WASHINGTON, DC, 17 September — In the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon scenes of people standing and staring at the destruction is common place. So much so it is difficult for a journalist to get to the Pentagon, even with Pentagon press credentials. Gawkers line the hills at Pentagon City, and traffic on Highway 395 slows to standstill as people stare at the devastation. Police officers stand on the highway, waving people away who step out of their cars to photograph the destruction. And everywhere there is an astonishing show of solidarity, people are flying the American flag — on homes and buildings, at “half mast” on their car’s antennas, as bandanas, shirts, and scarves.
Costco, a huge supermarket in nearby Pentagon City, is having a run on flags. Empty boxes sprawl on the floor in the aisle, where people are grabbing up the flags, despite their hefty $59.00 price tag.
Journalists without Pentagon credentials are diverted to a nearby gas station, where they can clearly see the wreckage, but not get on the grounds. They have to walk from the Pentagon guest parking lot, Officer Miller told Arab News, as only television satellite vehicles are allowed at the station.
Police officers guard the side streets surrounding the Pentagon, gently shooing away people drawn to the site, patiently listening to people who just need to talk about the horror of Tuesday’s destruction.
Strangers bring refreshments to the officers. They have a need to do something, to show their support, and their gratitude. Arab News saw people bring gallons of “Gatorade” to the police cars, and without a word, set the soft drinks down and leave. Huge plates of homemade brownies sat on the hood of one police vehicle.
Arlington County Police Chief Ed Flynn said security around the perimeter of the site and nearby streets has been tightened, and police in SWAT gear are now carrying submachine guns. Yesterday, they tracked down and arrested a man in his 20s who had sneaked past police stationed along Columbia Pike, a road running parallel to the Pentagon. The Pentagon’s guest parking area is half empty this weekend. Only Pentagon personnel and Pentagon press are allowed to enter “the tunnel” which brings them to the North Parking area of the Pentagon.
The public end of “tunnel’ has become a remembrance site. School children bring placards expressing their thanks. American flags are hung on the walls. Bouquets of flowers lay on the sidewalk. Handwritten signs of gratitude hang from the cement wall. Walking through the tunnel to the Pentagon, complete strangers nod briefly to greet each other in passing. Press or staff or military personnel — everyone seems to acknowledge a bond in being attached, somehow, to this place.
At the end the tunnel, the transformation at the Pentagon parking lot is startling. This side of the Pentagon is unscathed, and looms overhead — huge and stoic in the midday sun. The destroyed section is west. One third of the Pentagon, at least, has been rendered useless.
White Red Cross tents cover most of the entire parking lot. Food and water tents are everywhere – available for the rescue workers, and anyone else who has made it this far. McDonald’s has trucks serving free meals, and — unable to miss a promotional opportunity — huge McDonald’s signs are hoisted high in the air on the vehicle’s mechanical arms.
The parking grounds resemble the press areas of a Democratic or Republican national convention sites with free food and drinks available for the thousands of people on hand. Men sit huddled together, talking in hushed voices. Armies of organized volunteers, many of whom have driven long distances from other states, wander the grounds, looking to assist any tired rescue worker taking a break.
“It was horrible,” one rescue worker told Arab News. “We found people, charred, sitting at their desks, surrounded by the photos of their loved ones. It’s so intrusive. It’s so awful. We found others sitting around televisions, they were watching the destruction at World Trade Center. They had no idea what hit them.”
Suddenly there are sirens. Everybody turns, anxious. Police vehicles are escorting tour buses onto the Pentagon. Word passes quickly — some of the victims’ families are arriving in seven chartered buses to visit the site where their loved ones died — 125 Pentagon personnel are presumed dead in the attack — to place flowers and mementos on a flatbed truck that will be driven inside the chain-link fence that now surrounds the area.
“Most are burned beyond recognition. It will be almost impossible to identify some of them quickly,” said one official, who asked not to be identified. “It was so instant, they probably did not feel any pain.”
“There are more questions than answers,” said Joseph Allbaugh, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) who toured the site for two hours yesterday. “Time is working against” those rescuers, whom Allbaugh called “American heroes.”
“It will be some time before we can recover everyone. These forces behind us are working as fast they possible can,” he said. Two soldiers from Fort Lee, Virginia, have one of the most difficult tasks at the Pentagon: mortuary duty.
Staff Sgt. James Frazier, 35, and Pvt. Khiran Corbitt, 23, are active-duty mortuary specialists from the 54th Quartermaster Company. Since early Sept. 12, the two have been at the Pentagon gathering the remains of victims killed when a hijacked airliner slammed into the building a day earlier. “After they identify and bag the remains, we go in and bring them out to the truck and transport them to a temporary morgue we’ve set up,” said a weary Frazier. It is mid-afternoon and he has a few hours to go before finishing a 12-hour shift.
Frazier said the remains are then taken to Fort Belvoir, Virginia, about 15 miles south. From there he said the remains are shipped to the mortuary facility in Dover, Delaware.