A Winthrop Iowa native was a Navy rear admiral and the number two person in the Defense Department’s Public Affairs Office when the hijacked plane hit the Pentagon on September 11th 2001. Craig Quigley says his office was not damaged and he and others evacuated and then tried to contact Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld who was still inside. His cellphone didn’t work, so he went to a nearby gas station.
Quigley says he used the gas station’s land line to first call his wife.
Quigley says the message was simple.
Quigley says he then held the first of two or three press briefings with surreal sight of the Pentagon burning in the background. He says he didn’t have a lot of information in the early going.
Secretary Rumsfeld then held briefings in the regular media room there.
Quigley got home that morning around 3:00 a-m and says it wasn’t until later that he learned how many people had died in New York, the extent of the casualties in the Pentagon, and what had happened Shanksville. He says that first briefing was key.
Quigley now lives in Goodyear, Arizona.
