Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Edward Earhart wasn't supposed to be at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, but he was. He was there helping a friend adjust to a new shift.
"He was supposed to be on vacation," his sister, Andrea Earhart Stauter, said.
"Sometimes it's hard. You think, what if you had just stayed home? What if? But it's how he was raised. My parents taught us that if we can help people, help people. And that was just Ed."
Earhart Stauter remembers that time with painful clarity.
"Saturday it was just unreal to see my brother on CNN, his name scrolling, first Pentagon victim found and his name scrolling across," she said. "It was hard. It was."
She said the Morehead native was a goofy, easy-going guy with a smile always on his face. She said he wanted to make a career out of his military service.
"You just kind of do what you do to cope because this week is always a hard week," Earhart Stauter said. "And 9/11 is always really hard."
She said as we remember the extraordinary loss of Ed and nearly three thousand others this weekend, she hopes people pause and do something good in their memory.
Whether that's volunteering with a veterans group or giving blood, the idea is to honor them so we never forget.
