Nathan Freier ‘88
For Nathan Freier, it seems every year brings one of those days – sunny, warm, not a cloud in a vividly blue sky.
And then the memories of that morning come flooding back.
“On the morning of 9/11, I was in relatively early because we had a fairly important meeting about a planning document that was of interest to the entire Pentagon,” said Freier, a 1988 Saint John’s University graduate who at the time was a major in the U.S. Army working in the Pentagon – the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense, located just across the Potomac River from Washington D.C.
“It was the annual planning document that lays out what the military hopes to do and all its priorities.”
The meeting was taking place in a giant cubicle farm on the third floor, fourth corridor, C-Ring. And while it was ongoing, someone working nearby leaned in to say a plane had hit one of the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center in New York City.
“I remember thinking that was bizarre given what a nice day it was – both in D.C. and New York,” Freier said. “You would have had to be blind to run into the World Trade Center on that day.
“But the meeting continued on.”
That is until the same person leaned in again a short while later to say a second plane had hit the other tower.
“At that point, I remember asking my friend who was in the meeting with me if we should be in this building right now,” Freier said. “We had no idea there was a third and fourth plane that had been hijacked. But it was clear we were under some sort of attack and we were worried about a truck bomb or something like that.
“My boss was out of the office that day, and I remember we went into his office because he had a TV,” he continued. “We watched President (George W.) Bush’s initial response to the planes hitting the World Trade Center.
“Then we walked out and we couldn’t have taken more than five-or-10 steps when, bang, the whole building shook. And I heard the sickening sound of collapsing metal, like when two cars collide.”
That was at 9:37 a.m. (EDT) – just 34 minutes after the second plane hit the second tower in New York. American Airlines Flight 77, which had taken off from nearby Dulles International Airport, has been hijacked and flown into the west side of the Pentagon – almost directly under the office Freier was in.
“I can remember pushing my buddy down and I’ll never forget the look in his eyes when he got up,” he said. “He had these wire-rimmed, Radar O’Reilly glasses on and his eyes were so wide.
“He said ‘We need to get out of here.’ And I used an expletive agreeing with him.”
Freier and his group did evacuate, eventually making their way across a parking lot to Lady Bird Johnson Park. In the park, he came across an Air Force colonel on his cellphone, and Freier asked if the colonel would call his wife Jeanne (a 1988 graduate of the College of Saint Benedict) to let her know he’d seen Freier safely outside the building.
“My wife kept that message for years after that,” Freier said.
But after realizing everyone inside would need to be accounted for, Freier and his group slowly worked their way back to the Pentagon – arriving at around the same area they had exited the building.
That was when they saw a military hospital bus pull up. And he and others went back into the building – which was filling rapidly with smoke – to see how they could be off service. He spent the next several hours in and around the Pentagon – mostly in the center courtyard – even raiding a restaurant and vending machines to secure needed beverages for firefighters battling the intense blaze, and assisting with other tasks.
“I’d never been that close to firefighters doing their work on such a large scale like that,” he said. “And I’ve never seen sacrifice and service at a level anywhere close to what I saw from them that day.”
Eventually, after calling his wife from a payphone and helping to haul parasols that had been over picnic tables in courtyard to a triage unit that had been set up outside the building, Freier and others were told they needed to leave.
But his wallet and car keys – as well as his military beret – were still in his office where he had left them.
Someone gave him a ride to the nearest subway station that was operating and gave him $5 to pay the fare. But he ended up getting on the wrong train and had to take it all the way to the end of the line before circling back.
“I had to ride it back all the way to where I started from, then transfer back to my train,” he said. “But I was just in a fog.”
He finally made it his station where he found another payphone to call his wife to come get him. But while his day was finally over, 9/11 marked the beginning of a long decade ahead.
Freier would end up involved in helping develop plans for the War on Terror, and he made several visits to Iraq – the first two (in 2005 and ’07) in uniform, and the last two (in 2008 and ’10) as a civilian advisor.
“9/11 and its legacy have always been both personal and business for me,” said Freier, who is now a researcher for the Army War College, who works from his home in Red Wing, Minnesota, where he is also the head football coach at Red Wing High School.
“On a personal level, there was of course the trauma of being there in the middle of the day’s horrific attacks. I am sure 20 years on, I have never really processed it the way a therapist would recommend one should. When anyone asks ‘Where were you on 9/11?’ I say ‘Pentagon room 3C450.’ 3C450 was a large unremarkable open cubicle farm at 9:36 a.m. on Sept. 11th, 2001. One minute later, at 9:37 a.m., it was quite remarkable as only two floors separated it from what remained of American Airlines Flight 77. May the 184 innocent souls that lost their lives in that instant in the Pentagon rest in peace.
“As for business, 9/11 started what seems like a lifetime of strategy development experiences over the course of at least the next nine years. Frankly, all my work in strategy and defense analysis in the two decades since 9/11 always had some DNA-level connection back to the attacks and their impact on U.S. strategy and strategic planning.”
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