Doctor From Enfield Recounts Treating 9/11 Pentagon Victims

Editor's note: Saturday marks the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on America in New York City and Washington, where nearly 3,000 people lost their lives. On Sept. 11, 2001, Dr. Michael Zapor, a 1981 graduate of Enrico Fermi High School in Enfield, was a physician at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in the nation's capital, and treated several victims at the Pentagon. Here he relates his story of that horrible day; it originally ran in 2018, and has been updated.

WASHINGTON, DC — Like many of you, I clearly remember where I was and what I was doing on 11 September 2001. I was an infectious diseases physician at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and as was my custom, I swung by the microbiology lab to follow up on culture results before rounding on my patients. The lab had a television on the wall, and live footage of the attacks had everyone's rapt attention.

Learning of the attack on the Pentagon, I went to the infectious diseases clinic on the hospital's sixth floor, which had a commanding view of downtown D.C., including the Washington Monument, the National Cathedral and the Old Soldiers Home; and from the window of ward 63, I could see the thick black smoke billowing from the Pentagon.

Several of my colleagues were there and one of them, Mark Polhemus I think, announced that he was going to the Pentagon to help. A couple of us decided to do the same, and we grabbed our white coats and our aid bags and headed for our cars.

To be honest, I doubted I would actually make it to the Pentagon. State police cars were blocking the exits and I expected to be turned away. However, I remember that as I slowed down for the trooper who stopped me, he peered in my window, saw my white doctor's coat and yelled "Go, Go!", waving me through the blockade.

I'd like to be able to tell you that I did something heroic that day, that I made use of my doctor's skills and saved lives (my opportunities would come later, as a battalion surgeon, first in Iraq and then in Afghanistan). However, the only injured person I recall was a fireman with smoke inhalation. Where I was, there were the living and the dead, but remarkably few wounded.

Late that night, I went home and watched the news on CNN. At 9 p.m., President George W. Bush delivered a televised address from the Oval Office, declaring, "Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve." In a reference to the eventual U.S. military response, he declared, "We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them."

Operation Enduring Freedom, the American-led international effort to oust the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and destroy Osama bin Laden's terrorist network based there, began on Oct. 7. Within two months, U.S. forces had effectively removed the Taliban from operational power, and on May 2, 2011, Osama bin Laden was finally tracked down and killed by U.S. forces at a hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

In his speech, President Bush said, "None of us will ever forget this day, yet we go forward to defend freedom and all that is good and just in our world." For the ensuing 20 years, everyone in uniform has been doing just that. Let's solemnly remember those who were murdered on 11 September 2001, as well as those who died avenging them.

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