MOUNT VERNON – Twenty-five years.
Like most other Americans, Jackie and Bob Wihl of Mount Vernon can hardly believe that a quarter century has passed since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York City and Arlington, Va.
They will pay tribute to the victims of that day when they join James “Smitty” Smith and his wife Deborah Long-Smith at a 9/11 ceremony in the Pentagon courtyard in Arlington. Deborah, who is Jackie’s second cousin, spent her childhood in Mount Vernon before moving to Culpeper, Va, where she graduated from high school in 1968 and later married Smith.
President Trump is scheduled to speak at the Sept. 11 Pentagon program.
Smith, a retired U.S. Army medic, was working as a civilian employee at the Pentagon when hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the west side of the massive military complex. He was later recognized by the Department of Defense for his heroic life-saving actions in the hours after the crash that killed 125 military and civilian employees and all 59 passengers and crew aboard the plane.
It was years later before the Wihls knew the full scope of Smith’s actions on 9/11.
Jackie is chair of the guidance department at Mount Vernon High School, where she has worked for 31 years. Bob, a retired manager at Mars Corp. in Columbus, has worked as a high school classroom aide for seven years at the Knox Educational Service Center’s Learning Center in Mount Vernon.
At the Pentagon that day Smith, the chief medical NCO for the National Guard Bureau, was in a classified meeting. No phones or computers were permitted. They didn’t know about the World Trade Center attacks in New York City until an aide entered and spoke to the general in charge. There was little time to comprehend what had happened.
At 9:37 a.m. the hijacked Flight 77 tore into the Pentagon.
“When 9/11 happened we didn’t know Smitty that well,” Jackie said. “It was a couple of years later before we knew that he had been in the Pentagon that day. In recent years Smitty and Deborah visited us here. That’s when we learned the full story of Smitty’s actions.”
Smith’s first public account of the events of 9/11 appeared in an interview he gave to the Culpeper (Va.) Times for a Sept. 13, 2018 story titled ‘I was just doing my job.’
Smith had spent decades as an Army medic and nurse, earning the rank of Command Sergeant Major, the highest rank an enlisted soldier can attain.
In the Times story Smith described the moments after the Pentagon shook violently from the impact of the crash.
“It went totally into chaos within a matter of seconds,” he recalled. “We knew we were in trouble, but we did not know we had been hit by a plane at the time. The emergency recording came on telling everyone to immediately evacuate the building. At the same time, there were people running down the halls, screaming.”
As the fleeing crowd ran to their left, Smith and another medic assumed that whatever had happened was to their right. They moved in that direction, eventually linking up with about 10 others who also had stayed behind to look for survivors.
Billowing black smoke, standing water and the acrid smell of jet fuel filled the hallway. The group crawled on their hands and knees to avoid smoke inhalation.
“As we worked our way down the hallways, and into some of the offices, we had to keep getting lower and lower,” Smith told the Times. “Once we got down into the impact area, where everything was just blown apart, we started yelling and calling out. As an individual would be found, we would pull them out and take them as far as we could, then we would hand them off.”
Before the spreading fire halted their efforts, Smith and his group brought out seven people who were alive.
Retreating to the courtyard for fresh air, Smith saw a medic frantically trying to save a badly burned man.
“There was a gentleman laying on the ground, burned pretty severely,” Smith told the Times. “His flesh was hanging like wax, parts of his ear had burned off, parts of his nose had burned off. There was a medic there with an IV line but they couldn’t find a vein. They had a mess.
“I stopped really quick and told the medic, ‘Hand it to me. I’ll get it.’ I reached down, took my left hand and squeezed his right arm with one hand and did a blind stick and got him on the first stick. It was just luck to be honest with you.”
The man survived.
Smith shunned being called a hero, telling the Times, “I was just doing my job”
“That’s what I was trained to do. I just feel like I was put in a place to make a difference that day. I feel like I did and I hope I did. I’m just an everyday person.”
Jackie said the Pentagon ceremony will be a lifetime memory.
“I expect a flood of emotion. I look forward to being there and sharing the moment with Deborah and Smitty,” she said.
Bob described Smith as “a great guy, very humble.”
“We will enjoy being with them,” he said. “More importantly I want to learn everything there is to know about what happened there on 9/11 so that I can educate kids so that we never forget. It is important that we learn history from someone who lived it.
“I think it will be surreal to be in the Pentagon courtyard on 9/11, now that I know someone who was there that day.”
The death toll at the World Trade Center – where hijacked American Airlines flights struck the north and south towers – was 2,753, including occupants of the buildings, 343 firefighters and 60 police officers.
Forty passengers and crew aboard hijacked United Flight 93 were killed after struggling for control of the plane – which was believed to be heading to Washington, D,C. – and crashing into a field near Shanksville, Pa.