"There was this overwhelming sense of helplessness"

Cmdr. Vincent McBeth, former administrative aide to the Navy secretary

For me, it was kind of a flipping of a switch, back into an operational mode, but there was this overwhelming sense of helplessness. I don't have a weapon. I don't have fire-control systems to command and a ship to maneuver out of harm's way.

The phones are ringing. We're trying to get all of the people in the immediate area out of the building. You were in the middle of the passageway, just vectoring people out of the building, answering phones, trying to report to someone that their loved one is OK.

It was absolute chaos, to the point where I go to the Navy captain who worked for the chief of naval operations and I say to him, "Sir, I recommend that you get the chief of naval operations and evacuate him to his residence at the Washington Navy Yard." This voice comes from the back: "Who ordered the evacuation?" I kind of whip around and shoot a look that says, "How dare you ask that question?" And the look I'm shooting is actually to the chief of naval operations.

This thick, black, putrid smoke came just billowing down the passageway. These huge passageways were completely engulfed in smoke and flame. That's what eventually pushed us out, pushed everyone out.

I've been a damage-control assistant for a ship. And I'm responsible for training the crew to protect the ship in the event of a major fuel fire, all types of fires, from electrical fires to Delta-class fires, which is when metal is on fire. That's what I've been trained to do. But again, I'm in the Pentagon, wearing a plastic uniform, and I don't have a firefighting ensemble, I don't have an OBA, an oxygen breathing apparatus, to strap on. I don't have any of those things. So what do I do? I leave. That's your only option. That's your only choice. There are extinguishers somewhere, but if you were to ask me to walk to the nearest fire extinguisher, today I could, but not on the morning of September 11.

The next thing I know, I'm out of the building, curled up in the back of an SUV. There's a two-star admiral driving, there's a three-star admiral in the passenger seat. There's another admiral in the backseat, a couple of us random aides tossed in, and we're making our way out of the Pentagon complex through this massive horde of people at fairly rapid speed, trying to get to what became our alternate command center at the Navy Annex, which was up on the hill there in Arlington. So we co-located with the Marine Corps and tried to set up some alternate office space, so our leadership could start casualty assessments.

We could surmise we lost a number of people. And yet, you don't know who they are. You don't know what their families knew. Have they been informed? That was all part of the challenge that the leadership faced-accounting for the losses, ensuring that we had a structure in place to report to those families, "Your husband, on shore duty, is not coming home tonight."

How do you do that? It's shore duty. You're not on an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer in the middle of the Persian Gulf conducting operations. You're at home, expected later that evening to get in your car or get on the Metro and go home.

Each of these vice admirals is sitting there, just clawing for information: "We have 34 accounted for, seven unaccounted for. Well, who are the seven? Where did they work?"

Information we received that first day, during those immediate hours, was really useless. It was all inaccurate. No one had the lists-the lists of people. Our focus was solely on, "What are our losses, and how do we activate this mechanism to notify families and to handle these casualty assistance calls?" You have to get to the decision point. Johnny is lost. Let's notify the family. Johnny isn't going to come home this evening, so now let's send the chaplain and the naval officer out to Johnny's residence.

One, two, three in the morning. I jumped in a car with the Navy secretary's speechwriter, who drops me off on his way home. I didn't say a word to my wife, just held her, and I cried.