Twenty-five years after the skies over Washington fell silent under military order, General Dan Caine — now Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — returns to the morning he climbed into a cockpit armed with live missiles and the weight of an impossible mandate. On September 11, 2001, the line between soldier and civilian, between protection and destruction, collapsed into a single terrible question that he was prepared to answer. That he never had to fire is owed, in part, to ordinary passengers on a hijacked plane who chose to fight back — and in doing so, became, in Caine's words, the first
Joint Chiefs Chairman Caine recalls split-second decision to defend D.C. on 9/11
The attacks resulted in thousands of deaths; passengers on Flight 93 died when they fought hijackers to prevent the plane from reaching its intended target.