September 11, 2024 • 20 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, on the morning of September 11, 2001, Peter Braxton was the first military pilot in the air over the burning Twin Towers. It was his first day on the job. Peter’s here to tell his story.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue here with our American stories. On the
morning of September eleventh, two thousand and one, Peter Braxton
was the first military pilot in the air over the
burning Twin Towers. It was his first day on the job.
And this is his story. Here's Peter.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
My name is Peter Braxton from upstate New York, originally Rome,
New York, a little town. There was a base there
called Griffiths Air Force Base. My father was in the
Air Force, and I guess this is where the story begins.
My father, you know, sat me down when I was fifteen,
and he, you know, he had this kind of father's
(00:52):
son conversation, and he was, you know, a man of fewers,
but he said, hey, you should serve this country before
you enjoy this country. You will look back on your
service fondly. And I, you know, I was fifteen. I
didn't know what that meant. But I did have an
older brother who was about two and a half years
(01:14):
older than me, and he ended up going to the
Air Force Academy. So I'm guessing at this point, you know,
he must have had this conversation with him a couple
years prior. And so now it was my turn and
I think out of maybe laziness, I just I just
applied to the Air Force Academy, followed my brother there.
I got in, I got into a number of other
(01:36):
kind of Ivy league schools out east. And my brother
I remember telling me, you know, you should you should
probably go to Princeton, or you should go to Yale.
You know, but but out of respect for your father
and his wishes. At that point, I think I was like, Okay,
well I could. I guess I could do that. Later
it was, you know, it was a good experience having
(01:56):
a sibling there because he was going to look out
for you. And and it's tough school. I graduated the
Air Force Academy in nineteen ninety nine. I was shuttled
off to pilot training Joint Specialized Undergraduate Pilot Training at
Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas. You know, I never wanted
(02:17):
to be a pilot. I always wanted to be a doctor.
My brother is a neurosurgeon, and again to his kind
of his wisdom, you could always be a doctor. You
can never fly again. This is your window. You have to.
If I were you, I would I would go fly.
And so I show up to Laughlin. I think it
was April two thousand and I quickly it's a hyper
(02:40):
competitive environment. These are alpha people. They're very, very bright,
they're athletic, they're patriots, their officers, and it's it's a
hyper competitive environment, but it's also a weirdly cooperative environment.
In any event, I graduated distinguished graduate of my class.
And at the time, the number one graduate picks first,
(03:05):
and the number two graduate picks second, and the number
thirty eight graduate picks last. And I was just I
was getting homesick. My brother was at the University of
Pennsylvania in medical school. I'm from upstate New York. The
closest active duty Air Force base was McGuire Air Force Base,
New Jersey. I picked the base, and then I picked
(03:28):
the plane, the KC ten Extender, which is mid air refueling.
Its primary mission is power projecting and bringing the fight
to the ford, to the battlefield. And then that could
be a fighter package, it could be bombers, it could
be coalition aircraft. And I started that training. I think
it was May of two thousand and one. Well, I
(03:49):
graduated Saturday, September eighth, two thousand and one. I mission
planned my first mission on Monday, September tenth, two thousand
and one, and I took off to coast out over
the Atlantic at six am on Tuesday, September eleventh, two
(04:10):
thousand and one, was my first day flying as a
fully qualified US Air Force pilot. It was, you know,
I mean, first day of work, fresh aircut, shiny boots,
Get up extra early, make sure you're on time early,
you know, on time in the Air Forces early. And
(04:30):
I remember mission planning the day before with a gentleman
who was notorious about taking out the brand new lieutenants
who just graduated, and you know, he was ready to
kind of beat on you and stretch you out and
make sure you knew that it wasn't over. It was
just getting started. So you know, it's not necessarily like
(04:53):
the Navy, where everyone's got a call signed, but everyone
does have nicknames. And you know, we called him the
silver Fox. He was I was twenty two years old,
and he had a full head of gray hair. And
we took off and coasted out out over the Atlantic,
not too far off the coast of Atlantic City, and
(05:15):
everyone remembers if you don't clear blue glassy perfect September
day in the Northeast in New Jersey. And then we
got a call, a radio call from NORAD, North American
Aurospace Defense call sign Huntress, and I remember thinking this
(05:37):
is impossible, like NORRAD is located in Colorado. How are
they contacting me in this UHF frequency? But they know
my call sign. So NORRAD calls and says TMT two,
say your state, and I respond New Jersey, which is
the incorrect response to that question. And I would later
(05:59):
very quickly actually learned that they're asking for the status
of au aircraft. You know, at the time, I mean
a sample would be, you know, a team two two angels,
two six heading three four zero four soils on board
five plus fifteen fuel fully operational. And the only reason
they're going to ask that question is because they need
you for something. So this is around I think shortly
(06:20):
after nine am Eastern time out over the Atlantic, and
the Silver Fox, the instructor pilot immediately transfers aircraft controlled
to me. So now I'm flying and he's taking the radios.
He responds accordingly and properly, and NORAD directs us to
(06:42):
contact New York Center, you know whatever the frequency is
one three five point eight. He does that New York
clears Team two two direct JFK pilot discretion five to
fifty thousand feet. The kernel turns to me and says, deadpan, serious,
(07:03):
not joking. I think someone detonated a nuclear weapon somewhere
in the United States. Now there's some context here. It's
my first day of work, and I don't know why
he's saying this. I don't know what is going on.
I don't think many Americans at this point knew what
(07:25):
was going on, but he knew something was wrong, and
looking back, he wasn't too far off. But it was
my first day and I was confused, and I have
no idea why he would say that, And maybe he's
trying to stress me out. Perhaps it's a new guy
initiation thing. When they cleared us direct JFK pilot discretion
(07:50):
five to fifty thousand feet, that's when it kind of
like dawned on me as knew as I was that
this was serious. That could only mean that all of
the airspace was clear. You don't give somebody pilot discretion
to climb, descend, turn left or right at their discretion
unless there's nothing else there that they can quote unquote
(08:13):
hit or interfere with and that's JFK, that's LaGuardia, that's Newark,
that's Peterborough. Not to mention this air corridor between Boston
to Philadelphia down to DC and all of the traffic
that's coming over the Atlantic Ocean from the night before,
(08:33):
all of that stuff has got to be out of
there for them to give that. And that's when I
kind of like dawned on me something was wrong and
this is not something that the Kernel could make happen
for fun.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
And you're listening to Peter Braxton recole his first day
as an Air Force pilot and getting that coal from
No Red and that pilot discretion to fly between five
thousand and fifty thousand feet altitude, in other words, clear skies,
not a plane in sight, and that's when he understood
(09:05):
something serious.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
It happened.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
By the way, if you know that area, there's JFK, Teterborough, LaGuardia,
and Newark all within maybe twenty five miles of each other,
throw in Philly and Boston, and that has never happened
in American airspace.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
It's his first day on the job.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
When we come back, what happens next. Peter Braxton shares
his story here on our American stories, and we continue
with our American stories, and the story of Peter Braxton,
(09:43):
an Air Force pilot on his first day at work
on nine to eleven, piloting a KC ten air refueler
tanker and well learning that something disastrous had happened in
New York City. Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
So you know, I'm flying now. So I look out
the window. I'm in the right seat, and I'm from
upstate New York. I understand, and I'm familiar with the
geography of New York City, Manhattan, Long Island. I have
family and queens. I can see the smoke. I see
(10:26):
the smoke, and you know, we're asking, of course, what's
going on, whether they what's that They don't I don't
They don't know, they don't want to tell us. And
it's kind of irrelevant at this point because we're an
instrument of national power and we just need to execute
the job. We need to do what they tell us
(10:46):
to do. And so I look down, I see the smoke,
and the only thing that this is embarrassing that that
I could think of at this point was I remember
being a kid watching the nineteen eighty World Series between
the Oakland A's and the San Francisco Giants. I think
it was Game three live and there was an earthquake,
(11:10):
and there's bridges collapsing, and there was smoke rising from
San Francisco, and there's fires and there's I mean, obviously
they canceled the game, and I was like, oh my gosh.
I did not know this. I did not know that
New York was in a seismic zone. I just thought
that was a San Andreas or a West Coast thing
or a but New York City. I thought it was
(11:32):
built on bedrock, and you know, this wasn't going anywhere.
It must have been an earthquake. People will ask if
I saw the towers collapse, and I must have, But
I was vertical. I was. My perspective was bird's eye.
I was above New York, not horizontal. I didn't know
(11:57):
what was the World Trade Center. I saw the smoke
I thought was Southern manhat and just then I think
I was kind of snapped back to the reality because
up next to our wing pull these two F fifteen
Eagles fighter jets armed with bombs, missiles, Jade Ann Sparrows,
(12:21):
Aim Knight whatever you know, I'd just never seen it before.
The ultimate irony. I mean, you spend all this time
in the military. Most people never see combat, and in
the US you're not typically seeing fighter you'll see them.
You'll see fighter yet and it's fun to watch. And
they do flybys, but they're not they're unarmed. They're not.
(12:43):
They can't they won't have these missiles on them flying
over a stadium. You know, you just you could destroy
Philadelphia with one of these things. And you know, here
I am a couple hours into my first flight and
these the jets pull up and we are all of
a sudden doing an operational mission giving them fuel. You know,
(13:09):
they come in low left, they take the fuel, they
climb high right, and they are armed to the teeth
and there I mean, it's like a movie. It was
like a movie. They were peeling off, flipping upside down
and flying back to New York. And so all of
the fighter jets that you saw flying up and down
the Hudson, the East River, you know, patrolling New York,
(13:31):
and they had their specific mission and orders. I refueled
all of those jets, and and of course the sun
had set and the smoke was still going on and
some of the lights in New York were coming on
and the bridges were lighting up, and we still didn't
know what was happening, what was going on, but we
(13:54):
were there. We're doing the mission, and then I remember
the other KC ten coming and what we'll do typically
is we'll transfer as much fuel as we can and
reserve is much fuel as we need to get back.
And I remember, I remember being put on like a
(14:16):
forty five mile final approach and we're flying straight in
we Land. We pull into parking and I hop out
of the seat and I go to the door and
we open the door and we have these you know, airstairs,
and I'm greeted at the door by an airman wearing
a helmet, you know, a flakfest. He's got an M
(14:39):
sixteen at the ready, and he's, you know, sure, I
need to see your ID. And I just I just
remember thinking, Okay, we're back, But what happened? Isn't this
jet enough identification for you? Like I'm I'm one of
(15:01):
the good guys, And you know, obviously I didn't say that,
but I showed him my eyes. He's doing his job.
He did an outstanding job. That's his job. I showed
him my idea. He escorted the entire crew off the plane,
like I guess in a movie to this intel vault.
And they had this vault, and it was a vault.
(15:21):
It had like a vault with a door kind of
like you'd see in a bank with you know, and
we get on there and we you know, drop our
gear and and then just I mean, the questions just
came fast and furious. It was, you know, did you
hear from United ninety three? Was there a distress call
from American eleven or American seventy seven? And no, I
(15:45):
didn't know. We didn't get anything. We didn't we weren't cold.
I didn't hear any beacons or anything on the emergency
frequencies VHF or UHF. And they still didn't tell us
what happened. And I don't They still didn't tell us
what happened. So I hop in my car and the
(16:06):
commute from McGuire to where I lived in Mount Laurel,
New Jersey, was about forty five minutes. And you know,
you turn on the radio and you start to hear
some reporting of what happened. At this point, it's it's
close to two AM, maybe two thirty in the morning,
and yeah, I guess I'd been up at that point
(16:29):
for almost twenty four hours. So I get back to
the to my place, the little townhouse in Mount Laurel.
I turned on the TV and it's like the first
images that I saw of what had happened that were
I'm sure playing on repeats on every news channel or
every channel in America, maybe even the world. And I
(16:53):
kind of like dawned on me that I was the
first military asset there, but I was probabrobably one of
the last people in America to learn what happened. One
of the one of the quotes I learned at the
Air Force Academy, we have this little book called checkpoints,
and you got to memorize all of these things. One
of them stuck with me to be like, word for
(17:14):
word true. There is no limit to the good you
can do if you don't care who gets the credit.
Ronald Reagan. That is true. You know, there is no
limit to the good you can do if you do
not care who gets the credit. But I'll leave you
(17:34):
with this. Okay, So people say, well, why weren't you interviewed,
you know, as the first pilot over in New York
on nine to eleven. And you know you often think about,
like I guess, the left tackle in football. You know,
after the Super Bowl, no one's talking to that guy
like how was it? You know, like, no, I just
did my job. What if we weren't there, well, we
(17:56):
wouldn't have won. You know. Air of fueling is one
of the things that really separates our ability to project
power anywhere over the earth as a as a kind
of a fighting force. And without that, and no one's
going anywhere. You have to have the fuel. So I
(18:19):
kind of look at it like, well, I was the
left tackle and they want to review the quarterback. You know,
left tackle's fine with that, but this is an opportunity
to talk about the tackle, like what were you thinking
there in serva bowl? Don't let that guy get around me?
Contain that's it, I know the play. If I do
(18:40):
my job, the rest will take care of itself. That's
you know. It's the left tackle story, I guess.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Hangler. And a special thanks to
Peter Braxton for sharing his story and I love the
metaphor he left us with and that is, he was
like the left tack. He was doing his job and
we got to hear very different perspective because of it.
And what a job he had to do. And it's
(19:09):
true without air refuelers, well, America can't project its air
power across the world. And so yes, the pilots get
the headlines without the air refuellers and so many other
countless people following their orders and doing their job. Well,
the pilot's job isn't possible. By the way, what a
role his brother played in all of this, and his dad,
(19:30):
his whole life would have been different. As his brother
said to him, as it related to his desire to
be a doctor. His brother said, you can always be
a doctor, but you can't always be a pilot. And
you can't always serve your country, said his father. You
should serve this country before you can enjoy this country.
My goodness, if we could all have dads like that
and project that kind of power onto our kids, the
(19:52):
power of service, and of course, my goodness, being the
first on site practically but the last to know, oh
what actually happened. The iron of the story and the
irony of service. In the end, the story of Peter Braxton,
the story of what public service sounds like, especially in
our military. Here on our American Stories.
And we continue here with our American stories. On the
morning of September eleventh, two thousand and one, Peter Braxton
was the first military pilot in the air over the
burning Twin Towers. It was his first day on the job.
And this is his story. Here's Peter.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
My name is Peter Braxton from upstate New York, originally Rome,
New York, a little town. There was a base there
called Griffiths Air Force Base. My father was in the
Air Force, and I guess this is where the story begins.
My father, you know, sat me down when I was fifteen,
and he, you know, he had this kind of father's
(00:52):
son conversation, and he was, you know, a man of fewers,
but he said, hey, you should serve this country before
you enjoy this country. You will look back on your
service fondly. And I, you know, I was fifteen. I
didn't know what that meant. But I did have an
older brother who was about two and a half years
(01:14):
older than me, and he ended up going to the
Air Force Academy. So I'm guessing at this point, you know,
he must have had this conversation with him a couple
years prior. And so now it was my turn and
I think out of maybe laziness, I just I just
applied to the Air Force Academy, followed my brother there.
I got in, I got into a number of other
(01:36):
kind of Ivy league schools out east. And my brother
I remember telling me, you know, you should you should
probably go to Princeton, or you should go to Yale.
You know, but but out of respect for your father
and his wishes. At that point, I think I was like, Okay,
well I could. I guess I could do that. Later
it was, you know, it was a good experience having
(01:56):
a sibling there because he was going to look out
for you. And and it's tough school. I graduated the
Air Force Academy in nineteen ninety nine. I was shuttled
off to pilot training Joint Specialized Undergraduate Pilot Training at
Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas. You know, I never wanted
(02:17):
to be a pilot. I always wanted to be a doctor.
My brother is a neurosurgeon, and again to his kind
of his wisdom, you could always be a doctor. You
can never fly again. This is your window. You have to.
If I were you, I would I would go fly.
And so I show up to Laughlin. I think it
was April two thousand and I quickly it's a hyper
(02:40):
competitive environment. These are alpha people. They're very, very bright,
they're athletic, they're patriots, their officers, and it's it's a
hyper competitive environment, but it's also a weirdly cooperative environment.
In any event, I graduated distinguished graduate of my class.
And at the time, the number one graduate picks first,
(03:05):
and the number two graduate picks second, and the number
thirty eight graduate picks last. And I was just I
was getting homesick. My brother was at the University of
Pennsylvania in medical school. I'm from upstate New York. The
closest active duty Air Force base was McGuire Air Force Base,
New Jersey. I picked the base, and then I picked
(03:28):
the plane, the KC ten Extender, which is mid air refueling.
Its primary mission is power projecting and bringing the fight
to the ford, to the battlefield. And then that could
be a fighter package, it could be bombers, it could
be coalition aircraft. And I started that training. I think
it was May of two thousand and one. Well, I
(03:49):
graduated Saturday, September eighth, two thousand and one. I mission
planned my first mission on Monday, September tenth, two thousand
and one, and I took off to coast out over
the Atlantic at six am on Tuesday, September eleventh, two
(04:10):
thousand and one, was my first day flying as a
fully qualified US Air Force pilot. It was, you know,
I mean, first day of work, fresh aircut, shiny boots,
Get up extra early, make sure you're on time early,
you know, on time in the Air Forces early. And
(04:30):
I remember mission planning the day before with a gentleman
who was notorious about taking out the brand new lieutenants
who just graduated, and you know, he was ready to
kind of beat on you and stretch you out and
make sure you knew that it wasn't over. It was
just getting started. So you know, it's not necessarily like
(04:53):
the Navy, where everyone's got a call signed, but everyone
does have nicknames. And you know, we called him the
silver Fox. He was I was twenty two years old,
and he had a full head of gray hair. And
we took off and coasted out out over the Atlantic,
not too far off the coast of Atlantic City, and
(05:15):
everyone remembers if you don't clear blue glassy perfect September
day in the Northeast in New Jersey. And then we
got a call, a radio call from NORAD, North American
Aurospace Defense call sign Huntress, and I remember thinking this
(05:37):
is impossible, like NORRAD is located in Colorado. How are
they contacting me in this UHF frequency? But they know
my call sign. So NORRAD calls and says TMT two,
say your state, and I respond New Jersey, which is
the incorrect response to that question. And I would later
(05:59):
very quickly actually learned that they're asking for the status
of au aircraft. You know, at the time, I mean
a sample would be, you know, a team two two angels,
two six heading three four zero four soils on board
five plus fifteen fuel fully operational. And the only reason
they're going to ask that question is because they need
you for something. So this is around I think shortly
(06:20):
after nine am Eastern time out over the Atlantic, and
the Silver Fox, the instructor pilot immediately transfers aircraft controlled
to me. So now I'm flying and he's taking the radios.
He responds accordingly and properly, and NORAD directs us to
(06:42):
contact New York Center, you know whatever the frequency is
one three five point eight. He does that New York
clears Team two two direct JFK pilot discretion five to
fifty thousand feet. The kernel turns to me and says, deadpan, serious,
(07:03):
not joking. I think someone detonated a nuclear weapon somewhere
in the United States. Now there's some context here. It's
my first day of work, and I don't know why
he's saying this. I don't know what is going on.
I don't think many Americans at this point knew what
(07:25):
was going on, but he knew something was wrong, and
looking back, he wasn't too far off. But it was
my first day and I was confused, and I have
no idea why he would say that, And maybe he's
trying to stress me out. Perhaps it's a new guy
initiation thing. When they cleared us direct JFK pilot discretion
(07:50):
five to fifty thousand feet, that's when it kind of
like dawned on me as knew as I was that
this was serious. That could only mean that all of
the airspace was clear. You don't give somebody pilot discretion
to climb, descend, turn left or right at their discretion
unless there's nothing else there that they can quote unquote
(08:13):
hit or interfere with and that's JFK, that's LaGuardia, that's Newark,
that's Peterborough. Not to mention this air corridor between Boston
to Philadelphia down to DC and all of the traffic
that's coming over the Atlantic Ocean from the night before,
(08:33):
all of that stuff has got to be out of
there for them to give that. And that's when I
kind of like dawned on me something was wrong and
this is not something that the Kernel could make happen
for fun.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
And you're listening to Peter Braxton recole his first day
as an Air Force pilot and getting that coal from
No Red and that pilot discretion to fly between five
thousand and fifty thousand feet altitude, in other words, clear skies,
not a plane in sight, and that's when he understood
(09:05):
something serious.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
It happened.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
By the way, if you know that area, there's JFK, Teterborough, LaGuardia,
and Newark all within maybe twenty five miles of each other,
throw in Philly and Boston, and that has never happened
in American airspace.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
It's his first day on the job.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
When we come back, what happens next. Peter Braxton shares
his story here on our American stories, and we continue
with our American stories, and the story of Peter Braxton,
(09:43):
an Air Force pilot on his first day at work
on nine to eleven, piloting a KC ten air refueler
tanker and well learning that something disastrous had happened in
New York City. Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
So you know, I'm flying now. So I look out
the window. I'm in the right seat, and I'm from
upstate New York. I understand, and I'm familiar with the
geography of New York City, Manhattan, Long Island. I have
family and queens. I can see the smoke. I see
(10:26):
the smoke, and you know, we're asking, of course, what's
going on, whether they what's that They don't I don't
They don't know, they don't want to tell us. And
it's kind of irrelevant at this point because we're an
instrument of national power and we just need to execute
the job. We need to do what they tell us
(10:46):
to do. And so I look down, I see the smoke,
and the only thing that this is embarrassing that that
I could think of at this point was I remember
being a kid watching the nineteen eighty World Series between
the Oakland A's and the San Francisco Giants. I think
it was Game three live and there was an earthquake,
(11:10):
and there's bridges collapsing, and there was smoke rising from
San Francisco, and there's fires and there's I mean, obviously
they canceled the game, and I was like, oh my gosh.
I did not know this. I did not know that
New York was in a seismic zone. I just thought
that was a San Andreas or a West Coast thing
or a but New York City. I thought it was
(11:32):
built on bedrock, and you know, this wasn't going anywhere.
It must have been an earthquake. People will ask if
I saw the towers collapse, and I must have, But
I was vertical. I was. My perspective was bird's eye.
I was above New York, not horizontal. I didn't know
(11:57):
what was the World Trade Center. I saw the smoke
I thought was Southern manhat and just then I think
I was kind of snapped back to the reality because
up next to our wing pull these two F fifteen
Eagles fighter jets armed with bombs, missiles, Jade Ann Sparrows,
(12:21):
Aim Knight whatever you know, I'd just never seen it before.
The ultimate irony. I mean, you spend all this time
in the military. Most people never see combat, and in
the US you're not typically seeing fighter you'll see them.
You'll see fighter yet and it's fun to watch. And
they do flybys, but they're not they're unarmed. They're not.
(12:43):
They can't they won't have these missiles on them flying
over a stadium. You know, you just you could destroy
Philadelphia with one of these things. And you know, here
I am a couple hours into my first flight and
these the jets pull up and we are all of
a sudden doing an operational mission giving them fuel. You know,
(13:09):
they come in low left, they take the fuel, they
climb high right, and they are armed to the teeth
and there I mean, it's like a movie. It was
like a movie. They were peeling off, flipping upside down
and flying back to New York. And so all of
the fighter jets that you saw flying up and down
the Hudson, the East River, you know, patrolling New York,
(13:31):
and they had their specific mission and orders. I refueled
all of those jets, and and of course the sun
had set and the smoke was still going on and
some of the lights in New York were coming on
and the bridges were lighting up, and we still didn't
know what was happening, what was going on, but we
(13:54):
were there. We're doing the mission, and then I remember
the other KC ten coming and what we'll do typically
is we'll transfer as much fuel as we can and
reserve is much fuel as we need to get back.
And I remember, I remember being put on like a
(14:16):
forty five mile final approach and we're flying straight in
we Land. We pull into parking and I hop out
of the seat and I go to the door and
we open the door and we have these you know, airstairs,
and I'm greeted at the door by an airman wearing
a helmet, you know, a flakfest. He's got an M
(14:39):
sixteen at the ready, and he's, you know, sure, I
need to see your ID. And I just I just
remember thinking, Okay, we're back, But what happened? Isn't this
jet enough identification for you? Like I'm I'm one of
(15:01):
the good guys, And you know, obviously I didn't say that,
but I showed him my eyes. He's doing his job.
He did an outstanding job. That's his job. I showed
him my idea. He escorted the entire crew off the plane,
like I guess in a movie to this intel vault.
And they had this vault, and it was a vault.
(15:21):
It had like a vault with a door kind of
like you'd see in a bank with you know, and
we get on there and we you know, drop our
gear and and then just I mean, the questions just
came fast and furious. It was, you know, did you
hear from United ninety three? Was there a distress call
from American eleven or American seventy seven? And no, I
(15:45):
didn't know. We didn't get anything. We didn't we weren't cold.
I didn't hear any beacons or anything on the emergency
frequencies VHF or UHF. And they still didn't tell us
what happened. And I don't They still didn't tell us
what happened. So I hop in my car and the
(16:06):
commute from McGuire to where I lived in Mount Laurel,
New Jersey, was about forty five minutes. And you know,
you turn on the radio and you start to hear
some reporting of what happened. At this point, it's it's
close to two AM, maybe two thirty in the morning,
and yeah, I guess I'd been up at that point
(16:29):
for almost twenty four hours. So I get back to
the to my place, the little townhouse in Mount Laurel.
I turned on the TV and it's like the first
images that I saw of what had happened that were
I'm sure playing on repeats on every news channel or
every channel in America, maybe even the world. And I
(16:53):
kind of like dawned on me that I was the
first military asset there, but I was probabrobably one of
the last people in America to learn what happened. One
of the one of the quotes I learned at the
Air Force Academy, we have this little book called checkpoints,
and you got to memorize all of these things. One
of them stuck with me to be like, word for
(17:14):
word true. There is no limit to the good you
can do if you don't care who gets the credit.
Ronald Reagan. That is true. You know, there is no
limit to the good you can do if you do
not care who gets the credit. But I'll leave you
(17:34):
with this. Okay, So people say, well, why weren't you interviewed,
you know, as the first pilot over in New York
on nine to eleven. And you know you often think about,
like I guess, the left tackle in football. You know,
after the Super Bowl, no one's talking to that guy
like how was it? You know, like, no, I just
did my job. What if we weren't there, well, we
(17:56):
wouldn't have won. You know. Air of fueling is one
of the things that really separates our ability to project
power anywhere over the earth as a as a kind
of a fighting force. And without that, and no one's
going anywhere. You have to have the fuel. So I
(18:19):
kind of look at it like, well, I was the
left tackle and they want to review the quarterback. You know,
left tackle's fine with that, but this is an opportunity
to talk about the tackle, like what were you thinking
there in serva bowl? Don't let that guy get around me?
Contain that's it, I know the play. If I do
(18:40):
my job, the rest will take care of itself. That's
you know. It's the left tackle story, I guess.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Hangler. And a special thanks to
Peter Braxton for sharing his story and I love the
metaphor he left us with and that is, he was
like the left tack. He was doing his job and
we got to hear very different perspective because of it.
And what a job he had to do. And it's
(19:09):
true without air refuelers, well, America can't project its air
power across the world. And so yes, the pilots get
the headlines without the air refuellers and so many other
countless people following their orders and doing their job. Well,
the pilot's job isn't possible. By the way, what a
role his brother played in all of this, and his dad,
(19:30):
his whole life would have been different. As his brother
said to him, as it related to his desire to
be a doctor. His brother said, you can always be
a doctor, but you can't always be a pilot. And
you can't always serve your country, said his father. You
should serve this country before you can enjoy this country.
My goodness, if we could all have dads like that
and project that kind of power onto our kids, the
(19:52):
power of service, and of course, my goodness, being the
first on site practically but the last to know, oh
what actually happened. The iron of the story and the
irony of service. In the end, the story of Peter Braxton,
the story of what public service sounds like, especially in
our military. Here on our American Stories.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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