On September 11, 2001, terrorists didn't only attack the World Trade Center in New York. A further target was the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia - the octagonal structure close to the capital that houses the US Defense Department. At 9:37 that morning, American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the west wing of the building. No one on board survived, and there were many casualties in the building. A total of 184 people died, including Commander William Donovan.

His widow Elaine remembers the morning of September 11, 2001. She tried to call her husband Bill at his office in the Pentagon, but the lines were dead.

"I immediately had a really bad feeling," she recalls. "This is not good, I thought."

The 37-year-old marine pilot had been working at the Pentagon for a year. His office was based in the part of the building where the Boeing 757 crashed and burst into flames. It took one week to find his body and confirm his death. The period of uncertainty was grueling, Elaine Donovan recalls.

"Until you know for sure, you always have hope," she says.

Planning gives bereaved strength

September 11, 2001 dramatically changed Elaine Donovan's life. She looks tired, weary. For one year, she didn't have the strength to visit the spot where the father of her three children was killed. She didn't see the purpose in doing so, she says. But something else gave her strength. Two months after the attacks, she met with other victims' families. They had a common goal: a memorial should be erected. Still, it was difficult for her.

"In those first meetings, we would walk in crying and we'd leave crying," she says.

Yet the project gave her something which she could concentrate on. She is proud of the memorial, located beside the Pentagon facade that was hit by the plane. It is made up of 184 cantilevered benches, symbolizing each life lost on that day. The memorial benches are organized in rows corresponding to the years the victims were born. Each bench has its own pool of flowing water amid a gravel surface marked by trees, and is engraved with a name, on one or the other side. Every detail has its significance, Donovan explains.

"If you look at the name and see the Pentagon, it means they were in the Pentagon that day and passed away there," she says. "If you see their name and you see sky, it means they were on the plane."

Keeping the memory alive

The memorial was inaugurated on September 11, 2008. Donovan rarely visits the site, despite having contributed to its realization. She thinks of her husband's death every day anyway. She even forbid her children, who were eight, 10 and 11 years old at the time, from watching the news for many years. The images of the attacks were just too painful, she says. Even now, it's difficult for her to talk about it. But, she adds, she is nonetheless doing well.

"I'm still standing, my kids are still standing," she says. "It wasn't always that way. There were times when I never thought we'd make it. But we're doing well."

Unable to forget

Lieutenant Michael Regan was one of the first responders to the Pentagon attack. On September 11, 2001, he was a member of the Virginia Task Force, a group of firefighters who double as a federal search-and-rescue team. He and his colleagues have faced many traumatic scenes in Turkey and Taiwan, in the Philippines and Haiti, and recently following the devastating earthquake in Japan. Their task: finding survivors and rescuing them.

Three hours after the Boeing crashed into the Pentagon, he and his team arrived at the site with heavy machinery and entered the burning building. Regan says he saw many horrible things. He points to a door that was rebuilt at exactly the same spot.

"When we first walked in the doorway, I encountered our first victim, which had been severely burned," he says. "He almost made it out the door, just 10 more feet and that victim would have been outside, but didn't make it."

The brawny man doesn't let his emotions show, but you can still sense the dismay of the time. It is Regan's greatest fear that a victims dies because he can't reach him in time. Ten years ago, in the smoking wreckage, though, he couldn't afford to feel anything. He is trained to function during catastrophes. He had 50 cards with him, to mark the victims, when he entered the wreckage.

"I used those 50 cards up in about 20 minutes," he says.

Turning to something positive

Regan says it's important to keep the memory of the events alive.

"I think that we should be teaching our children in school about why this happened and what happened that day and don't sugarcoat it," he says. "The brutality of it is that horrible people did horrible things on September 11."

He says such an attack could occur again at any time, and refers to the recent killing spree and bomb attack in Norway, which left 77 people dead. It does make him feel bitter that time and again there are people who commit these crimes.

Cheryl Ryefield saw the catastrophe first-hand. The 60-year-old was driving to work at the Defense Department when the traffic suddenly came to a standstill shortly before the parking lot. In New York, the twin towers of the World Trade Center were already burning. Ryefield looked up into the sky and saw an airplane speeding towards the Pentagon. It gouged into the building and exploded before her eyes.

"Stop! I wanted them to stop. And I looked around me and everyone is going 'stop stop'," she recalls. "I thought it just looked like a movie. It didn't look real, but it was."

The fire destroyed her office. It took a week for her to get a new workplace. Ryefield still works in the Pentagon, in the public relations department. She has to deal with a lot of traumatized people. That has helped her a lot, 10 years after the attacks.

"I've learned how to put a bad thing like that behind me and to move on and to look for the positive," Ryefield says.

Author: Christina Bergmann, Arlington, Virginia / sac
Editor: Michael Knigge