New medal honors Pentagon civilians killed or injured in Sept. 11 attacks
By Lisa Burgess and Sandra Jontz, Washington bureau
The obverse and reverse of the Defense of Freedom Medal. |
WASHINGTON — The Defense Department created a historic new medal, the civilian
equivalent of a Purple Heart, to honor Pentagon employees killed or injured during the
Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Thursday.
There was little doubt that active-duty military members killed or injured in the
attack would receive the traditional Purple Heart, but the Defense of Freedom medal marks
the first time in U.S. history that civilians have been formally recognized for wounds
received in combat.
"For most of our history, war has been something that has largely taken place on
foreign soil," Rumsfeld said. The Sept. 11 attacks "brought the battlefield home
to us."
Ninety people have been identified as eligible for the red, white and blue-striped
Defense of Freedom medal, according to Charles Abell, assistant Secretary of Defense for
Force Management Policy.
That includes not only Pentagon employees, but civilians who worked in the World Trade
Center or flying on government business aboard one of the hijacked aircraft, Abell said.
Rumsfeld also has the option, on a case-by-case basis, of awarding the new medal to
civilian contractors working for the Pentagon at the time of the attack.
Eddie Rowenhorst, 32, an Army civilian, will be one of the recipients of the
unprecedented award.
"I think he deserves it. He gave 11 years of civilian service for the Department
of the Army, and to be taken this way, well, this is something my children will
cherish," Traci Rowenhorst said.
Her daughters, ages 3 and 7, don’t quite understand what has happened to their
father. She’s done her best to educate without terrifying them.
"But they understand he’s not coming home," Rowenhorst said. "They
are small children and do what they do to get by."
Rowenhorst, 27, applauded the Pentagon for establishing the award.
"They are honoring the people that put in a lot of hard work to make the
government and [Department of Defense] run as much as the military itself does," she
said.
"I had been thinking that he should have a medal, they all should, but I figured
that may not happen. This is a small consolation that he was honored in the whole
tragedy."
At least 6,347 people were killed or are presumed dead when terrorists hijacked four
commercial airliners on the East Coast. Two jets crashed into the twin towers of the World
Trade Center in New York, one into the Pentagon, and a fourth crashed into a field in
Somerset County in southwestern Pennsylvania.
Abell did not know how many of the 90 civilians identified so far were working in the
Pentagon at the time of the attack and how many were elsewhere. Nor was Abell able to
provide a breakout of how many individuals were killed versus seriously injured.
Abell warned, in any case, that the number of people awarded the medal might change.
The Pentagon is still searching for individuals who were wounded and sought medical
treatment on their own.
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