Colonel Debra
Shattuck, Commander of the 28th Maintenance Group at Ellsworth Air
Force Base, recalls very clearly because she was serving at the
Pentagon the day the terrorists attacked.
Col. Shattuck has served in the United States Air Force for
nearly 25 years in such exciting places as Germany and Korea, and
even taught history at the Air Force Academy for four years. But it
was her assignment in our nation’s capital six years ago that
brought her to the front line of battle with the most treacherous
enemy our nation has ever faced.
I recently had the
honor of interviewing Col. Shattuck about her experiences on the day
we now know as 911, and what’s being done to prevent another day
like that from ever happening again.
Six years ago today,
on September 11, 2001, Shattuck had been at her assignment to the
Joint Staff in the Pentagon in Washington D.C. for only two months.
She said that day started like any other, with her riding the D.C.
Metro to work, but it became a day she would remember forever.
Shattuck said she
arrived at work about 9:30 am that morning to an office in the
middle ring of the Pentagon. She and 50 coworkers performed
their duties in this room with no windows, located deep inside the
huge Defense Department building. They did, however, have TVs
in the office to monitor news outlets, and they needed them that day
like no other day.
Shortly after she got
to work, Shattuck's boss called her and her colleagues over to a TV
to watch news of American Airlines Flight 11's crash into the World
Trade Center. She and her colleagues were confused as to how an
airplane could be so careless as to strike one of the prominent Twin
Towers. However, moments after they began discussing the first
strike among themselves, they saw United Airlines Flight 175 strike
the South Tower, and they knew the country was under attack.
Shattuck quickly
called her husband Cliff who was a trucker at the time and advised
him to monitor what was going on, then she went back to watching the
news coverage at the World Trade Center.
At this point, no one
knew how many airplanes had been hijacked. Since the Pentagon is the
highest profile military target on the East Coast, Shattuck opined
to a colleague that they might soon come under attack. Moments after
voicing this concern, Shattuck heard a dull thud. She said it was
very soft, and some people in her area didn’t even hear it, but to
her it sounded as if someone had dropped something very heavy on the
floor above them.
Seconds later, one of
the news reports they were watching cut away for a live report of
“an explosion at the Pentagon,” and she knew they were under attack:
American Airlines Flight 77 had slammed into the Pentagon, killing
125 people inside and 54 on the plane.
When Shattuck walked
out of her office into the long hallway, she heard people calling
for all personnel to remain in their offices, that there had been
some sort of attack but that no evacuation was currently taking
place.
But shortly
thereafter the order came to evacuate, and she joined her coworkers
in quickly shutting down down their computers that had classified
information and locking the safes before lining up with scores of
others waiting their turn to leave the building
“I remember being
proud of how calm everyone was,” Shattuck told me. “There was no
panic or anger; we just realized we’d now have to put our training
into action. We were there to defend the United States of America.”
As the long line
moved toward the exit, Shattuck remembers seeing a woman who was
covered head to toe in ashes. She remembers wondering how this woman
made it all the way around from the opposite side of the Pentagon
where the plane had struck.
After a few minutes,
she was out of the building and happy to see the clear blue skies
above. She and other Pentagon personnel calmly proceeded to their
designated meeting location where roll was taken and everyone was
accounted for.
At this point, rumors
where flying as people tried to ascertain what had really happened.
One rumor said that a helicopter had struck the building but
Shattuck later found out that an airplane had struck the building
where the helipad was located.
It wasn’t long before
the thousands gathered outside the Pentagon were ordered to take
cover because of a report that another plane was coming; at this
point United Flight 93 had turned and was headed back toward
Washington.
After they were given
the all-clear, injured people were taken out onto the lawn where
medical personnel began treating them. Shattuck recalls the
professional manner in which the injured were given necessary
immediate treatment, and then were given or had cards pinned to them
with details about their injuries for later caregivers.
About 45 minutes
after the attack, she and other personnel were ordered to set up an
alternate National Military Command Center in another location, in
case the primary center at the Pentagon had to stand down. Though
personnel were mobilized to prepare for this contingency, it never
became necessary due to the dedication of NMCC personnel who stayed
at their posts despite the smoke and other dangers.
Shattuck said she
didn’t know anyone personally who was killed in the attack, though
she had friends who knew people who were killed.
She remembers the
miraculous story of an Army lieutenant colonel that had been in a
conference room with thirteen people shortly before the attack. The
briefing had finished and the other attendees invited him to stick
around and talk some more. He declined, stating he had to get back
to his office, leaving the others in the room. Shortly afterward,
the plane struck that area of the building, killing all those inside
the conference room. Shattuck said there were many stories of close
calls like this one.
After the attack,
Shattuck and her coworkers wondered what the death toll would be,
given the thousand killed at the World Trade Center. About 25,000
people work in the Pentagon on any given day, with about 5,000
people in each of the five “wedges” of the building.
In another miraculous
set of circumstances, Wedge 1 had just been renovated and was still
almost empty of personnel. Some of the renovations included
reinforced support beams and explosion-proof glass. Wedge 2 was
about to be renovated and most of the workers had already been
cleared out in preparation. Flight 77 struck where these two
sections meet, so casualties were much fewer than might have
otherwise been.
In the shadow of such
death, destruction and suffering, some have understandably wondered,
“Where was God?” But something happened that told Debra Shattuck
where He was that day.
Speaking not as an
Air Force officer but very personally, Shattuck told me about an
amazing thing that happened the night of 911. She got home that
night about 11:30 pm. Though she was very tired, she determined not
to go to bed until she had done her daily practice of prayer and
Scripture reading. That night, Shattuck opened her Bible randomly
and read the first passage she saw. It was Psalm 37 which says, in
part, “Do not fret because of evil men or be envious of those who do
wrong...Trust in the LORD and do good.”
“That last part
really stuck in my mind,” Shattuck told me. “It really put things in
perspective and helped me be calm. We were attacked, but the Lord is
still on His throne.”
Now Col. Shattuck is
stationed at Ellsworth AFB, one of the many locations from which the
War on Terror continues. Shattuck said personnel from Ellsworth
support the war by sending individuals or small groups overseas to
work with security forces, explosive ordinance disposal, and pretty
much anything they would also do here at stateside bases.
But Ellsworth also
deploys large numbers of airplanes, operators and maintainers as a
unit to forward operating locations in support of operations such as
Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan) and Iraqi Freedom (Iraq).
Her maintenance group
was behind such extraordinary achievements such as hitting Taliban
and al-Qaeda forces in both Afghanistan and Iraq on the same day,
and carrying out the largest close air support mission since the
Vietnam War.
As I concluded the
interview with Col. Shattuck, she left no doubt about her commitment
and that of other military personnel: “We cannot forget as Americans
that we are in a global war on terrorism, and we are doing
everything we can to stop them overseas so they can’t come back and
do again what they did on September 11.”
Today we remember the
2,974 Americans killed that day, and we remember the husbands,
wives, sons, daughters, mothers and fathers who lost their loved
ones.
We also remember the
brave military men and women working tirelessly to ensure such a
tragedy doesn't happen again, and their families so often separated
by many months and thousands of miles.
And hopefully we
remember the lessons that history has written for us in blood.
May God bless Col.
Shattuck, the warriors at Ellsworth, and all the heroes in the U.S.
Armed Forces around the world.
