There were three of us in my office on September 11. Two were killed. If I didn’t return, then we would be batting 0 for 3. I don’t know why the Lord chose me to be the one of the three who lived, but one of us was going to go back.
I wasn’t going back into that building to remember the bad that came from the building. I was going back to remember the good that came out of it. It was my way of defiantly saying, “I didn’t just survive on my own. My God helped me survive. I’m still here. You want a piece of me? Give it another try.”
Mel
Brian was completely surrounded by an entourage of people with cameras and microphones. Paul and Holly Fine from Nightline were there with their camera crew, plus all the local affiliates that were filming Brian’s every move.
I was glad the cameras were with Brian. Since they were filming him I could see what he was doing! While I realized I could have gone with him and spent the day at the Pentagon, I knew he needed to do this alone. It was his day, and I didn’t want to be in the way. Later I was able to watch what happened even though I wasn’t there. That was a nice reward.
Brian
Just walking through the Pentagon was a workout. It was a long walk! I was huffing and puffing, thinking, I don’t remember it being this long. I had to stop at one of the snack bars to sit and rest. Everybody kept asking, “Are you okay? You want me to carry your bags?”
“I’m fine,” I told them. “And no, I’ll carry my bags. I have to do this on my own.”
I started walking again and saw Dave Davis, a contractor for the Army and our Sunday school president, in the hallway. While he knew I was out of the hospital, he had no idea I was returning to work. I was glad to see a familiar face, so I stopped and said hi. As we spoke I saw tears form in his eyes.
The ACSIM headquarters, which had moved back to its pre-9/11 office space, was filled with “welcome back” banners and balloons. I was completely surprised! Everyone was smiling and seemed genuinely happy to see me. It was great.
My duty before 9/11 was as the military aide for Ms. Jan Menig, deputy ACSIM. After my previous coworkers greeted me, Ms. Menig arrived. She warmly welcomed me with a big hug and then walked me to another department—the ACSIM resource division. My assignment in the Pentagon was changed because I would no longer be able to handle the intense tasks I used to, such as working sixteen-hour-days to keep track of Ms. Menig’s schedule.
My new coworkers were waiting to welcome me when we arrived in the resource division. My nameplate had even been placed on my new cubicle. And my new boss? Colonel Dane Rota. That’s right—Mel’s right-hand man while I was in the hospital. This was yet another “God thing.”
I stayed only for a few hours my first day because my endurance still wasn’t built up. I was easily exhausted.
On that first day back I didn’t return to the area that had been destroyed. It was still under construction. But several months later I walked down Corridor 4, the site where my life changed forever.
As I started down the corridor, Colonel Roy Wallace, who had rescued me on 9/11, stepped into the hallway. He was shocked when he saw me.
“Looks a lot different from the last time we met here,” he said.
“Sure does,” I answered. “It’s holy ground down there.”
I wanted to piece together exactly what had happened, and I wanted to see where I had been standing in relation to the plane’s point of impact. The plane came in between Corridors 4 and 5. It penetrated very closely to where Corridor 4 makes a T with the E-Ring. I was to the right of the plane as it penetrated the building on a perpendicular angle. As I marked the spot where I had been versus where the plane entered the building, I shuddered.
Fifteen to twenty yards from the point of impact. That’s two car-lengths, I thought. I really should not be alive. There’s no rational, logical reason for me to be alive, except that the hand of God protected me.
God can use a trip to the restroom for his glory! Had I remained in the office, I would have died. (I sat four windows from the point of impact.) Had I left my office any sooner, I would have been in the path of the plane. Had I left any later, I would have been in the path of the plane.
After leaving the men’s room, I had turned right and made it to the first set of elevators when the plane struck. I was actually hit from two sides. The flames rushed the short distance around the corner to where I was, but the worst blast came from the overpressurization in the elevators. The fire probably traveled through the elevator shaft and blasted open and through the doors. I think that’s where the whoosh sound came from. It happened so quickly I didn’t have a chance to react.
In a fire an elevator shaft acts like a vacuum, and fires follow the path of least resistance. The fire will be channeled through the length of the elevator shaft. I think that’s how the roof of the Pentagon caught on fire. Part of the fourth corridor was burned on the roof all the way down to the A-ring. It’s like driving a car on the expressway with no other traffic. You can fly unhindered. So the elevator shaft becomes an expressway in a fire; it can travel unhindered from all the floors. That’s why they tell you not to get on elevators in a fire.
There was a lady in New York, Lauren Manning, who was burned severely in the World Trade Center. She spent a lot of time at a burn unit in New York. What was surprising about her story was that she was on the ground floor when the building was hit—more than seventy floors from the penetration point. When the plane exploded in the building, the blast rushed through the elevator shafts. It was channelized and blew open the elevator doors in the lobby. She happened to be standing in front of one of the elevators and was burned.
Just after Christmas a professional engineer, Georgina, was doing an analysis of the Pentagon so they could improve the structure as they rebuilt it. She visited a few of the survivors to discuss their stories with them and find out what they did to survive. She showed me the diagram of where all the people had died. Sandi was still standing, watching the television when the plane came through. She didn’t have a chance. She died immediately. Cheryle had stepped back into the main office area. Had Jan Menig been in her office, she, too, would have died instantly.
The recovery scenes were incredibly gruesome, depicting what a ghastly death this was. Everything had happened so quickly.
I don’t consider myself a victim. I am a survivor. Yes, I have been victimized because I was the victim of other people’s evil decisions. I didn’t choose to go through this experience of my own volition. But to me, the real victims are the ones who died that day. I still have my life; they do not.
Mel
After that first day I visited Brian at the Pentagon frequently. As the year anniversary approached, Brian would say to me, “Let’s go down to Corridor 4 so you can see where I was standing.” We would start down the corridor, but as soon as we reached the C-Ring, I would stop walking. I just could go no farther. There were signs posted everywhere that said, Hard Hats. Construction Area. Do Not Enter.
I would use those signs as my excuse. “Brian, it says, ‘Hard Hats.’ We can’t go in there.”
He would say, “No, we can go down this side. It’s fine.”
But I was adamant. “No, I don’t want to go.” I wasn’t ready to see the spot. Even though the debris and wreckage were removed and there were no traces of the attack, I wasn’t ready to see the crime scene.
He took me down that corridor on several occasions. And every time the same thing would happen. I couldn’t go all the way to stand in the spot where Brian could have died.
Finally, on September 11, 2002, the wedge was completely opened. I had no more excuses. We walked slowly down the corridor, and once we were at the end of the hall, we stopped. Brian said, “This is where I was standing.”
I could visualize everything clearly: the elevator door, the metal seams where the building collapsed, the walls and offices where the plane came into the building. I saw how extremely close he had been to the point of impact. I saw the distance of th
e plane to his office.
That’s when I knew how right Brian was. I was indeed standing on holy ground. The realization became overwhelming to me, and I felt a strong urge just to kneel on the floor and cry out to God, thanking him for his blessing. Here stood my husband who should not have been alive—yet he was alive.
My emotions started to take over. I began to feel weak in my knees, and my stomach felt queasy. By God’s grace a friend of ours turned the corner, saw us, and walked toward us. That was the distraction I needed to regain control of my emotions.
Brian
On September 11, 2002, one year after the horrific attack, the damaged wedge of the building was reopened. On the first floor there is a chapel with a permanent memorial to remember all the innocent men, women, and children who died in the attack on the Pentagon: 184, not counting the terrorists. More people died here than in the Oklahoma City bombing. The windows of the memorial are covered with the Kevlar-coating, a yellow-green substance to make sure the windows are blast-proof.
As I walked into the memorial room, I noticed that the tinted windows provided an eerie quiet. I looked at the wall that listed the names. My eyes scanned the list. There were the names I knew would be recorded but wished weren’t: Cheryle Sincock and Sandi Taylor. I felt that anguish in my soul again over their loss. It was an empty, hollow ache, a desperate longing to see them again. In my heart I promised them that their lives would not have been lost in vain. I would survive to tell the story.
Nineteen
Reaching Out
* * *
Journal 10/27/01
Paul, Brian’s night nurse, came in to give Brian his pain meds and taught me how to take off these bandages. Paul began asking Brian about 9/11. Brian, who’d had a wretched day and had no plug on his trachea tube, in a very strong voice began to share the gospel with Paul. He explained how God had spared his life by providing sprinklers, rescuers, and medical attention to allow him to be able to share his story and God’s glory. It was an awesome moment. You could feel the presence of the Lord in the room.
* * *
Brian
Mel and I were always okay about talking about our faith. But we never did it blatantly. It was usually just a personal thing that we would share if we knew someone else was a Christian or if someone had a question. Mostly we lived out our faith quietly. I didn’t share very often with coworkers. I’d go to the Wednesday morning devotionals or else had my own. I always had a devotional book and a Bible on my desk. But we weren’t outspoken in our faith.
September 11 changed all of that.
I felt what I can only imagine hell will feel like. That was enough for me to want to try to warn everybody. I became much more forthright about my relationship with Jesus. Not that I walk up to people today, shake them, and yell, “Do you know the Lord?!” But I no longer allow opportunities to pass by without saying something. It’s no longer about being a quiet witness in which I simply expect my life to lead someone to Christ without ever uttering a word. The events of 9/11 afford me the opportunity in a short period of time to share a bit about God’s grace in our lives, hopefully leaving that question in someone’s mind: If that’s the kind of attitude this guy can have after what happened to him, there’s got to be something to this Christian thing.
One day Mel read Jude 1:23 to me: “Save others, snatching them out of the fire.” I started to think about that verse’s meaning. I was saved from a literal, physical fire. But Jude talks about the spiritual fire of hell. He was saying that as we go out and tell the good news about Jesus Christ, we will snatch some people out of eternal damnation, the fire of hell.
That’s when I realized the importance of what I was going through. I knew what the fire felt like. And I wanted to do everything I could to make sure no one had to experience that for eternity. If going through this experience and being able to relay that information to people allows one person to start a relationship with God, then what happened to me has not been in vain. That may have been God’s whole purpose. Maybe God kept me alive to bring a passion and a fervor to my words. When I say, “You need to get right with God now because you don’t know when you’re going to die,” I know of what I speak.
Our experience has made talking about Jesus much easier. How God saved me tells it all! There is no one who can approach us and scoff after we show them the photo of where I was and talk to them about the injuries I sustained and the miracles that occurred.
I was going through security in an airport in Jacksonville, Florida, when I was chosen for a random security check. I was still wearing my pressure garments and my headband. My legs were still pretty purple. I was wearing shorts, so you could see the burns on my legs. My uniform was in my luggage, and while I was being checked, a female security officer searched my bags. The male security officer asked me to stretch out my arms, which I did as best I could. As he passed his wand over me, he said, “Sir, may I ask what type of accident you were in?”
“No, it wasn’t an accident. It was quite deliberate.” His eyes grew huge, and he said, “What do you mean deliberate?” I told him, “What was done to me was done to me on purpose.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was in the Pentagon on the morning of September 11.”
The lady who was screening my luggage now found my uniform jacket. They both stopped what they were doing. They had experienced 9/11, too, although it was on television. They had seen what occurred in the Pentagon, New York City, and Pennsylvania.
The officer lowered his security wand. “We don’t need to screen this man,” he said. “He’s definitely not a terrorist.”
I told them, “The Lord has carried us through a very tough challenge in our lives. I’ve had the opportunity to live. The reason I was here in Jacksonville was to share that story about God’s grace in our lives. We still struggle with forgiveness, and we still become angry when we think about the people and organizations that carried out those horrors. But first and foremost we concentrate on God’s goodness to us.”
In those five-minute conversations I can put a grain of interest in someone’s mind to find out more about what I’m saying. Mel can do the same. Because of the gravity of what happened that day, no one looks at us as though we’re kooks or idiots—because they experienced 9/11, too. They see my scars. That’s authenticity. Everyone can see the authenticity of God’s work in our lives and part of that is through the scars we carry—physical, emotional, or spiritual.
We’ve had so many opportunities to talk to other people about Christ. We talk to anyone who will listen: other burn survivors, our physicians, the media, anybody. Sometimes it doesn’t feel very productive. But it plants that seed. Ultimately, we have to plant the seed and let the Holy Spirit convict. We can’t take it personally if someone rejects our message. We’re doing the job God has called us to do.
Mel
Even in the hospital when he was in tremendous pain, I watched in amazement as God used Brian to touch a lot of people. When we visited Georgetown Hospital more than a year after he’d been in the emergency room, we met Chaplain Cirillo, the chaplain who prayed with Brian in the emergency room. She knew Brian immediately. With tears in her eyes and much excitement, she told him, “You changed my life. When I was in your presence I felt the presence of the Lord. So seeing you right now, having the chance to meet you, is incredible.” Then she turned to me and said, “You just don’t know how much God used him to touch my life.”
Meeting her and listening to her talk about how God had used Brian brought tears to my eyes. I felt exactly the same way.
Brian
While I was in the hospital several burn survivors, including Clay Tipton and Walt Roberts, came to visit me. While I didn’t know these people, their presence was so comforting and encouraging. They had been through the fire, too. They knew what I was experiencing. They’d felt the pain I felt. I could bond with them in a way I couldn’t with anyone else, including Mel.
Another Pentagon survivor, J
ohn Yates, and I spent a lot of time together. We didn’t know each other before 9/11, but through this crisis we became good friends. Ellen, John’s wife, also became a strong support for Mel.
John wasn’t as badly burned as I was, so he was released from ICU a week or so earlier. But every morning that I was in step-down care John stopped by to see me.
We joked with each other about how we looked. I knew he looked bad, and he knew I looked worse! The important aspect of my relationship with John was that I had someone with whom I could share my experience. We asked each other the same questions: How did that feel to you? Where were you inside the building? What did you hear? What did you feel? How did you escape? How are you doing in physical therapy?
Although I had Mel, which was great, I had someone else I could talk to about what we were experiencing over the last month in the hospital and what we’d experienced each day. Because John was in better shape than I was, he was always going through things before I did. He was able to encourage me and give me the heads-up on what to expect. In a sense we were members of a special club—a club of burn survivors. And this experience was our rite of initiation.
As time passed, burn survivors would visit me, which was a huge moral boost to me. There was a firefighter who had been burned as severely as I was two years before that, and now he’s a body builder. It was amazing to see the recovery he’d made. His visit was so incredibly encouraging.
When he left, I told Mel about the visit and then mentioned to her that I would like to do that someday, to go to other burn survivors and encourage them. We discussed how important it is to do that for the families, too, because they really have no idea what is facing them. That day an idea was planted, and with each burn survivor who visited, the idea took deeper root.
In late February 2002, when I was doing outpatient physical therapy, Amy Brodski, one of my physical therapists, said to me, “Brian, I’d like you to go up and visit one of our patients in intensive care.” I told her I would. I was happy to visit him. And I felt Amy’s request was a compliment because she knew what I had gone through. She also knew I was a Christian.
Refined by Fire Page 20
