Twenty-five years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a retired serviceman is reflecting on what helped him survive inside the Pentagon when American Airlines Flight 77 struck the building: his faith.
Lt. Col. Mark Onsei said a conversation moments before the attack led him to read Psalm 91, a passage he believes stayed with him throughout the chaos that followed.
“A civilian who used to be a first sergeant said, ‘Hey Colonel, what’s your favorite Psalm?'” Onsei recalled. “I told him, ‘Psalm 91.’ I was in Vietnam for a year. I prayed it every morning and didn’t lose a single soldier. Why don’t you read it?’ So I sat down and I read it.”
Not long after, Flight 77 struck the Pentagon, killing 184 people at the site and aboard the aircraft, according to the Pentagon Memorial Fund.
Onsei said the impact was immediate and overwhelming.
“I was in the building when it hit,” he said. “Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash so big it looked like an explosion. The next thing I knew, I...
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