A Brief and Untold Story.

From my friend Charlie Morton, a decorated Army man and Vietnam Veteran. A little-known story from the Pentagon - 09/11/2001

A chaplain told me what happened at a daycare center near the impact site. There were a lot of kids, including infants in cribs, in the daycare and the staff was overwhelmed with the magnitude and urgency of evacuating them. The fire was raging nearby and there was no time to bundle them all into carriers and strollers.
Just then a young Marine ran into the center and asked what they needed. After hearing what the center director was trying to do, he sprinted off and disappeared. The director thought,'we're on our own.'
2 minutes later he returned with 40 Marines. They piled children into cribs and wheeled them out of the center, and when those were all full they picked kids up and carried them, 2 and 3 at a time. Between the Marines and the staff they got all the children out of the Pentagon to a park 3/4 mi. away near the Potomac River. The Marines formed a circle with the cribs, which were quite sturdy and heavy, like the covered wagons in the Old West. Inside this circle of cribs they put the toddlers to keep them from wandering off. Outside this circle the Marines formed a perimeter and there they remained until the parents could be notified and come get their children.
The chaplain said, "I don't think this was on any of the news stories of the day. The thought of those men and what they did and how fast they reacted - then again, they're Marines. Would we expect less from them?"

Remember Reagan's great compliment: "Most of us wonder if our lives made any difference. Marines don't have that problem."

(My note: Men and women who's duty takes them into life-threatening situations come to regard life as very dear. Hence the seemingly incongruous instances of heavily armed soldiers stopping to aid a small child or feed a kitten. Marines are parents too. Semper Fi. -- Todd)