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Q: 9/11 happens. Tell me about that day. You didn't happen to be sitting in a room with Don Rumsfeld when the plane hit?

White: "We were just before that. We had a breakfast in the secretary of defense's conference room, where we had all of the chairmen of the four oversight committees, and as that breakfast was breaking up, the first plane had hit the World Trade Tower. ... We all went on with the day's business. I had a speech to give up at the Army Navy Country Club. So I was up there when the plane that hit the Pentagon came right over the top of the Army Navy Club and bounced down the hill and hit the side of the Pentagon."

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Q: Do you remember where you were that morning? You weren’t here in your office.

RADM Sirois: I was about a half mile from the Pentagon and I was in a Reserve Force Policy Board meeting.

Q: Do you remember what kind of issues they were talking about that morning?

RADM Sirois: Well we weren’t into any issues yet. We were just getting some introductory remarks. Dr. [ David S. C. ] Chu, who is the Under Secretary for Personnel and Readiness, had just made a presentation. In fact I was waiting for [ Department of Transportation ] Secretary [ Norman ] Minetta to show up because he was going to be one of the keynotes. Someone walked in and said a plane had hit the World Trade Center. Of course the pagers were going off like crazy with all the Reserve Chiefs there and the other senior Defense officials. So they rolled in a TV and we were watching that, and watched the second plane hit. My assistant; Commander Rousch (phonetic), he was trying to contact the building here and he went out in the parking lot, and I think he was talking to either the building or to his wife when the plane that hit the Pentagon flew right over where we were.

Q: So you could hear that?

RADM Sirois: Oh yes.

Q: And you were inside a building at that point?

RADM Sirois: At the Army/Navy Country Club there. Yes, it was very low and we heard the explosion when it hit the Pentagon. Of course by that time all bedlam broke loose and all the senior Defense officials were getting in their cars and I don’t think they would make it back to the Pentagon.

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I don't know; however, I have a good friend who saw the low-flying airliner
streak over the tennis courts at the Army-Navy Country Club just moments
before she heard the explosion....
John Iler
Bethesda, Md.