Chris Plante Recalls Being at the Pentagon on 9/11

Nick Kangadis | September 22, 2017
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September 11, 2001 was a day that no one who is old enough enough to remember it vividly will ever forget. It's a day that changed all of our lives, and also changed our society.

Host of the Chris Plante Show on WMAL Chris Plante was the recipient of the Edward R. Murrow Award from the Radio and Television News Directors’ Association (RTNDA) for his reporting from the Pentagon during the 9/11 terror attacks.

At the time of 9/11 Plante was a journalist at CNN. A fact he chuckles at now, considering the biased path CNN has taken.

Plante joined MRCTV’s Nick Kangadis live on Facebook from the Media Research Center’s 30th Anniversary Gala Thursday evening and was asked what it was like to be a journalist on 9/11.

“I was assigned to the Pentagon, working for CNN, but don’t hold that against me,” Plante said. “Watching what was going on in New York the morning. I hopped in my Lincoln Towncar and raced down to the Pentagon, and as I was pulling in the North parking lot the plane hit the building. I saw the explosion”

That cowardly terrorist attack on the Pentagon killed 184 people, including 125 people inside the building.

While Plante admitted that “work mode” took over, and he began reporting live on CNN, he initially attempted to enter the Pentagon through the hole in the building in order to see if he could help those inside.

“I at first attempted to go into the hole in the building, to go in and help,” Plante said. “I was asked by an Army guy that I knew, if I didn’t have any medical experience - to just let others do that.”

Plante's initial reaction was similar to many others on that day. People just wanted to help people. It’s the American way.

After that, Plante knew the only thing he could do was his job and get information out to the American public. You have to remember, as it was happening, nobody really knew the exact reason as to why what was happening was occurring.

“Honestly, I was focused on the task at hand,” Plante observed. “I had a job to do, and I was doing my job. I didn’t really even stop to think about, although I was aware of it certainly, the gravity of the moment that I was witnessing.”

Plante summed up his experience on that day in a way that more people need to realize.

“I was there, and it was obviously a horrific but very historic event that changed the trajectory of the United States forever,” Plante concluded.

Indeed. There was life in the U.S. before September 11, but life after the attacks was forever altered.

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