Lt. Col. Brian Birdwell was watching the news of the planes crashing into the World Trade Centers with two co-workers in his office at the Pentagon, Sandi Taylor and Cheryle Sincock, when the phone interrupted them.
“Mom, get out of the building.” It was Sam, Sandi Taylor’s daughter. She had a bad feeling that the Pentagon would be a sure target for another hijacked plane.
Surely they won’t hit the Pentagon, Brian thought. If they did that, they’d have the whole U.S. military after them.”
Moments later, Brian excused himself to use the men’s restroom. “I’ll be back in a moment,” he told them. They would be the last words he spoke to the two women.
Stepping out of the men’s restroom on the second floor, he started down the corridor when a deafening explosion blew him across the corridor. Even as a Gulf War veteran and an artillery officer for more than ten years during his seventeen-plus years of service with the U.S. Army, the sound that filled the air was louder than anything he’d ever heard.
In an instant, the corridor had gone from being well-lit with bright fluorescent lights to being pitch black. Walls of fire rushed at him from two directions the site of the explosion and the elevator shaft tearing the glasses of his face and throwing him to the ground. The building shook; debris from the walls and ceilings suddenly became dangerous projectiles flying through the air.
Brian could see nothing, except for a yellow orange haze with black around the periphery surrounding his body. That’s when he realized he was on fire.
Meanwhile, Brian’s wife, Mel, was at home working on a science experiment for home school with their twelve-year-old son Matt when their neighbor, Sara, called.
“Is your TV on? The Pentagon has been hit,” she said, panic in her voice. Mel almost dropped the phone and ran to turn on the TV. The scene clearly showed Brian’s office behind the helipad. Flames were coming out all the windows in that area.
“Mom, that’s not Dad’s side of the building,” Matt kept saying, “It’s not him.” But Mel knew the truth.
Lord, when my flesh and heart fail, let my spirit still be strengthened by you.
“My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” (Psalm 73:26)