Sole survivor emerges from Pentagon E-Ring on 9/11

Brian Birdwell called out in a loud voice that he was coming to see Jesus. The words came right after the plane hit the building where he stood in the outer E-Ring between Corridors 4 and 5. He had been at his desk on September 11 2001 when American Airlines Flight 77 struck the Pentagon. The impact came from an 80-ton jet traveling at 530 miles an hour with 3,000 gallons of fuel aboard. Birdwell was 15 to 20 yards from the point of entry. He survived while every other person in that section of the E-Ring died. Severe burns covered 60 percent of his body with third-degree burns over 40 percent. His lungs also sustained heavy damage. The months and years that followed brought repeated surgeries and long stretches of rehabilitation. Birdwell and his family held to their faith through the pain and the slow progress. He later said there is only one Great Physician and that this physician is the reason he is alive. In 1971 he had accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior. That earlier decision shaped how he met the moment of the attack. He did not ask to be spared the calamity but recognized that his life was now in the hands of the one he had followed for decades. After more than a decade in the Texas Senate he took a new post inside the Pentagon as Assistant Secretary of War for Sustainment. The return came 25 years after the attack. He has described the survival and the path back as something no one could invent. The experience left him with the clear sense that the Lord remains in charge of both the physical and the spiritual world.