A Job at a Big Bank...or Pilot of Air Force Two?

On this episode of Our American Stories, on the morning of September 11, 2001, Peter Braxton became the first military pilot in the air over the burning Twin Towers—on what was his very first day on the job. Not long after, he flew multiple combat tours in the Middle East before eventually retiring from the Air Force. In this story, Peter shares what happened when he got a phone call shortly after retirement that began with an unexpected question: “Do you still have your uniform?”

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American
people who search for the Our American Stories podcast go
to the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
On the morning of September eleventh, two thousand and one,
Peter Braxton was the first military pilot in the air

(00:31):
over the burning Twin Towers in Lower Manhattan. It was
his first day on the job. Not long after, he
did multiple tours of flight combat in the Middle East
and then retired from the Air Force. Here's Peter with
the story about the phone call he received shortly after
his retirement.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
You know, I was a distinguished graduate, and why didn't
you fly at fifteen's or F twenty two is or
F sixteen's And you're gonna remember, I want to be
a doctor. Ab This is before the war. See, I
was homesick. I wanted to go home. I promise you
if the closest Air Force base to where I grew
up was a fighter base, I would have picked a fighter.

(01:10):
I wanted to go home, and I was happy with
my choice until one day I was listening to this
Israeli F sixteen fighter pilot, and he said, well, you know,
well why did I fly a fighter? And he said,
because it was personal. We were being attacked in my
neighborhood and my sister was there. And you can fly

(01:31):
en F sixteen across Israel and twenty two seconds, you know,
I mean that's how small the country is, kind of
width wise, and you know, for him, it was personal.
And I remember thinking, you know, what if this was,
if this was a day after nine, if this yeah,
it's personal. Right. I'm from New York and so an

(01:54):
interesting story that I've told is after I got out
of the Air Force and I was fully out, I
was in business school. I got a call from the
Pentagon and the voice on the phone said, Hey, this
is Peter Braxton. Yes it is. Do you still have
your uniform? Yes, I have my uniform. It's been a

(02:17):
couple of months. This is still fit. You know, I'm
not sitting on the couch eating Cheetos. Yeah, I mean,
still fits. But you know, everyone who's been in the
military knows it's illegal. You're not allowed to wear your
uniform after you get out. It's you know, you can
keep it, you can't wear it. And so this colonel

(02:38):
said hey, can you meet me at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois,
and you know, meet me Saturday morning, ten am at
this building. And I'm like, is this is you know
some of my buddies. This is a joke. There's another,
this is another you know who is this he? This
is Colonel so and so, and we'd like to talk

(03:00):
to you. And I was like, okay, the joke's on you, Like,
I'm not supposed to do this. So I'm out of
the Air Force. It's a Saturday. I show up and
it was like a Jason Bourne kind of boardroom with
a big lawn table and six kernels wearing full service

(03:23):
dress uniform, which you know you don't see that unless
you're at a funeral. I mean at a funeral, right,
So and So I sat down and they said, no,
you sit over there at the other end. So I
sat at the very end of the other table and
they sat at the other end table, sat like twenty
four people and proceeded to interview me for the job
of Air Force two. This is Dick Cheney back in

(03:46):
the day two thousand and seven. And you know, I
mean I was a gentlemen, like I'm I'm out, Like
we can change that with one signature. And so I
talked to them and they kind of offered me. That
offered me the job. Just think about it, talk to
your family. So I did. I called my brother and

(04:08):
he said, Pete, you know, you spend all this time
deploying and and and you know, getting into taking the
GM MAT and getting in the business school and getting
out of the Air Force. You want to go back
in and this is the I mean, it's the ultimate job, right,
It's the ultimate. It's like the Thunderbirds for heavy transport
air feeling jets. So, you know, honored to be asked.

(04:31):
So I remember I got the job at Credit Sweee
over the summer, and you know, they asked me not
to shop it like don't go to don't go across
the street to JP Morgan or Goldman, and kind of
like try to get a job. Just you know, if
you want the job, take the job, you know, don't
tell us. And so I remember saying I want the job.

(04:53):
And I went back to the president of the bank,
the managing director, and I said, sir, you know, I
had a question, can I defer this for a year?
I need to go back and try to do this,
And he said, you know, congratulations, that's an amazing honor.
But no, you can't defer it. You either take the
job or you have to give to somebody else. I said, okay,

(05:18):
So I ran back, and you know, and I called
the guys up at the Pentagon. I said, hey, can
I defer this for a year? I'd liked I'd spend
all this time going to business school. I got this
job an investment bank. I'd love to do that, but
I just need a year and then I can kind
of like, They're like, no, you got to either take
the job. You know. Now it's not an exploiting offer,

(05:41):
but it's not guaranteed. We just have this need and
and so I kind of thought long andhearten, and I
had flown at that point, I had flown Donald Rempfield
around in the Casey ten. The Casey ten. You know,
I would say, by intensive purposes, the fastest jet in
the world, because we don't have to stop. We can
sustain point nine to two mock almost indefinitely if we

(06:04):
have enough fuel, and then we can get refueled. And
so I ultimately turned the job down. And you know,
this is another funny true story. My roommate from the
Air Force Academy is currently the commander of Air Force one.
Now I'm not going to say his name because he's
not posting the stuff on social media, and I don't

(06:27):
think he really wants everyone to know. You know that
he's the seventeenth ever presidential pilot. So he flew for
Obama and then Trump and then now Biden and potentially
whoever is either a re elected or elected next. But

(06:47):
he got the job, and he's an outstanding American in
a great avior.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
And a terrific job on the production editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Hangler, and a special thanks to
Peter Braxton for sharing the story of the interview. He
got to be the pilot of Air Force too after
graduating with a master's of Business and accepting a job
offer at Credit Suisse. Which way did he go? Which
should he choose? Well he chose in the end his

(07:15):
future life as a civilian. But what a job offer.
It was the story of Peter Braxon's first job after
his military service. Here on Our American Stories. Liehibibe here
the host of our American Stories. Every day on this show,

(07:36):
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