<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Richard Walton

A Dream Called Freedom

Well, thank you sincerely for that beautiful message and song.

In Testimonies, Volume 9, we are told we are living at the time of the end.

The fast fulfilling signs of the times declare that the coming of Christ is near at hand.

The days in which we live are solemn and important.

The spirit of God is gradually but surely being withdrawn from the earth.

The agencies of evil are combining their forces and consolidating.

They are strengthening for the last great crisis.

Great changes are soon to take place in our world, And the final movements will be rapid ones.

It was a glorious day in our nation's capital.

Summer's warmth still lingered in the air, but the sky already looked like fall, a clear and crisp view as far as the eye could see and from Arlington, Virginia you could see the entire city, the white cupola of our nation's Capitol building glowing in the last of summer sunlight, the proud spire of the Washington Monument, and the odd rolling shape of RFK Stadium far to the east.

And I was on the phone when I heard the odd sound of jet engines screaming at full throttle.

Now, it's not an unusual sound, and at first I didn't think much of it.

In Arlington, Virginia, we're just up the hill from the Pentagon.

The runway for Reagan National Airport was just out of sight a couple of miles to the southeast.

And so jet engines are not an uncommon thing to hear in that city.

But as they grew louder and louder, I began to become worried, thinking that perhaps an airliner was having mechanical problems and trying to return to the runway at Reagan National Airport.

Or perhaps I thought a young fighter pilot, long on enthusiasm and short on sense for his career, had decided to give the bosses at the Pentagon a close haircut.

But then as my building began to physically shake, as the aircraft got closer and closer, I dropped the phone and ran to the window in time to see an enormous Boeing 757-200, its engine screaming at full throttle and bearing the familiar colors of American airlines, come right over my window, drop down, clip the top of a tree that grew just in front of it, bank slightly to the left as though it was headed for the White House, and then make an abrupt, sudden right turn and dive into the ground just short of the western fifth wedge of the Pentagon and I watched as that large airliner plowed right into the side of the building and disappeared.

I saw the fireball and a few seconds later I felt the concussion as the shockwave reached my windows and by that time I'd already grabbed my cap and was running down Columbia Pike towards the headquarters of the most powerful military the world has ever seen.

And as I ran, I joined up with a company of Marines boiling out of Henderson Hall.

There was a young Butter Bar Second Lieutenant jogging next to me.

I said, Lieutenant, where are our fighters?

He said, sir, my best information is that we do not have air cover.

All we have is helicopters from Andrews Air Force Base.

And sure enough, as I looked across the Potomac River, I could see the first Black Hawk beginning to head towards the Pentagon.

And for over 40 minutes, we were in that building, pulling out the first casualties of what's now known as America's global war on terror.

And I don't think the news reported it, but Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld was on the ground that day.

In fact, he'd been in the building when the airliner hit and was standing close to the impact point, coordinating rescue efforts, 1 might say.

For the most part, he was in our way, but it was nice to see the boss carried and was on the ground with us.

And then I saw a security detail get on their earpieces.

They literally picked him up, physically threw him into the back of an SUV and took off, and I thought, well, That can't be good.

A couple minutes later, a Pentagon security vehicle pulled up and said, everybody evacuate back to Henderson Hall now.

We have another airliner inbound for the nation's capital.

And so all of us that had been there trying to help pull people out of that building started back up the hill.

And as we were running up the hill, trying to get out of what we now know as the path of Flight 93 that ultimately crashed in Pennsylvania, We saw a press reporter coming down the hill.

He'd parked as close as he could get and was trying to find the Pentagon.

You could see the plume of smoke from the impact point, but you couldn't see the building because of the terrain feature.

And he asked me as he's running towards the building, he said, is the Pentagon that way?

I said, yes sir, it is, but if you would like to report the news rather than make it, I suggest you stay here for the next few minutes.

And so about 5, 10 minutes later, we received word that we were clear to go back in, and I'll never forget the most memorable sight I saw that day as again I was coming out of the Southern Access Door to the fifth wedge of the Pentagon, helping another Army officer out who was having trouble seeing due to flash burns.

I heard everybody screaming and cheering and pointing east towards RFK Stadium.

I turned to look and right out of that beautiful clear blue sky was an F-16 Charlie, a Viper, down low and slow doing a radar sweep all the way around the District of Columbia.

And you could watch him as he circled around northeast, northwest, over the spires of Georgetown University, and then you could hear that big Pratt & Whitney engine beginning to howl itself as he kicked in full military power and started flying right towards us.

And by the time he flew through that plume of smoke that was the headstone for 125 individuals, he had his burner lit, he dipped a wing, pulled up in a chandel and assumed high top cover over the city and about 15, 20 minutes after he arrived, you began hearing the supersonic booms of F-15 Eagles, our at that time premier air superiority fighter arriving over Washington.

Well turns out the Air Force had a plan to repel any sort of airborne attack against the continental United States, in general, the capital in particular.

Unfortunately it hadn't been updated since we were worried about Soviet bombers flying over the Atlantic Ocean.

And so when the scramble order came, our Alert 5 and Alert 15 aircraft took straight, took off, did what the F-15 Eagle does best, they kicked in burners, rocketed straight up to 90, 000 feet and shot out to sea, got there, looked on the radar scopes and started calling air traffic control saying, we don't have any bogeys, where's the enemy?

By that point, they had to stop and refuel before they could make a high speed dash back to the U.S.

And as it turned out, the first Air Force unit over the Capitol was an Air National Guard F-16 off of Langley Air Force Base in southern Virginia.

But I'll tell you, there's no feeling in the world better than seeing 1 come overhead when you've been without air cover for the better part of an hour.

Well as the afternoon wore on, professional rescue crews showed up.

The Pentagon's own rescue squad had been unfortunately wiped out.

They were stationed right in the area that was impacted by Flight 77.

And as Fairfax and other local Virginia heavy rescue and fire squads began to show up, we were finally released and not having much to do with myself, I finally decided to head into the city and visit a friend.

And as I went, I turned on the radio and I heard our congressional representatives standing on the steps of the Capitol building where Republicans and Democrats together had gathered to inform their country that the People's House would be open the next day and the people's business would go forward.

And when they were done with that press conference, they all burst into an impromptu rendition of God Bless America.

I can't say that our congressional representatives are necessarily elected for their singing ability, but I can say that on that day and at that hour, with the smoke of the Pentagon still in my hair and the pain of flash burns on my arms and face, that song never sounded better to me.

It is 9 years now and a lifetime of history since that fall morning.

So much in this country and in our lives has changed, but the questions posed by that day still linger and are being debated today.

What does it mean to a nation to guarantee the very liberties our enemies wrap themselves in while they are trying to destroy us?

Can we effectively shoot at our foes without hitting the Constitution?

What does it mean to guarantee religious liberty for everyone?

And allow everyone to exercise their faith as they see fit, where they choose, when they choose, because they choose to do so.

Well this morning on the anniversary of a day that changed all of our lives, I would like to share with you some thoughts about religious liberty in America.

Well many would start the story with the framers of the Constitution and that hot summer in Philadelphia where representatives from the 12 states sat down and suffered through the heat and the blue bottle flies to rest from time and history a document whose simple ideals have become a beacon for so much of what is good about the human spirit.

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure to ourselves and to our posterity the blessings of liberty.

Do hereby ordain and establish this Constitution.

And you have time to stop by the National Archives to see that document today, you will see it is old and faded and in many parts barely legible.

But on that day 234 years ago when it was signed, it was bright and new, fresh quill ink on shiny parchment, a dream and an experiment in the first form of government to put the rights of its people first.

President Reagan put it this way, the culmination of men's dreams for 6, 000 years were formalized with the Constitution, probably the most unique document ever drawn in the long history of man's relation to man.

Other constitutions say government grants you these rights.

Ours says you are born with these rights.

They are yours by the grace of God and no government on earth Can take them away from you?

Within just a few years that principle Would be put to the test and Americans would show the world what they meant when they signed that document.

It was 1850 and there was a young guy named Martin Kosche who had come to New York City and started the paperwork to become a US citizen.

He was a Hungarian revolutionary that had fought against the Austrians and 2 years after moving to New York, he went back to Turkey to attend to some business matters.

While there, a large Austrian flotilla was in the harbor at Smyrna.

They discovered who he was, and they sent a party of Austrian marines ashore to seize Kostya so that they could take him back to Austria and hang him.

He was taken aboard a large Austrian ship of the line, a ship of war named the Hussar, and found himself a prisoner without a country, not a US citizen, a wanted criminal about to be hanged alone and in chains.

Well, shortly thereafter, a small American sloop of war, the USS St.

Louis sailed into the same harbor at Smyrna under the command of a young guy named Commander Duncan Ingram.

When Commander Ingram learned from 1 of Kostya's friends who had seen the flag on that ship and he he didn't really know much about Kostya but he knew that Kostya had pointed to the American flag and said, I will be a citizen of that country.

That man went to Commander Ingram and he said, Commander, you gotta do something.

My friend is in chains aboard that Austrian warship.

So Commander Ingram rode over to the Hussar and demanded to see Mr.

And the Austrian Admiral, the commander of the flotilla, somewhat amused, thought, I might as well humor this yank.

Back to Menu

A Dream Called Freedom

Transcript

Sponsor

Recorded

Sound Doctrine