Today is the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Terrorists flew commercial jets into the World Trade Center towers in New York and into the Pentagon, killing nearly 3,000 people. Passengers battled hijackers on another plane, which crashed into a field in Pennsylvania, killing everyone aboard. The terrorists’ target was believed to have been the U.S. Capitol building.
Below are some photos from the aftermath of 9/11.
Steve Williams (in red shirt), then-manager of Brooklyn’s Fort Hamilton Exchange, helps sort boxes of products for some of the thousands of first responders to the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. Williams had just started a meeting to discuss a store renovation when his assistant told him that a plane had struck the World Trade Center. The next day, Williams, Area Manager Ray Black and then-West Point General Manager Allan Heasty started preparing for the arrival of a mobile field Exchange, which was in Battery Park at the southern end of Manhattan by Sept. 13 to support National Guard troops.From left, Bryan DeMoss, an Eastern Region area manager at the time; Alan Burton, former president of the American Logistics Association; and Bob Ellis, who headed the Exchange’s Washington office, stand outside a mobile field Exchange that Ellis and others staffed around the clock at the Pentagon to support about 2,000 first responders. Ellis had been at the Pentagon the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, and left seven minutes before American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into the building, hitting the room that he had been in. He and DeMoss have retired from the Exchange.A Fort Hamilton Exchange associate serves troops from the back of a truck in Battery Park at the southern end of Manhattan.A military police officer shops at the mobile field exchange at the Pentagon. The burned hull of the building is visible through the rear door.First responders shop for snacks at a mobile field Exchange set up at the World Trade Center. Drivers from the Dan Daniel Distribution Center in Newport News, Virginia, made daily trips to New York City and to the Pentagon to supply merchandise.Beth Goodman-Bluhm, left, Bob Ellis (in white sweatshirt) and Washington-area associates with a state police officer outside the mobile field Exchange at the Pentagon. Goodman-Bluhm, then manager at the Andrews BX, helped set up the MFE, which associates staffed around the clock. She went on to become East Central Region Vice President. After she retired in 2022, she deployed to Kuwait and Jordan, where she was a general manager before becoming a regional vice president for Southwest Asia in fall 2023.
Leslie Munsey, an HQ stationery buyer, helped fulfill an urgent need for American flags to honor some of the fallen heroes of 9/11. Having exhausted conventional means of acquiring American flags for burial services, New York City needed 600 flags and turned to the Exchange for help. Munsey arranged with the Veterans Administration to “borrow” flags and replenish them when she could. The flags were in New York the next day.
Other stories of Exchange support:
The Pentagon MFE provided support for K9 cadaver dogs. The dogs received Evian mineral water, American flag collars and more. Associates made insulated booties for the rescue dogs, whose foot pads were burning away from the intensely hot debris littering the Pentagon grounds.
More than 2,500 Exchange associates signed a 24-by-4-foot banner with the inscription “United We Stand,” which in October 2001 was presented to the administrative assistant of the Secretary of the Army to be displayed at the Pentagon.
Truck drivers Brian Hartley and Scott Moore, who transported donated goods from the Dan Daniel DC to New York, stuck around to help set up a mobile field Exchange, then spent the day assisting customers and helping run the register.
At Fort Eustis in southeastern Virginia and Fort Dix and McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey, associates held bake sales to raise money for a Red Cross emergency relief fund.
During its Toyland opening on Sept. 15, 2001, the Whiteman Air Force Base Exchange in Missouri held a “We Love NYC” campaign to collect money for victims of the World Trade Center attacks.
Associates at Travis AFB in California delivered breakfast and lunch to troops who were manning the gates, ensuring the safety of the installation in the days after the attacks.
Associates at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, delivered doughnuts to weary Soldiers protecting the post.
Kim Bezotte, a Redstone Arsenal associate, prepared 360 egg rolls in two days to raise money for victims of the attacks.
In Hawaii, Schofield Barracks conducted Operation Aloha Lei, assembling a memorial lei more than two football fields long with floral messages honoring attack victims.
In Heidelberg, Germany, the associate who ran the airfield snack bar stayed open on Sept. 12, when most facilities were closed, to singlehandedly support troops. Airfield command center sent a letter to the European Stars and Stripes thanking her for her service.
Share your thoughts!