IN SERVICE TO THEIR NATION
The Pentagon . 9:37 a . m ., 11 SEP , 2001
U . S . Army SGT Dave Glover was stationed at Ft . Myer , Virginia , and was carrying out orders with some of his soldiers to bring flags up to the Pentagon to be used in a retirement ceremony .
“ We were walking out of the south entrance to the Pentagon after delivering the flags ,” Glover recalls . “ Beverage , Bielski , Dyer , and myself were just walking toward the van in which SSG Fortier was waiting . As we approached it , we heard a loud aircraft , turned to look , and saw a civilian airliner flying oddly low .” The three soldiers weren ’ t immediately concerned . After all , the flight paths of Washington D . C .’ s
Reagan National Airport were close by . Then someone remarked , " Damn , he ' s flying low … ” “ I turned to look ,” Glover says . “ Just then the plane banked and throttled up . As it crossed Interstate 395 , it impacted two light poles before disappearing into a fireball . SSG Fortier ordered us into the van and we hauled ass back to Ft Myer . He explained that the World Trade Center in New York had been hit as well .”
What happened soon after that lay silent and avoided in Glover ’ s memory for a long while . “ Until now , I ' ve only ever talked about some of what we did ,” he told us in a note upon sending us the story in various segments to be edited . “ I ' ve never written about it before . I ' ve never allowed myself to go back and relive it in detail .”
Told in flashbacks because that ’ s how the two drastically related events pinged off one another in his memory , Dave Glover ’ s story here has come to us at exactly the right time in our country ’ s history . We are exceptionally privileged and so proud to be able to have Dave himself tell it in AHERO Magazine .
Veteran Dave Glover , an outstanding AHERO volunteer for years , has stayed largely silent about the his
~ The editors harrowing experiences as a military search and recovery volunteer at the Pentagon in the days after 9 / 11 .
8 AHERO MAGAZINE SUMMER 2021