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>> My name's Bryan Landers.

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I'm a group supervisor
of the Intelligence Group at SAC

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Houston.  On 9/11,

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I was an international
trade analyst

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with the U.S. Customs Service,
and on the day of the event,

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I think someone got word to us
that the first tower was hit

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and we all gathered
into someone's office

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and started watching the news
on a big screen TV

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and we were still watching, I think,
when the second tower got hit.

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It wasn't long after that that someone
was going through the office

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telling everyone
to go home now.

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So I left the building and made my way
to the nearest yellow line,

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which is the one I needed
to get as far south

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as I could towards my home
in Stafford, Virginia.

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I'd been on for only a couple of stops,
and we were we were in a tunnel

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and the train came to a sudden stop,
lights went off,

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emergency lighting came on
and recording said to exit the train

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and get to the surface.
So we did. Everyone walked down the track

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a hundred yards or so.  Went up
through an emergency stair exit,

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a very long walk to the top.

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And when we got to the top
can see black smoke in the air,

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but couldn't tell
where it was coming from.

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Got oriented fairly quickly
and determined

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I was still on the D.C. side
of the Potomac River,

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so I got up to get on
to the 14th Street Bridge

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or the highway bridge
right next to it

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and walked across the river.

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And when I when I was
going across the river,

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I saw clearly it was
the Pentagon was on fire

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and it was growing
exponentially.

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The closer I got, I could smell
the smoke and see the flames.

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Eventually, I came down
off of the bridge

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on the other side
of the river,

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found my way onto a bus that was parked
at a hotel in Crystal City.

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And at about 9:30, 10 o'clock that night,
I made it home to Stafford, Virginia.

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I think other than
the shock of that day,

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one of the things
that sticks with me the most

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is the experience of driving past
the Pentagon every day on my commute,

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back to work,
usually on a bus.

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Everybody, initially when
we first started going by

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that it was the big black
gaping hole in the Pentagon,

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and half the bus would be crying
by the time we got past it.

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And seeing that every day
for months moved me

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to want to do something
to get into the fight on terror,

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I couldn't go back into the army again.
I was too old.

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So that's when I decided
to make my way into intelligence

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and I joined HSI
shortly thereafter.