he was ready to `` re-engage '' with the past . In 2001 , Leech was working as a Defense Department liaison officer to the White House Drug Policy office . He worked primarily out of the White House but attended meetings at the Pentagon every Tuesday and Thursday morning . Watch as he returns to the crash site '' As he walked the now-renovated halls where he spent the morning of September 11 , he recalled the horror of the day . The shock , he said , was indescribable . `` It hit with such force . I had never experienced anything like it in my life . It rattled you right down to the bone , '' Leech said . Flight 77 slammed into the west wall of the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m. ET . Among the 184 people killed in the building and on the plane were a 3-year-old girl and a 71-year-old retired Navy captain , the youngest and oldest victims , who were both passengers on Flight 77 . A closer look at the new Pentagon memorial '' Several people were killed or severely burned not far from where Leech took cover . He
WASHINGTON -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- For years , retired Air Force Col. John Leech has had no desire to return to the Pentagon . Retired Col. John Leech narrowly escaped death at the Pentagon on September 11 , 2001 . Leech narrowly escaped death September 11 , 2001 , when a hijacked American Airlines jetliner hit the building . He will attend Thursday 's dedication of the Pentagon memorial honoring the 184 people killed in the terror attack . In an earlier visit to the memorial , Leech left a note for his friend Navy Capt. Jack Punches : `` Thanks Jack for serving and dying for our nation . '' Leech could barely contain his sadness recently as he watched a Department of Defense videotape showing the burned interior of the area in the building where he was that fateful morning . `` Wow . My God . ... It makes you weak in the knees to see these pictures , '' Leech said . Leech , 54 , recently took CNN into an office not far from the conference room where he was that morning . He has avoided touring the building since the attack but finally decided