Twelve years later, (thanks to C.A.'s bump, above) I found myself re-reading this fascinating thread. Some of the links have gone dark or have changed in the intervening years.
One of the most important to understanding the content and context here can now be found at the following address:
Jim Hoffman 9/11 Rebuttal
For anybody else dropping in, I highly recommend giving that link a thorough re-read. It is an editorial analysis by SOTT of one of the, at the time, leading stories from the side which wants people to believe that a real 757 did indeed strike the Pentagon. It tries to knock down, one by one, each of the standout issues with the available evidence, (and fails dramatically on all the important items). And then you get down to my favorite assertion:
An alternative explanation for the incorrect impact imprint consistent with the crash of a 757 was proposed by French researcher Eric Bart. He suggests that the jetliner was progressively shredded by explosives starting just as its nose was beginning to impact the wall. This theory explains the lack of impact impressions of the jetliner's extremities, since they would have been reduced to confetti before impact. It also accounts for the large punctures in the facade, since the remains of the plane's heaviest portions could have retained enough momentum to breach the walls and enter the building.
Again, the strength of the evidence that Hoffman is attempting to refute requires that he resort to increasingly outlandish theories to make his point.
The supposed serviceman who began this thread, "Realitybasher", does indeed sound like infantry guys I've known. It sounds like he may have even really been on site, but fell into the same group-reinforced, flag-first delirium the illusion was originally designed to invest witnesses with. It's easy to add a few lies to a story you are already dedicated to believing for added impact; (people often naturally feel the urge to exaggerate and inflate claims even when they don't have to). And this would be especially so when you clearly have difficulty with emotional impulse control, i.e., "Retards!". When you love your tribe, you're going to have little resistance to bending your own perceptions to fit with the tribal mythology, even when walking around a crash scene in person. There may have even been a command at some point from a senior officer to relate the events to the public with a specific leaning.
The psyche programming of soldiers into group loyalty and hardened belief in the nation is one of the primary tasks undertaken by the military during training. I suspect the unit picked for on-site work at the Pentagon would have been chosen carefully for being well-groomed.