LACKLAND AIR FORCE BASE, Texas –
There are dates in history that need no explanation - Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor; Nov. 22, 1963, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy; and Sept. 11, 2001, the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
Saturday marks the ninth anniversary of 9/11, and no reminder is necessary for Col. Richard Houghton. It is permanently etched in his mind.
Colonel Houghton, now Lackland's 802nd Mission Support Group commander, was inside the Pentagon when a hijacked American Airlines Boeing 757, Flight 77, was deliberately flown into the nation's symbol of military superiority, killing all 59 on board and 125 others inside the Pentagon.
He recalls in detail his experience that day when the lives of a generation and those to come were changed forever.
"Evacuating a building with 20,000 plus people is an experience you never forget," Colonel Houghton said. "I often wonder where everybody else went that day. For me, it was easy. His Air Staff office was located across from the Pentagon.
If not for a mandatory weeklong Air Staff orientation at the Pentagon, Colonel Houghton would have been an onlooker that day. Ironically, on the day's agenda was a Pentagon tour. His only previous familiarity with the building had been a visitor's tour.
"I thought (after the visitor's tour) I could never find my way to some of those places again," he said. "I also remember thinking in the orientation we never got an emergency exit briefing."
At 9:37 a.m. that morning, a couple of hours after his wife dropped him off in the Pentagon's south parking lot not far from where the plane would strike, Colonel Houghton wouldn't need a tour or exit drill.
Phrases like E ring, corridor and wedge would become familiar. The hijacked plane had hit E ring (fifth floor) between corridors 4 and 5, or two wedges from where the colonel stood watching the trade towers devastation on CNN.
"The building shook," Colonel Houghton said about the impact. "We said, 'what was that?' One person said, 'it's probably somebody moving furniture upstairs.'
"Another person said, 'it can't be because we're on the top floor.' You didn't have enough time to wonder what it was because seconds later the emergency lights came on and 'evacuate the Pentagon' was coming through the loudspeakers. Those are words you don't ever expect to hear."
He avoided the stairway bottleneck by following a general and chief master sergeant down an inner stairway to a first-floor exit area. It led him to the south parking lot, and it was then that reality hit as he turned to see black smoke billowing from the burning building for the first time.
Colonel Houghton's only thought after reaching ground level was to call his wife. He headed for his office across the highway, and with cell phones rendered useless, found a pay phone at a hotel on the way.
"When I called Camille, I was a little choked up but I said, 'I'm fine,'" Colonel Houghton said. "As you can imagine, probably all she wanted was to hear my voice. That discussion couldn't have lasted over 30 seconds.
"I told her, 'I'm okay. I'm going to the office. I don't know what's going to be next or when I'll be home but I'll call you later.' I think those were priceless words to her even though I'd like to have said, 'I'll be home in a few minutes.'"