In the shorthand language of the Pentagon. "A Golden Moment" is that time when something extraordinary has been accomplished.

This was the last thing that our nation's enemies expected to be the product of their attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

"Let's Roll"...the FDNY... the NYPD...our flag draping our wounded Pentagon...our diverse citizens giving common voice to the love of a nation and freedom...our steadfast President...our resolute and resourceful military..Old Glory everywhere we looked.

These things were part of a golden moment for our nation and for freedom loving people everywhere. An extraordinary reaction to devastating loss. We at ServiceMaster Clean were among the most fortunate citizens.
We were called to serve at the Pentagon. Our skill is in disaster restoration, and we were allowed to serve the men and women of the Pentagon this way from September 12th through November 16th.

We served the extraordinary group of men and women who are the Pentagon. They changed us, and that change is irreversible. They have told us we changed them. We don't know about that, but we do know that serving them was our golden moment.

We decided to create this booklet as a tribute to the men and women who serve our nation at the Pentagon, and as a reminder to ourselves of why we do what we do to earn a living.

We have tried to get facts down in the body of this booklet, and also let eight people - seven from ServiceMaster Clean network and one from the Pentagon - tell you the story through their eyes.

God bless our fallen brothers and sisters in New York, Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon. God bless our freedom. God bless America.

--Michael Isakson
President
ServiceMaster Clean

I worked on the Pentagon restoration from September 14th to November 16th. The people there changed my whole life. We cried together. There were a lot of tears, but there were also a lot of hugs. I just couldn't wait to get to work in the morning.

I was given thoughtful gifts. Crosses, pictures, even a snow-globe. "this is not much, but we love you," one woman said.

Nora Darwin gave me her Pentagon pin and asked me to wear it until the Memorial Service on September 11, 2002.

A four-star general approached me one day and said, "I want that shirt!" We were famous by then for our work and our powder blue t-shirts. What a pat on the back.

We made it a little easier for some of the workers to come back by restoring their offices -- and I think just by being there serving them.

My job is to manage the money, equipment and people that support our local offices on the big catastrophic jobs.

I first spoke with Nancy Judd of the pentagon at 11:30 a.m. on September 11th. She was able to give us the go-ahead because of our ability to gather the needed members of crew and managers from the ServiceMaster Clean network. They couldn't let anyone in the Pentagon that couldn't pass an FBI background check.

When I arrived at the Pentagon by car from Memphis at 11:30 am on September 12th. I saw our local crew standing in the parking lot. They and others had been evacuated due to another threat.

We started two 12-hour shifts and ran them seven days a week until October 14th. The work was completed by the day shift teams on November 16th. I was honored to serve there.

We were awed by the Pentagon. You can't comprehend the size of it. I wore a pedometer. I averaged 14 miles per shift! My feet bled some days after our shift.

Due to security, we had to pack in all our supplies each night. After the second night of this, we went to a Sam's Club® store and borrowed ten of their oversized shopping carts to help us bring more in.

We took our meals in the Center Court. On the second night there was a collapse very near the impact site.

Rescue workers came out of the building and immediately lined up for a head-count to see if anyone had been lost. It felt like a punch in the stomach to me.

As soon as a marine colonel and I evacuated my people, I ran to the child care center to get all the children safely out and across the bridge.

I was on the phone with the local ServiceMaster people that afternoon. Restoration work began the next morning.

Brad Key and the other ServiceMaster Clean Recovery Management people were at the Pentagon by late afternoon on September 12th.

All crews had to be escorted by Pentagon personnel at all time. Colonels, majors, captains, intelligence and ballistic missile experts were doing 10 hours of escorting before going to their jobs. They even carried trash, pulled tiles and got really dirty - all without ever taking their eyes off the crews they were escorting.

The things that were going on around the ServiceMaster Clean crew...well, I just don't know how they did what they did. They touched a lot of us here at the Pentagon.

At 6:00 p.m. on September 11th, I got the call from ServiceMaster Recovery Management My instructions were to have a cleaning crew of 50 U.S. citizens at the Pentagon at 8:00 a.m. on September 12th.

I spent the evening recruiting from neighboring ServiceMaster Clean businesses... five people here... ten there... four over here.

By 11:00 p.m. I had our 50. Our caravan was escorted onto the Pentagon at 7:45 a.m. the next morning by three police motorcycles. I noticed right away that it was by far the biggest building I had ever seen -- and that it was still on fire.

I have never seen people with such a sense of mission as I saw at the Pentagon. The ServiceMaster people were lifted by that every day and night until we got the job done. God Bless America!

All large catastrophic clean-ups require on-site financial management. That is my specialty. I was lucky enough to be the auditor at the Pentagon job.

First, though, I helped load a truck with cleaning supplies from our Memphis distribution center and rode shotgun to Washington starting at 3:00 a.m., on September 12th.

The thing I remember most about my time at the Pentagon was the change in the people there... They were doing their jobs, yes, but almost like robots. By the time our work was finished, their smiles had returned. We were an important part of that change.

It was my privilege to serve the incredible men and women of the Pentagon. I will never forget them.

My phone rang in Texas on Tuesday, September 11th. I was on the next flight out of DFW, which was Thursday, September 13th.

This was a direct attack on our homeland. I was also truly inspired by the dedication of the men and women at the Pentagon. We rarely see employees at a commercial disaster site. But the Pentagon people never stopped doing their jobs. We literally had to work around them.

We were reminded often that we were cleaning in a war zone. There were a few days when we would walk by snipers in the bushes on the way to our security checkpoints.

Darryl Digs, our Pentagon boss on the job, took a lot of time to reassure my crew members about their safety. That was really important.

I will never forget my time at the Pentagon.

When you think about this clean-up, you've got to remember that this office building just happens to contain our country's most valuable confidential information. After we got the hallways and staircases cleaned, we moved on to individual offices. When we did the Undersecretary's office, security precautions dictated we work with the lights off. Have you ever cleaned a carpet by touch? It's kind of slow, but for sure, we left those carpets as clean as the day they were installed.

I know everyone in the ServiceMaster Clean family wanted to be at the Pentagon. I wish they could have been, but even the world's largest office building couldn't accommodate us all. The ones who didn't get to come supported us in other ways, from re-routing supplies to handling extra work we left behind to come to D.C.

My job is to see that the ServiceMaster Clean people, be they the crews from the local businesses or part of the national Disaster Restoration management team, have the resources they need to do the job they've trained for.

In all great organizations, leadership comes from the commitment and the performance of the people on the front lines. After serving at the Pentagon clean-up myself. I know I am part of a great organization.