VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) — While many of us watched the attacks of 9/11 unfold on television, two members of Virginia Task Force 2 saw the wreckage up close.
Capts. Scott Prentice and Jim Ingledue got the call shortly after the attacks happened and were on their way to New York when they were rerouted to the Pentagon. They arrived there the morning of Sept. 12, just in time to watch history, literally, unfold.
“We all lined up,” Ingledue said. “And it was at that moment when they dropped that big flag down on the side of the Pentagon.”
Prentice and his group were in charge of fortifying the building, making sure not one more beam fell to the ground.
“We didn’t want anyone to get any more satisfaction out of what they’d already done to us, Prentice said. “And we were to keep that Pentagon standing.”
Their minds on their work, they shared the moment when what happened became real for them.
“I said, ‘Who’s on the pole for the race on Sunday? He said there’s no race on Sunday,” Prentice said. “I said, ‘Yeah there’s a race on Sunday. ‘No,’ he goes. ‘You don’t know. The world is watching what we are doing here. This is the only thing that is happening.’ That was pretty amazing.”
Said Ingledue: “I had a young daughter, not quite three. And I remember being in the section where the plane had come through. I started finding carry-on luggage, and it had small toys and small children’s clothes. I said, ‘Hey man, I’m gonna step out.’ I said, ‘If I uncover a small child or something here in this area, I don’t know what will happen with me.”
He describes an eerie feeling, walking through offices and seeing evidence of life interrupted.
“I literally remember walking by desks that still had a cup of coffee and a bagel with one bite out of it,” Ingledue said. “In my mind, that’s kind of like, time stopped for normalcy.”
The tragedy, even finding its way into the mind of his young daughter as they looked at the Christmas lights on the Norfolk skyline a few months later.
“I said, ‘Oh Emily, look at all the buildings, look at how pretty they are,'” Ingledue said. “And here she is, not quite three, you know. And she’s like, ‘Yeah, dad, maybe even a plane won’t fly into them.'”
But unfortunately, they believe it could happen again.
“I don’t know that in 2001 we could have ever imagined two planes flying into two of the largest buildings in the world, really,” Ingledue said. “So what else could happen that we haven’t imagined?”
They say it’s more important now than ever to remember 9/11 and why it happened.