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Honoring Macon's lone 9/11 victim: Major Wallace Cole Hogan

Cole Hogan lost his life working as a general's aide at the Pentagon on 9/11, and every year his friends remember his memory

MACON, Ga. — Every year on 9/11, Andy Greenway takes the time to honor his old friend, Major Wallace Cole Hogan.

"I met Cole when he came off to school at Valdosta State, and we rushed Cole for Sigma Alpha Epsilon, which he joined, and I became his big brother," Greenway said.

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Mike Appling met Hogan playing football at First Presbyterian Day School.

"Always getting into something. He had a Jeep, that was his favorite vehicle, and I think he still had it at 9/11," Appling said.

Hogan spent 21 years serving with the Army National Guard, the Green Berets, and the Special Forces before working as a general's aide at the Pentagon.

"He would come home and say, 'Well I was in Panama, and what they had me doing now, I'm actually training soldiers for jungle survival,' and we'd be like, 'wow that's cool,'" Appling said.

Then 9/11 changed everything.

"Cole was always with that General but that day, stayed behind to finish up a phone call, and Cole and the secretary, their office was in the direct impact of the plane," Greenway said.

Greenway and Appling attended Hogan's burial at Arlington Cemetery in Virginia a month after the attack.

"The Pentagon, they draped that hole with a huge American flag, and so we stood there at the funeral, and we looked up at the flag and did the 21 salute, and that is something that I'll never forget," Appling said.

Hogan's memory lives on at First Presbyterian Day School, where the middle school history teachers share his story during their 9/11 lesson plans.

"To know somebody from Macon from FPD, that teachers that we still have here actually know, makes it a little more meaningful for them," seventh grade world geography teacher Lisa Spear said.

"It's just cool for Cole's life, like yes he died that day, but this story is going to keep going forever," eighth grade history teacher Sarah Futo said.

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"He did a lot of things that I don't know what he did, we'll never know what he did, but it was for the good of his country, and then he gave the ultimate sacrifice," Appling said.

There are four memorials placed around Macon in Hogan's memory. You can find them at Rosa Parks Square, First Presbyterian Day School, Rose Hill Cemetery, and off Overlook Avenue.

The seventh and eighth grade students at FPD will actually write the names of all the 9/11 victims on their sidewalks today in memory, including Hogan's.

He was 40-years-old when he was killed. Hogan's wife, Pat, was a doctor with the Air Force. She now lives in Florida. His mother is in her 90s and still lives in Macon.

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