WHERE WERE YOU?: Everyone who is old enough has a story about where he or she was on that bright, cloudless Tuesday, September 11, 2001. Me? I was in my car in the Pentagon parking lot when the first plane hit the World Trade Center in New York and at my desk in my E-ring office, Rm. 2E772, when American Airlines Flight 77 hit the west side of the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m. (Don’t look for that room. It’s not there anymore.)

Everyone has a story. I’ve told mine hundreds of times. Here’s the short version: I didn’t feel the impact of the plane, though others around me said they did. In fact, I didn’t know a plane hit the building until I saw my producer Chris Plante reporting it by phone on CNN. He arrived just as the plane hit.