Dover Woman Whose Son Was In The Pentagon 9/11 Recalls The Unfolding Horror

Posted Sep 10, 2011 by Howard Altman

Updated Sep 10, 2011 at 12:35 PM

What happened on that crisp September morning 10 years ago deeply affected the nation.

Here’s a letter from a reader, Hope Stanton Klee, whose son Alvin was in the Pentagon when it was hit.

A friend phoned me September 11, 2001, to ask if I had my TV on, and knew of the attack on our nation, as the World Trade Center had been hit by a plane. Often I would not have been up, but that day I actually was, and watching TV news.  As we talked, soon the second tower was hit!  As the Pentagon was soon invaded by another plane, this news became very close to me!  Our oldest son, LTC Alvin James Stanton Klee, was career military working there.  As I hung up the phone, I picked up the 8x10 photo of the Pentagon that our son had given us when he was first assigned to the Department of Defense.  I had asked Alvin to mark on the photo just where he worked, and I knew that he would already be at his assigned place in the DOD complex of offices, right where the plane had landed!  I began to pray for safety for our family there, and soon was calling our daughter in another State, to let her know the news.

As the hours went on and the devastation described, I kept dialing both Alvin’s cell phone and the home numbers. No answer! Of course others in our family were aware and deeply concerned, as I was.  Finally at 11 AM, Alvin called to tell me that he was safe.  When the room he was in went totally dark and the noise subsided enough to hear, someone shouted saying, “Get out if you can!”  Alvin was able to find a door from that room, and he said he had run all the way home to where he lived in Virginia, a distance of about seven miles.

Alvin does not often talk of the horror he was in,, but when I asked occasionally, , he has given my husband and I some bits and pieces of the actual happenings in his life that awful day. He had been just about 500 feet and one story down from where the plane came crashing in!  He was on his way to a new assignment; with a few minutes to spare, had stopped for a cup of coffee.  If he had not done that, he would have been in the direct area that was demolished completely by the presence of that enemy plane. After a few hours, he had gone back to the area and begun the awful task of helping unearth bodies of those that had been killed; many were his friends.  That was a task that continued into the night hours, and tho he has not said, I am sure it had to be completed as soon as possible, no matter how many hours or parts of days and nights it took.

A few years after September 11, 2001, Alvin give us another glimpse into his actions that day; he had been able to help a group of civilians who were touring the Pentagon that morning, to exit the building by a way that was usually only known to employees, such as himself;  the public route was totally gone as a result of the assault of the plane.  I have mentioned since then how proud Harold and I are of his actions helping others,  but he does not want to even listen to commendatory words.  We feel words that described our forebear Thomas Stanton, in the front page article of a recent newsletter, could be aptly applied to our son’s actions on 09/11, and in his 25 years in the military; his service surely showed “wit, unfailing courage, and dogged individualism” in his actions that saved lives of civilians , and his own.  We do know that it was by the grace of God and prayers of friends and family, that Alvin survived and is now retired ,  a life member of
The Thomas Stanton Society.