US Secret Service Agent and Marine Reservist Thomas Armas carries a woman out of rubble after the South Tower of the WTC collapsed. Thomas Armas enlisted in the Marine Corps after graduating from Northwestern University in 1992. He commisioned as an Infantry Officer in 1994 and at the end of his obligated service, entered the USMCR. He became a Special Agent with the USSS and was posted to the New York office at WTC-7.
Early on the morning of 11 September 2001, Special Agent Thomas Armas was in the gym at World Trade Center, when he heard the plane hit the first tower. After being ordered to evacuate the building, Armas stood outside where he saw the gaping, smoking hole in the North Tower. He and other agents from the Secret Service office retrieved their medical kits and entered the North Tower, eventually reaching the 40th floor. They treated the injured and evacuated the floors as they made their way down the tower. Upon reaching the mezzanine, they heard the South Tower collapse and were partially buried in rubble.
The woman Armas is shown carrying here was so badly burned that "if you touched her, she would scream," he remembers. She had come out of the elevator and was wandering dazed around the northwest corner of the North Tower when Armas picked her up and carried her to an ambulance.
June 6, 1944-2026. 82 years later, WWII veterans returned to Normandy to honor those who lost their lives in the pursuit of freedom and defeat of tyranny.