Young Writers Society

I'm writing a story about a group of friends in the Marines during the War on Terror. In the opening scene, Jason Stanton (19) and his best friend Austin Colton (19) have been in the United States Marine Corps for one year. They are stationed at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. Austin's younger brother, Jesse (18), and Jason's twin siblings, Drew and Lizzy (18), are in D.C. for their senior trip. My plan is to have them inside the Pentagon when it gets hit, but I'm missing a lot of information to make that possible. Was the Pentagon open for tours on 9/11? What happened inside the Pentagon as a response to the attacks on the World Trade Centers? Any information or websites would be appreciated. I'd also like real stories of bravery and heroism during that day to include if possible (I've heard that the one about the Marines evacuating the nursery isn't true). I'm trying to show how much our military does for us. Thanks for the help!

As far as my knowledge goes, the part of the Pentagon that was hit was CLOSED as there was rooftop damage that needed to be repaired. This made it very convenient that that exact part of the Pentagon was hit. Also, the surveillance footage from the day has been publicly unavailable since the 'crash' happened.
You've probably gathered from my tone that I do NOT believe that any plane ever hit the Pentagon and, in fact, that it was all staged. Although, saying that, I do commend you for your story, but perhaps it would be better to stage it in New York?
Also, you won't be getting to many stories of what actually happened as officials have been told to shut up their mouths.
No debris was ever found of the plane, not even one solitary piece or part. In history or air crash investigations this has never occurred, where no debris has been found - of course, the U.S. government would argue that there was a clean-up operation that collected all the parts (this would be nigh impossible), and again, I point you to the lack of video evidence of a plane ever hitting the Pentagon (there are only pictures of 'debris'; debris which the U.S. Gov. still refuse to release to teh public, by the way). Personally, I believe that explosives were packed in that part of the building to make it *look* like it had been hit.
So yeah :')
My advice would be to change your setting perhaps? Or you could just fabricate a whole story, if you do truly believe a plane still hit the building.
Other than that, take care and all the best for your research!

*Edit* Sorry, there is 1 video out of about 60 cameras that would have picked up that angle. Which is yet another reason to be suspicious - why not just show us all the camera angles? (because the plane hitting doesn't exist!)

Not really answering your question, but the chances that 19 year old Marines would be working in the Pentagon is highly unlikely (or at least highly unbelievable).

My Boyfriend joined the Marines right out of high school (he was 18 at the time). He, as well as every Marine, spent 13 weeks - that's over 3 months - in bootcamp. Then, depending on whether you're infantry or non-infantry, you either spend approx. 59 days or 29 days respectively in a program training combat/infantry skills. Then, every Marine goes through school for their MOS (which is their specialty job in the corps). For Boyfriend, he spent several months sitting around between MCT and his MOS school because his school was backed up and there wasn't room. By the time he went to his first assignment, he was almost 20.

Now, it could be possible that one could be done with their schooling and still be 19. However, the likelihood that a junior Marine would be stationed at the Pentagon is not very high. If this is even a viable job for a Marine, it would be one of the highest security clearances which I know from my boyfriend's experience takes a long time (and a lot of paperwork) to achieve (and he's several ranks up). Basically, these would have to be some pretty stellar junior Marines to be set up at the Pentagon right out of training.

So basically, I would start by doing loads of research. Make sure this is a job Marines can hold, see what training is involved in getting there, see how long it takes a Marine to reach a rank where they will even be accepted into this position. This will help you gauge a believable age/experience for your characters.

Then, as HorriBliss mentioned, make sure your other characters are believable to be there as well. It seems kind of convenient that three siblings of our MCs are in this place at the same time (but I could believe it if you played it right).

Also, as was suggested, I would really consider changing the setting to New York. You won't find a lot of info about the Pentagon, you just won't. But in NYC, you can easily place the younger characters in believable locations for the attacks. Your Marine's could also be believable being there, if they were perhaps on leave or liberty and decided to check out the city for a bit. The only problem is, I really don't think you can believably station these young Marines anywhere that would have been hit in the attacks.

Thanks for the ideas! When you put it that way, it does sound more likely for them to be in New York. Not to mention easier to set up. I had started writing the scene in the Pentagon, but it wasn't flowing smoothly. Having them in New York will be much better. Thanks again!