Pentagon survivor Kevin Carpenter told Blessed Trinity Catholic High School students on Monday, Sept. 14, about the morning he nearly died 25 years ago.

Carpenter, a senior cybersecurity policy adviser at the federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB), traveled from Washington, D.C., to Roswell for the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, Appen Media reported. The U.S. Air Force veteran was stationed in Wedge 1 of the Pentagon when American Airlines Flight 77 struck that segment of the building at 9:37 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001. The attack killed 184 people.

It was only the second time Carpenter had spoken publicly about that day. The first was five years earlier, in the same gymnasium, on the 20th anniversary.

"I had never spoken about it before, and then the 20th anniversary happened," Carpenter said. "And I remember thinking, 'I've got to do something because there's people who aren't here to tell their stories.' They're being forgotten about, and it's the weight of a giant on my shoulders."

Principal Cathy Lancaster introduced Carpenter by tracing his career from the Air Force to the OMB, where he assists with incident response. She told students he was not there for a history lesson but to describe what that day felt like firsthand, according to the Appen Media report.

Carpenter centered his message on a regret from that morning: ignoring his urge to disobey orders and enter the rubble to help. He described the survivor's guilt that followed as something the post-9/11 Pentagon's culture of strength had no name for.

He also honored several victims by name, including Roswell resident Claude Michael Gann. Gann, 41, was a salesman for the software company Algorithmics. He was attending the Risk Waters Conference at Windows on the World on the 106th floor of the World Trade Center when the first plane struck. His body was never recovered.

Gann graduated from Wills High School in Cobb County in 1978 and earned his degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology, according to a Cobb County School District tribute published Sept. 8. Just two weeks before his death, Gann had gotten married, with his three children in attendance. The couple had not yet taken their honeymoon.

His brother Jeff Gann told the Cobb County School District in that Sept. 8 tribute: "He never turned someone down that needed help. He was a caring person."

The city maintains the Mike Gann 9/11 Memorial at Roswell Area Park, 10495 Woodstock Road, beside the park's lake.

Before Carpenter spoke, Blessed Trinity students ran or walked 110 flights of stairs in a stadium run that morning. The school also planted memorial flags on its lawn for each of the nearly 3,000 victims. In total, the Sept. 11 attacks killed 2,977 people across four crash sites.

When Carpenter finished, the gymnasium rose for a standing ovation. Students waited in line for nearly an hour to shake his hand.