William R. Ruth

Chief Warrant Officer 4, United States Army Reserve - a veteran of two wars, and a social studies teacher for nearly thirty years.

He flew helicopters with the Marines in Vietnam and would tell friends about the missions: evacuating the wounded and the dead. Afterwards he took a master's and taught, most recently at John T. Baker Middle School in Damascus. A colleague called him an absolute intellect, a voracious reader who taught history deeply, and a caring mentor who took children on field trips and looked after the younger teachers.

He stayed in the Army Reserve, and when the Gulf War came he was taken out of his classroom and sent to the Middle East. He retired from teaching in 1997 and took an Army post at the Pentagon.

He rode a motorcycle in the Maryland hills, followed the Redskins, and on the evening of the tenth of September had presided over his first meeting as commander of his local VFW post. A member of the auxiliary said: he'd do anything for anybody.

His colleague said, when the reality of it had settled: I firmly believe he lost his life because he stopped to help somebody.

He had lost one of his two sons, Chad, in a car accident the year before. Chad's organs were donated, and he had met the man who received his son's heart.

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.

His son Sean.