Ocala residents remember 9/11 attacks on 20th anniversary

** FILE **The south tower begins to collapse as smoke billows from both towers of the World Trade Center, in New York, in this Sept. 11, 2001, file photo. In one of the most horrifying attacks ever against the United States, terrorists crashed two airliners into the World Trade Center in a deadly series of blows that brought down the twin 110-story towers. (AP Photo/Jim Collins/FILE) ** zu unserem Korr **

Janet Horton always preferred to focus on the heroic and caring acts she witnessed after a plane crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. Twenty years later, nothing has changed.

The retired U.S. Army chaplain, now living in Ocala, said viewing the tragic events of that day through her spectrum gives her hope for humanity.

“Most people remember this event as the terrorists showing their hatred for our way of life. When I think back on it, I think of the amazing things people did for each other to help each other,” said Horton.

In 2001, Col. Horton was serving as the executive director of the Armed Forces Chaplains Board in the Pentagon near where American Airlines Flight 77 would eventually hit the structure. The morning of the attacks, however, Horton was called to the dental department on the other side of the massive structure.

She, along with others waiting in the dental clinic, watched the coverage after American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the World Trade Center’s North Tower just after 8:46 a.m. They watched in horror as a second plane, United Airlines Flight 175, crashed into the South Tower just after 9:03 a.m.

But at 9:37 a.m., a Boeing 757 struck the west side of the Pentagon. The structure is so fortified, however, that Horton said she never heard or felt a thing. All three planes, and a fourth, United Airline Flight 93 – which eventually crashed in a field in Pennsylvania – were hijacked by Islamic terrorists.

The next thing she knew, the Pentagon was being evacuated. The injured were brought to the interior courtyard of the Pentagon. Horton said security officials were only allowing medical personal into the courtyard, but she and two fellow chaplains who also happened to be in the dental clinic were determined to reach the injured.

That’s where her baking skills proved invaluable.

“I knew the head of security. I would give him chocolate chip cookies and bread I baked,” Horton said. “I said to him, ‘This is doctrinal. We have to be in there.’”

The officer let them through. For the next 10 hours, Horton and the other chaplains offered comfort and prayer to the dozens of injured.

On the 20th anniversary of the events, Horton plans to spend the day quietly, reflecting on the events that killed nearly 3,000 people.

She will remember Lt. Col. Marion Ward, who jumped from a second-story window in the Pentagon and, despite his injuries, broke the fall of others as they jumped.

Horton prayed with Ward as emergency workers took care of him. Ward was distraught that he could not feel his legs. As they prayed, he calmed down, and soon he began to feel pain in his legs.

“We all put our arms in the air. He was feeling his legs again,” Horton said.

Ward was back on his feet soon after. He was recognized for his actions, receiving a Purple Heart and the Soldier’s Medal for heroism. Ward died in 2011. He was 54.

Horton also will remember the emergency workers who ran into danger to try and save the injured. Every year at Thanksgiving and Christmas, she bakes cookies and bread for the firefighters at a nearby fire station.

“I can’t ever stop thanking the firemen,” she said.

The Pentagon attack was the first time she performed her chaplain duties in a combat situation.

“It was tough. Quite a number of the injuries were fairly severe,” Horton said. “I would kneel and pray with the evacuees as they laid them on the grass.”

Hours flew by when she realized she had not called her husband. She was able to use a borrowed cell phone to let him know she was OK.

It wasn’t until she got home that evening that she realized the enormity of the attacks.

“We were too busy to realize what else was going on,” she said.

The south tower begins to collapse as smoke billows from both towers of the World Trade Center, in New York, in this Sept. 11, 2001, file photo. In one of the most horrifying attacks ever against the United States, terrorists crashed two airliners into the World Trade Center in a deadly series of blows that brought down the twin 110-story towers. (AP Photo/Jim Collins)

Henry DeGeneste was working near the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, when he got news about the first plane striking the North Tower.

“I expected to see it was a private plane that somehow hit the tower,” said DeGeneste, then the director of global security operations for Prudential Financial in New York.

When he turned on the television, however, he knew something was seriously wrong.

DeGeneste, a former superintendent of the Port Authority Police Department of New York and New Jersey, started calling some of his former contacts. Just as he confirmed that the first plane strike was no accident, the second plane hit the South Tower.

He was on the street headed to another building housing the company’s computer systems when he heard what he thought was an explosion.

“I thought it was a bomb. It was the tower collapsing,” said DeGeneste, who eventually retired to Ocala.

Moments later, a massive cloud of concrete dust overtook him.

“I was covered in it. People thought I was coming from ground zero,” he said.

Later, he would make his way to the site. He learned that several of his former colleagues, many he worked with and knew, were inside the building when it collapsed. All told, 37 Port Authority officers died that day.

“I think about it all the time,” he said.

The superintendent that replaced him, Fred Marrone, was one of those who died. Another officer, Chief James Romito, was at the office on his day off when the attacks happened. He raced into the North Tower and never came out.

The World Trade Center attacks killed 487 first responders, including 343 New York firefighters.

But DeGeneste said for hundreds more, the effects continue.

“The residual effect of illnesses that have hit so many of them is amazing,” he said. “It’s really disturbing. The cases of cancer, emphysema keep affecting these people. It’s really disturbing,” he said.

It’s why he feels it is important to mark the anniversary and never forget.

“People tend to forget the further you get away. If we can only keep that alive, that people are still suffering from residual illness,” DeGeneste said. “It’s a day I will never forget.”