Lightning Out Of A Clear Blue Sky: 9/11 Eighteen Years Later

Every year on the anniversary of 9/11, I purposely drive past the Pentagon on my way to work from home in northern Virginia. As I motor up the George Washington Parkway toward the Memorial Bridge, with the Pentagon on my right and Arlington National Cemetery on my left, I get a large lump in my throat, followed by tears, followed by a silent prayer.
Eighteen years later, it still hurts my heart very deeply. I see the various flags flying at half-staff in the early morning sunrise on the summer banks of the Potomac, and the horrible events of that day come rushing back as if it was yesterday.
In my former role as President Bush’s liaison to evangelicals, I was in The White House on 9/11. President George W. Bush was in Florida that morning. The plan had been, upon his landing back at The White House on the South Lawn, that he would go directly to the West Wing, and then attend a briefing that I was helping to organize in what is now the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next door to The White House.
On that day, we were welcoming to Washington the national gathering of the American Association of Christian Schools. We had arranged for President Bush to visit a briefing on important issues, making remarks to the assembled group, and departing for his next appointment.
Only that is not what happened. What happened was lightning out of a clear blue sky.
I was in my office at The White House when I heard a man in the hallway yelling at the top of his lungs, “Get out. Get out. This is real.” I was clueless what he was referring to. I had burrowed into last minute details of our presidential briefing and had not been paying attention to the horrific events that had begun to unfold between my arriving in the office after a business breakfast and what would become one of the worst days in American history.
Moments after I heard the man yelling, my phone rang. One of my colleagues in the Office of Public Liaison told me that the Secret Service had just asked all White House employees to depart the building, and that our White House guests – who had begun forming for their entrance into the building – were instead being ushered across 17th Street and away from The White House. In fact, people were moving with such speed to get out that the turnstiles were having trouble accommodating all the activity.
Moments later, I departed my office, made my way to the street-level exit, and witnessed the first massive and disturbing scene of that sad day: the traffic in downtown Washington was snarled beyond belief. Cars going in every direction to exit the city, and pedestrians in a form of mayhem rushing to be anywhere but in the vicinity of The White House as false rumors spread that the Capitol had been hit; that there had been a massive fire on the Mall; followed by more reports that the Pentagon had been hit.
We soon learned that the reality of the Pentagon airline-attack – as well as the downed plane in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and the Twin Towers’ attack in New York – were all too true.
The White House complex was closed almost immediately with no option of getting to my car for a drive home. The subways were halted as well because the line I would normally have taken ran through the Pentagon. More mayhem; more bedlam; the chaos was growing.
Finally, I made my way to the downtown DC office of a friend, who graciously agreed to drive four of us home. A commute that would normally take 45 minutes maximum turned into an hours-long journey.
I remember seeing the smoke wafting from the Pentagon for the first time during that car ride home. It was an unreal, otherworldly scene: Was this really happening?
September 11, 2001, dawned in Washington as the most beautiful day of that year and one of the most beautiful days I have ever experienced. It evolved into barbaric tragedy. Yet out of that surreal day flowed unity of purpose and mission in our nation. Members of Congress came together to sing “God Bless America” on the Capitol steps. President Bush gave one of the most important speeches in presidential history at the Washington National Cathedral three days later. A joint session of Congress was an echo of Lincoln’s “right makes might.”
We must already remember; we must never forget what happened on 9/11. We owe it to the first victims of the war on terror that they did not die in vain.
“And what the dead had no speech for, when living,
They can tell you, being dead: the communication
Of the dead is tongued with fire
Beyond the language of the living.” – T.S. Eliot
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tim Goeglein champions God’s welcomed role in the public square. His years of public service and private initiative have been devoted to faith, freedom, and family. Tim is the Vice President for External and Government Relations at Focus on the Family in Washington DC. He served in high-level government posts for two decades. He worked as Special Assistant to President George W. Bush, where he was the Deputy Director of the White House Office of Public Liaison from 2001 to 2008. He was the President’s principal outreach contact for conservatives, think tanks, veteran’s groups, faith-based groups, and some of America’s leading cultural organizations. He was a member of the President’s original 2000 campaign and White House staff, serving for nearly 8 years. Also, he has served as a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation and a professor of government at Liberty University. Goeglein is the author of the political memoir THE MAN IN THE MIDDLE: FAITH AND POLITICS IN THE GEORGE W. BUSH ERA (B and H Books) which was published in September, 2011. His second book is AMERICAN RESTORATION: HOW FAITH, FAMILY, AND PERSONAL SACRIFICE CAN HEAL OUR NATION (Regnery, 2019), in which he offers a roadmap to national and spiritual renewal by examining American culture. His new book is TOWARD A MORE PERFECT UNION: THE MORAL AND CULTURAL CASE FOR TEACHING THE GREAT AMERICAN STORY (Fidelis Books, 2023). From 1988 through 1998, Tim was the Deputy Press Secretary, and then Press Secretary and Communications Director, for U.S. Senator Dan Coats of Indiana (who was in the Senate for a decade). Between his time with the Senate and Bush campaign, Tim served as Communications Director for Gary Bauer in his presidential bid. Tim was an intern for then-U.S. Senator Dan Quayle in 1985, and for then-Representative Dan Coats and for NBC News in 1986, during his college years at Indiana University’s Ernie Pyle School of Journalism. When he graduated in 1986, he was the Richard Gray Fellow in his senior year. Tim’s first job upon graduation was as a television news producer for the NBC affiliate in his hometown of Fort Wayne, Indiana. During high school and college, he produced a show for WOWO Radio, then owned by the Westinghouse Broadcasting Corporation. The program was heard in 28 states. Tim holds Honorary Doctorate degrees from Concordia University, New York City; and from Faith Evangelical College and Seminary, Tacoma, Washington. Tim is the secretary of the Coalitions for America board, a member of the board for the National Civic Art Society, a member of the board of Family Policy Alliance, and a member of the board of governors of the Young America’s Foundation which owns and operates the Ronald Reagan Ranch in Santa Barbara, California. Tim also serves on the Institute for American Universities Advisory Board. Goeglein served as Board Secretary of the American Conservative Union Foundation. Also, he is a member of the Council for National Policy, the Philadelphia Society, and the Capitol Hill Club. Tim serves on the Sanctity of Life Commission for his church body, the 2.5 million-member Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod; is a board member of The Lutheran Center for Religious Liberty; and has served as a deacon in his church in northern Virginia for 30 years. His hobbies include reading, tennis, swimming, biking, and the fine arts. The most important thing to know about Tim is that he is married to the love of his life, Jenny, of 31 years, and they have two sons Tim and Paul -- one in public policy and one in the fine arts and music.
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