TEXAS — Lt. Col. Brian Birdwell said he should not be alive.
“So many things that should have killed me that day,” he told Capital Tonight.
That day was Sept. 11, 2001. It was supposed be routine for the soldier from Texas, who was serving as a military aide to a flag officer at the Pentagon. He got to work bright and early like he always did. Just before 9 a.m., one colleague got a call to immediately turn on the television. There was an attack on the World Trade Center.
“You see that huge gaping hole in the North Tower. Five, 10 minutes later, on live TV, we watched a second plane, Flight 175, crash into the South Tower,” Birdwell remembers.
Less than an hour later, the nerve center of U.S. defense was under fire. Minutes before, with the Pentagon still unbroken, Birdwell walked away from his desk and stepped into the hallway to use the restroom. On his way back to his office, American Airlines Flight 77 crashed just 15 yards before him.
“The emotion of knowing that I'm dying, that I'm about to enter eternity. I always said goodbye to my wife and my son that morning was the last time I was going to see them until they join me in eternity with the Lord. Those emotions outweigh the physical pain of being burned and the things that come with that because of the intensity of dying the death you know you're dying,” Birdwell said.
Birdwell suffered more than 60% total body burns nearly, half of which were third degree. He said he has the lungs of a 20-year smoker without ever smoking a cigarette.
“The pain threshold you are dealing with in a burn unit, I pleaded for the mercy of death,” he said.
It would take four years for Birdwell to get to a point where his injuries could not be improved any further. In that time, he was honored with the Purple Heart and retired while being awarded the Legion of Merit. Birdwell’s faith and his family support never wavered. He said his wife, Mel, has lived her wedding vows with an unmatched rigor.
“Instead of Mel being back in Texas as a widow, I've got my pictures of my grandkids and the opportunities that we've had in life since then,” Birdwell said.
Today, Birdwell is a Republican state senator in Texas representing District 22. Working in the Texas Legislature's upper chamber, few may realize the physical and mental trauma he conquered just to serve. And he believes there is still a lot of life to be lived.
“No matter our challenges and our difficulties as a nation, this is still the greatest place on God's Earth. There are still men and women that serve, put on the uniform, that the majority of Americans still love this country and will still pay the price to keep her free. That's what I want Americans to remember on this day, not just the lives lost, the lives that were lost that day, but those that responded to the nation's call because of that day, and that we're still, the liberties that this nation offers, are still worth defending,” he said.
And as Birdwell still grapples with the pain of that day, 20 years later, a new generation of first responders is on the front lines, heeding that call.