Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live Saturday

Reflecting on 9-11

Aired August 17, 2002 - 12:18   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: At the Pentagon this week, even though many employees returned back to the outer ring since 9/11, it's been months now, it will never be the same, and that goes without saying as well for CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr. And as you heard in the piece, 9/11 happens to be her birthday, so this is going to be certainly, Barbara, a very difficult day to commemorate or recognize what happened a year ago, and it will forever, I guess, be etched in your mind for many reasons, given that you work there as well?
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Indeed, Fredricka. You know, it sounds sort of self-obsessed to say, oh, it was my birthday, but you know, you wake up on the morning of your birthday and you know that that's a day, that's a day that you're going to remember.

I woke up that morning and I think -- thinking -- remembering it was my birthday was the last casual thought I have had for the last year. Like all of the Pentagon -- regular Pentagon press corps, we work in the building. Our offices -- CNN has an office in the Pentagon. Myself, Jamie McIntyre, our senior Pentagon correspondent, we were both there the morning inside the building when the plane it.

WHITFIELD: America remembers in that piece we see that journalists here at CNN reflect on how they remember getting -- receiving the news. About where were you at the time of that impact there at the outer ring?

STARR: Well, like many of the other reporters in the Pentagon that morning, we had begun to report on the issue of the planes hitting the World Trade Center, we'd begun to look into the issue if it was terrorism. I had gone down the hallway to talk to a source. He had confirmed some of the essential details. I was walking back down the hallway toward CNN's offices, and in an instant everything changed, because in an instant the hallway was full of people running and screaming.

And as I have said in the past, there was a man, an Army officer, and it was just a voice, just a face going by, and he suddenly screamed "get out, get out, get out, we've been hit."

WHITFIELD: Did you feel even a conflict of, you know, I now have to turn around and report on this, yet at the same time, you know, all of your human instincts kind of kick in that you want to dive in and start helping? STARR: Well, we immediately went on to the attack site. We were there, really, within a couple minutes, and there were hundreds and hundreds of military personnel there trying to help. And what's very unusual, of course, very unique about the Pentagon is there's so many military personnel that are very well trained in combat triage, in providing emergency care.

One of the anecdotes from that morning that is not very well known is the surgeon general of the Air Force, who does not work in the Pentagon, was actually there in the building that morning. He ran to the attack site along with some people from the medical clinic, and they immediately started performing combat triage on the scene. There were people helping pull the injured out of the flames.

Those of us who do not have that type of emergency medical care were better off standing back and letting the people who know how to do that do their work. Our job, of course, was to report on the story.

WHITFIELD: So every day that you go into the Pentagon and do your job, how much do you think about what happened nearly a year ago?

STARR: Oh, I don't think there's an instant that one doesn't think about it. When we go to the Pentagon every morning now, there are armed military police still one year later in the parking lots, patrolling. We have to show our identification badges to these military soldiers before we're allowed to enter the building. Security has been stepped up significantly.

And of course, what's so different about the Pentagon than the World Trade Center is the Pentagon is being rebuilt. Construction work goes on around us. Construction workers are in and out of the building around the clock. People are moving back in.

And we see some of the people every day at work that were injured so badly and some of the real heroes, people who still work in the Pentagon who helped pull the injured out of the flames and wreckage. So it's all still in front of us every day.

WHITFIELD: All right. Thanks so much, Barbara Starr, for sharing with us your reflections of 9/11. And of course, more on the reflections of other journalists here at CNN on "America Remembers" on "CNN PRESENTS" tonight at 8 o'clock Eastern time.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com