The First Pilot At Ground Zero Recalls His First Jobs
Our American Stories
iHeartPodcasts
4.6 • 817 Ratings
🗓️ 14 May 2024
⏱️ 8 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode of Our American Stories, on the morning of September 11, 2001, Peter Braxton was the first military pilot in the air over the burning Twin Towers. It was his first day on the job. Here’s Peter sharing some stories from a few of his first jobs including his first job after serving in the Air Force.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:14.1 | This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, |
| 0:18.3 | the show where America is the star and the American people. To search for the Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people. |
| 0:22.5 | To search for the Al American Stories podcast, go to the IHeart Radio app to Apple Podcasts, |
| 0:29.1 | or wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 0:31.6 | On the morning of September 11, 2001, Peter Braxton was the first military pilot in the air |
| 0:37.0 | over the burning twin towers in New York City. |
| 0:40.5 | It was his first day on the job. |
| 0:42.6 | Here's Peter sharing some stories from a few of his first jobs, including those before and after, serving in the Air Force. |
| 0:51.0 | There's a, like a pitch and putt golf little thing with a little ice cream and miniature |
| 0:57.8 | golf and driving range. And I don't know, I think my high school, whatever, girlfriend or something |
| 1:04.1 | like that got me the job and we're both working there. I mean, this is before, I don't know, |
| 1:08.7 | they had tractors picking up golf balls. So I used to go out there and scoop them up with a little scooper in the driving range and then run over to the ice cream shop and, you know, try to make a twirly ice cream cone. You know, and I'd eat the mistakes. I was a kid. I was 14 or something like that. So I lasted a little while there, but that's a seasonal job, right? So you can't do that in the winter. So then I worked at, I applied for I got the job at Burger King. And I lasted three weeks at Burger King. And the reason I lasted three weeks is I was like bored. My brain was atrophying. I was making these burgers in the back |
| 1:44.8 | and fries and they were like, oh, you all let's promote you to the window, you know, the drive-thru. |
| 1:50.8 | I was like, no, I don't do that. Like, no, do you want, how about the cashier? Do you want to be a |
| 1:56.4 | manager? I was 16 years old. I was like, no, no, no, no, no. It's hard work, actually. I mean, I don't know |
| 2:04.6 | if people understand this. This is labor. I mean, lunchtime. I mean, these things are flying |
| 2:10.6 | off the, you know, the buns are going everywhere. The burgers are flared up and, you know, |
| 2:16.3 | you're running out of cheese. And obviously, it's fast food. So you got to synchronistic. You got to drop the fries. And then the alarm goes off. And it's, I was like, I don't know if this is, you're right? Like, I don't know if this is where I was built to be. I didn't last three weeks at that place. It was, that's the issue. |
| 2:34.7 | That was it. |
| 2:35.2 | It was grueling work. |
| 2:37.4 | You had to be perfect. |
... |
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