"Ever since I can remember, he always wanted a jeep. He found a picture of himself on his second birthday, posing with a jeep that had belonged to our great-grandfather in Guyana. I remember him showing it to my mom and dad and saying, 'See, I was destined to have a jeep.' He got this jeep not long before September 11. It was the 60th anniversary edition of a Jeep Wrangler. He was just beaming. The jeep was his way of saying that you only live once.

"After September 11, I got a phone call from an older lady who wanted to express her sympathy. She said she met him at a restaurant while they were waiting for tables and he offered to take her on a ride. She thought it was the sweetest thing because she had thought that younger people did not want to talk to the elderly. He proved her wrong. After September 11, we brought the jeep home and parked it in the driveway. We'll never get rid of that jeep. It reminds us of him." -- Devita Bishundat, sister

Profile:

Kris Romeo Bishundat had been working at the Pentagon for only three months when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the building.

Bishundat grew up in Charles County, the eldest of three children, and spent six years in the Navy. He had been taking classes at the University of Maryland's University College while working as a systems technician.

Bishundat loved being in the service, his father, Bhola Bishundat, told the Associated Press.

He told his family little about his duties at the Pentagon. Kris Bishundat's mother and siblings went to the site this week to see whether they could learn anything.

"I'm hoping they are in the basement; maybe he and other people are there," Bhola Bishundat said. "We are just hoping. We are not giving up now."

Yesterday, relatives and neighbors gathered at his parents' house on a tight-knit cul-de-sac in Waldorf. They stood on the porch, hugging and crying, and said they did not want to talk to strangers about him.

Today is his birthday. He would have been 24.

-- Nancy Trejos

Source: The Washington Post, AP and washingtonpost.com

The profiles in this feature were written in the months following Sept. 11, 2001.