Remembering AG1 Edward Thomas Earhart, USN

On September 11, 2001, America lost nearly 3,000 people in a series of terrorist attacks that forever changed the nation.

Among them was a young sailor from our own corner of Eastern Kentucky.

Aerographer’s Mate First Class (AG1) Edward Thomas Earhart, United States Navy, a Morehead native with deep ties to the Salt Lick and Christy Creek area, was just 26 years old when American Airlines Flight 77 struck the Pentagon.

Twenty-five years later, his story deserves to be remembered not simply because of the way he died, but because of the life he lived.

Edward Thomas Earhart was born May 14, 1975. He grew up on Christy Creek in Rowan County and attended Rowan County High School, where he played football. He later attended Morehead State University before entering the United States Navy.

As a young man, Earhart was also heavily involved with DeMolay, the Masonic youth organization. His involvement went well beyond simply being a member. Kentucky Masonic records identify him as a former State Chaplain, Representative DeMolay and the first Master Councilor of the Cave Run Chapter. He was later posthumously awarded DeMolay's Active Legion of Honor.

Friends remembered a young man with a good heart, a sense of humor and an instinct for helping people.

His sister, Andrea Earhart Stauter, has described her brother as goofy and easygoing, someone who almost always had a smile on his face. His best friend, Christopher K. Cox, remembered him at his September 22, 2001 funeral as “intelligent, caring and funny.”

Earhart entered the Navy and completed basic training at Great Lakes, Illinois. He subsequently served at the Naval Reserve Center in Lexington and received technical training at Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi. He eventually spent three years stationed at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

His Navy specialty was aerographer's mate — essentially naval meteorology and oceanography.

It was serious work.

Earhart served aboard ships around the world, helping vessels navigate dangerous sea ice and weather conditions. While stationed in Hawaii, he worked with the Mobile Environmental Team and deployed aboard ships, including the USS Fletcher. A former shipmate later recalled serving alongside Earhart during Operation Desert Fox. Another remembered sailing with him aboard the Coast Guard cutter Rush.

One former supervisor remembered Earhart as a quick learner, dedicated and exactly the kind of sailor you wanted beside you on a deployment. Another shipmate remembered him as an exceptionally hard worker with a positive outlook that affected everyone around him.

Eventually, his abilities took the Eastern Kentucky sailor to one of the most important military headquarters in the world.

Earhart was assigned to the Pentagon, where he worked as a weather forecaster supporting the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The AG1 Edward T. Earhart Memorial Scholarship history says he was assigned to the Pentagon's METOC component of the Naval Ice Center.

He loved the work.

The National September 11 Memorial & Museum records one small detail that says a great deal about him: despite dealing professionally with ice and weather, Earhart kept a photograph of an iceberg as the screen saver on his computer.

Perhaps the most heartbreaking part of Edward Earhart's story is that September 11 was supposed to be a day off.

He was scheduled for vacation.

But a fellow sailor was adjusting to a new shift and needed help. Earhart went into the Pentagon to assist and train his colleague.

His sister later explained why that decision, painful as it is to contemplate today, was entirely consistent with the brother she knew. Their parents had taught their children that when they could help someone, they should.

“And that was just Ed.”

At 9:37 a.m., American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the western side of the Pentagon.

Earhart was inside.

He never came home.

His family desperately tried to reach him. Andrea had recently spoken with her brother and knew his new desk number. She called it repeatedly. She called his cell phone. There was no answer.

For days, the family waited.

The Department of the Navy officially confirmed on September 15 that Aerographer's Mate First Class Edward Thomas Earhart, 26, of Salt Lick, Kentucky, had been killed in the attack.

And his identification carried a grim historical distinction.

A later entry in the Congressional Record identifies AG1 Edward Earhart as the first identified military casualty of the terrorist attack on the Pentagon. His sister recalled seeing her brother's name scrolling across CNN as the first Pentagon victim found.

It would be easy for Edward Earhart to become simply another name associated with September 11.

His family has spent the past quarter-century making certain that doesn't happen.

His sister's recollections paint a picture of a man who smiled often, loved traveling, enjoyed helping children and older people, and wanted to make the Navy his career. In a memorial message, she even recalled the ordinary things that made Ed Ed — including his affection for Cookie Monster.

And there was another distinctly Kentucky favorite:

Ale-8-One.

His sister recalled sending bottles of Ale-8 to him and his shipmates in Navy care packages. He insisted on the glass bottle. Each year on his birthday and on September 11, family members have continued the tradition by leaving a bottle of Ale-8 at his grave.

Earhart was laid to rest back home in Hamilton Cemetery in Rowan County, where his parents would eventually be buried beside him.

Edward Earhart's name did not disappear when the news cameras moved on.

His family donated items from his life and service to historical collections so future generations could understand that the people killed on September 11 were not statistics.

Among the items donated to the Kentucky Historical Society were his Navy coveralls, a flag flown over the United States Capitol in his honor and a commemorative coin presented to his family.

His Navy coworkers created another remarkable memorial.

Following his funeral, they signed one of the familiar white Navy sailor caps — the "Dixie cup" — and presented it to his family. Andrea later described it as a tangible expression of the love and support shown to them by his fellow sailors.

That cap is now preserved and displayed by the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York City.

His legacy also lives through education.

After learning that a fellow weather professional from Eastern Kentucky had died at the Pentagon, employees of the National Weather Service office in Jackson, Kentucky, developed a relationship with the Earhart family. With the family's permission, an existing scholarship was renamed the Jackson Weather Office AG1 Edward T. Earhart Memorial Scholarship in 2003.

The Earhart family subsequently contributed $5,000 to the fund, helping make the scholarship an endowment supporting Eastern Kentucky students. The scholarship history remembers Earhart as someone who loved teaching schoolchildren about weather and hoped eventually to finish his own college degree.

Tomorrow marks 25 years since September 11, 2001.

A quarter-century has passed.

Children born after the attacks are now adults. A generation has grown up knowing 9/11 only through photographs, classroom lessons and stories told by those who remember where they were that morning.

Here in Rowan and Bath counties, however, September 11 has a name and a face.

Edward Thomas Earhart.

A kid from Christy Creek.

A Rowan County football player.

A Morehead State student.

A DeMolay leader.

A sailor.

A Navy weatherman.

A friend, a son and a brother.

A 26-year-old who should have been enjoying a day off, but instead went to work because somebody else needed his help.

That single detail may tell us more about Edward Earhart than any monument ever could.

His sister has encouraged people who want to honor those lost on September 11 to do something positive — volunteer with veterans, donate blood, help another person or simply perform an act of kindness.

Perhaps that is an especially appropriate way for our community to remember him.

Tomorrow, when America remembers the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, The Morehead Minute also remembers one of our own.

AG1 Edward Thomas Earhart, USN
May 14, 1975 – September 11, 2001
Morehead / Salt Lick, Kentucky
Age 26

Twenty-five years later, we remember not only where Edward Earhart died.

We remember where he came from.

We remember how he lived.

And we remember his name.

Primary and major reference sources used for this memorial include the 9/11 Pentagon Memorial biography of AG1 Edward T. Earhart; the National September 11 Memorial & Museum remembrance of Edward Earhart; the U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command's Pentagon 9/11 history and casualty records ; the Congressional Record's account identifying Earhart as the first identified military casualty at the Pentagon ; the AG1 Edward T. Earhart Memorial Scholarship history ; WKYT's 20th-anniversary interviews with his family and friends ; LEX 18's interview with his sister Andrea Earhart Stauter ; and contemporary and later remembrances from his family and Navy shipmates preserved in his memorial guestbook.