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 Special Report: America Under Attack
Recovered from the hijacked plane that slammed into the building
Tuesday were the damaged voice recorder and the charred flight data
recorder. They were sent to the FBI, and officials were hopeful the
two "black boxes" would provide clues about the final moments of
American Airlines Flight 77.
"You feel grieving for the individual in there, the soldier who
has fallen," said Sgt. Brock Bowman of Olympia, Wash., helping put
bodies into bags as rescue workers retrieved them from the rubble.
"You also feel some anger, and this is justified."
Inside, at a prayer service, men and women wiped away tears as
they sang "God Bless America."
"My heart pains for you and I pray that God will comfort you,"
Army Maj. Gen. Robert Van Antwerp Jr. told them.
Van Antwerp, assistant chief of staff for installation
management, said that his secretary and administrative assistance
were killed. He was at a meeting outside the Pentagon on Tuesday
when the plane attacked the five-sided building.
"I am experiencing some of the same emotions that many of you
are," he told 250 people in an auditorium and an overflow crowd
watching from a television hallway. From a window, rescue cranes
could be seen stretched skyward over a roof section scattered with
debris.
In a nearby hallway, workers wearing paper surgical masks washed
soot from the walls and floors.
"It makes you realize your own mortality," said one rescuer,
Sgt. John Trotter, 21, of San Antonio.
Trotter and Bowman are members of the Army's Old Guard of the
Military District of Washington. The unit normally performs
ceremonial duties, including at the White House and Arlington
National Cemetery's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
On Friday, they were putting remains into bags and onto
refrigerator trucks.
Government authorities said 190 people - a combination of
military and civilian employees on the ground and the passengers in
the plane - were believed to have died.
Search and rescue teams continued to work to stabilize the
damaged section of the Pentagon because the building was still
shifting, said Jerry Crawford, leader of an urban search and rescue
team from Memphis, Tenn.
Officials said recovery efforts were complicated by a brief but
heavy rain Friday.
Crawford also said officials were worried about classified
material and intelligence information that is strewn throughout the
rubble. He said no military intelligence officials have been
allowed into the area.
"We have the FBI with us and nobody is touching anything
they're not supposed to touch," Crawford said. He said that when
rescue workers "see something marked secret or sensitive, we leave
it alone."
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