Marsha D. Ratchford

Information Technician First Class, United States Navy, at the Navy Command Center, where she handled crucial military message traffic.

She was born in Detroit and raised in a large family in Mobile, and joined the Navy about fifteen years before. At a training school in San Diego she caught the eye of a machinist's mate across the gym. He remembers: she had an awesome smile. They married in Alabama in May 1988.

She loved computers and the challenge of the work, but her husband says nothing equalled her devotion as a mother - that she was a mother from her heart. They had three children: a son of eleven, a daughter of eight, and a daughter of eighteen months.

On the morning of the eleventh she telephoned him to tell him about the towers. She said I love you, and have a nice day, and I'll call you later.

Killed at the Pentagon on the morning of 11 September 2001, when American Airlines flight 77 struck the western face of the building at 9:37. A hundred and twenty-five people inside and fifty-nine aboard the aircraft were killed.

Her husband Rodney and their three children.