Area native comes to grips with role at Pentagon

He says the support he's received has helped him deal with what he saw.
By IAN HILL
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Brian Roberts wondered what might have happened if he and his fellow volunteer firefighters had arrived at the Pentagon just a few hours earlier.
Maybe he could have saved the lives of the men and women who died at their desks when the plane hit the building.
Maybe he could have helped the victims who rushed to escape the fire sparked by the terrorist attack.
Roberts, a Canfield native, had passed the bodies in the offices and noticed the newspapers and half-full coffee mugs that had been left behind by those fleeing the fires.
He saw the cars outside in the parking lot and wondered how many people wouldn't be driving home that night.
"Some guy comes for work every day, parks his car, comes in his office, and the next thing you know, he's gone," he said.
Feelings
Two years later, Roberts, 33, says he's come to terms with the role he played at the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, and that he can now tell himself: "You did the best you could." He added that the support he's received from friends and family has helped him deal with what he witnessed that day.
Roberts stressed, however, that he has yet to fully appreciate the significance of what happened.
"It just doesn't make sense," he said.
Roberts is a member of the Greenbelt Volunteer Fire Department and Rescue Squad, Inc., in Greenbelt, Md., which was called to the Pentagon in the afternoon of Sept. 11. The department battled the blaze sparked when a plane hijacked by terrorists crashed into the building at 9:43 a.m.
Earlier that day, two hijacked planes had crashed into the World Trade Center towers in New York City. A hijacked plane also crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pa.
About 3,000 people died in the attacks; about 200 of those deaths were at the Pentagon.
To help deal with his feelings in the wake of Sept. 11, Roberts created a Web site that contains information on the attacks, as well as links to sites with Sept. 11-related news, commentary and resources. His site is located at http://wrench.ssl.umd.edu/pentagon.
Roberts works as a research engineer at the University of Maryland.
Called to Pentagon
When he tried to sleep Sept. 11, Roberts had nightmares that made him relive his experiences earlier in the day. His department was called to the Pentagon about 1 p.m. to respond to the fire that was spreading through the building.
Roberts said people lined the streets of the nation's capital, applauding as the fire engines made their way through the city.
At the Pentagon, Roberts and his fellow volunteer firefighters received a pep talk from fire chiefs and other officials on the scene. They then carried a 1,500-foot-long hose up to the Pentagon's second floor.
"There was just water everywhere," he said. "Everything had been abandoned. It was a really strange feeling."
Roberts said as he got closer to where the plane had hit the building, the water that was running onto the floor from the fire hoses turned to steam. Tiles on the floor popped into the air.
The fire was below, on the first floor.
One group of firefighters took the hose deeper into the building, while Roberts and others went to break office windows to clear out smoke and noxious fumes.
Roberts said at the time, he was not thinking about the significance of what had happened.
"It was literally, just, this is a building, it's on fire, we have to put out the fire," he said.
Later, as they drove back to Greenbelt, Roberts and the other firefighters began to think about what had happened. There were no cheers, no rushes of adrenaline, no friendly slaps on the back that typically come after the department has successfully battled a fire.
Just sadness.
"It was dead silence," he said. "It was really overwhelming."
Roberts said the vastness of the attacks continued to weigh heavy on his mind for the next few weeks. Then, about a month later, the Greenbelt fire chief called Roberts into his office.
He was presenting each of the firefighters with a place mat that had been made for them by an arts and crafts group. The place mat is in the form of a flag, and it now hangs in Roberts' office at the University of Maryland.
Roberts said the place mat and other gestures of support he's received since Sept. 11 have played an important part in helping him deal with what happened.
To mark the one-year anniversary of the attacks, Roberts gave a presentation to a group of students at the University of Maryland. He said that reviewing video clips of the attacks for the presentation unearthed many of the strong emotions he felt that day, and he nearly cried.
Today, Roberts plans on attending a memorial service at the Greenbelt fire station. He said he has a sense of satisfaction at the "small role" he played two years ago at the Pentagon, he said.
Roberts noted that his satisfaction, however, is tempered by sadness and sympathy for the families of those who died in the attacks.
"What did these people do to deserve this?" he said. "They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time."