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| Here and Heather Bourne pose near the memorial to the victims of the attack on the Pentagon on September 11, 2001 | Source: CBSnews |
Washington: Here and Heather Bourne pose near the memorial to the victims of the attack on the Pentagon on September 11, 2001
Here and Heather Bourne pose near the memorial to the victims of the attack on the Pentagon on September 11, 2001 | Source: CBSnews
Just 180 meters from the Pentagon, baby Hannah Bourne and her younger sister Hades were at the Defense Department's Child Development Center when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the building on September 11, 2001.
Heather does not remember the events of September 11, when she was only four months old, while Hana still has some scattered memories, as she was three years old, but these events, along with other things, inspired them to be in the ranks of the US Army in order to serve their country, according to a report by the network. CBS News ".
"I was in the daycare center playing and dancing with some of my colleagues, we were playing with tapes, and then I remember that we were gathered in the hallway," Hana says.
Hannah and Heads were in a building on the Pentagon campus, across from the crash site. Fear and panic erupted after the plane hit the west side of the Pentagon and caught fire.
The attack on the Pentagon did not result in the death or injury of any children in the nursery school. However, the Child Development Center closed in 2004 due to concerns about the safety of children.
On September 11th, 2001, terrorists hijacked American Airlines flight 77 & then flew it into the Pentagon. Hanna & Heather Born were in the Pentagon's daycare center that day. Twenty years later, they are carrying on the legacy of the members of the military killed in the attack pic.twitter.com/xnCK5vM69r
— KTVN 2 News (@KTVN) September 8, 2021
“I started to panic especially after we got out of the building, as at that time a lot of people were going out at the same time, with annoying fire alarms, emergency cars and overhead noise from helicopters,” Hana says.
Hanna adds that members of the military service arrived quickly to evacuate the nursery, "put the children in beds and carried them to a park by the Potomac River."
Two decades after these events, Hannah says, "I don't think we really know any of the names of the people involved [in the rescue operations], but I just hope they know how their actions inspired my sister and I to make the decision to join the army to serve our country."
Hana graduated from the Air Force Academy in 2019; Her younger sister Heather is a NCO in the Naval Academy Class of 2023.
Hana is now completing her graduate school at Georgetown University, where she studies data science and analytics, and hopes to undertake search and rescue missions.
The sisters' parents, who also have military backgrounds, were not at the Pentagon on 9/11, as their mother, retired Brigadier General Dana Bourne, was at Joint Base Anacostia Bowling at the time.
In the days following the attack, their father took them to a hill overlooking the Pentagon and explained to the two girls what had happened that day.
According to her mother, when Hannah was a child, she would spend hours drawing pictures of her experience that day trying to make sense of what had happened.
"We sat next to her the whole time to support her while we were also answering her questions as she was trying to tie everything together to understand exactly what happened."
"The more I kept drawing, the less anxious Hannah became, because she was gradually picking up things from that horrible day that was hard for even adults to realize."
Ultimately, these events, along with growing up on military bases, inspired the two sisters to follow in their parents' footsteps into the military.
“There are a lot of lives that are forever changed by the events of that day and everything that came after, so I think for us, it's always about remembering and identifying what we can do to best honor those who died,” Hannah says.
Days ago, Hannah and Heather visited the Pentagon memorial, witness to the 184 deaths and still a place to remember every victim of the horrific attack.