11/14/2025
I know from my friend Missy who was in the Pentagon that day of the chaos of not only those at the Pentagon but their family members waiting to hear from their loved ones. There are many stories like this one, I am just thankful this one has been documented.
When American Airlines Flight 77 struck the Pentagon, Lt. Col. Marilyn Wills was thrown across the room with her hair on fire — then she made a choice that would save lives.
September 11, 2001, started as a beautiful morning. Lt. Col. Marilyn Wills arrived at the Pentagon early — in the Army, if you're on time, you're late. She stopped by her office on the second floor to grab her Army sweater because the building was always cold, then headed to a conference room for a routine meeting.
Fourteen people sat around that conference table. They were discussing personnel matters, completely unaware that two planes had already struck the World Trade Center towers in New York.
At 9:37 a.m., everything changed.
American Airlines Flight 77, carrying over 30,000 pounds of jet fuel, slammed into the Pentagon's west side at 530 mph — almost directly below the second-floor conference room where Wills sat.
"It was the loudest explosion I had ever heard," she recalled. "And the room went completely dark."
The fireball erupted upward through the ceiling. The blast wave hurled Wills across the conference table. Her hair caught fire. The lights went out. Smoke instantly filled the room, thick and toxic.
For a moment, she lay there, stunned, ears ringing, struggling to comprehend what had happened.
Then she started crawling.
In complete darkness, Wills pictured the room in her mind. She crawled toward where she remembered a door being. When she reached it and grabbed the handle, searing heat burned her hand — the other side was engulfed in flames.
She turned and crawled back across the room toward another exit.
That's when someone grabbed the back of her belt.
"Who is this?" Wills called out. "Talk to me. Who is this?"
"My name is Lois," came the reply. Lois Stevens, a civilian employee.
"Hold on to me," Wills told her firmly. "I have you. Don't let me go. Where I go, you go."
The two women began crawling through the destruction together, calling for others, searching for a way out. The smoke was so dense they couldn't breathe. Lois said she couldn't go any further.
Wills pulled one arm out of her Army sweater and gave it to Lois to use as a filter, sharing the moisture-soaked fabric so they could breathe through it.
"You can do this," Wills insisted. "Stay with me."
When Lois's legs gave out — her nylons had melted to her skin from the heat — Wills made her a promise:
"Get on my back. I'll carry you."
And she did.
As they crawled, others joined them. Eventually, there were six people following Wills through the smoke and darkness, trusting her voice to guide them to safety.
Finally, they reached a window. But it was sealed shut.
Wills and others desperately tried to break it. They threw a printer at it. They pounded on it. Nothing worked.
Then a soldier found something heavier and they smashed the window open.
Fresh air rushed in.
But Wills didn't leave. Even as others began climbing out the second-story window to safety, she stayed inside, helping to systematically lower each person down to the rescuers waiting below.
"I'll go last," she told them. "Keep moving."
When it was finally her turn to evacuate, the human ladder that had formed outside collapsed as she climbed through. She fell, landing on the shoulders and arms of those trying to catch her, until a Navy officer grabbed her.
"I got you," he said. "You're safe."
Only then did Wills allow herself to think of her two daughters. If she had died in that building, they would have been without their mother.
She survived. But not everyone did.
Of the fourteen people in that conference room, three died that day. In total, 184 people were killed at the Pentagon — everyone aboard Flight 77 and 125 people inside the building, including Lt. Gen. Timothy Maude, the Army's deputy chief of staff for personnel.
Lois Stevens, the woman Wills carried on her back, survived. She lived another 23 years, passing away in 2024 at age 83. The two women remained connected, bound by the promise Wills made that day: "Where I go, you go."
For her actions on September 11, 2001, Lt. Col. Marilyn Wills was awarded the Soldier's Medal for heroism and the Purple Heart for her injuries — burns, smoke inhalation, and traumatic brain injury from the blast.
But she didn't consider herself a hero.
"We lost so many that day," she said quietly. "They were my friends."
Despite the trauma, despite the flashbacks, despite the fear that gripped her every time she heard planes fly overhead, Wills returned to work at the Pentagon. She continued to serve, eventually deploying to Afghanistan.
"I survived it. I'm here," she explained years later. "My life is an open book. It's hard for me to share this story. But I know it's a must."
Because Lt. Col. Marilyn Wills understood something profound: some stories must be told. Not to glorify war or violence, but to remember the ordinary people who became heroes when evil tried to break us.
On that terrible morning, when darkness and smoke filled a Pentagon conference room, one woman made a choice.
She could have saved only herself.
Instead, she said: "Where I go, you go."
And she kept that promise.
God bless Lt. Col. Marilyn Wills and all who served and sacrificed on September 11, 2001.
