Posted on the twentieth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks
- by Tom Giusto
9/11
What was I doing when the terrorist planes struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon 20 years ago this morning? Sleeping! Yes, I slept through 9/11. But before the day would end, I would be one of the first people back inside the dark, smoke-filled corridors of the Pentagon. I’ve never told my full story of that day. Here it is.
Tuesday morning was my regular day off from my job as a producer at the Washington bureau of ABC News. I was sleeping late. All of a sudden my house, about three miles from the Pentagon, very noticeably shook. The dishes rattled in the cabinets. It was very out of the ordinary so I checked around the house, looked outside, and found nothing unusual. I had noticed heavy construction equipment in the neighborhood the day before and I figured it must have been some blasting. I didn’t think any more of it.
It wasn’t until a family member called about an hour later that I learned the unthinkable cause for what I had felt in my home. I turned on the TV and saw the shocking video played over and over. I knew I would have to work. When young people ask me what it takes to work in television news, I point to that day. Would you be able to leave your family and voluntarily go to work in a danger zone not knowing what was going to happen to you, I ask them? If the answer is yes, you have what it takes to work in television news.
I reasoned our New York office would have the World Trade Center covered and the Washington bureau was already mobilized to cover the Pentagon, so ABC News would probably need some help in Shanksville where the fourth plane crashed. I took a shower, packed a bag and called the office. Do you want me to drive to Shanksville, I asked? They said no, can you go to the Pentagon, we need people there.
By that time the streets were already clogged with cars and people trying to get home, not only from the Pentagon but other offices in Northern Virginia. Since I lived relatively close, I knew the back streets and was able to snake my way to the Pentagon.
The first thing you could see from miles away was the black smoke filling the sky. But what I remember more are the faces of the Pentagon employees trying to get home. The shock, horror, fear and bewilderment in their expressions as they walked away and tried to hitch rides home. And I was going in the other direction, trying to get to the place they were fleeing.
The headquarters of the Drug Enforcement Administration is across the street from the Pentagon. Some of their armed agents went into the streets trying to do what they could to help direct traffic. I remember one of them who stopped my car as he tried to control access to the Pentagon. I told him who I was and where I was going, and he patted my shoulder and wished me luck. No other law enforcement person I’ve ever come into contact has done anything like that.
The news media set up its operation at a gas station directly across from the side of the Pentagon that was hit, with a clear view of the impact. My first close-up look at the damage was one of disbelief. I had driven by that side of the Pentagon a thousand times on my way to and from work. I never thought I would see America’s military headquarters in flames, the target of a terrorist attack. I tried my best to avoid anger and emotion. My job was to work and that’s what I did.
Once our satellite truck arrived we were able to begin sending live pictures and feeding some of the videotape our crews near the scene shot earlier. Pentagon officials came by periodically and held a few briefings which we carried live.
One of the things television news can do best in a time of crisis is to hold the hand of a grieving nation. That’s exactly what we did on 9/11. The pictures were devastating, part of the Pentagon collapsed and burning, people dead inside the wreckage.
But the US military was determined not to give the terrorists the satisfaction of being able to shut down the Pentagon. It was decided Defense Secretary Rumsfeld would hold a briefing that same evening of 9/11 inside the Pentagon, in the media briefing room. ABC News would be the television pool inside the Pentagon and I would be the producer. An escort of heavily armed military and civilian guards took a group of us journalists back into the Pentagon that evening. The fire was still burning a few hundred feet away in another part of the massive building. The corridors where we walked were dark and filled with the smell of smoke.
My camera crew and I were taken for a brief look outside on the side of the building where the plane struck. The first things we saw as we walked out were empty body bags laid on the ground to be used if needed. Then we turned and saw the point of impact, the collapsed floors, fire trucks spraying water, flames still visible. We shot as much video as we could.
Even though we had a military escort with us, a law enforcement person who saw us taping said the video tape would have to be confiscated as evidence for the investigation. I didn’t want that to happen. While our escort discussed it with him, I discretely asked the cameraman to take the video tape out of the camera and substitute a blank tape, just in case. It all worked out and the tape was not confiscated.
As the world watched, the Pentagon was able to have its briefing, the Secretary of Defense speaking from the very spot the terrorists wanted to destroy. Back at the media staging area the public was beginning to come by to see for themselves the extent of the attack. I remember people gathering on the grass in front of the Navy Annex overlooking the Pentagon and spontaneously singing “God Bless America.” It was a very emotional and moving experience.
The images that day are still fresh in my mind 20 years later. I did make it home for a few hours sleep before heading back the next morning. I spent the next 10 days working outside the Pentagon.
It was a day where you saw the best and the worst in people. It was the day America lost its innocence. When I ask myself why is that that I do what I do, this day 20 years ago is why.