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Legacy isn't handed down. We're NBC News. I'm Tom Brokaw. We hope to see you back here. I'm Lester Holt. It's carried forward. Tom Yamez is there for us.
Firefighters are still working around the clock. As the world changes, we look for what endures. We are coming on the air with breaking news right now.
We look for a constant. And from one era to the next, trust is the anchor. For NBC Nightly News, I'm Tom Yamez. A new chapter begins. NBC Nightly News with Tom Yamez. Evenings on NBC. Hello, hello.
Malcolm Gladwell here from Revisionist History. Did you know T-Mobile for Business has an award show specifically for their customers? It's happening October 20th in sunny Orlando, Florida. And I'm encouraging you, yes, you to enter. This event honors outside the box thinking that changes industries, communities, and even the world. And if that doesn't sound great already, I'll be there as the keynote speaker. If your company did something next level using T-Mobile for Business, you're eligible.
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Learn how we'll match price at lowes.com slash lowest price guarantee. And we continue here with our American Stories. On the morning of September 11th, 2001, Peter Braxton was the first military pilot in the air over the burning Twin Towers. It was his first day on the job and this is his story. Here's Peter.
My name is Peter Braxton from upstate New York, originally Rome, New York, a little town. There was a base there called Griffiths Air Force Base. My father was in the Air Force and I guess this is where the story begins. My father, you know, sat me down when I was 15 and he, you know, he had this kind of father-son conversation and he was, you know, a man of few words, but he said, Hey, you should serve this country before you enjoy this country.
You will look back on your service fondly. And I, you know, I was 15. I didn't know what that meant, but I did have an older brother who was about two and a half years older than me. And he ended up going to the Air Force Academy.
So I'm guessing at this point, you know, he must've had this conversation with him a couple years prior. And so now it was my turn. And I think out of maybe laziness, I just, I just applied to the Air Force Academy, followed my brother there. I got in, I got into a number of other kind of Ivy League schools out East. And my brother, I remember telling me, you know, you should, you should probably go to Princeton or you should go to Yale, you know, but, but out of respect for your father and his wishes at that point, I think I was like, okay, well, I guess I could do that later.
It was, you know, it was a good experience having a sibling there cause he was going to look out for you and it's, it's tough school. I graduated the Air Force Academy in 1999. I was shuttled off to pilot training, joint specialized undergraduate pilot training at Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas. You know, I never wanted to be a pilot. I always wanted to be a doctor.
My brother is a neurosurgeon and again, to his kind of his wisdom, you could always be a doctor. You can never fly again. This is your window. You have to, if I were you, I would, I would go fly.
And so I show up to Laughlin, I think it was April, 2000. And I quickly, it's a hyper competitive environment. These are alpha people. They're very, very bright. They're athletic, they're Patriots, they're officers. And it's, it's a hyper competitive environment, but it's also a weirdly cooperative environment. In any event, I graduated a distinguished graduate of my class.
And at the time, the number one graduate picks first and the number two graduate picks second and the number 38 graduate picks last. And I was just, I was getting homesick. My brother was at the University of Pennsylvania in medical school.
I'm from upstate New York. The closest active duty Air Force Base was Maguire Air Force Base, New Jersey. I picked the base and then I picked the plane, the KC-10 extender, which is mid-air refueling.
Its primary mission is power projecting and bringing, bringing the fight to the forward edge of the battlefield. And that could be a fighter package. It could be bombers.
It could be coalition aircraft. And I started that training, I think it was May of 2001. Well, I graduated Saturday, September 8th, 2001. I mission planned my first mission on Monday, September 10th, 2001. And I took off to coast out over the Atlantic at 6 a.m. on Tuesday, September 11th, 2001, was my first day flying as a fully qualified U.S. Air Force pilot. It was, you know, I mean, first day of work, fresh haircut, shiny boots, get up extra early, make sure you're on time early, you know, on time and the Air Force is early. And I remember mission planning the day before with a gentleman who was notorious about taking out the brand new lieutenants who just graduated and, you know, he was ready to kind of beat on you and stress you out and, and make sure you knew that it wasn't over.
It was just getting started. So, you know, it's not necessarily like the Navy where everyone's got a call sign, but everyone does have nicknames. And, you know, we called him the Silver Fox.
He was, I was 22 years old and he had a full head of gray hair. And we took off and coasted out, out over the Atlantic, not too far off the coast of Atlantic City. And everyone remembers, if you don't, a clear blue, glassy, perfect September day in, in the Northeast in New Jersey. And then we got a call, a radio call from NORAD, North American Aerospace Defense, call sign Huntress. And I remember thinking, this is impossible. Like NORAD is located in Colorado. How are they contacting me in this UHF frequency? But they know my call sign. So NORAD calls and says, Team T2, say your state.
And I respond, New Jersey, which is the incorrect response to that question. And I would later very quickly actually learned that they're asking for the status of your aircraft. You know, at the time, I mean, a sample would be, you know, Team T2, Angels 26 heading three, four, zero, four souls on board, five plus 15 fuel, fully operational.
And the only reason they're going to ask that question is because they need you for something. So this is around, I think, shortly after 9 a.m. Eastern time out over the Atlantic. And the, the Silver Fox, the instructor pilot immediately transfers aircraft control to me. So now I'm flying and he's taking the radios. He responds accordingly and properly. And NORAD directs us to contact New York Center, you know, whatever the frequency is, 135.8. He does that.
New York clears Team T2, direct JFK, pilot discretion, five to 50,000 feet. The, the Colonel turns to me and says, deadpan, serious, not joking. I think someone detonated a nuclear weapon somewhere in the United States.
Now there's some context here. I, it's my first day of work and I don't know why he's saying this. I don't know what is going on. I don't think many Americans at this point knew what was going on, but he knew something was wrong. And looking back, he wasn't, he wasn't too far off. But it was my first day and I was confused. I have no idea why he would say that. And maybe he's just trying to stress me out.
Perhaps it's a new guy initiation thing. When they cleared us direct JFK, pilot discretion, five to 50,000 feet. That's when it kind of like dawned on me as new as I was that this was serious. That could only mean that all of the airspace was clear. You don't give somebody pilot discretion to climb, descend, turn left or right at their discretion, unless there's nothing else there that they can quote unquote hit or interfere with. And that's JFK, that's LaGuardia, that's Newark, that's Teterboro, not to mention this air corridor between Boston to Philadelphia, down to D.C., and all of the traffic that's coming over the Atlantic Ocean from the night before.
All of that stuff has got to be out of there for them to give that. And that's when it kind of like dawned on me something was wrong. And this is not something that the Colonel could make happen for fun. And you're listening to Peter Braxton recall his first day as an Air Force pilot and getting that call from NORAD and that pilot discretion to fly between 5,000 and 50,000 feet altitude. In other words, clear skies, not a plane in sight. And that's when he understood something serious had happened. By the way, if you know that area, there's JFK, Teterboro, LaGuardia and Newark, all within maybe 25 miles of each other, throw in Philly and Boston.
And that has never happened in American airspace. It's his first day on the job. When we come back, what happens next?
Peter Braxton shares his story here on Our American Stories. Pets or anyone who loves an easy to clean spotless sofa with a modular design and changeable slip covers. You can customize your sofa to fit any space in style. Whether you need a single chair, loveseat or a luxuriously large sectional, Anibay has you covered. Visit washablesophas.com to upgrade your home. Sofa start at just $699. And right now you can shop up to 60% off storewide with a 30 day money back guarantee.
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Download today. NBC Nightly News. Legacy isn't handed down. We're NBC News. I'm Tom Brokaw. We hope to see you back. I'm Lester Holt. It's carried forward. Tom Yamas is there for us.
Firefighters are still working around the clock. As the world changes, we look for what endures. We are coming on the air with breaking news right now.
We look for a constant. And from one era to the next, trust is the anchor. For NBC Nightly News, I'm Tom Yamas. A new chapter begins. NBC Nightly News with Tom Yamas. Evenings on NBC.
St. Bonaventure's water delivery program by going to stbonaventuremission.org. And we continue with our American stories and the story of Peter Braxton, an Air Force pilot on his first day at work on 9-11, piloting a KC-10 air refueler tanker, and, well, learning that something disastrous had happened in New York City. Let's pick up where we last left off. So, you know, I'm flying now. So I look out the window. I'm in the right seat. And I'm from upstate New York.
I understand and am familiar with the geography of New York City, Manhattan, Long Island. I have family in Queens. I can see the smoke. I see the smoke. And, you know, we're asking, of course, what's going on? They don't know.
They don't want to tell us. And it's kind of irrelevant at this point because we're an instrument of national power. And we just need to execute the job.
We need to do what they tell us to do. And so I look down. I see the smoke. And the only thing that this is embarrassing that I could think of at this point was I remember being a kid watching the 1989 World Series between the Oakland A's and the San Francisco Giants.
I think it was game three live. And there was an earthquake. And there's bridges collapsing. And there is smoke rising from San Francisco. And there's fires.
And there's, I mean, obviously, they canceled the game. And I was like, oh, my gosh, I did not know this. I did not know that New York was in a seismic zone.
I just thought that was a San Andreas or a West Coast thing. But New York City, I thought it was built on bedrock. And this wasn't going anywhere. It must have been an earthquake. People will ask if I saw the towers collapse. And I must have. But I was vertical. My perspective was bird's eye. I was above New York, not horizontal. I didn't know it was the World Trade Center. I saw the smoke.
I saw it was Southern Manhattan. And just then, I think I was kind of snapped back to reality because up next to our wing pull these two F-15 Eagles fighter jets armed with bombs, missiles, J-Dams, Barrows, AIM-9, whatever. I'd just never seen it before.
The ultimate irony, I mean, you spend all this time in the military. Most people never see combat. And in the US, you're not typically seeing fighter. You'll see them. You'll see fighter jets.
And it's fun to watch. And they do flybys. But they're unarmed. They're not. They can't. They won't have these missiles on them flying over a stadium.
You could destroy Philadelphia with one of these things. And here I am a couple hours into my first flight. And these jets pull up. And we are all of a sudden doing an operational mission, giving them fuel. They come in low left. They take the fuel. They climb high right.
And they are armed to the teeth. I mean, it's like a movie. It was like a movie. They were peeling off, flipping upside down, and flying back to New York.
And so all of the fighter jets that you saw flying up and down the Hudson, the East River, patrolling New York, and they had their specific mission and orders, I refueled all of those jets. And of course, the sun had set. And the smoke was still going on. And some of the lights in New York were coming on. And the bridges were lighting up. And we still didn't know what was happening, what was going on.
But we were there. We're doing the mission. And then I remember the other KC-10 coming. And what we'll do, typically, is we'll transfer as much fuel as we can and reserve as much fuel as we need to get back.
And I remember being put on like a 45-mile final approach. And we're flying straight in. We land.
We pull into parking. And I hop out of the seat. And I go to the door. And we open the door. And we have these air stairs. And I'm greeted at the door by an airman wearing a helmet, a flak vest. He's got an M-16 at the ready. And he's, sir, I need to see your ID. And I just remember thinking, OK, we're back.
What happened? Isn't this jet enough identification for you? I'm one of the good guys. And obviously, I didn't say that. But I showed him my ID. He's doing his job. He did an outstanding job.
That's his job. I showed him my ID. He escorted the entire crew off the plane, like, I guess, in a movie, to this Intel vault. And they had this vault. And it was a vault.
It had like a vault with a door, kind of like you'd see in a bank. And we get on there. And we drop our gear. And then just, I mean, the questions just came fast.
And we're just like, OK, we're going to drop our gear. I mean, the questions just came fast and furious. It was, you know, did you hear from United 93? Was there a distress call from American 11 or American 77?
And no, I didn't know. We didn't get anything. We weren't called. I didn't hear any beacons or anything on the emergency frequencies, VHF or UHF. And they still didn't tell us what happened.
I don't, they still didn't tell us what happened. So I hop in my car and the commute from McGuire to where I lived in Mount Laurel, New Jersey, it was about 45 minutes. And, you know, you turn on the radio and you start to hear some reporting of what happened. And at this point, it's close to 2 a.m., maybe 2.30 in the morning. And yeah, I guess I'd been up at that point for almost 24 hours. So I get back to my place.
It's a little townhouse in Mount Laurel. I turn on the TV and it's like the first images that I saw of what had happened that were, I'm sure, playing on repeat on every news channel or every channel in America, maybe even the world. And it kind of like dawned on me that I was the first military asset there, but I was probably one of the last people in America to learn what happened. One of the quotes I learned at the Air Force Academy, we have this little book called Checkpoints, and you've got to memorize all of these things. One of them stuck with me to be like word for word true. There is no limit to the good you can do if you don't care who gets the credit.
Ronald Reagan. That is true. You know, there is no limit to the good you can do if you do not care who gets the credit. But I'll leave you with this. Okay, so people say, well, why weren't you interviewed, you know, as the first pilot over New York on 9-11? And, you know, you often think about like, I guess, the left tackle in football. You know, after the Super Bowl, no one's talking to that guy.
Like, how was it? You know, like, no, I just did my job. What if we weren't there? Well, we wouldn't have won. You know, air refueling is one of the things that really separates our ability to project power anywhere over the earth as a kind of a fighting force. And without that, no one's going anywhere.
You have to have the fuel. So I kind of look at it like, well, I was the left tackle, and they want to interview the quarterback. You know, left tackle's fine with that. But this is an opportunity to talk about the tackle.
Like, what were you thinking during the Super Bowl? Don't let that guy get around me. Contain. That's it. I know the play.
If I do my job, the rest will take care of itself. That's, you know, it's the left tackle story, I guess. And a terrific job on the production, editing, and storytelling by our own Greg Hengler. And a special thanks to Peter Braxton for sharing his story. And I love the metaphor he left us with. And that is he was like the left tackle. He was doing his job. And we got to hear very different perspective because of it.
And what a job he had to do. And it's true without air refuelers. Well, America can't project its air power across the world. And so yes, the pilots get the headlines.
Without the air refuelers and so many other countless people following their orders and doing their job. Well, the pilot's job isn't possible. By the way, what a role his brother played in all of this and his dad.
His whole life would have been different. As his brother said to him, as it related to his desire to be a doctor, his brother said, you can always be a doctor. You can't always be a pilot. And you can't always serve your country, said his father. You should serve this country before you can enjoy this country. My goodness, my goodness, if we could all have dads like that and project that kind of power onto our kids, the power of service. And of course, my goodness being the first on site practically, but the last to know what actually happened.
The irony of the story and the irony of service in the end, the story of Peter Braxton, the story of what public service sounds like, especially in our military here on our American stories. Tired of spills and stains on your sofa? Wash away your worries with Anibay. Anibay is the only machine washable sofa inside and out where designer quality meets budget friendly prices.
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