ARLINGTON, Va. (DC News Now) -- "Even though it was 24 years ago, those memories you can’t really erase," retired Pentagon Protection Force police officer Isaac Ho’opi’i said. "Especially what you've seen, what you went through, what you smelled."

Before Ho'Opi'i's world-- and everyone's world-- changed forever, he remembers talking to his wife.

"I told my wife, ‘I’ll be home early to fix it,’" he remembered. “That’s when I realize you never really expect the unexpected.”

Just before 9 a.m., then-Sergeant Ho’opi’i and his K9 partner, Vito, had stopped by the veterinary clinic at Fort Myer near the Pentagon. Vito was due for a routine checkup. There, he overheard radio chatter: a plane had struck a building in New York. Moments later, word of another.

"That’s when the whole ground just

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