Among those gathered at the Pentagon courtyard on a rainy Friday morning in Washington, DC, are Department of Defense employees.
Army Lt. Col. Charles Gilbertson, who has been an Army chaplain for 19 years and has served one year at the Pentagon, described the scene as “sobering.”
“It’s just an honor to be here,” Gilbertson said.
He said workers of various ages are experiencing today differently.
“A lot of our younger people weren’t born at the time, so it’s about establishing a point of reference. The older people speak of it with reverence, and for them, it’s deeply personal,” Gilbertson said.
Gilbertson, who also served in combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan counseling wounded and dying soldiers, struggled to find words to describe the enormity of that experience.
“It’s a challenge,” he said as he choked up. “It’s just a quiet time of remembrance.
CNN also spoke to several younger officers and enlisted service members who said they work with Pentagon employees who were in the building on September 11, 2001, but would rather not talk about it.
Navy Capt. Carmel Tomlinson, a JAG officer who has worked in the Pentagon since last December, says she has colleagues who were here on 9/11 who described “a loss of innocence that day.” She described a “mixture of feelings.” She says while the event is somber, “it also shows we are strong as a nation that we will not be intimidated.”
Navy Capt. Joshua Markley works in the same Pentagon office as Tomlinson, which is very near the spot where American Airlines flight 77 impacted the Pentagon.
“It’s just so hard to believe it happened right there,” but he says because of the retrofitting that took place after 9/11, “it’s the strongest part of the building now.”