JENNIFER YAMNICKY, 33, SERGEANT
Her 71-year-old father, a military consultant, was traveling to California on business the morning American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. But Jennifer Yamnicky hoped he might be on some other plane. "Then the phone rang, and I didn't want to answer it," says Yamnicky, a full-time technical sergeant with the Air National Guard. "It was my mother telling me that Dad was on that flight."
In an instant she lost the man who had been her guiding light. John Yamnicky, a decorated Navy test pilot and Vietnam veteran, "was so passionate about the Navy," says Jennifer, the youngest of his four children and the only one to follow in his footsteps. "I felt lucky to have someone so knowledgeable to teach me." In January, Jennifer, a jet technician who joined the National Guard in 1989, will ship out to Turkey, where she will support jet fighter pilots in their missions.
Until she leaves, Yamnicky, who lives in Aquasco, Md., will spend all the time she can with family and friends at her mother Jan's nearby home, swapping stories about her father and coming to grips with their loss. "At first I was really angry about what happened," she says. "But Dad taught me that if I'm angry, I can make stupid mistakes. So I'm not trying to avenge what happened. I'm part of a team that is doing something positive."
THOMAS SULLIVAN, 30, CAPTAIN
His will and life insurance policy are up-to-date. That was the easy part. Now Thomas Sullivan is steeling himself for the possibility that when his wife, Debbie, gives birth to twins in five months—their first children—he might not be there to help her. An Army Reserve captain, Sullivan is on standby and awaiting possible deployment orders that could come at any time. "You hope you never have to go," says the Brooklyn native. "But I joined the military for a reason, and it was for times like this."
Sullivan already proved his mettle on Sept. 11. An analyst for Fiduciary Trust, he was on the 95th floor of the south tower when the first plane hit the north tower. Sullivan instructed about 15 confused coworkers to leave the building and helped a woman who was having trouble breathing descend dozens of flights of stairs. "Many people said if it wasn't for Tom saying to get out, they wouldn't have known what to do," says Sabino Iodice, Sullivan's supervisor. In all, 93 of their coworkers died.
A general's aide, Sullivan was given a two-day reprieve after the attacks before having to report for training to Fort Totten in Queens. "He tells me, 'You have to be a tough Army girl,' but I'm a big wimp," says Debbie, 30, a high school guidance counselor. "I'll probably cry every day he's gone."
WILLIAM BLAICH, 54, COLONEL
Digging through the ghostly gray rubble of the fallen World Trade Towers on Sept. 11, William Blaich kept an eye out for his son Peter, a firefighter. "I was expecting the worst and hoping for the best," he says. A fire-battalion commander from Staten Island, he had heard radio reports that some firemen had been trapped in the collapsed north tower. But a few hours later he spotted Peter, 29, who got out just before the building came down. "I said, 'Thank God,' and I gave him a hug," says Blaich. "It was the greatest feeling."
Father and son are soon to be separated again. Blaich, an Army Reserve colonel, heads to Fort Eustis, Va., in November to await a possible call to active duty. "It's a scary thing," says Peter. "But he loves the Army, and he loves the fire department. He is serving his country on two fronts." A Vietnam veteran, Blaich spent the two weeks after Sept. 11 working several 24-hour shifts sorting through wreckage where 24 firefighters from his Manhattan battalion had disappeared.
Even after such an ordeal, he is ready for the challenge ahead. "You serve your country if you are called," says Blaich, who will manage cargo transports at Fort Eustis. Dottie, 56, his wife of 31 years and mother of their four grown children, tries to be similarly stoic and brave. "I am used to it, as any service wife is, but I always worry," she says. "You just make sure you give him a kiss goodbye and hope to see him when he gets back."
TROY MCINTOSH, 38, CHIEF
Troy McIntosh was watching the World Trade Towers burn on a TV at the Pentagon when a colleague remarked, "You know, we're sitting targets right now." Seconds later, a plane plowed into the building's west side, and for McIntosh, the war was on. A policy integrations superintendent for the Air Force Reserves who worked in the east wing, he spent the next 40 minutes pulling survivors out of the flaming wreckage—despite orders to evacuate. "No one granted me permission to stay, and I wasn't asking," he says. "My focus was on getting people out."
Now McIntosh's courage has been called upon again. An Air Force Reserve chief, he shipped out on Oct. 7 to MacDill Air Force Base near Tampa, where he awaits mobilization to a battlefield as yet unknown. The divorced father of Tess, 17, and Kali, 12, he has seen duty in Panama and Honduras and in Iraq during Desert Storm. But this could be his first Christmas away from his kids. "I don't want him to go," says Tess. "I was 7 when he went to Desert Storm and too young to understand. But now I understand, and I am worried."
McIntosh, who shares custody of his daughters with his ex-wife and lives in Woodbridge, Va., already misses his girls. Still, he says, "I don't want them to grow up in a world where people are afraid."
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