September 11, 2001 started off just like any other day. As a Deputy for Naval Aviation, I arrived to work at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, around 5:30 a.m. so I could have Bible study and prayer time before the day got going. Forty-five minutes later I immersed myself in working on budget figures for Congress, because we were trying to request some new aircraft and weapons systems.
“Captain Joyce.” I glanced at the clock as a Navy commander came by my desk. Two hours had passed already. “You need to come take a look at this airplane that just hit the World Trade Center,” she said.
“It’s probably just a small Cessna that had taken off at one of the regional airports there, maybe lost its way in the fog and ran into one of the towers,” I said, not giving it any second thought.
“No, you need to come take a look at it,” she responded.
So we went to the office next door, and watched the aftermath of the first plane that hit the first tower. We watched it until we saw the second airplane hit the tower.
“It’s a coordinated attack,” the guy next to me blurted out. As an aide to the admiral, his military mindset kicked in. He picked up the phone on the desk and immediately dialed to a friend of his who was on watch at the National Military Command Center in the bowels of the Pentagon. The NMCC is the place from which wars are run.
“What do we got?” he asked.
In a coded message, the response came back: “We’ve got other planes that are hijacked. We’re under attack. We don’t know from who.”
Looking at each other in that fifth floor office of the Pentagon, we said, “We’ve got to be a target.” We knew it was only a matter of time.
Lord, let me not forget that even in times of war and terror, you have not relinquished your sovereignty.
“…there is terror on every side; they conspire against me and plot to take my life.” (Psalm 31:13)