Willie Q. Troy

Staff Sergeant, United States Army, retired - and a civilian at the Pentagon.

He was the fifth of six children, born at Delco. He played in the school band and could pick up almost any instrument with little instruction; the bandleader was impressed enough to have him teach the class.

He finished at West Columbus High School in 1968 and went to Washington for work, and was drafted in 1970. He served in Vietnam as a guard to General Abrams, and though he was wounded he stayed until his tour was done. He and his childhood sweetheart Judy wrote to each other every day he was gone, and they married three days after he came home.

He served at White Sands, at the Pentagon, at Fort Clayton in Panama and at Fort Bragg, and retired after fifteen and a half years as a disabled veteran on account of the wound. He then encouraged his wife to follow her own career, and they spent seven years in Germany and seven more in Panama, and were at Fort Buchanan in Puerto Rico until December 2000. He took a degree in computer science while they were there.

Coming home at last, she took a post at Aberdeen and he was selected, with a promotion, for the Pentagon. He got up at a quarter past four every morning for the train into Washington, and was always immaculately turned out - he was proud of where he worked. Colleagues called him one of the smartest people they had ever met.

He cooked enormous dinners for his family when they went home to North Carolina and sat up laughing with them till the small hours. He bought a house for his mother and liked watching her in her recliner. He and his brother fished but could never find the perfect spot, so he dug a pond in his own garden, stocked it, and asked everyone over. His granddaughter got whatever she asked for; the last thing he gave her was a purple Tina Turner wig.

Friends rang his mobile that day and afterwards, and it went to voicemail. His wife thought about keeping the phone in service, to hear him say: I'm unavailable right now, but leave your name and number and I'll get back with you as soon as I can.

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 wife Judy, his daughter ReNee, his granddaughter, his mother Bessie Mae, and his brothers and sisters.