Marine Gunnery Sgt. John Leach crawled with New York firefighters through the rubble of the World Trade Center towers, shining a flashlight in search of survivors.
“There was all sorts of debris and smoke, and the alarms and buzzers were going off, but we didn’t find anyone,” Leach said.
One veteran Navy corpsman likened the scene to the terrorist bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut in October 1983.
“I was in Beirut and this looked just like it,” said the unidentified corpsman, quoted in a military news release.
“It looks just like what happened 20 years ago.”
This time, however, the terrorists struck the homeland, attacking on U.S. soil.
The attacks on New York City and the Pentagon on Sept. 11 mobilized military medical crews, engineers, chaplains, security forces and others to assist in search, rescue and recovery efforts.
The military pitches in
Military jets shuttled blood to New York. Air National Guard jets picked up blood donated by civilians in Oklahoma, while Air Force jets picked up blood donated by Californians. The Air Force flew the 2,600 units of blood to McGuire Air Force Base, N.J., and Red Cross workers then moved it by ground to New York.
About 200 miles south, a Red Cross collection center in Baltimore sent blood to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and to National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, Md., to assist with casualties from the Pentagon attack, according to the joint-service blood program office.
Naval Medical Center Portsmouth sent blood to civilian hospitals in northern Virginia, where many of the injured were taken. Blood from a local civilian agency was used to replenish the Portsmouth hospital’s supply.
Leach was with 14 Navy corpsmen from the 2nd Battalion, 25th Marines in nearby Garden City, N.Y., when the World Trade Center was hit. The reserve unit helped treat the people wounded in that attack.
Military chaplains also were in New York City, as were engineers, said Army Brig. Gen. Clyde Vaughn, deputy director of Military Support, the Pentagon office responsible for all military support to civilian agencies.
The Comfort puts to sea
About 30 hours after the attacks, Navy hospital ship Comfort steamed toward New York Harbor, ferrying 450 doctors, nurses, technicians and medical supplies.
One of two hospital ships maintained by the Military Sealift Command, the 900-foot Comfort is a full-service hospital with surgical rooms, labs and a helicopter deck, said Kevin Sforza, a spokesman for National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. It is providing 450 medical specialists to help New York cope.
After picking up 300 medical personnel at Naval Weapons Station Earle, N.J., the ship was due to make the short trip across the harbor to Pier 92 in Manhattan, about three miles north of where the World Trade Center towers stood before they were leveled. It was expected to arrive Sept. 14.
When activated, the ship, homeported in Baltimore, is staffed by personnel from the National Naval Medical Center. It can operate as a 1,000-bed hospital, but for its New York mission will open 250 beds.
The ship has participated in a number of U.S. military exercises and emergency responses, including Desert Shield and Desert Storm.
Military medical workers also rushed to the Pentagon, including two ambulance buses and 60 medical workers from Walter Reed Medical Center.
Vaughn was driving to the Pentagon after learning of the World Trade Center attack when he saw American Airlines Flight 77 tracking low toward the Pentagon. He arrived about four minutes later.
Mental health experts also were on hand at the Pentagon to counsel victims or rescue workers, and were on stand-by in case they were needed in New York, according to service medical officials.
The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, the tri-service medical examiner’s office, is in charge of identifying Pentagon victims — including service members and civilians.
Remains will be taken to Dover Air Force Base, Del., and examined in the base’s mortuary.
The institute maintains DNA records on 3.2 million service members and may have to collect blood samples from family members of civilians to try to match DNA in those cases. Those blood stain references, as well as fingerprints and dental records, are among the tools used to identify the victims.
Staff writer Christopher Munsey contributed to this story.
