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The television sets in the waiting rooms of the Pentagon's DiLorenzo Tricare Health Clinic are usually turned to CNN, as they were the morning of September 11. Patients and staff, including the clinic's chief nurse Maj. Lorie Brown, RN, MSN, FNP, watched reports of the burning World Trade Center towers that had each been struck by commercial jetliners.

Located in the subground level of the Department of Defense's massive concrete nerve center, neither clinic staff nor patients heard or felt anything when a hijacked jetliner struck the Pentagon itself. "We didn't feel the impact or hear it, which was amazing," says Brown.

Brown and her staff had no idea the Pentagon had been attacked until someone came running into the clinic yelling, "You've got to get out; something terrible has happened." Within minutes the clinic began filling with smoke and with patients suffering from a range of injuries from smoke inhalation to burns to head wounds and lacerations caused by flying glass and concrete. Brown initiated the clinic's mass casualty disaster plan and began to organize the chaos erupting around her.

Ironically, last April, Brown led a tabletop exercise of the clinic's new mass casualty plan. Sitting at a table, members of the team walked through how they would respond if an airplane crashed into the Pentagon. But at the center of that imagined disaster was a plane that had malfunctioned after takeoff from nearby Reagan National Airport, not a hijacked jet commandeered as a missile.

"The training made a huge difference that day," she says. "There is a use for all of that training."

Brown, one of eight RNs at the clinic, orchestrated who went where. She sent teams of physicians, RNs, and medics to set up three main triage areas: one by the Pentagon gym, one by the central courtyard, and one at the heliport where the crash took place. There were also smaller triage areas. The triage sites radioed back to Brown what medical equipment, supplies, or help were needed.

The top three floors where the Pentagon had been struck remained standing for about 30 to 40 minutes, allowing Brown's teams to go the crash site and rescue some of the more seriously injured victims. "You couldn't see the guy next to you due to the dense smoke," she said. Firefighters and rescue personnel arrived to assist the health team. Eventually those three floors collapsed.

The clinic opened in May 2000 and is located directly opposite the crash site. There were only a few ambulances available initially, so many patients who first arrived for treatment were sent to hospitals by cars, SUV, or vans, any type of motor vehicle clinic personnel could flag down.

"We had cars lining up to take patients to Arlington Hospital, which is the nearest hospital," says Brown.

Brown also coordinated efforts of the many military and civilian volunteers who desperately wanted to do anything they could to help. "This is a story about volunteerism," she says. People who could have and should have left the building were asking, 'What can I do?' The building was collapsing and people were saying, 'Let me help.'"

There were far fewer deaths at the Pentagon than the 800 fatalities first speculated, in part because the area of the building that had been struck was recently renovated and built to withstand a terrorist or other heavy assault. In all, close to 200 people died, including the passengers in the hijacked jet.

As the chaos subsided the night of the attack, Brown and her staff watched the fire burn and remained to help any injured firefighters or other rescue personnel. "It was touching to see the American flags that were put up near the crash site," she says.

About 8:00 PM Brown tried calling her husband, Army Lt. Col. (P) David W. Brown, at home. Although he is assigned to the Pentagon, he is temporarily working off Pentagon grounds because of renovations to his office. But when the phone kept ringing, "I started getting worried," Brown says. Fortunately, she talked to someone who had seen her husband alive. Lt. Col. Brown later called and told his wife he couldn't get home because of traffic caused by the attack.

Brown worked two days straight before finally going home to get some rest. She and her staff are keeping the clinic open day and night for the next couple of weeks instead of closing at 4:00 PM, as the clinic usually does.

On September 12, the day America fell under attack, the Pentagon was opened for military servicemembers and civilian employees, who attempted to resume normal work routines. To assist them, the Department of Defense has a variety of mental health workers, such as priests, chaplains, social workers, and psychologists, ready to listen to those who need assistance coping with the loss of security shattered by the terrorist attack. Brown copes with the horror of that day "by staying very focused, on one task at a time."