Debbie Ramsaur

John Ramsaur is delaying the inevitable: planning his wife’s funeral. He hopes her body will be found, and that she can be buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

“We never talked about what to do if anything ever happened to either one of us, but I know this is what she would like,” he said.

Debbie Ramsaur, 45, of Annandale, Va., worked the last two years as a civilian secretary for the Pentagon’s Office of Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel. A mother of two children ages 7 and 5, she worked most of the earlier 12 years for the U.S. military in Germany, where the family lived, her husband said.

When Ramsaur heard about the attack on the Pentagon, he tried to reach his wife by cell phone but couldn’t get through.

“When I learned where the plane had hit, I knew it was hopeless,” said Ramsaur, who works in telecommunications. “It went right directly to her office. She wouldn’t have had a chance to survive it.”

Debbie Ramsaur also leaves a mother and two brothers in Rochester, N.Y., her hometown.

“She’s always worked hard at everything she did,” he said. “She had her children late in life, but they were the best thing to ever happen to her; to both of us.”