‘I just want to move on’

The Washington Times, in a special section commemorating the first anniversary of September 11, profiled three men and two women who survived the attack on the Pentagon. They agreed to update their stories for a series, After the Fire, this week marking the fifth anniversary.

First of five parts

As fellow Americans today remember September 11, 2001, with tributes, prayers and other commemorations, Louise Kurtz will try her best to forget that terrible day ever happened.

“I usually try to ignore 9/11. It stirs memories and emotions in me that I’ve been trying to forget,” says Ms. Kurtz, who sustained severe burns — some fourth-degree — on 70 percent of her body during the terrorist attack on the Pentagon. “I just want to move on.”

But as much as Ms. Kurtz tries, she can’t blot out the memory of seeing and trying to help another woman who was on fire, and then looking down at her own swelling, blistering and reddening arms.

Or vanquish the memory of seeing pieces of the Pentagon crumbling around her.

She can’t easily forget the 48 surgeries that followed, a year of wearing a “burn suit,” the loss of her fingers and severe damage to her face and arms.

“My legs did OK,” she says, pulling up black stretch pants to reveal some smooth skin and plenty of square indentations — skin used for grafting.

A year after terrorists flew American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon, Ms. Kurtz told The Washington Times about her injuries and recovery. She had undergone 39 surgeries by then and been fitted for prosthetic ears that would sport gold earrings.

Now, at the fifth anniversary, the Spotsylvania resident says she doesn’t feel sorry for herself. Instead, Ms. Kurtz counts herself fortunate that she made it out alive that sunny September morning, her second day of working as an accountant for the budget office of the Department of the Army.

Two other persons in her office got out and lived, she says. The remaining 50 or so, including the woman she saw on fire, didn’t.

When the airliner plowed into the Pentagon, Ms. Kurtz was standing at a machine faxing personnel papers.

“It was dark,” she says. “I had grit in my teeth. There was debris everywhere. … I smelled the jet fuel, and I knew what had happened.”

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