Black smoke billowing from a burning Pentagon, his beloved wife inside, all Donn Marshall could do was cling desperately to his children.
Anguish etched on their little faces as he watched the horror of 9/11, he was seeing the reality of a life changed forever.
When wife Shelley was killed in the terrorist attack in Arlington, Virginia, the dad of two thought he’d never be happy again.
But 20 years after the atrocity, the American’s extraordinary story of hope that took him and his family to Scotland to heal has been revealed for the first time.
Donn, now 57, found a heart-stopping note written by his late wife and would go on to remarry in Pitlochry, Perthshire. His son is studying at St Andrews University.
He said: “Shelley was a remarkable woman and everything that’s happened since 9/11 has worn her touch one way or another.”
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Speaking from his home in West Virginia, Donn told how the pair were due to go on the trip of a lifetime to the UK, where they would retrace their Scots family history.
“We actually had tickets for the October of 2001, we were going to do a tour of the island and yeah, so…” Donn paused as he recalled the painful memory.
Instead, Shelley, 37, lost her life when the third plane in the September 11, 2001, terror attack struck the Pentagon, where she worked.
A total of 184 people were killed in the attack which happened around 50 minutes after the first plane hit in New York.
His son Drake, three, and daughter Chandler, one, were in a nursery nearby and Donn raced from his office two miles away, where he had watched TV in disbelief as the first two planes hit the Twin Towers in New York early that Tuesday morning.
He said: “I found the kids, they were being evacuated, and that felt like the happiest moment of my life. But it turned on a dime and became the worst moment because I knew Shelley would be in there.”
After leaving his children with family, he got into the Pentagon site after volunteering to help on a truck that was delivering food and water for rescue workers.
He knew the location of Shelley’s office, where she managed the budget for the defence intelligence agency.
He said: “It was an awful choice. I looked at that smoke coming out and I knew, if I went in, there was a chance that I wouldn’t come out. I know what Shelley would have wanted me to do, in the end, and that was to be with the kids.
“As a parent, you know the other parent is going to want you to take care of the kids. But, as a husband, you know the woman you love is in that building.”
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Donn’s story is one of the most moving in Memory Box: Echoes Of 9/11, which will screen on the Sky Documentaries channel and Now TV from 9pm on Tuesday.
It saw 20 survivors, victims’ relatives and eyewitnesses go into a small wooden video booth to tell their stories - 20 years on from the terror attack in America.
The group were among 600 who went into a similar video booth in the months and years after 9/11 to describe the impact it had on their lives.
On that morning, Donn had spoken to Shelley 30 minutes earlier when she phoned to say planes had hit New York. But it was their last conversation – when he tried to call back, there was nothing.
Donn said: “We didn’t find out she was gone until the Friday. It was seven o’clock and I remember that because there was supposed to be a nationwide candlelight vigil at seven o’clock. We were all heading out the door when the phone rang.
“It was a casualty assistance officer calling to tell me the rescuers had been in her section of the Pentagon and that there were no survivors. That was probably the worst thing I’ve ever seen – it was just the hope disappearing from people’s eyes.”
Donn later told Drake his mummy had become “an angel” and then told both children that every time the wind blew it was Shelley kissing them.
He said: “Somebody referred to her as having a 600-watt smile. She could light up the room with a smile. The kids were her crowning achievement – she really was an amazing mother.”
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Donn and the children soon moved out of Washington – fearing another attack – to a small town called Shepherdstown in West Virginia.
He said: “We had been there about a month and I was trying to be a full-time dad. I thought the kids needed that but obviously it was not always easy.
“Then one day I was cleaning the car and found a little notepad under one of the seats. It was Shelley’s notepad and it had a bunch of grocery lists and things like that but it also had some words she wrote down.
And they were, ‘We have only a finite number of days on this earth, make them extraordinary and fill them with passion.’ My legs just gave out.
“She didn’t usually philosophise like that but I have sort of taken that as my guidance from her – to approach life with purpose and make a positive difference.”
Shortly after, he met dress shop owner Heather, now 58, as he shopped for an Easter bonnet for his daughter.
He said: “The kids just fell in love with her. She was very pretty, so I didn’t mind going back, and we ended up going there after school every day. Eventually I did ask her out.”
In 2007, the couple were married in Pitlochry, with Donn wearing the Keith tartan in his kilt after finding out the Marshalls were part of the Keith clan while researching the ancestors on his mum’s side.
He said: “I fell in love with Scotland. Everyone was just very, very nice. The only thing that may be outshone the people was the countryside.”
Donn reckons the wedding “planted a seed” in son Drake, 23, as he ended up studying for a master’s in strategic studies at St Andrews University, where he’s in his final year.
Chandler, 21, is at law school in Washington.
Donn said the family even host a Burns Supper every year. He said: “I’m the one who gets to address the haggis.”
Donn added: “Losing a spouse was horrible. It wasn’t easy to move on but it taught me a lesson that the heart can expand. Love is a precious thing – we shouldn’t ignore it.”
Talking about the new documentary, Donn added: “It was a surreal experience going back in the box and also just realising that 20 years had passed.
“It was a challenge but at the same time it forced me to reflect and that’s something I really haven’t done.
“To sit there and talk about it for a good 20 or 30 minutes was really intense. It was a good feeling, like a taking of inventory and finding out you came out on the plus side.”
He added: “And seeing those other people who went into the box as well, I was just in awe of them.”
After the attacks, artist Ruth Sergel created the simple plywood video booth which ended up seeing nearly 600 people go inside to share their personal memories.
For 20 years, this archive remained virtually unseen until it was rediscovered by director Bjorn Johnson who, alongside fellow director David Belton, decided to bring some of them back to the booth for what’s described as a “profound and timely meditation on the power of human resilience”.
The trailer for the documentary can be watched here.
‘Memory Box: Echoes of 9/11’ will air from 18th January, 9pm on SKY Documentaries and NOW TV ahead of the BAFTA TV Awards
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