are now a part
of the Air Force Art Collection. They were sponsored by Rolls-Royce
North America and Boeing Integrated Defense Systems. 

One painting catches the moment an F-15 of the 102nd Fighter Wing,
Massachusetts National Guard, arrived over the World Trade Center in
New York. The other catches an F-16 of the 199th Fighter Wing, North
Dakota National Guard, as it screamed over a burning Pentagon.

The pilots of the aircraft, Lt. Col. Tim Duffy of the 102nd and Maj.
Dean Eckman of the 119th, attended the unveiling.

"In those airplanes were pilots who had to contemplate doing the
unthinkable. "It's what all of us are trained to do, but none of us
ever thought we might have to do someday," Jumper said. "And that is,
to deal with the imponderable situation of having to confront one of
our own airplanes, in our own skies, filled with our own citizens."

Jumper said the paintings capture the horror and spirit of the moment.

Herter said artists, reporters and photographers have always
accompanied warriors onto the battlefield to chronicle great moments in
American history. "Some of us would argue as to whether this is a great
moment in American history," he said. "But I believe what made it great
was the response of our military that day and the courage of the
firefighters, police officers and rescue personnel."

Herter said the paintings are homages to the men and women of the
military who put in long hours defending America.

"Most of us go to bed each night and don't give those people a second
thought," he said. "We live in a country that has been safe and secure
for so long, and we have taken it for granted because our warriors are
so good at what they do.

"It's very appropriate that these paintings are featured here at the
Pentagon," he continued. "Because it is this building and many of the
individuals in this building that bears the scars of that morning."

The paintings will hang in Corridor 9 of the Pentagon.


by Joe Burlas
WASHINGTON (Army News Service, Sept. 11, 2002)

Linda Smith will long remember the two co-workers who died 
in last year's terrorist attack against the Pentagon, but 
she said she is now ready to move beyond grieving for them 
and the survivor's guilt she has experienced during the 
past 12 months. Smith, a Department of the Army civilian 
with the Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff for 
Installation Management, was one of about 10,000 military 
and federal civilians who marked the anniversary of the 
attack at a remembrance ceremony Sept. 11 outside the 
building at the site where the hijacked American Airlines 
Flight 77 hit. As promised by President George W. Bush at 
a Pentagon memorial service one month after the attack, the 
destroyed section, known as Wedge One, has been rebuilt in 
time for the one-year anniversary. "Many civilian and 
military personnel have now returned to offices they occupied 
before the attack -- the Pentagon is a working building, not 
a memorial," Bush said. "Yet, the memories of a great tragedy 
linger here. And for all who knew loss here, life is not the 
same." More than 3,000 people died in the Sept. 11 attacks.  
Including those on Flight 77, 184 victims perished in the 
Pentagon attack. Between the Pentagon, the New York City World 
Trade Center and hijacked United Flight 93 that crashed in a 
Pennsylvania meadow, the victims came from more than 80 
different nations, and from many different races and religions, 
according to Department of Defense statistics. Bush said those 
victims did not die in vain as their loss has moved a nation 
to action to defend innocents around the globe."The best way to 
remember the victims is to protect our liberties from those who 
would take them away," Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said. 
Each of the ceremony speakers echoed the theme that while life 
goes on for most Americans, our country's military continues to 
face great challenges in defending freedom around the globe. "I 
came to the presidency with respect for all who wear America's 
uniform," Bush said. "I have great confidence in every man and 
woman who wears the uniform of the United States of America. I am 
proud of all who have fought on my orders, and this nation honors 
all who died in our cause." Rumsfeld listed several of the 
successes of the current War on Terrorism that resulted from last 
year's attacks: 2,000 prisoners, many more than 2,000 terrorist 
killed in Afghanistan and millions of dollars worth of terrorist 
funding found and frozen. Rumsfeld pointed out that the United 
States is not in the war alone. Some 90 nations have joined the 
coalition against terrorism, representing the greatest coalition 
in history, he said, as he thanked those partners for their support. 
"The terrorists who attacked us have failed miserably -- they lost 
before the first shot was fired," the secretary said. "They failed 
because they did not achieve their objectives. They wanted Sept. 11 
to be a day when innocents died -- instead it was a day when heroes 
were born." "Even as they wiped away their tears, Americans unfurled 
their flags," Rumsfeld. And Smith wiped away her tears once again at 
the remembrance ceremony. "I needed to be here today to remember 
those who sacrificed their all for this great nation of ours," Smith 
said. "I will always remember that day, but now I can move on while 
never forgetting. I would give my life today if that's what was 
needed for freedom, but it wasn't my time then and it isn't right now."


by Michelle Bard
WASHINGTON (Army News Service, Sept. 11, 2002) 

The new school year was just getting underway when 
Lt. Col. Robert Rossow, G-1 historian for the Army, dropped 
off his eighth-grade daughter at her school in Las Cruces, 
N.M., on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. He was living there 
while working with the ROTC program at New Mexico State 
University. As he pulled into the parking lot, he heard from 
an NPR news report that a jetliner had crashed into the Pentagon. 
He turned to his daughter and said, "I'm probably going to be 
gone for awhile." He was right. As a reservist assigned to the 
Office of the Deputy Chief of Personnel, he learned 30 minutes 
after the attack that his help was needed in Washington, D.C. 
Ten days later he arrived at the Pentagon ready for his assignment. 
His boss, Raymond "Robby" Robinson, G-1 chief of Operations, gave 
him the task of writing the History/After Action Report for his 
organization, ODCSPER. Of the 125 Pentagon personnel killed Sept. 
11, ODCSPER's organization was especially hit hard with 26 dead. 
Rossow's 12-chapter report, which includes about 20 photographs, 
is titled Uncommon Strength. The comprehensive account outlines 
the events leading up to the crash at the Pentagon, the crash 
itself and the aftermath from an Army ODCSPER perspective. 
Rossow, however, is taking a unique approach in writing the 
report. Unlike other Army reports on the event, Rossow's focus 
is the people. "I want to tell the story of the people, by the 
people," Rossow said. He also admits much of the report comes 
straight from his interviewees. "I have plagiarized unabashedly 
from all the interviews I've taken because I want it to be their 
words," he said. The mission Rossow was given is a result of his 
academic background in history and political science, he said, 
as well as his love for writing.Rossow worked for United Press 
International as a journalist after serving as a reconnaissance 
scout in Vietnam. At UPI he learned to always ask the question, 
"What is the story?"  He had that question in mind when he 
accepted the responsibility of writing ODCSPER's account of 
Sept. 11 and it is that question that remains in his mind as he 
prepares to finish the project over the next two to three months. 
"My task is to sort out what the story is -- what are the pieces?" 
he said. Conducting interviews was Rossow's second step in writing 
the After Action Report and they have become a main focus of the 
report. He initially started with eight or nine interviews with 
ODCSPER people who were actually involved and since then, has 
interviewed about 75 people overall. Rossow said one interview 
would open up the door to dozens of other contacts. "You never 
knew what you were going to find in any particular interview. 
Some of them could really lead you off into a number of things," 
he said. After interviewing, Rossow had the task of piecing the 
accounts together to make a cohesive story. He likened it to 
putting together a puzzle, a hobby he enjoys. But even so, he 
admits he ran into obstacles fitting the many pieces of the 
puzzle together. "Writing is very difficult," he said. "Because 
as Perry Mason will tell you, you can have 10 eyewitnesses to a 
crime and you can have 10 different crimes." Rossow said working 
with the Center of Military History and Department of Defense has 
helped fit the pieces together. "Working together, eventually you'll 
come to a synthesis as to what the story is," Rossow said. One of 
the chapters in his book is called "Lessons Learned." Rossow said 
he takes many of them away with him as a result of his work on the 
project. For example, he stresses the importance of fire drills and 
evacuation plans. "People need to have fire drills and people need 
to pay attention to them. When things happen, it's too late to read 
the manual," Rossow said. In addition, after interviewing dozens of 
survivors, Rossow came face-to-face with a number of "what-if" 
situations. For example, on the morning of Sept. 11, one young 
officer who worked in wedge 1 where the plane hit got an insatiable 
craving for a vanilla smoothie. Rossow stressed she was not a sweet 
eater and particularly not at 9:30 am. But she just had to have one, 
so she left her work area to cure her craving. Minutes later the 
plane hit her work station. "She most certainly would have been 
killed," Rossow said. Rossow's experience in Vietnam helped shape
his own opinion about these situations. "A lot of people have 
feelings about this. But I was in Vietnam and when it's your time, 
it's your time. People need to accept it and not get wrapped up 
around it. And that can be very difficult to do," he said. People 
wonder and ask Rossow about the significance of the title of the 
report. He says it is a testament to the strength of the people in 
ODCSPER who trudged on in such dire circumstances, given the number 
of casualties their office suffered.Rossow compared it to combat. 
If it had been an actual unit, they would have been pulled from the 
line for reconstitution. But, as Rossow put it, "We didn't have that 
pleasure." "We had to keep doing our job, licking our wounds. People 
still have scars; probably all of us have scars from what happened," 
Rossow said. "But we've pulled through and continued to march."



By Linda D. Kozaryn
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Sept. 9, 2002 -- Sheila Moody doesn't mind
wearing purple pressure gloves to smooth the burn scars on
her hands. She just has to think of her former office mate
Louise Kurtz, who lost her fingers and her ears, or the 184
people who lost their lives.

"For the most part, I've had very little limitations on
what I could do," Moody said. "I have to wear the gloves.
Yeah, that's an inconvenience. But I have my fingers. In
another month or so, I'll be able to slip my wedding ring
back on. Louise will never be able to put her wedding ring
back on her finger."

Moody, 43, was one of three people in her office of 34 who
survived the Sept. 11 attack on the Pentagon. She talked
about what happened that day and what it's been like for
her since.

"I came into work that day at 6:30," she said. "It was my
second day on the job, so I was still taking care of a lot
of administrative things. I'd met Louise Kurtz in the
personnel office that Monday. Both of us were starting work
that day. While we were talking, I learned she used to live
in Rome, N.Y.

"Her husband was in the Air Force and was stationed at
Griffiss Air Force Base, where I had worked. She worked
with a lot of people that I had just left two days earlier.
It was really strange that she and I had kind of traveled
the same circle and then both of us ended up at the
Pentagon starting out that day, and that both of us
survived and are here to tell the story.

"She and I had gone down to another office to turn in
paperwork to get our pay started. We came back and we each
went to our cubicle. She happened to bring a lot more
personal items with her that day because she lived in the
area. All my stuff was still up in New York. She'd brought
a radio with her.

"About 9, she came to my cubicle and told me a plane had
hit the World Trade Center and that they had said it might
have been terrorists. She left my cubicle and went around
to the front near the window to the fax machine to fax some
paperwork. About 10 seconds later, I heard the engine sound
-- like an airplane when it's landing. Then the whole
building just shook.

"A burst of hot air came through. It hit my face so hard
that I shut my eyes. When I opened my eyes, a fireball was
passing to the right of me so close that I could have stuck
my hand out and touched it. I heard a few screams and then
it was very quiet.

"It seemed everything just kind of came crashing down
around me. Pieces of ceiling tiles fell on my hands. The
first thing I thought was that it had been an explosion, a
bomb. I got up out of my chair and started to look around
for a way out.

"Everything around me was burning. Everything was on fire
and I didn't even know a way out. It was just my second day
there. I hadn't a clue where the closest exit was. I did
remember there was a door that I believed let out to a door
behind me. I turned and there was a window, so I stepped up
on some debris and tried to take my hand and break the
window, but it was shatterproof glass. I left a handprint
of blood on the window. That's when I realized I was
bleeding.

"I started thinking that I was going to die and I called
out to Jesus. I spoke to the Lord and said, "I don't
believe you brought me here to die like this." As soon as I
spoke those words, I heard someone calling out. I said,
'I'm here' and he said, "I can't see you.'

"I said, 'I can't see you either, but we're here. Please
keep coming.' The fumes and the smoke were taking a toll,
and I bent over coughing. I couldn't talk so I clapped my
hands and kept clapping so he'd find us." I heard a fire
extinguisher and for a split second the smoke cleared and I
saw a figure. I stepped over some debris, reached through
the smoke, and there was a hand reaching back.

"Later, Army Sgt. Chris Braman (her rescuer) told me he had
prayed and asked God to give him the strength for what he
was about to do. At the same time, I was praying for a way
out. He said he got me on his third time in. God had his
arms around me that day.

"When I got out of the building, I heard someone call me,
'Sheila!' and I looked up and it was Louise. She was
sitting in the back of a police car. She got out and came
over to me. I could see that she was burned because there
was a layer of skin hanging off her arm, but she wasn't
bleeding. Her hair was matted like it had really singed,
but other than that she looked fine."

"I was having a hard time breathing. It was really a
struggle to breath and my hands were really hurting. They
were bringing people out and they had set up a triage area
along the road. She and I were there together and the
paramedics were trying to assess who needed immediate help
and who didn't. One was going to by pass Louise, and she
said, 'No, I need help.'"

Kurtz had suffered burns to her face, back, legs, feet,
arms and hands. She lost her fingers and thumbs to
amputations necessitated by deep burns. Moody said it was
as if Kurtz had been "baked by the fireball" that experts
say reached as high as 1,600 degrees.

After getting Moody outdoors, Braman went back into the
burning office to rescue Antoinette Sherman, an Army budget
analyst who was burned over 70 percent of her body and died
a week later. Braman later received the Soldier's Medal and
a Purple Heart for his heroism.

Moody was hospitalized for a month, first in Arlington, and
later at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

"While I was in the hospital, sleep came sporadically," she
recalled. "I had nightmares. Once I got home, they weren't
quite as bad. They got to be nightmares not about what
happened, but just about dying.

"I've had some terrorist-type nightmares. I would think the
whole world would have those now regardless of whether you
were there or not, just from the images that you've seen.
People were just inundated. I would think even people who
weren't directly impacted would have a tough time
sleeping."

When U.S. forces launched Operation Enduring Freedom in
Afghanistan, Moody said she had mixed emotions.

"My initial thought was that we want justice, not revenge.
We only know the information the media give us. If the
information they have says these are the people
responsible, then yes, justice needs to be served. But at
the cost of more American lives? That's the part that you
struggle with. You don't want to see innocent people hurt,
because that makes us no better than the terrorists."

 Moody said she took heart from all the cards and letters
people sent, particularly school children, and by a trip
back to Rome, N.Y., where she'd lived for nearly six years
before taking her new job at the Pentagon. Two of her three
children were attending college near there.

"They let me go home from Walter Reed for a weekend," Moody
said. "So we drove up to New York and the town gave us a
hero's welcome. We got off the interstate and there was an
entourage of firemen and policemen and an ambulance and a
limousine waiting for us that escorted us all the way back
to our house. That just blew me away.

"When I think about it, it was just so awesome because, we
were in a town where there weren't very many African
Americans at all. My husband was the only African American
I think they ever had in the volunteer fire department. My
daughter was the only African American in her graduating
high school class.

"For them to do that for me, people that for the most part,
I didn't even think knew that I existed -- to think that
they cared enough. It was raining and they were lined up on
the streets with signs saying, 'We love you. We're praying
for you. Welcome back.' It was amazing.

Born in Severn, Md., Moody began working for the Army at
Fort Meade, Md., as a clerk typist right out of high
school. She married a soldier and moved with him to
Germany. Returning to the states, the family lived in
Virginia until her husband left the military. The family
moved back to Maryland and Moody went back to work at Fort
Meade's finance office.

During a consolidation, the finance office moved to Rome,
N.Y., so Moody packed up her family and moved to New York.
In July 2001, she was selected for a job at the Pentagon.
She returned to her new job at Resource Services,
Headquarters, Department of the Army, full time in January.

"My initial reaction was that I didn't want to come back,"
she admitted. "I thought about going back to New York. My
first inclination was to go back to my old employer and ask
for my job back. We had an offer on our house there, but we
hadn't settled yet.

"My husband and I were out walking one night and I was
thinking, 'I don't know if I should go back. What do we
do?' My husband said, 'You know, if the Lord didn't want
you to have that job and did not want you to be there, he
didn't have to allow a plane to crash into the building to
keep you out.'

"I said, 'I guess you're right.' For whatever reason, I was
supposed to be there. The Lord had put all of those steps
in place that led me there. I was supposed to be there, but
I was supposed to survive. So, I'm here until he says it's
time for me to move.

"That's the way I had to approach this. I was supposed to
be there and those events were supposed to happen to me. I
can't take this blessing of my life that God has given me,
and turn and run and hide with it. I have to stand here and
show the world how blessed I am and how marvelous the Lord
is.

"Coming back to the Pentagon was very challenging. My
second day back to work was probably my worst. My first day
back mirrored Sept. 10, when I'd reported in. I went to a
new office and met all new people. So when I came back in
November, I went to a new office and I met all new people.
It was almost like déjà vu. So, when the second day came
around, the closer it got to 9 o'clock, the more I could
feel the anxiety building up inside me.

"My husband had called to see if I was OK and I told him I
was having a tough time. I could feel the panic starting to
set in. He said, 'Call your shrink.' They had assigned me a
psychologist at Walter Reed. I told him I had to depend on
the Lord and he said, 'Sometimes the Lord sends us other
people that help us out.' I said, 'Yeah, you're right so I
called him, but he wasn't there.

"Lo and behold, my boss calls me into her office to talk
and to go over some procedures and things in the office. By
the time she finished talking, it was 10 o'clock, so I was
distracted long enough not to sit there and feel that
anxiety and that panic looking at the clock. I was able to
focus on something else. I take that as the Lord saying,
'Don't worry about the shrink, I'll take care of you and
send someone else.

Now that it's nearly a year since the attack, Moody said,
planes flying overhead aren't as frightening as they were
at first.

"I live in Maryland a few miles from Baltimore Washington
International Airport, so there are airplanes flying over
all day long. Initially, I was very paranoid, very aware.
My heart would skip a beat every time I would look up and
see an airplane. Then when they have those fighter jets
take off, it really gets your heart going. My heart doesn't
skip a beat so much anymore."

The day of the attack was a beautiful day, without a cloud
in the perfect blue sky. Moody said such days now give her
a sense of foreboding.

"When we have bright sunny days like that, that are similar
to that day, it's kind of an eerie feeling. Like maybe you
anticipate something terrible happening on a beautiful day
now."

Moody, and her husband, Vincent, will attend the Sept. 11
commemoration ceremony at the Pentagon on Wednesday.

"I'm not really sure how I'll feel," she said. "I don't
know what to expect. My family and I debated whether to
attend the ceremony or just stay at home, or get up and go
on with our lives as if it's a normal day. Then we thought
about it, and we agreed to mark the first anniversary with
some sort of observance. So we're going to go to the
ceremony at the Phoenix site and then we're going to the
evening ceremony that they're having at Constitution Hall."

Surviving the horrific attack, Moody said, has strengthened
and deepened her faith. "There is nothing that you and God
can't do to survive something like that," she said. "It
strengthened my faith that my life is in God's hands.
Whatever his will is for me, it's OK.

"I also have a deeper appreciation for life and for people
in general. All this day-to-day stuff we get caught up in,
trying to make a living and trying to have a nice car and a
big house with nice furniture, all that is just fluff. All
that stuff can be taken away in the twinkling of an eye.
What matters (are) family and the things that you do as a
child of God, and the things that you do for God are the
things that really matter.

Moody doesn't want those who were severely injured in the
attack to be forgotten.

"The world doesn't need to forget about them," she said.
"There was a lady who was very severely burned and I
remember seeing her on TV the day that she went home, but I
haven't heard anything more about her. Don't forget about
Juan and Louise, whose lives will never be the same.

"They didn't lose their lives, but their lives will never
be the same. Juan now has to have a very large font and
hold it very close or use a magnifying glass to read. Just
a few weeks ago, Louise got prosthetic ears. I think that
must have been a joyous time for her. Her husband was able
to go out and buy her some gold earrings.

"We remember those who were lost and we remember the
heroes. We also need to remember the long road of recovery
for those who survived, but were so severely injured. For
them, to go back to life the way it was Sept. 10, will
never happen."


By Linda D. Kozaryn
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Sept. 11, 2002 
Americans must understand that "the face of terror is not the true 
face of Islam. Islam is a faith that brings comfort to a billion 
people around the world," President Bush said Tuesday at the
Afghan Embassy here.

On Sept. 11, the first anniversary of the terrorist attack
on the United States, he said, Americans of all faiths will
come together in a spirit of unity, remembrance and
resolve.

"It's going to be a hard day for a lot of Americans, Bush
said. "It's going to be a day of tears and a day of prayer,
a day of national resolve. This also needs to be a day in
which we confirm the values which make us unique and
great."

The United States is at war against terrorism, not Islam,
Bush stressed.

"As we mourn tomorrow, we must remember that our enemy is a
radical network of terrorists, not a religion; that
governments which support them are our enemies, not
faithful Muslims who love their families, who yearn for a
more peaceful and safe world for their children."

Americans of Muslim faith also grieve what happened in New
York, Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon, he said. They also
share his "profound belief that no American should be
judged by appearance, by ethnic background or by religious
faith."

Rejecting the evil done to America on Sept. 11 goes hand in
hand with rejecting bigotry in America, Bush said. "Bigotry
is not a part of our soul. It's not going to be part of our
future," he said. "Sure, there may be some, but that's not
the American way."

The United States treasures its friendship with Muslims and
Arabs around the world, the president said. That friendship
is being demonstrated in Afghanistan, he continued, where
the United States helped rid the nation of the oppressive
Taliban regime and has remained to help rebuild a nation
and create a democracy.

"We are proud to continue to stand by them and to stand
with them," Bush said.

The United States has committed more than $700 million in
aid to Afghanistan for food, seeds, roads, bridges, and
water and sanitation systems. "I was most proud of the fact
that American children from all walks of life contributed
to America's Fund for Afghan Children," Bush said.

The president called on all Americans to uphold the values
of America and remember why so many have come to America.

"In our war against terror," he said, "we must never lose
sight of the values that make our country so strong, the
values of respect and tolerance, the value that we believe
that everybody ought to worship the Almighty however they
so choose."