SEATTLE — A Harborview doctor was among those who rushed to the Pentagon on 9/11 to treat the wounded. His story, and many others from that day, are now being shared in a new book.
“I happened to be one of the few surgeons in the hospital who had recent combat experience and recent experience in triage, seeing patients on the battlefield,” said Dr. Benjamin Starnes, who in 2001 was a vascular surgery fellow at Walter Reed Medical Center, just outside Washington D.C.
He went to work on 9/11 expecting a busy day. The schedule was packed with patients.
Suddenly, his pager buzzed with an order to get to the Pentagon right away.
“I said, ‘Yes sir,’” Starnes recalled.
Starnes and a team of doctors and medics grabbed what they could, and rushed onto a waiting bus, not knowing the scope of the catastrophe.
They arrived at an inferno.
“When we got off of the bus, we could feel the heat from the flames,” he said.
The team treated the walking wounded, mostly people with burns. The rescue was complicated by a haze of confusion and rumors about additional incoming aircraft.
“I looked up over the hills of Arlington, and thought, okay, if the plane comes in from over there, I'm just going to dive into this ditch, or I'll try and make it to that underpass to avoid being killed,” Starnes said.
It became clear most of the casualties were inside the building. Within a few hours, there was no one left to treat.
Darkness fell, and in the early morning hours, Starnes briefed another team taking over the site, then returned home to his wife Margie and five-month-old daughter Cara.
“I picked her up and hugged her,” he said.
Starnes later heard stories of absolute heroism from the other side of the limestone.
“My experience was a very profound experience, but it was nothing like the experience of those who were inside,” he said.
For example, Lt. Col. Marilyn Wills, who crawled through the smoke and heat, leading people to safety, at one point carrying someone on her back.
Starnes' Brother, Lincoln, is a FedEx courier in Georgia, who also writes. Lincoln started gathering stories, interviewing survivors, and crafting a gripping account of courage.
“He put his arms around the entire story and wrote the whole story about the Pentagon. It took him three-and-a-half years, and he finished in 2004,” Starnes said.
Problem was, no one wanted to publish it. It seemed there was little appetite for another 9/11 book, so the Starnes' shelved their project.
Years passed, memories faded, and finally, a Seattle publishing company, Girl Friday Books, said yes, anticipating the 20th anniversary of the attacks.
American Phoenix: Heroes of the Pentagon on 9/11, is 262 pages, weaving together the bravery and despair that defined September 11th.
“These stories have to be published, especially now. We need inspirational stories that make us feel a part of something greater than ourselves,” Starnes said.
Lt. Col. Starnes served two tours in Iraq after 9/11 and is now chief of vascular surgery at Harborview Medical Center.
He says 9/11 conjures a mix of feelings: Pride, but also pain, over the lasting scars.
“I certainly have remorse looking back over the last twenty years, and having taken care of soldiers on the battlefield, dead, wounded, missing limbs, and linking it all the way back to that one day,” Starnes said.
He said he hopes the book will remind readers of what it felt like when Americans came together, without hesitation.
“That spirit is gone, and think this will bring some of that back,” he said.