9/11 Pentagon survivor recalls ‘palpable reminders of death’ after the attack
Maj. Ryan Yantis was in the Pentagon watching the news on TV when he saw the first plane hit the World Trade Center.
“When the second one hit there was no doubt in my mind this was a deliberate terrorist attack on America,” said Yantis, who was a public affairs officer at the time.
Still, he had important business to attend to. Just before 9:30 a.m., Yantis left his office to escort a senior officer to a meeting held in another part of the building — but the senior officer could not recall where.
“We stopped in Corridor 4 and we got into a bit of a heated argument over where the meeting was going to be.” Eventually, they found the meeting in Corridor 7, and were eight minutes late when alarms started going off.
“The Pentagon had been attacked between Corridors 4 and 5.”
If Yantis and his colleague had gone straight to the meeting on time, “we both would’ve been right at the center of the impact and probably severely injured or killed.”
As he hurried to the crash, Yantis saw “a large roll of smoke that came around the corner, so I evacuated and went outside. The west face of the Pentagon was on fire.
American Airlines Flight 77 had flown straight into the building, killing 59 passengers and five hijackers.
“I saw that there were a couple of stretchers. I grabbed one and started … helping carry people out.”
For hours, the former Eagle Scout kept running back in and out to get medical supplies or bring injured people to the aid station. “There was smoke and soot and palpable reminders of death, devastation and ruin everywhere,” he said.
Yantis, who is now 60 and retired from the Army as a lieutenant colonel in 2006, admits it took him years to think or talk about what happened that day. But one moment has always remained vivid in his mind.
“This little Navy officer walks over to me and she’s in a long sleeve black sweater, knee-length Navy uniform skirt, low heels. And she asked me for my T-shirt.”
Removing his uniform shirt, he peeled off his sweaty, smoke-drenched tee, assuming she would use it as a bandage.
“She thanked me, dunked it in a bucket of water and then pulled it over her long brown hair. I asked her if she was OK,” he said.
She told him yes: She was on a search-and-rescue mission. “She just didn’t want her hair to catch on fire,” he explained.
By late afternoon, Yantis was pulled back to his communications job, writing an announcement about the initial casualties. A final report calculated that at least 125 people working at the Pentagon were killed, including 55 military personnel.
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But the true sense of loss didn’t hit Yantis until he reported back to work the next day.
“I arrived at the Pentagon at 5 a.m. It’s still on fire. As I was crossing the south parking lot, it almost had an apocalyptic feel. [It’s a] huge parking lot [and] almost empty except for the handful of cars — and the realization comes over me that the people whose cars were here didn’t drive home for a reason.”
