'I'd Rather Be Anywhere Else': Sept. 11 story of Lt. Col. Shawn Walsh

 

This story first appeared in the summer issue of the Culver Alumni Magazine

Lt. Col. Shawn Walsh ’80 settled into what he expected would be another typical day in Army logistics at the Pentagon.

He was sitting in his newly renovated office in the D‑Ring of the Pentagon across from his longtime friend Bill Carrico, a retired Marine Corps warrant officer who worked in the Army's water program. Minutes before 9 a.m., Lt. Col. Mike Foster burst in: “A plane just hit the World Trade Center!”

Walsh opened CNN.com on his computer and watched smoke pour from the North Tower, then saw the second plane crash into the South Tower.

Walsh felt uneasy, knowing the Pentagon, the nerve center for the military, was an obvious target.

“I peeked over the cubicle wall and said to Bill, ‘I’d rather be anywhere else than in this building today,’ ” he said.

Keeping with the Army’s mission-first mindset, Walsh continued working while keeping the news on his screen.

Two weeks earlier, Walsh had moved into a wedge of the Pentagon where offices were reinforced with Kevlar in the walls and blast-proof windows. While he was on the phone with the general's administrative assistant arranging a meeting, a violent shock wave tore through the room. The blast‑resistant window rippled like water and he heard the muffled sound of an explosion.

“It felt like the building had been lifted and dropped,” Walsh said. “I felt as if someone had punched me in the chest. It knocked the wind out of me.”  

He turned to Carrico and yelled: “Let’s get the hell out of here!”

He later learned that the airplane had crashed less than 100 yards from his desk. If he had been in his old office he likely would have been killed. Walsh and Carrico used an emergency stairwell and emerged outside to chaos — jet fuel, smoke and burning debris everywhere.

“My eyes and lungs are burning and I'm sitting in the field right outside where the plane went in. People are stumbling out of the building, dazed, disoriented, just like I was,” he said.

A police officer asked Walsh to help him clear the bumper-to-bumper traffic on Washington Boulevard. Stunned commuters sat motionless in cars that had been hit by debris. Walsh and the officer banged on windows, urging them to move so emergency vehicles could get through.

Then a chilling message blasted over a loudspeaker: “Vacate the area immediately! Another plane is inbound!”

While waves of Pentagon workers fled, Walsh and the police officer kept working. The reported inbound plane was apparently the fourth hijacked aircraft, which ultimately crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Walsh and the police officer spent more than 90 minutes clearing the road before medevac helicopters started landing.

 

 

Walsh repeatedly asked to borrow cell phones to call his wife, Allison, but the cell networks were overloaded. As he began his journey home, he eventually spotted a pay phone. He had no money, everything he had was back in his cubicle, so he called collect.

“Allison,” he said. “I’m alive.”

By the time he got home after 5 p.m., he was greeted by his relieved wife and a living room full of concerned friends. Hugging his wife, he felt an overwhelming sense of feeling grateful to be home.

Calls from well-wishers and concerned friends continued throughout the night. One of the last calls came about 9 p.m. He was ordered to report to work at 3:30 a.m. the next day.

After virtually no sleep, Walsh drove north on Interstate 95. The highway was eerily quiet. He arrived back to the smell of smoke and jet fuel.

“Every instinct told me to stay away,” he said.

He feared another hijacked aircraft would be coming to finish the job. But he had a job to do.

At the Pentagon, security personnel tried to stop Walsh from entering. He told the guards to either let him in or arrest him.

Inside, Col. Guy Beougher told Walsh to go out, assess the situation and prepare to brief senior Army leaders.

“I don’t know why they called me, but I had a mission, so I went out and did it to the best that I could,” he said.

Walsh returned to the wreckage site, where emergency crews and investigators were already working. An Army Mortuary Affairs conference had been taking place nearby. Some of the Army’s most experienced people handling human remains were at work when Walsh arrived. He was shown a Metro bus converted into a temporary morgue.

For two weeks, Walsh helped coordinate the respectful handling of remains.

One day, while driving with his wife, the song “Overcome” by Live, with the lyrics: “Even now the world is bleeding,” triggered an emotional release after days of suppressed grief. It hit his wife one day while Walsh was watching her give their 1-year-old son Shamus ’18 a bath.

Days later Walsh learned the devastating news that his classmate from The Citadel, Joseph “Joe” Pycior Jr., had been killed in the attack. Walsh had unknowingly overseen his friend’s remains.

“I took comfort in knowing he had been handled with the same extreme dignity and respect as all the others,” Walsh said.

After recovery operations ended, Walsh moved to the Special Operations Cell, urgently securing rifle scopes for troops bound for Afghanistan. Soon after, he learned he had been selected to command a battalion as the United States went to war in Iraq.

It would take years for Walsh to fully appreciate that Sept. 11 was not simply an event he responded to, but a line that divided his career and life.

“My life may have taken a different trajectory, for all I know, but that was a defining moment, not only in my life, but our country and a lot of other people,” he said.

Walsh, who was inducted into the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps Hall of Fame in Fort Lee, Virginia on June 16, plans to be on campus on Veteran's Day to present Culver with a fragment of the Pentagon following the attack.

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Note: This story is largely based on the first chapter of Shawn Walsh’s book, “Proud to Serve.” The book, released on Sept. 11, can be purchased on Amazon here. Walsh also gave a TEDx talk that can be watched here. His web site here also has other news reports about his story and other articles written by Walsh.