Lance Wubbels - September 11, 2001: A Time for Heroes: A Tribute to American Faith, Guts, and Patriotism

Copyright 2001 Koechel, Peterson, and Associates, Inc.

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To Our Heroes

The Brave and Courageous
Who Walk Through Fear
No Matter the Price

LANCE WUBBELS is presently the Vice President of Literary Development at Koechel Peterson & Associates. For the previous eighteen years, he worked as the Managing Editor of Bethany House Publishers as well as a teacher at Bethany College of Missions.

A naturally gifted storyteller, Wubbels is the author of seven fiction books with Bethany House Publishers. He won the Angel Award for One Small Miracle, the heartwarming novel about the profound impact of a teachers gift of love on the life of one of her struggling students. He has also compiled and edited twenty-five Christian Living Classic books published by Emerald Books. His daily devotional, In His Presence, won the 1999 Gold Medallion Award from the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association.

He and his family make their home in Bloomington, Minnesota.

CONTENTS

These acts of mass murder
were intended to frighten
our nation into chaos and retreat,
but they have failed.

Our country is strong.

Terrorist acts can shake
the foundation of our biggest buildings,
but they cannot touch
the foundation of America.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH

SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

8:40 A.M. (EST)

I am driving on the freeway to work, listening to some meaningless banter about Senator Gary Condit on talk radio.

8:45 A.M.

One of the talk radio personalities suddenly breaks their conversation with a report hes watching on CNN. A plane, he says, has apparently crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers in New York City. My first thought was disbelief, figuring that a small commuter plane must have veered off course somehow. But how does a pilot not see a building that huge on a clear day? It turns out it was American Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767 that left Boston for Los Angeles with eighty-one passengers and eleven crew members, that struck the Centers north tower.

8:59 A.M.

The radio station has broken away to national news coverage, and the report is that it was a commercial jet that hit the tower. Oh, God, no, I whisper to myself, thinking of the people in the plane and in the offices, still certain it must be a small commercial jet. I call my wife at her office and tell her to turn on her radio or try to find a television to see whats going on.

9:06 A.M.

The report is that a second commercial jet has barreled into the south tower of the World Trade Center. I gasp and feel numb, immediately aware that this is no accident, but its beyond belief, too preposterous to imagine. This was United Airlines Flight 175, a Boeing 767 that left Boston for Los Angeles with fifty-six passengers and nine crew members.

9:12 A.M.

My wife calls me as I pull into the parking lot at work. She is in utter shock. I grab my stuff, run into the office, and join some of my co-workers around a television in one of the offices. One of them is visibly frightened. The sight of the two magnificent glass towers with their upper floors ablaze, smoke billowing out the shattered sides, is a nightmare. My breath is short and my heart is racing.

9:31 A.M.

President Bush makes a brief statement, promising that the United States will hunt down the terrorists. No one is talking in our office, except for short exclamations. I am pacing the hardwood floor.

9:40 A.M.

A third reported crash. This one at the Pentagon. A first report indicated it might be a military helicopter that was seen over the air space shortly before the crash. But a second report is that it was another commercial jet. We now know it was a Boeing 757, American Flight 77, which took off from Dulles Airport near Washington and was bound for Los Angeles.

9:48 A.M.

The West Wing of the White House is evacuated, and eventually State and Justice offices as well as all federal office buildings. Reports of other planes are being sounded, and Secret Service officers patrol Lafayette Park, across from the White House, with automatic weapons. Vice President Cheney, his wife, and Laura Bush are hurried away to a bunker on the White House grounds.

More co-workers are streaming into our office to watch. One of them is crying softly; all are agitated. Everyone is wondering what target might be next.

9:49 A.M.

For the first time in our countrys history, the Federal Aviation Administration bans all aircraft takeoffs across the country.

10:00 A.M.

In what is easily the most horrible sight I have ever witnessed, the south tower of the World Trade Center suddenly shudders, as though its been skillfully imploded, and collapses seems to just disintegrate from view in a volcanic-like plume of smoke and dust. The terrorists who tried to bring it down in 1993 and said the day would come when they would get it have fulfilled their word.

I am so aghast I cant breathe, and I feel the blood draining from my head. I want to look away from the television screen, but I cant. Irrationally, I hope that when the dust clears, the tower will still be there. It just has to be there. But I know its gone, and I know that there had to be thousands of people inside. All I can do is pray. Tears begin to streak down my face, and I pace again.

I call home to see if my nineteen-year-old son is watching the news. He is, but we do not talk. Im too upset, and I want to hear the news reports.

10:10 A.M.

Theres an unconfirmed report that a fourth commercial jet has crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. I hope its not true, but given whats happened, Im sure it is true. United Flight 93, a Boeing 757 that was bound for San Francisco from Newark, New Jersey, with thirty-seven passengers and seven crew members, has crashed about eighty miles southeast of Pittsburgh.