A Moment that Changed THE World

Hello again, Decoeth here with both of friends, stories from the road. There's a tune I want you to hear that's unique to this moment, this week, for me. It's a tune that was played at Denver International Airport this past Sunday morning at 8.45 AM. Here it is. Thank you. The announcement was made in the area where you go through security that they would like people to pause for a few moments of silence and memory of all of those victims of 9-11 2001. We of course were horrified by the crashes of jet planes into the twin towers where thousands died, 343 firemen died on that day in those towers. I happened to be in Washington DC that day. I was about a half a mile to a mile north as the crow flies on the Virginia side of the Potomac River across from Washington DC, north of the largest office building in the world. That office building, for which they broke ground on September 11th, 1941, is called the Pentagon. It's the hub, the center for all US military activities, 18 miles of corridors, six and a half million square feet of office space. They built it in 16 months under great duress as you can appreciate after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 1941. And they had, I think, 15,000 workers 24-7 building that building, a huge amount of concrete in there, not as much steel because they had to save the steel for the war effort. So they saved enough steel by how they bought it, I understand, or how they built it in order to be able to build a battleship with all the steel they saved. But it's a concrete bunker, essentially. I was at a breakfast at an old estate that morning, and a few minutes after nine, somebody came running out of the kitchen saying something terrible has happened in Washington DC. We went quickly, the group, probably 10 or 12 of us, went to a room where there was a television turned it on and saw the horror that was occurring. Then maybe 30 minutes after we did that at 937, an American Airlines commandeered jetliner came roaring up 395 from the west, made a hard right turn and went into the northwest side of the Pentagon. I have a dear friend who was in the Pentagon that day just around the corner, just on the other side to the east from there. His name was Admiral Vern Clark, and he at that time was chief of naval operations responsible for 800,000 personnel around the world in the most powerful Navy that has ever sailed to seven seas. I wanted to talk to Vern on this podcast just to get his impressions, his recollection of what happened. So I zoomed him just a couple days ago and said, Vern, talk to me, what were you feeling? What did you think? What was going on? When that moment happened at 937 on September 11th, that crisp September morning, this is what he said. When the plane hit the first tower in New York, there was no suspicion that there was anything evil going on that could have been a small pilot that had a medical problem. Then 15, 17 minutes later, the second airplane went in and immediately I knew that there was a huge issue. I immediately went to, I was in the middle of a meeting going over budget stuff, and I went to my telephone bank and hit the first button for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and he was in to Europe in an airplane. Without hanging up, I hit my second hotline and went to the vice chairman, he was on the hill with some congressman. I said to the executive assistant, make sure that they're moving out on defcons, that's defense conditions and that's need to be done right away. Then I hung up from that and hit the button to my command and chief of the United States Atlantic fleet. There was no question we needed to be moving right now. I asked Bob Netter, Bob, what do you got out there and do you have a carrier at sea? He said, I have one out there and what's he doing? He's doing flight operative carrier qualms, which is not rigged for combat, just pilots practicing. I said, get some fighters loaded with ordinance and get a move in north off of New York. We don't have directions yet, don't wait for permission, go. Do you have any missile shooters out there? Missile shooters means surface to air missiles, shoots down fighters and airplanes. Do you have any out there? He said, I do, I have two. I said, get them moving. Are they loaded out? Yes, they're loaded. Roger, you got it. No, you'll get further direction. Hang up with that. In a few minutes, they hit us. So I asked Bern, where the plane hit? What happened that? I will tell you, it felt like this giant percussion of light. You could feel the windows pulsing when it hit. It was not something I hadn't felt before when our guns went off on a valve and a destroyer, and if you're standing on the bridge of wing, you felt it didn't do. I knew what it was. With that, as soon as it hit, the staff came running in because within a few seconds, the smoke was pouring into the office of it, we got to get you out of here. And so it hit my command center, and I lost 81% of my spaces. And so we were immediately out of commission. The staff said, we got to get you out of here, and I said, yes, that's true, but I'm going to the National Military Command Center first. That was across the exact opposite from my command center, and that, of course, part of the building was not hit. I wanted to go there because I knew that there was a huge thing going on here, and I had been the operations officer for the military, and I knew that where the director for operations was. That was my job then. And I wanted him to hear from me where I'm going. And I had my number two with me, and we decided he was going one place, and I was going to another. We were not going to be in the same place. We did not know what was ahead of us. We knew that more could be coming, but we did not have any intelligence at that moment in time. You lost, if I remember correctly, you lost. Was it 42 of your biased that morning? I did 42 people killed in the area of the command center, and 10 people from the Navy family. And I'm talking about active duty people and families of Navy people. And there was a retired admiral and his wife on their in their plane also going on vacation. Yes. Ben, I just asked Admiral Clark, what did you do next? Well, I had already actually thought of that, which is why I called the commander chief of the US Atlantic fleet. We were not waiting for direction. And so at that point in time, I moved to a place in the Washington Navy yard where I had the same kind of telephone communications, global telephone communications on top secret circuits. And so I went there. I've never really publicly disclosed the position to site inside there. My deputy, Bill Fallon, who you know, of course. Admiral Bill Fallon, the vice chief of the Navy, he went to another place, and we connected when we got there, we began to set up communication so that we could talk to the people around the world. Fundamentally, my first thought was, and of course, my people were scatting the people in the Pentagon were scattering with the four winds. You couldn't talk to anybody, but people forget. You couldn't talk to anybody on a cell phone. Cell phone circuits were immediately clobbered and were useless. That wasn't a problem for me when I had my DS phones. I could talk to anybody I needed to. But that's the way it started. And then I turned my commanders loose. When I had to call to the St. Mike fleet said, you got it moved. Don't wait for permission. That was all that he needed. Now, here's the thing that people wouldn't bring in. Probably no. That carrier wasn't outfitted. We weren't ready for combat. We take with that group, we have people ready in the far corners of the earth. Within three hours, there were fighters circling in the appropriate area. The carrier was moving at full speed. Ordnance and the first planes are landing on the carrier three hours from the time of impact of the first hour. Second tower. Amazing. You know, we take weeks to build them up to the perfect kind of readiness. In crisis, they were ready to go in three hours. They were on scene loaded ready to go. And conducting real-world operations. One of the pieces of this burn that most hardly anybody would know is that in addition to the fact that in that impact on the Pentagon, very few walked away. You either lived or died. I think there were five in the hospital at the end of that week. I think that's right. Something like that. I have to begin five people on day one at the end of the week, just one. And of course, you know about him very well. He was a Navy person. But here's the thing. I'll wrap with this. You had responsibility in those years for 800,000 personnel and hundreds of billions of dollars in budget. But you and Connie went to see that young man and you're the head of the Navy and you walk in. And it's not just hello sailor. You prayed for him. Can you can you tell us just about that moment? Well, on the first day, they actually let us go in and see him. Oh, they did. And the president had been there a few minutes. Actually, that was the second day. The first day we were doing that. There were other things that had to be done. The second day, we went to see him and the president had been there. And I'm I want to make sure in the caution. I'm, you know, those days are a blur now. And I don't remember if it's the second or this second or third day. And so when I went in, I had never seen anybody in hospital like this. His whole body heaving, burned over, you know, most of his body. The jet fuel hitting him, flaming. And now here's what's amazing. You said, it's only five people in the hospital from the Navy. And all we're out of the hospital by the end of the week except him. And of course, he went on for weeks and then months. And we almost lost him and you'll remember that they got sprayed in your kitchen for him that night. We thought we were going to lose him. And the Lord is here. Let me just give a little backstory right here very quickly. What happened was that Vernon Colony Clark a few weeks after 9-11 came to our house for dinner. And when they walked in, they were somber. And we said, what's the matter? They said, Kevin, the young man, we just got word as we were driving over here, that his organs are failing, that he has gone into some kind of comatose condition apparently. And they don't expect him to make it through the night. After all these weeks and all of this pain and all of these treatments, we had dinner together and it was rather subdued as you might expect. But at the end of their time, we just agreed we'd have a little prayer and so standing in our kitchen. We just prayed together, just a simple prayer. Just Lord, you know, Kevin better than we do. You know his heart, you know, his need and we don't know what your thought is. But if it's all the same to you, we'd like to keep him. Thank you for hearing this. Amen. It was about that simple. The next morning about 10 o'clock our phone rang at the house and it was Connie Clark on the phone and she was weeping because she said the hospital just called and Kevin woke up and his organs are working. Okay. And the ongoing part of that story was that Kevin survived, came back to fitness and to health. And it was just an amazing thing. So we'll just wrap this up with Vern now. I love it that you're in that moment in time, one of the leaders of the nation. And when the unexpected happens, the first person you talked to is God almighty himself. And it's not just a cuss word or something. It is it is in fact a plea, if you will. Thank you, Vern. Thank you for sharing. Man, just say that and you've heard me say this before. It is amazing how we condition ourselves. It is true. Every time I met a significant situation instantaneously. It was a and I said it. I lived a life of long prayers and short prayers. But by far, short prayers will give me wisdom in this moment. You had it and you still have it. Thank you, brother. You met great seeing you, Dick. God's been I just can't get over to the fact that we have people in leadership in a variety of places in our nation and around the world who think in that way. And there are hundreds, thousands. I know sometimes we don't think that I'm just saying that in this 9-11 week that there are. And for us to be able to know someone like that is a huge encouragement. When I hear Vern say short prayers, my life has been filled with short prayers. God give me wisdom in this moment. Immediately what comes to mind is Paul's letter to the church in northern Greece in Macedonia to the church in northern Greece back in the day 2000 years ago. Macedonia where he says this in Philippians the 4th chapter, be anxious in nothing or about anything. But in every situation, every situation with thanksgiving by prayer and petition with thanksgiving present your request to God. And the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Well that's it for this 9-11-2001 podcast remembrance. I'm going to come back tomorrow with another remembrance from another 9-11 in 1972 which is of a very different kind. This podcast has been reflecting on death and destruction and decisive responses. Tomorrow I want to talk about a 9-11 that's full of life. So we'll see you then. God bless.