Veteran from Arkansas and 9/11 survivor recalls working at the Pentagon when the disaster occurred

Little Rock, Arkansas – One veteran from central Arkansas was among those employed at the Pentagon on 9/11.

On the day that Flight 77 was hijacked and crashed into the Pentagon, twenty-five-year-old John Hoffman was a specialist E-4 in the US Army serving as military intelligence at the Pentagon.
John Hoffman remarked, “I started working at the Pentagon on that day.”

That morning, he got up and rode the metro into the Pentagon to work with his counterparts in the civilian world on the construction of a new conference room on the second floor of the Pentagon. There was no TV or radio in the room.

“When there was a huge explosion, we were knocked to the ground and we were literally standing behind a rack in this projector room that was all blacked out,” Hoffman recalled.

Hoffman recollects that the entire ceiling structure collapsed upon him.

Hoffman claimed, “We were locked in from the outside.” “We had to basically crawl our way back to the other side, away from the impact, after getting lost.”

When Hoffman heard cries for help, his military background came into play and he located the people as they tried to find a way out.

Hoffman heard about the Twin Towers attacks as soon as they got off the loading dock at the Pentagon.

Flight 11 struck the World Trade Center’s North Tower at 8:46 in the morning, while Flight 175 struck the South Tower at 9:03 in the morning as evacuations got underway.

Hoffman said he saw pieces of a plane, smoke, and flames as they made their way to the evacuation areas at the Pentagon.

After that, Hoffman spent seven hours driving nine miles home. Before returning home and spending hours watching TV in an attempt to get an understanding, he claimed that the shock had not yet worn off.

Later on, it was discovered that the plane that struck the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m. was hijacked by Flight 77.

At 10:03 a.m., Flight 93, the fourth aircraft, went down in a Pennsylvanian field.

Hoffman remarked, “That’s when it really hit us, and we didn’t know how to respond because it was so unprecedented.”

The nation as a whole appeared scared, but Hoffman observed a surge in patriotism beyond anything he had ever witnessed.

Then Hoffman started to feel guilty.

“Being so close and then being able to walk away, you have that guilt of what I could have done better that day,” Hoffman remarked. “It was a place that I almost didn’t come out of.”

After just two weeks, Hoffman came back and got to work cleaning and renovating the Pentagon.

Going back to certain locations and experiencing that sudden rush of hurt, pain, and memories is rather unsettling, according to Hoffman.

Hoffman worked at the Pentagon for many years, but he eventually left to become a veteran and returned to his native Arkansas, where he paid his respects to the fallen on anniversaries and other occasions.

Hoffman claimed that “there was a bench for every person that died on the airplane and in the Pentagon.” “To see the heroes and their deeds in one place is a very somber place for people like myself who are in the military.”