Young Pentagon survivor reflects on how 9/11 experience inspired her to serve

NEW YORK (WABC) -- As we reflect on the 25th anniversary of the attack on 9/11, many people don't know there was a daycare inside the Pentagon. Over 100 children, including infants, survived after being evacuated.

Some of them, like Captain Hanna Born, were inspired to serve their country.

"I remember the evacuation, being hand in hand with somebody, feeling very confused. I remember the first step I took outside those double doors, I could start to hear the sirens and smell the smoke and smell the jet fuel. It was hard for anybody to process, but as a 3-year-old, it was just overwhelming," said Captain Born.

Born was two weeks shy of her third birthday when American Airlines flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.

The toddler was inside the daycare center with her sister who was an infant.

"A group showed up at the daycare doors and said, 'how can we help?' and the daycare workers said we need help getting these kids to safety," Captain Born said.

Her mother, Dana Born, was a Lieutenant Colonel at the time and was across the Potomac River at Bolling Air Force Base.

"She was sitting in a staff meeting and someone walked in and said, 'ma'am the Pentagon has been hit.' And when they said that she could look out her window and saw the plume of smoke, and she knew that her two little girls were inside, but she had a mission to execute and a team to lead as their commander," Captain Born said.

Captain Born and her baby sister were picked up by their dad, Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel Tim Born, and wouldn't be reunited with their mother for days. Their experience propelled them into enlisting.

Hanna would train to fly helicopters and work her way up to a captain in the United States Air Force. Her little sister, Heather, just returned from deployment in the Middle East as a first lieutenant in the Marine Corps.

"The reason we decided to serve is because we recognize so many families didn't have the outcome that ours did that day. How can we live our lives in a way that we hope they would be proud of, in a way that we hope honors them while we have this second chance because not everybody was given it," Captain Born said.

Both Born sisters are featured in the 9/11 Memorial and Museum's new exhibit called, "In Their Honor, 25 Years of Inspired Service." The captain helped raise awareness for the milestone running the Museum's 4-mile in Central Park in July.

Last year she started running with members of the FDNY, her Instagram page @runtoremeber2977 has reached over 34,000 followers.

"I'm running 2,977 miles. With every mile, I read a name of somebody it's dedicated to," Captain Born said.

She hopes her page inspires others her age. Captain Born is now a flight instructor to a generation of military service members who weren't born when 9/11 happened.

"I think the message I like people to understand, it's a quote that has stuck with me I heard, 'The best way to honor the people we lost on 9/11 is to be the people we were on 9/12,' everyone came together to love, to support, to grow and to heal together. I hope we can take that forward with the way that we live each and every day," Captain Born said.

This year, on the morning of 9/11, Captain Born will join members of the FDNY as they run 34.3 miles for the 343 firefighters who made the ultimate sacrifice that day in 2001. They will start on Long Beach at 8:46 a.m., the time the first plane hit the North Tower.