[Sable99]

I was sitting at my desk in the US Capitol when the first and second plane hit the towers. When the plane hit the Pentagon, my boss called and said "get out" and hung up. Luckily, I had put my keys, purse and sunglasses on my desk when the first plane hit. I picked them up and ran down the backstairs of the Capitol.

I will never forget standing on the grassy area between the Capitol and the Supreme Court. It was a bright, sunny day and some of my co-workers took pictures of the Capitol because they thought it might be the last time they would see it. Then, the police started screaming over and over again "run, run, they are going to shoot it down". They meant the plane that went down in Pennsylvania. A co-worker's husband took me to their car and we stayed several hours watching TV in his bosses home a few blocks from the Capitol.

When the police finally let me get my car off the Capitol grounds, I began my drive home. The DC streets were eerily empty. The Pentagon was still smoldering when I drove by. I soon found out that a member of my church was in the Pentagon when the plane hit his office. The only reason he is alive is because he was in the bathroom but he still was horribly burned. He wrote a book (Refined by Fire) about his experience.