20 years after 9/11, Hillary Clinton recalls ground zero looked "like the gates of hell"
CBSN
Saturday marks 20 years since the September 11 terrorist attack that killed nearly 3,000 Americans and left many more with long-term health issues.
Just about a year earlier, Hillary Clinton had been sworn in as New York's junior senator. Clinton visited ground zero in Manhattan one day after the attacks, flying in with Senator Chuck Schumer. She described to "CBS Mornings" co-host Tony Dokoupil the level of catastrophic damage she saw. "We landed at LaGuardia, we took a helicopter, and we circled over ground zero. And I cannot imagine anything that looked more like the gates of hell. I thought I'd be prepared because I'd seen it on TV, but the TV screen contained it. And circling over it was something that I think about and will never forget," Clinton said.Ashley White received her earliest combat action badge from the United States Army soon after the first lieutenant arrived in Afghanistan. The silver military award, recognizing soldiers who've been personally engaged by an attacker during conflict, was considered an achievement in and of itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White had earned it for using her own body to shield a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that broke out in the midst of her third mission in Kandahar province. All of them survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.
The knock at the door came at nighttime on Mother's Day 2008 in Oregon, where Jessica Ellis' parents lived. It was around 9:20 p.m. and his wife, Linda, was already in bed; her father Steve Ellis told CBS News, that he thought someone let their animals out — but two soldiers in Class A uniforms were standing at the door.