http://www.democraticunderground.com/cgi-bin/duforum/duboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=5620&forum=DCForumID43#49Army Lt. Col. Adrian Erckenbrack
"He broke through jammed doorways, crawled through holes made by the plane's landing gear and came across walls of burning plane parts and body parts."
Roll Call, 22 July 2002, "Pentagon Rescuer Receives Medal for Bravery", p. 1
Lt. Kevin Schaeffer from the Navy Command Center
"He lurched down a pile of wreckage and saw that the smoke before him seemed backlit, and that it brightened further as he passed through a hole in the Command Center's back wall, into a room he'd never seen before, filled with overturned desks and smashed computers. He climbed over the desks and through another hole, and into the golden sunshine of a clear September morning. Shaeffer stood on a service road that circled the Pentagon between the B and C rings, a chunk of the 757's nose cone and front landing gear lay on the pavement a few feet away, resting against the B Ring wall."
http://www.pilotonline.com/special/911/pentagon3.htmlPaul K. Carlton, Jr., U.S. Air Force surgeon general
"I thought it was a terrorist bomb. . . .But then I saw the landing gear. It was on the ground in the alley between the B and C rings. When I saw it there, not only did I realize an airplane had struck the Pentagon but it was clear that the plane had come through the E, D, and C buildings to get there."
September 11: An Oral History, ed. by Dean Murphy, p. 216.
"After helping establish a triage area in the Pentagon courtyard, Carlton walked into an alleyway between the second and third innermost rings of buildings. A set of landing gear lay about 20 feet away."
The Richmond Times-Dispatch, 9 September 2002, p. A-3.
Navy Lt. Commander David Tarantino, U.S. Navy
"I was having trouble breathing, so I stepped into the open breezeway between C and B rings to get some fresh air. I saw these two holes where the aircraft had come through. You could see an aircraft tire that had come through three rings of the Pentagon, and there were charts and other stuff that was obviously from the aircraft."
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0802/083002nj2.htm"I went back in and found myself in the open air space between the B and the C Ring on the inner aspect of the C Ring between the 4th and 5th Corridors. There was a big exploded hole in the wall that was pouring out thick black smoke, and there was a big plane tire sitting there, and evidence of human remains."
navymedicine.med.navy.mil/med09h/NM%20Magazine/Nov-Dec01/webissue.pdf
"They found an area where fire surrounded a hole in a wall that was blown out. They heard cries from people who were trapped and saw a plane tire."
The Associated Press State & Local Wire, September 27, 2001.
Rep. Todd Tiahrt, Kansas
"In the C and B rings the plane had punched a hole you could a drive a truck around in, and I saw an airplane tire. It made it very real."
http://wichita.bizjournals.com/wichita/stories/2002/09/09/story1.htmlArmy Sgt. Maj. Tony Rose
"Rose returned to the roadway between the B and C rings, where he presented himself to FBI agents. They asked him to help bag the body parts already scattered about, and which now washed from the Navy Command Center on the streams created by broken water mains. At one point, Rose saw a severed foot and ankle lying beneath a piece of purple fabric. When he reached for the cloth to move it out of the way, he discovered that it contained a leg."
http://www.pilotonline.com/special/911/pentagon3.htmlLt. Col. Victor Correa
"This time, according to Correa, he found out what caused the horrific attack he survived earlier that morning; he saw the nose cone and the landing gear of the airliner."
http://www.army.mil/usar/news/2002/09-11anniv/herotellsall.htmlJerry Pipenger, PENREN construction worker
"Pipenger can stand in the Pentagon's inner drive and point out where American Airlines flight 77 came to rest with its landing gear protruding slightly above the roadway."
http://www.pal-item.com/news/stories/20020911/localnews/63205.htmlLeo Titus, P.E., VATF-1 engineer
"A nine foot diameter exit hole was created in the wall of C ring and the remainder of the debris from the impact ended up in the alley between C ring and B ring known as A & E Drive."
http://www.aesvn.org/resources/Pentagon-Shoring.pdfChief Master Sergeant John Monaccio
"The plane's inertia carried aircraft remains all the way through the building coming to rest on the outside walls of our offices (in B-ring). We discovered cockpit wreckage at our feet while attempting to rescue people from a Navy operations area….You'll see a circular hole, that's the exit hole the cockpit and front tire assembly made through the Navy Operations Center."
http://www.geoffmetcalf.com/pentagon/pentagon-email_20020316.htmlhttp://www.geoffmetcalf.com/pentagon/pentagon_20020316.htmlApril, Pentagon employee
"The nose of the plane just barely jutted out into A/E Drive (the street that runs around the inside of the building). It made a perfectly round, 5-foot hole in the wall. There was one set of landing gear (presumably from the nose) out in A/E Drive. But most of the plane's skin was in pieces not much bigger than a piece of notebook paper."
http://www.humanunderground.com/11september/comments-general.html"Merwolf," EMS worker at the Pentagon
"We came to an opening between the rings. "Look", I was told and I followed the beam of light to a rather small perfectly round hole ... maybe 10-12 feet in diameter in the wall with a pile of rubble in front of it. At closer inspection, the rubble with littered with clothes, arms, and legs. "That's where the nose of the plane finally stopped", I was told. They had already removed the metal pieces ... all that was left was the hole."
http://www.merwolf.com/remember/PE3_Pent.htmlhttp://www.democraticunderground.com/cgi-bin/duforum/duboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=5585&forum=DCForumID43#6Hasn't it occurred to you that out of respect for the dead, grisly photos of body parts were not released? How terrible logic it is to say that if I haven't seen a photo of something, it must not have existed? Are all these people liars?
Army Sgt. Maj. Tony Rose
Rose marveled as he recalled shouting orders at generals among the volunteers bagging body parts around the wreckage. "I sort of became the old sergeant major out there," he said. "People, regardless of rank, fell in and did what was needed."
http://cjonline.com/stories/091701/ter_training.shtmlAfter a minute he saw a hand jutting from the wreckage, fingers splayed. He grabbed it, and the fingers closed tight around his. He dug out a sailor, the first of seven he and McNair and their compatriots rescued. Later still, Rose returned to the roadway between the B and C rings, where he presented himself to FBI agents. They asked him to help bag the body parts already scattered about, and which now washed from the Navy Command Center on the streams created by broken water mains. At one point, Rose saw a severed foot and ankle lying beneath a piece of purple fabric. When he reached for the cloth to move it out of the way, he discovered that it contained a leg. So much water poured into the road that Rose and others positioned themselves in front of the storm drains, to keep body parts from sweeping away. He saw organs, in addition to limbs, and wondered whose they were.
The Virginian-Pilot, September 9, 2002.
http://www.pilotonline.com/special/911/pentagon.htmlAs the day wore on, the rescue efforts became instead, a grim search for body parts. “I picked up a child's hand. That was it. Just a child's hand and that's when I got angry. To wonder why someone could do this. You can come after me. I'm a soldier. I have sworn to protect and defend, but that wasn't right,” says Rose.
http://www.centrexnews.com/columnists/skousen/2002/0308.htmlArmy Lt. Col. Adrian Erckenbrack
Erckenbrack spent the rest of the day on stretcher teams, attempting to penetrate the inner court of the Pentagon to search for survivors. He broke through jammed doorways, crawled through holes made by the plane's landing gear and came across walls of burning plane parts and body parts. "The smoke was so bad you couldn't breathe and you almost involuntarily closed your eyes," Erckenbrack said.
Roll Call, "Pentagon Rescuer Receives Medal for Bravery," by John McArdle, July 22, 2002.
Captain Jane F. Vieira, CHC, USN
Since most bodies were charred beyond recognition and some were just body parts, we did not know for whom we were praying. Many were totally indistinguishable. Some had missing limbs and other bags had just limbs.
http://navymedicine.med.navy.mil/med09h/NM%20Magazine/Nov-Dec01/webissue.pdfDC Matthew
Anyway, today I went in with the engineers, to clear a path through the debris on the ground floor, toward the center of the impact area. We were told to leave any body parts, flesh, clothing, etc. as we found it, for removal by the FBI.
http://pub6.ezboard.com/foldmenonlinewhatdoyouthink.showPrevMessage?topicID=957.topicCindy Álvarez (NCIS)
Álvarez said she and her fellow workers sorted through debris from collapsed Pentagon walls and pieces of the hijacked airplane. They found the box cutters used by the hijackers to commandeer the plane, identification papers, money, jewelry, and body parts. "These pieces of bodies, we treated like precious treasure," Álvarez said. "We knew this was somebody's family member. We knew they were waiting for the bodies to be returned so they could bury them properly and begin the healing process." Álvarez said one of the disturbing aspects of her job was recovering the items of children who had been on board the plane. "It was upsetting to find children's shoes, their little suitcases and their stuffed animals," she said. She also recalled participating in the recovery of the body of a friend of hers. "I entered the Pentagon once. The one person we pulled out whose body was intact was a friend of mine. His uniform was perfect. His ribbons, his belt and his shoes were clean. I thought, 'How befitting a hero.' I said a prayer over him, and then they zipped up his body bag." Picking up body parts, and pieces of aircraft at the Pentagon, Álvarez said she would pray, "Help me Jesus. Please don't let me cry yet, because I will never stop, my mask will fog up and I have a lot of work to do here."
http://www.cathstan.org/news/09-05-02/3.shtmlArlington County Board
Neither the depth of the incursion nor the massive devastation inside the building was readily apparent as flames burned behind blast-proof windows. Huge heaps of rubble and burning debris littered with the bodies and body parts of 188 victims covered an area the size of a modern shopping mall.
The ACPD provided three 20-person teams that worked a 12-hour shift on alternating days supporting the FBI’s evidence recovery sifting operation in the North Parking Lot. This was physically exhausting work that was also psychologically stressful. These officers raked through the debris searching for evidence, body parts of victims, and classified materials. The sifting operation produced about 70 percent of the body parts processed at the morgue.
http://www.co.arlington.va.us/fire/edu/about/pdf/after_report.pdfSally Horwat, Red Cross emergency worker
And now here is my transforming experience. I talked to the Rescue Workers.... the “Grunts” who go in and put the broken bodies in the blue bags....who are now sifting, by hand, through all the debris searching for personal effects and body parts.
http://www.division42.org/MembersArea/IPfiles/IP_Wtr_02/articles/SpecSection/ss_redcross.htmlNelson Gracia-Cruz, mortuary affairs specialist in the U.S. Army Reserve.
I remember I was wearing my white Tyvex suit, my gloves, my mask. The place was still smoking. The stench was horrible. You could smell burning fuel and human flesh. I was sifting through a big pile of rubble that the guys with the heavy equipment had pulled out of that huge, stinking scar in the building. I reached into the pile, and the first thing I pulled out was a finger. Not burned, not shredded. Just an entire finger that used to belong to a human being. I couldn't stop shaking. I found a lot of horrible stuff afterward. Skin, hair, bits of clothing. Baby pictures. Wedding bands.
Los Angeles Times, September 11, 2002, Part S; Page 11
An AFCD EMS worker
Looking down at my feet was a body part. Parts of bodies, plane debris, and luggage littered the ground. Twisted, melted pieces of plane were evidence of the extreme heat and force that had been thrust into the building.
http://www.merwolf.com/remember/PE3_Pent.htmlbolo adds: Is that enough, Abe, or do you want more? The link to the old forums is right here:http://www.democraticunderground.com/cgi-bin/duforum/duboard.cgi?az=list&forum=DCForumID43&mm=5760&archive=yesHave fun storming the castle.