I'm a member of the US Air Force, assigned to the Pentagon. My office isn't actually in the building; it's in some leased space two blocks away, in Crystal City. Tuesday morning I was planning to go over to the Pentagon to do some personnel paperwork. But my work hours are almost completely at my own discretion, so I often go to work late and stay late in the evenings.

Monday night I'd stayed up late hacking some code, and I slept in a bit... When I woke up, I hacked a bit more, and spent some time shooting at squirrels with my slingshot. Eventually I couldn't procrastinate any more, and I went to work. I heard about the incidents on the car radio. If I had been the early riser that I used to be, I probably would have been in the building. Maybe dead. Strange that procrastination may have saved my life. I guess maybe laziness really is a virtue at times.

I was dumbfounded by the column of smoke over the Pentagon. I can only imagine what the WTC must have been like first-hand. The smell was terrible.

Most of my organization (OSD/PA&E) is just off corridor 2, which was closed all week because of fire, possible structural damage, and declaration of it being a crime scene. I spent almost every waking moment trying to re-organizize the 90-person suite that I manage to accomodate an additional 60 people who were displaced.

Friday, the FBI let people back into the corridor 2 offices. All the displaced people went back to their own spaces. I don't think I even really had time to grieve or think about anything until yesterday.

I know one person who died in the attack, a co-worker whose office was in the building. In a situation beyond irony, he was flying to a meeting in California, via LAX. The one person that I know who died -- a DoD civilian -- wasn't actually in the Pentagon at the time... until the moment of impact, I suppose. He will be missed.

This really sucks.