September 11, 2001, in Washington, D.C.

Another sad anniversary of one of our nation’s darkest days, the September 11 attack on the United States, has again passed.

Much has been written about those who gave their lives in New York, Shanksville and Washington. There are so many stories of heroism and sacrifice. On Wednesday, we honored them again.

On September 11, 2001, I lived in Northern Virginia, 20 miles south of the Pentagon, where we had lived for many years. As I left for work that morning, I noticed how incredibly blue the sky was. It was almost like a painting. It was stunning. It was the same clear blue sky in New York, according to newscasters there.

The last hijacked plane, Flight 77, crashed into the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m. Lives everywhere in our area were changed immediately. Everyone seemed to know someone at the Pentagon who did not survive or was injured.

One friend knew someone on Flight 77 that crashed into the Pentagon. Our receptionist at work had a neighbor at the Pentagon, who was not too far from the impact. She had crawled through the smoke and loose wires that served as a makeshift guide to lead people to safety. A White House network correspondent friend of mine had just walked into the West Wing.

Alarms were going off and Secret Service agents were running everywhere. It was total pandemonium. There are so many more stories.

For my family, my daughters will never forget where they were at the time of the crashes. My oldest daughter lived in an apartment building perilously close to the Pentagon. She heard the crash. She soon saw helicopters flying by her 14th floor window, so close you could see the pilots’ faces. I told her to get on I-95 and get home. She didn’t even make it one mile in four hours. She gave up and went back to her apartment.

My middle daughter was a freshman at UT. She heard about the hijackings. Her father happened to be at the Pentagon that day. She was so upset that her history teacher excused her from class. She was able to reach her father, and all was well. He was in an opposite “ring” of the Pentagon from the plane’s impact.

Because the situation was so unknown and volatile, my youngest daughter was in lockdown at her northern Virginia high school.

We lived about a mile (the way the crow flies) from the Potomac River in Woodbridge, Virginia. At all hours, it was normal to hear planes approaching and taking off from Reagan National Airport. We were on the flight path.

Suddenly, after 9:37 a.m. the sounds of commercial aircraft stopped. We heard new sounds coming from the skies. Military jets scrambled and regularly patrolled the Potomac River corridor. They were from everywhere – Andrews AFB (now called Joint Base Andrews), Langley AFB and bases in North Carolina and Pennsylvania. They were so close the house rumbled. It sounded like a war zone. Sometimes there were helicopters. This went on for about three weeks.

On 9-11 and for days afterward, the sky remained unusually blue and clear.

Melanie Staten is a public relations consultant with her husband, Vince.