The Pentagon: A History (82 page)

They wanted the noise to stop

It was shades of 1942
The Renovator,
Jan. and Feb. 1995, box 1304, OSD HO.

Construction of a new
The Renovator,
Dec. 1994; Carter, author interview; Lee Evey, author interview, 28 Nov. 2005. The original contractor, the George Hyman Construction Company of Bethesda, Md., merged with Clark in October 2005.

The first work
The Renovator,
Dec. 1994; “The History of the Pentagon Building Condition,” PENREN Web site; Frank Probst, author interview, 22 Nov. 2005.

It was not long before other
Ken Catlow, author interview, 10 Nov. 2005.

The real trouble began
Carter, author interview.

The message was not
DoD news briefing, 16 Mar. 1995; Hamre, author interview.

The work already under contract
John Deutch, Pentagon renovation memo, 9 Mar. 1995, box 1304, OSD HO; Gilbert A. Lewthwaite, “Pentagon face lift at age 52,” Baltimore
Sun,
26 Nov. 1995; Catlow, author interview;
Pentagram,
22 Mar. 1996.

Doc Cooke had a new generation
Carter, author interview; Deutch, e-mail to author, 11 Feb. 2006.

The review continued
Hamre, author interview;
The Renovator,
Feb. 1997.

At the rate the program
“Problems with Pentagon Renovation Projects,” Federal Facilities Division, 23 Jan. 1997, Cooke papers, OSD HO.

But that was not the worst
Ibid.;
“Sewer Line Corrections,” Pentagon renovation program, 14 Aug. 1997, OSD HO; Probst, author interview.

“The program wasn’t looked”
Ibid.

Hamre, who had succeeded
Hamre, author interview.

The psychology major

Walker Lee Evey knew nothing
Evey, author interviews, 9 July 2002 and 28 Nov. 2005; Steve Vogel, “From Ruins, Pentagon Rises Renewed,” 8 Sept. 2002; Evey resume, 2002, author’s papers; Hamre, author interview.

On November 17, 1997
Evey, author interview, 2005;
WP,
7 June 2005.

Hamre and Cooke
Hamre, author interview; “Notes on organizational structure,” undated memo, Cooke papers, OSD HO; Evey, author interview, 2005.

Hamre “asked Air Force”
Ibid.

Back in his office
Ibid.; WP,
17 Nov. 1997.

Hamre warmly ushered
Evey, author interview, 2005; Hamre, author interview.

Whistling in the dark

On his first morning
Evey, author interviews, 2002 and 2005.

In subsequent days
Catlow, author interview; Evey, author interview, 2005.

At one of his first
Ibid.

“This guy’s lost it”
Probst, author interview.

The first sign
Evey, author interview, 2005.

The Big Bash

The Big Bash
The Renovator,
Feb/Mar. 1998; Hamre, author interview.

Wedge 1
Evey, author interview, 2002; Catlow, author interview.

It was easier said
Winston, “Pentagon Contractors Divide and Conquer” “Wedge 1,” PENREN Web site,
http://renovation.pentagon.mil/projects-W1.htm

As the work continued
Evey, author interviews, 2002 and 2005; Vogel, “From Ruins, Pentagon Rises Renewed” Les Hunkele, author interview, 9 Dec. 2005.

Evey soon hit a brick wall
Ibid.;
Catlow, author interview; Brian Dziekonski, author interview, 10 Nov. 2005; Evey, author interview, 2005; Probst, author interview; Allyn Kilsheimer, author interview, Aug. 2002; Winston, “Pentagon Contractors Divide and Conquer.”

Terrorists don’t arrive on buses

At about 10:30
A.M.
WP,
13 Aug. 1998; Steve Coll,
Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, From the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001,
403–4, 406–412; Peter L. Bergen,
Holy War, Inc., Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden,
108;
Time,
24 Aug. 1998.

In his office, Doc Cooke
John Jester, author interview, 30 Nov. 2005; 1993 Pentagon renovation report, 17, OSD HO; 1994 Pentagon renovation report, 12, OSD HO.

Cooke had been pushing
Cooke, statement before the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Readiness and Defense Infrastructure,” 20 May 1993, box 1304, OSD HO; 1994 Pentagon renovation report, 29; Jester, author interview.

The embassy bombings
Evey, author interview, 2005; Jester, author interview;
The Renovator,
Winter 2001.

The loading docks were hardly
Evey, author interview, 2005; Catlow, author interview; American Society of Civil Engineers.
The Pentagon Building Performance Report,
6, (hereafter ASCE
Building Performance Report
); Evey briefing, 15 Sept. 2001, DoD.

Putting blast-resistant
Evey, author interview, 2003 and 2005; Rudy DeLeon, Pentagon security memo draft, June 2000, box 1304, OSD HO; Georgine Glatz, author interview, 22 Mar. 2006;
ENR,
14 Sept. 2001.

The tougher problem
Evey, author interview, 2005; Catlow, author interview; Jester, author interview; Glatz, author interview;
ENR,
24 Sept. 2001;
60 Minutes II,
28 Nov. 2001.

The Pentagon’s bus-and-subway
Haselbush, author interview; Freeman, Hall interview;
NYT,
17 Dec. 1983;
NYT,
11 Mar. 1987;
Pentagram,
Apr. 1987; Evey briefing, 15 Sept. 2001, DoD;
WP,
5 Sept. 1977;
The Renovator,
Jan./Feb. 2002;
Pentagram,
28 Feb. 1997; Lyndsey Layton and Steven Ginsberg, “Pentagon to Move Bus Station,”
WP,
14 Apr. 2000.

From an old VW Bug to a big Cadillac

The Arleigh Burke Bell
Pentagram,
6 Sept. 2002.

Everything else in the Navy Command
Kevin Shaeffer, e-mail to author, 14 Dec. 2005; Shaeffer, “My Ring Story,”
Shipmate,
Sept. 2002; Jo Becker, Steve Vogel, and Michael E. Ruane, “Aboard Room 1D457,”
WP,
16 Sept. 2001; William Wertz, author interview, 15 Sept. 2001.

Wedge 1 was on cost
The Renovator,
winter 2001; Winston, “Pentagon Contractors Divide and Conquer.”

The Remote Delivery Facility
The Renovator,
winter 2001; Evey, author interview, 2005; Jester, author interview; Dziekonski, author interview. In the interim since the march, the lawn had been paved over for a parking lot.

Evey, for his part
Evey, author interview, 2002.

By September 10
The Renovator,
Jan./Feb. 2002;
Government Executive,
May 2002; Evey, author interview, 2005. Probst, author interview.

CHAPTER 20: SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

I’m never going to see my boys again

Frank Probst checked the new
Probst, author interview: ASCE
Building Performance Report,
13; Vince Crawley, “Fortress Reborn,”
Army Times,
16 Sept. 2002.

It’s headed toward the Pentagon

American Airlines Flight 77
The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States,
8; Debra Burlingame, author interview, Sept. 2003.

The Boeing 757
ASCE
Building Performance Report,
12; Marc Fisher and Don Phillips, “On Flight 77: Our Plane is Being Hijacked,”
WP,
12 Sept. 2001; Annie Gowen and Avis Thomas-Lester, “Family Was Starting Exciting Adventure,”
WP,
20 Sept. 2001; Rudi Williams, “Scholarship honors young attack victim,” American Forces Press Service, 6 Sept. 2002; Hamil Harris, “1,000 Recall Studious, Fun-Loving 11-Year-Old,”
WP,
21 Sept. 2001; Ted Olson,
CNN Larry King Weekend,
6 Jan. 2002.

Hani Hanjour
The 9/11 Commission Report,
226.

The idea had been proposed
Ibid.,
153–5.

Hanjour was joined
Ibid.,
3–4.

The hijackers made their move
Ibid.,
8–9.

In the back of the plane
Ibid.,
9; Olson,
CNN Larry King Weekend,
6 Jan. 2002.

At 9:32, air traffic
The 9/11 Commission Report,
25, 9, 39; Lieutenant Colonel Robert Rossow,
Uncommon Strength: The Story of the Office of the Army Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel During the Attack on the Pentagon, 11 September 2001,
13.

But the aircraft was heading
The 9/11 Commission Report,
9; Richard Cox, interview with Margaret Roth, 22 May 2002.

In the last seconds
ASCE
Building Performance Report,
12;
The
(Allentown, Pa.)
Morning Call,
11 Sept. 2003.

Something can happen in this world

“My God!”
Becker, et al., “Aboard Room 1D457.”

It was the first inkling
Ibid.;
Shaeffer, e-mail to author; Shaeffer, “My Ring Story.”

The lead item
Rowan Scarborough, “Pentagon Staff to Be Trimmed by 15 Percent,”
Washington Times,
in DoD “Current News Early Bird,” 11 Sept. 2001; Smith, “No Regrets for a Love of Explosives,” 11 Sept. 2001.

Shaeffer and his branch
Shaeffer, e-mail to author; Shaeffer, “My Ring Story.”

On the opposite
Rumsfeld, author interview, 19 Apr. 2006; Paul Wolfowitz, OSD interview, 19 Apr. 2002, OSD HO; Rumsfeld statement,
The 9/11 Commission: Proceedings and Analysis, Book 3,
191.

Below Rumsfeld’s office
The 9/11 Commission Report,
37; Leidig testimony and statement,
The 9/11 Commission: Proceedings and Analysis, Book 4,
594, 651.

In the Building Operations Center
Carter, author interview; Jester, author interview; Bradley Graham, “Pentagon Unprepared for ‘Something We Had Never Even Thought Of,’”
WP,
16 Sept. 2001;
The 9/11 Commission Report,
37. The information received by the command center was not about American 77 but instead American 11, which had already crashed into the World Trade Center.

Despite the flurry
Col. Phil McNair, author interview, 25 July 2002; Paul Gonzales, author interview, 6 Mar. 2002; Steve Vogel, “Survivors Healed, but Not Whole,”
WP,
11 Mar. 2002.

I don’t want to get burnt again

Frank Probst—on the ground
Probst, author interview.

Alan Wallace
Alan Wallace, interview with Margaret Roth, 2002;
Newsweek,
27 Sept. 2001.

A rapidly moving avalanche

Army Specialist Chin
Martha Carden, author interview, July 2002; McNair, author interview; Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, “The U.S. Army DCSPER Newsletter, 9-11 Memorial Special Edition,” Feb. 2002; Esther Schrader, “At the Pentagon, ‘Not Just an Assignment,’”
Los Angeles Times,
26 Aug. 2002;
The Tulsa World,
8 Sept. 2002.

The Boeing 757
ASCE
Building Performance Report,
40–41; Rossow,
Uncommon Strength,
17.

The avalanche burst
Ibid.;
Glatz, author interview; ASCE
Building Performance Report,
39, 50, 12;
The Renovator,
Jan./Feb. 02.

The fuselage in essence
ASCE
Building Performance Report,
40–1; FBI evidence report, “First Floor—West,” author’s possession; Steve Vogel, “Lost and, Sometimes, Never Found,”
WP,
13 Sept. 2002.

Hail Mary full of grace. Help me out of this place

In the Navy Command Center
Shaeffer, “My Ring Story” Shaeffer, e-mail to author; Earl Swift, “Inside the Pentagon on 9/11,”
The Virginian-Pilot,
7–10 Sept. 2002.

In the adjacent DIA
Gonzales, Aaron Cooper, Dave Lanagan, Patty Pague, Dan Hooton, interview with author, 6 Mar. 2002; Vogel, “Survivors Healed, but Not Whole.”

There are people behind me

In the Building Operations
Carter, author interview.