Man who saved 9 in Pentagon now calls E’town home
Published: September 7, 2003
Rose opened his eyes and saw mostly darkness. Thick black and red smoke had choked out almost all the light and began taking its toll on the Army sergeant major.
Blown to the floor, he lay on his back in what was left of his Pentagon office. Suddenly, cries for help and the roar of a rippling fire pierced the nothingness that surrounded him.
Rose had to move.
It was just after 9:38 a.m. Sept. 11, 2001.
Rose is credited with saving the lives of nine people that day and helping several others. He knew some of those he pulled from the burning building and ushered to safety. Many of them, he didn’t.
Some people would have considered themselves lucky just to have made it out alive, thinking it crazy to go back into an unstable, engulfed structure and chance not re-emerging. After making it out, Rose, the head of Army retention, couldn’t just stand there. That wasn’t the way he was brought up in Gum Neck, N.C. — population 140, if you count hard — where his parents taught him to respect others, help his fellow man and do the right thing.
Two years after the Sept. 11 attack on the Pentagon, Rose tries to preach that same philosophy to others, especially children. He’s a motivational speaker, telling people around the country to take advantage of opportunity.
The Elizabethtown resident delivers his message and shares his experience Monday at the Hardin County Public Library’s main branch. His goal: encourage those listening to give back to America.
“We should be proud to be Americans, and every one of us is unique and can do something for our country,” Rose said. “Even if it’s a small thing, we’ve got to do our part to keep our country free.”
Gum Neck, N.C., doesn’t exactly stand out on a map. So when strangers ask where the heck his hometown is located, he gives them the precise spot with the swiftness of a veteran speed speaker: between Frying Pan and Kilcenny, on the Alligator River, across from Whipping Creek, in the middle of Dismal Swamp, not too far from where the Wright Brothers first flew their airplane in Kitty Hawk.
Gum Neck is a patriotic community. During the Vietnam War, community members off fighting overseas were coming back in coffins. That didn’t deter those like Rose.
He saw serving his country as his duty. His country needed him. So at 17, fresh out of high school, he enlisted in the Army, signing up for the infantry and a likely spot at or near the front lines.
Less than a year after joining, Rose was training as a parachutist at Fort Bragg, N.C. One day, a botched jump twisted his spine and left him paralyzed from the chin down. Rose’s body was anchored to a hospital bed and bolts screwed into his skull to keep it still. His spinal cord had not been severed, so he stood a chance of recovering, doctors told him.
The Army didn’t see Rose fit enough to continue his career, so it tried to discharge him. Rose wanted to stay in. He enlisted the help of a first sergeant, who managed to keep him on active duty.
And after 18 months of rigorous, often painful rehabilitation, Rose was back in an Army uniform.
But by the time he rejoined the ranks in 1972, President Nixon was withdrawing the fighting force overseas. Rose never made it to Vietnam.
Smoke billowed through a hole that opened in the floor, pouring up and out the second-story office window wiped away by the blast. Flight 77’s cockpit had lunged through three rings of the Pentagon, coming to rest on the floor below.
Rose was caught in the middle of the chimney just 75 feet from where the outer wall of the building collapsed.
He ordered those in his office to work their way through the smoke, find each other, link together and get out.
Rose crawled toward the sounds of the voices. Unable to see, he went on instinct. Having been stationed at the Pentagon for some time, he walked those corridors each day. He could walk the halls with his eyes closed if he wanted.
This time, he had to.
The hallways were littered with debris. Overhead, the Pentagon’s security system repeatedly sounded, “Attention. Attention. There is an emergency in the building.”
Because the smoke was so thick, Rose could get air only as long as he remained close to the ground. At one point, he pulled off his T-shirt and balled it against his face to limit the amount of smoke and soot he inhaled.
Rose remembers reaching one man whose skin peeled from his arms once he grabbed him. He recalls dropping others from a second-story window because he couldn’t find a quicker route out.
Once he made it out, Rose turned to help load the injured onto gurneys for transport to hospitals. Then he went back inside.
“I’ve never been so scared in my life,” Rose said. “Me and the good lord had a lot of good talks real quick. I said to myself and God, ‘Jesus, if you want me to live, make it happen.”
Rose ran on adrenaline Sept. 11. It wasn’t until late that night, when he took a shower, that he realized the extent of his injuries.
Hair on his arms had been burned away and his skin singed by molten plastic that dripped from the Pentagon hallways. He had shards of glass embedded in his chest and stomach, which he used tweezers to pull out.
He had numerous cuts and bruises. He also suffered smoke inhalation.
Twenty-one of the 26 soldiers who perished Sept. 11 either worked for or with Rose. His boss was gone. The “computer genius” who was to help Rose later that day with the Army’s retention Web site died, and the fellow sergeant major who was retiring and happened to be in the office cleaning up was lost.
“Every veteran there who had been in combat and survived 9/11 said it was no different,” Rose said. “Except there were no bullets.”
Rose received the Purple Heart, as well as the Legion of Merit and the Soldier’s Medal for his heroism.
Recovery crews sifting through the impact areas made it to Rose’s office shortly after Sept. 11. Most everything was gone, disintegrated or melted by the heat.
The computer. The desk. The chair.
Little was left.
Combing through the debris, workers found a wooden image of Uncle Sam. Rose’s mother had made it for him with her own hands years ago. Other than a few chips and the stained scent of smoke, the piece was unharmed.
A locker Rose maintained held several dress uniforms he kept at the office. When it was opened, the only thing inside, besides the ashes, was the front of a shirt laying at the bottom still holding Rose’s medals, ribbons and other designations. He eventually pulled them off and placed them in a glass case, the back of which contains a photo of the Pentagon.
It hangs on a wall in his office at home.
The only other salvageable item Rose has was his cherished Three Stooges coffee mug. It was found sitting atop the locker, right where he had put it.
That mug held gallons of coffee over the years. Rose sipped from it every morning.
The cup appeared the way he last saw it. A faint coffee stain lined the inside. The image of the stooges was vibrant. The white ceramic wasn’t even singed.
Tony Rose can wow a crowd, but admits he’s not great at promoting himself. So Bev Rose fills that role for her husband. She has had him speak to military lawyers at Fort Knox and 4-H members in North Carolina.
Bev Rose is a fan of Tony’s, not because he’s her husband but because she believes he can make a difference in the lives of others.
“A lot of people out there don’t know which way they’re going,” she said. “I’m always inspired and teary-eyed when I hear him speak. Not just about the 9/11 stuff … he cares to help people do their best.”
Bev Rose suffered on 9/11, too. Today, she sometimes can’t talk about that day when thinks about how close she came to losing her husband.
Bev was in St. Louis for a nephew’s wedding when Flight 77 flew into the Pentagon. She frantically phoned friends, family, anyone she could find who might know Tony’s condition.
No one knew.
Bev, who was with her mother, told her, “If he’s not gone to heaven, he’s helping people.”
She and her family sat in front of the television, watching the events unfold. Footage showed buildings burning, people scurrying.
Then, there he was: his back turned to the camera as he loaded someone on to a gurney.
Bev laughed — and cried.
“I didn’t have to wait all those hours to hear if he was OK or not,” she said. “Even though I would’ve been sad (had he perished), he would’ve been doing what he wanted to do.”
Bev Rose was at the Hardin County Library recently taking a computer class when she began telling Kim Bland, the library’s adult services coordinator, about her husband’s experiences. She told of the lives he saved, his service to the country, his good nature.
Bland was so moved, she scheduled a lecture, she said.
Rose, 49, retired this summer after 31 years in the Army. He and his wife returned to Elizabethtown in June to reside permanently. They were stationed at Fort Knox from 1993-95 and fell in love with the area and the people.
“In Elizabethtown I see a community that is genuine,” Tony Rose said. “People are polite to each other and courteous.”
When he’s not traveling to speak, Rose spends his time toiling around his home and helping Bev run her antique booth at the Peddler’s Mall in Elizabethtown. He says he was just supposed to get things set up. That was a month ago.
Rose’s newest passion is pursing a lifelong dream of becoming a pilot. He wanted to be one ever since he read a book about the adventures of a French pilot while in the fifth grade.
For two years after Sept. 11, Rose didn’t get on a plane. He couldn’t.
But two weeks ago, he drove to Addington Field and climbed in a single-engine prop for his first-ever lesson. His goal is to earn a private pilot’s license by year’s end.
He’s two hours closer to his dream.
“I’m going to overcome that (apprehension) and do it,” Rose said.
As the second anniversary of 9/11 nears, Rose still harbors anger.
He can’t escape the horror and pain he endured that day. The chime of a fire alarm, the smell of smoke, even a loud noise can take him back.
He doesn’t even have to close his eyes, and he’s there.
“I’m not ashamed to tell you that when I think about the people we lost, all you can do is cry and wonder why they had to leave,” Rose said. “There’s evil in the world. It’s out there, and Americans can’t fool themselves. There are people who want to take us out.
“If we can’t stand up and be prepared to do the right thing as soldiers, groups or individuals, they’ll overrun us. When I think about the people who died, I know we did the right thing to fight evil.”
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