During a visit with a fellow chaplain, who happened to be assigned to the Pentagon, I had a chance to hear a first-hand account of an incident that happened right after Flight 77 hit the Pentagon. The chaplain told me what happened at a Daycare Center near where the impact occurred.
This daycare had many children, including infants who were in heavy cribs. The Daycare Supervisor, looking at all the children they needed to evacuate, was in a panic over what they could do. There were many children, mostly toddlers, as well as the infants that would need to be taken out with the cribs. There was no time to try to bundle them into carriers and strollers.
Just then a young Marine came running into the center and asked what they needed. After hearing what the Center Director was trying to do, he ran back out into the hallway and disappeared.
The Director thought, ‘well, here we are – on our own.’ But in about 2 minutes the Marine returned with 40 other Marines in tow. Each of them grabbed a crib with a child, and the rest started gathering up toddlers.
The Director and her staff then helped them take all the children out of the center and down toward a park on the Potomac near the Pentagon. Once they got about 3/4 of a mile outside the building, the Marines stopped in the park, and then did a fabulous thing – they formed a circle with the cribs, which were quite sturdy and heavy, like the covered wagons in the Old West.
Inside this circle of cribs, they put the toddlers, to keep them from wandering off. Outside this circle were the 40 Marines, forming a perimeter around the children and waiting for instructions. There they remained until the parents could be notified and come get their children.
The Chaplain then said, “I don’t think any of us saw or heard of this on any of the news stories of the day. It was just an incredible story of those Marines responding willingly and quickly to a tactical problem that presented itself.”
Remember Ronald Reagan’s great compliment:
“Most of us wonder if our lives can make any difference. Marines don’t have that problem.”
My name is Country
Semper Fi ….
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