A Job at a Big Bank...or Pilot of Air Force Two?
Our American Stories
iHeartPodcasts
4.6 • 817 Ratings
🗓️ 11 August 2025
⏱️ 9 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode of Our American Stories, on the morning of September 11, 2001, Peter Braxton became the first military pilot in the air over the burning Twin Towers—on what was his very first day on the job. Not long after, he flew multiple combat tours in the Middle East before eventually retiring from the Air Force. In this story, Peter shares what happened when he got a phone call shortly after retirement that began with an unexpected question: “Do you still have your uniform?”
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an IHeart podcast. |
| 0:04.2 | Here insightful, entertaining discussions on today's important health and wellness topics |
| 0:09.1 | on the Health Discovered podcast from WebMD. |
| 0:12.3 | Through in-depth conversations with experts, |
| 0:14.4 | Health Discovered covers everything from tips for healthier living to the latest on therapy and mental health. |
| 0:19.7 | My goal is to really destigmatize mental health treatment and looking at it from a whole health |
| 0:25.6 | perspective. Physical health and mental health can be intertwined. |
| 0:30.0 | Listen to WebMD Health Discovered on the IHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 0:51.0 | This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people. |
| 0:53.5 | You search for the Our American Stories podcast, go to the Iheart Radio app, or wherever you get your |
| 0:59.1 | podcasts. |
| 1:00.6 | On the morning of September 11, 2001, Peter Braxton was the first military pilot in the air over |
| 1:07.4 | the burning twin towers in lower Manhattan. |
| 1:10.3 | It was his first day on the job. |
| 1:12.4 | Not long after he did multiple tours of flight combat in the Middle East |
| 1:16.5 | and then retired from the Air Force. |
| 1:19.1 | Here's Peter with the story about the phone call he received |
| 1:21.9 | shortly after his retirement. |
| 1:25.2 | You know, I was a distinguished graduate and why didn't you fly F-15s or F-22s or F-16s? |
| 1:31.3 | And you're going to remember, I want to be a doctor, A, B, this is before the war. C, I was homesick, |
| 1:38.2 | I wanted to go home. I promise you, if the closest Air Force base to where I grew up was a fighter base, |
| 1:44.0 | I would have picked a fighter. |
... |
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