Two members of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Maryland Task Force 1, an urban search and rescue team, share their memories of responding to the Pentagon on 9/11. Troy Lipp and Kelvin Thomas are both still active in serving Montgomery County. Troy Lipp had been on the job for 12 years and was an assistant task force leader for the FEMA urban search and rescue task force when he went to a continuing education class for paramedics.
He was sitting in the classroom in the middle of listening to a lecture when one of the academy staff leaders came in and said that a plane had hit one of the World Trade Center buildings. They paused the class to put on the TV, and some of the other paramedics asked Lipp if he thought they would be sent to New York, knowing he was one of the task force leaders.