I am photojournalist and was in the US Capital when this plane struck the Pentagon. They evacuated the Capital quickly. People were rushing past me everywhere as I covered the surrounding events.

After the evacuation - my crew and I drove to the Tidal basin across from the Pentagon. Smoke and the smell of Airplane fuel filled the air on an otherwise beautiful September morning. The sky was filled with helicopters and sounds of sirens...and nothing else. There was no cell phone service. People tried desperately to reach family members and loved ones, but the main cell towers for major cell phone comapnies were atop the towers in New York and signals were jammed. There was spreading rumors thatr more American buildings were targets. People panicked.

The Pentagon has a Kevlar membrane which lines the interior walls. This membrane prevented more extensive damage. However the damage that the explosion did create was a gaping hole about the size of 4 football fields deep and wide. I walked through it a week after the eplosions while on assignment.

I believe that the Pentagon is an extremely well guarded government building which infrastructure must remain internally protected. In any case - this day and the events surrounding these terrorist attacks will forever permeate my memory. I have covered wars for over a decade and have seen this type of destuction first hand. What we all have to realize is that any type of terrrorism shakes your civil liberties and changes the horizon of EVERYONE's freedom world wide. We are increasingly becoming a police state, untrusting of our neighbors and ever weary of when the next atttack will come. This isn't about - Yanks - Aussies - Brits or Muslims. This is about defending humanity and supporting the ideal to live free - and to feel free - let's face it - freedom as we knew it is ever changing. It's shrinking down to an outline of which all of us must follow. With that our ideas - our beliefs - our ideals and way of life is compromised. Forget about your politics and defend one another in astruggle against maniacs that are hell bent on forcing you to fear through their cowardice, faceless terrorism.