PARADE: Tell us about the morning of 9/11.
PENNEY: "We had a skeleton crew that Tuesday. It was very quiet. We were in the middle of a meeting when Dave "Chunks" Callaghan, who ran the operations desk, stuck his head in and told us, 'Somebody just flew into the World Trade Center.' We looked outside; it was a crystal blue day.
"We wondered how anyone could mess up their instrument approach that badly. It wasn't until he opened the door again and said a second plane had crashed into the second tower that we knew it was on purpose."
PARADE: What happened next?
PENNEY: "After the Pentagon was hit, the Secret Service called and ordered us to get airborne. We had an idea there was another aircraft coming toward Washington. Because we had just returned from a training mission in Nevada, there weren't any missiles or bombs or high-explosive bullets on the airplanes, and it was going to be a while before the weapons people could get the missiles built up.
"My commander, Col. Mark "Sass" Sassville, looked at me and said, "Lucky, you're with me."
There was another hijacked plane, Flight 93. It is believed that it was headed for either the White House or Capitol.
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