Faith and Friendship After the 9/11 Pentagon Attack

On this episode of Our American Stories, Jocelyn Green didn’t lose anyone on September 11, but she still felt the weight of that day in ways she couldn’t have predicted. Living just a few miles from the Pentagon, she saw how quickly fear moved through a neighborhood. What surprised her was what came next: people showing up for each other in quiet, steady ways. Over time, she found herself thinking more about how faith fits into grief—and how friendships sometimes grow strongest in the shadow of crisis.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American stories.
Up next to story from Joscelyn Green, who was working
in our nation's capital, Washington, d C. On the morning
of September eleventh. Take it away.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Just on September eleventh, two thousand and one, I was
a twenty three year old single woman working in Washington,
d C. Just eight blocks from the Capitol. We were
in a staff meeting when the receptionist on duty burst
into the conference room and blurted out they hit the Pentagon.
You can see the smoke from the rooftop. The woman
beside me screamed, and I quietly fought the rising tide

(00:47):
of panic swelling inside my chest. We were told another
plane was headed for us. We were sitting ducks and
we knew it. Throngs of people were streaming out of
the buildings on Capitol Hill, running over each other to
go who knows where. Fighter jets roared over the city,
drowning out the sounds of chirping birds and casting ominous
shadows on this otherwise cloudless, blue sky day. Rumors were

(01:10):
reported as news on the television. We heard that a
car bomb detonated at the State Department, that the fourteenth
Street bridge had been blown up, which was our way
to get across the Potomac River and get home. It
seemed the whole world was falling down around us. That afternoon,
we came together as a staff to pray. One woman
quoted scripture in her prayer. Weeping remains for a night,

(01:32):
she said, but joy comes in the morning, Psalm chapter thirty,
verse five. I remember thinking, how long will this night
last before we feel joy again? The Pentagon was less
than a mile from my home in Arlington. I passed
through it twice a day up until that point to
catch a bus or a subway train. The attack on

(01:53):
the Pentagon was an attack on my neighborhood. I felt violated.
It was personal to me. Driving home that evening, for
some reason, I chose not to use the metro system.
That morning we passed by the Pentagon. The smoke from
the fires was choking, even from inside the car with
the windows rolled up. The fire still blazed and would

(02:14):
for at least a week. They kept reigniting themselves. That evening,
I took a break from watching the news and decided
to mow the lawn. But this tragic event wasn't something
I could just turn off. When I turned off the TV.
For when I pushed the lawn mower across the grass,
I walked through clouds of swirling ash that had carried
on the wind from the Pentagon. The air outside my home.

(02:37):
My home smelled like smoke for at least a week.
Is it any wonder this attack felt personal to me.
It happened in my backyard. I felt sick to my
stomach for three days and cried until the well ran dry.
But at no point did I question the existence of
God or have a crisis of faith. God was still God,

(02:59):
and I I still trusted him. The terrorist attacks were
evidence that we live in a fallen world alongside other sinners.
And even as I mourned for those who lost their
lives and mourned for those of us who lost our
sense of safety in our own country, I recognize that
this was not the first time a terrorist had attacked

(03:19):
in certain parts of the world. Terrorism occurs on a
regular basis. How selfish would it be for me to
be okay with God while evil happens to other countries,
but once it comes to my doorstep to shake my
fist at him. No, my faith did not suffer, but
my sense of peace did. A dark cloud settled over

(03:40):
my spirit. In the weeks after September eleventh, two thousand
and one, my enemy did not have a face. It
was grief and fear. People I used to ride the
bus to the Pentagon with I never saw again. I
stared at the vacant seats while we silently snaked our
way through traffic, wondering about their families. Every radio station

(04:01):
talked about bomb shelters, anthrax, and other possible methods of terrorism.
We rolled our windows down while driving over bridges, so
if the bridge blew up while we were on it,
we could escape the car while it sank in the river.
Standing in the subway station waiting for my train to come,
we heard what seemed like an explosion not too far

(04:21):
from us. I locked eyes with a stranger. No doubt
we were both just as startled, both thinking about how
dangerous a subway station could be if a terrorists chose
to attack it. In moments like those, we were no
longer just fellow commuters. We were fellow Americans, bracing ourselves
against our fears, even as we tried to live life

(04:42):
as normal. I know it sounds dramatic, but those were
dramatic times. Two weeks after the terrorist attacks, I went
to a prayer meeting at a local church. I sat
in a hard wooden pew, my head in my hands.
When I heard the floorboards near me squeak. I saw
a girl I went to college with here. She was

(05:03):
looking so out of place in that somber church, with
her eyes dancing and one hand covering her mouth to
keep from giggling. Since I was her ra in college,
we weren't really friends then, but when I saw her,
we hugged and stepped out of the church and into
the sunshine together. She had been working for her congressman,
but wasn't allowed back to work for weeks because of

(05:24):
the anthrax scare and the clean up, so we had
coffee together, then a meal. Then I was going with
her on all kinds of trips Mount Vernon, Annapolis, the
Smithsonian Museum's outdoor concerts at wolf Trap. Even after she
was allowed back at work, the friendship continued. We went
to New York City together, we hosted Thanksgiving for a

(05:45):
dozen singles who had no place else to go. The
dark cloud hanging over me lifted, and this friend helped
me to chase after joy to grab hold of it
and not let go. We still knew life was forever different,
but I learned that I could still laugh and enjoy
the good gifts God gives us. Life was still full

(06:06):
of my favorite things. Joy came in the morning. The
terrorist attacks were intended to cause a crippling fear to
take root in our country. But you know what, I
saw Bible studies pop up in the offices of senators
and congressmen where God's name was not mentioned before. I
saw people reaching out to each other. We prayed more.

(06:28):
Terrorism was met with heroism. And what man intended for evil,
God used for good.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
And a beautiful job on the editing and production by
Monty Montgomery, and a special thanks to Jocelyn Green for
sharing her story her Washington, d C. Story. I too
was in DC on that day. I was working at CBS,
and you could feel the impact. Terrorism was met with heroism,
Joscelyn said, And what man intended for evil, God used

(06:56):
for good. The Story of nine to eleven A remembrance
of nine to eleven on our American story lie h

(07:27):
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(07:49):
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