I remember that moment. I had worked all night on a proposal for a police department dispatch system and had gotten home about an hour before the World Trade Center Towers were hit. I turned on the TV after American Airlines Flight 11 struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m. The announcer was saying there must have been a mistake by the air traffic controllers. I immediately thought the terrorists had returned to finish what they could not accomplish in the 1990s. I called my husband’s (Barney Barnum, Medal of Honor recipient) Pentagon office and told his secretary to turn on his TV. Something was happening in New York that he needed to see.

Then, at 9:03 a.m., United Airlines Flight 175 hit the South Tower, and I knew immediately this was no air-traffic mix-up. I called my husband’s secretary back a few minutes later. There was no answer. I could not reach my husband or anyone in his office.

Then, at 9:37 a.m., American Airlines Flight 77 hit the Pentagon. All I could remember was that his office during the Bush 41 administration when he was principle director, drug enforcement policy had been just above the helicopter pad, in the area where the plane struck. I had no way to contact him, no way to know if he was all right. I paced and waited.

A neighbor came to the door around 11:00 am. The phone rang, and in my haste I shut the door in his face and ran to answer it. It was Barney. He was okay. He had been out of the Pentagon for a meeting. Hours later he finally made it home through miles of backed-up traffic, as people streamed out of Washington.