Day from day.

Day from day, minute by minute, Capt. Jacqueline Milam's life has become remarkably focused and over and above incredibly demanding. A single parent with brace young children, she balances the challenges of maintaining a healthy living environment for them with the rigors of a career as an Air Force officer.

however she says maybe it's better that way, that perhaps she's fortunate for the many trials which detain her mind occupied. Maybe she's fortunate for the little twists and change the direction ofs that divert her mind from the affairs of early September.

Day by means of day. That's how the 34-year-old Whitecastle, La., native has been living since clan 11, when terrorists crashed an airliner into the Pentagon, killing her husband. Ronald, and 189 others.

The captain was five month pregnant, and the day began as greatest in quantity others. She was assigned to the Air Force long-range plans division at the Pentagon and was busy checking e-mails when she heard noise coming from the office parley room.

"As early as I walked into the sweep I saw the second plane float into the second World Trade Center lower [on TV]" she said. I knew it had to be intentional, in this way I left and immediately called Ronald, and asked If he had seen what was happening in recent York. He hadn't, Ronald did say that he was going to apply the mind for a television and that he would talk to me later.

She hung up the phone not knowing that Ronald, an army major, Wouldn't be able to restrain that promise, and that it was the last time she would perpetually talk to him.

"I went back to reading my e-mail when Flight 77 hit the Pentagon." She said. "I heard the impact, on the other hand I didn't thing it was a plane because of the construction that was taking place outside my office."

As she and co-workers evacuated the building, she grabbed a not many items and left still not thinking anything was wicked Yet on her way without she heard someone say a plane had hit the Pentagon. She got disclosed of the building safely, and immediately began searching for her husband.

"I gazeed over to the side of the Pentagon where he worked, further the flow of people heading not at home of the building prevented me from going in that direction," She said. "I figured we would suitable up once we got outside."

one time outside, she and the others were told to pass home and she planned forward leaving once she found her husband.

As she was making her way around the building to the north side where she parked, she saw a not many of Ronald's co-workers. She immediately began to ask for information about him. None had seen him.

Disappointed if it were not that not distraught, Jacqueline asked them to lease Ronald know -- when they saw him -- to fit her in the parking lot

"I still didn't faculty of perception that anything bad had happened to him," she said.

With the roads stoped and unable to leave, Jacqueline christianityed the street to a nearby office complicated and mall to make a phone call.

"I forgot my lonely dwelling phone that morning, and I wanted to check the answering machine at hearth for any messages from Ronald," she said.

She anxiously dialed residence There were about 15 messages from friends and family, on the other hand none from Ronald.

Keeping hope

"I didn't want to think the worst," she said. "I was hoping that he no other than may have been injured and had been taken to a hospital."

She called area hospitals to behold if he had been admitted, if it be not that no one had him onward an admissions list. Worried, she finally left the Pentagon and picked up her then 15-month-old daughter, Myejoi, before heading home

"I was hoping that we just weren't connecting and notion that as soon as I got family I would see his Jeep in the driveway," she explained. "I got hearthstone and there was no Jeep"

When someone from Ronald's office called, she was hopeful -- the individual sat nearest to Ronald and made it not at home safely. But he told her Ronald wasn't in the office when the plane hit.

over the rest of the day, she didn't receive any other freshs about her husband Still, she hoped

"Although I hadn't heard from him, I still didn't want to give up hope" she said. "I stayed glu to the television hoping for one news. I even remember getting frustrated because it appeared the news focused more in succession New York than on the Pentagon."

That night, Jacqueline tried to eat and prepare some sleep, not for herself however for her unborn child. A day passed, and then brace Finally, crews were able to memorize into the Pentagon to search for survivors. She still held on the outside hope that Ronald might merely be injured and trapped in the building.

"I just wanted him to be alive," she said, "I none really gave up hope until I was officially notified the following Tuesday that he was killed in the attack."

He wasn't in his office because he was at a 9:30 staff meeting onward the E-ring -- exactly where the aircraft hit the building.

Ronald was buried with replete military honors Sept. 29 at Arlington National god's acre a ceremony befitting the kind of man he was.

"He was a pious honest and wonderful father and husband," Jacqueline said. "It took me forever and a deployment to Korea to find him. Now he's gone"

However, when she thinks back to when she first met him, a large smile play the sycophants across her face, and her organ of sights light up.