During the 21st anniversity of the September 11th Terrorist Attacks, I got to spend part of my day at both the morning and evening services of the Albemarle Baptist Church that was led by Pastor Mark Deloach and evangelist Byron Foxx.
I met a former federal employee who brought in a picture of the twin towers, that used to hang inside of her office. She told me that after the terrorist attacks her and many of her co-workers slept on cots in the hallways for about two weeks, as part of the national security response.
Byron Foxx invited me to speak to the congregation and I told a story about my meeting with Jene Swisher, a survivor of the attack on the Pentagon, during my visit to the Pentagon last year. Jene Swisher was inside the Pentagon, and felt the building shake, as Flight 77 made impact. After the attack he was put in charge of the firefighting efforts which took place out outside of thePentagon and by taking fire engines through a tunnel, within that building, to fight the massive fire from the inside. At the time of the attack only part of the Pentagon was renovated, with fire resistant materials and additional fire suppressant mechanisms, and had the Pentagon not been renovated, the whole building would have burnt down.
While honoring the lives of the lives that were lost, I also encouraged those in the congregation to stand up and to come to the next Albemarle County School Board meetings to speak out against the proposed name change of the Merriweather Lewis Elementary School.
Nelson T. Newman, the author of “Defending The Faith Through Counseling” admired my willingness to fight for the legacies of our founding fathers, and those who were part of American’s founding, and he offered me both his book and the one his son wrote, which is titled, “Men Of Faith From The Civil War”.
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