American Valor Quarterly Issue 6 - Spring/Summer 2009 | Page 25

From Kansas to Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
The Military Career of General Richard Myers
An Excerpt From Veterans Chronicles
Veterans Chronicles, the American Veterans Center’s weekly radio
series, features the stories of America’s greatest military heroes,
in their own words. The program is hosted by Gene Pell, former
NBC Pentagon Correspondent and Moscow Bureau Chief, as well
as Director for Voice of America and President of Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty.
Each week, Gene talks to distinguished service members from
World War II all the way through Operation Iraqi Freedom,
allowing them to share their insights on the great and tragic
moments in American military history. Veterans Chronicles airs
nationwide on the Radio America network, downloaded via
podcast, and heard online at www.americanveteranscenter.org.
Recently, in a special edition of Veterans Chronicles, American
Veterans Center president James C. Roberts sat in for Gene Pell to
interview former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General
Richard Myers, author of the new book Eyes on the Horizon: Serving
on the Front Lines of National Security.

The newscasters
were talking about
how they thought
a plane had struck
the building, but
there was a lot
of uncertainty. I
thought to myself
that it was such a
clear day with blue
skies here on the
East Coast that no
pilot could be so
stupid as to run into
the World Trade
Center. It had yet
to click that this
might have been
intentional.

Shortly after we began our meeting, the South Tower was hit.
We knew immediately that something was wrong, so I excused
myself and was soon on the phone with the North American Air
Defense commander, General Ralph Eberhart, talking about the
actions we would need to take to land all of the airliners that were
in the air and sort things out. As I prepared to leave Capitol Hill,
In this issue, we share a partial transcript of Jim Roberts’ interview my driver said to me, “Sir, we just got a call from the office – the
with General Richard Myers. The conversation begins with General Pentagon has been hit.”
Myers’ account of his experience on one of our nation’s most
“Oh my goodness,” I thought. The World Trade Center, and now
trying days - September 11, 2001:
the Pentagon. We rushed back from Capitol Hill and across the
General Richard Myers: I was on my way to Capitol Hill to Potomac, and looking toward the Pentagon I saw billowing black
meet with Senator Max Cleland of Georgia. It was prior to my smoke and flames rolling out of it. As we got closer, we could see
confirmation, and it is customary that you meet all the senators on people evacuating and heard the fire alarms going off. Helicopters
the Armed Services committee to make sure that if they have any had landed to ferry some of the staff to an alternate site, which is
issues with your nomination, you can hopefully resolve them in part of our continuity of government plan.
face-to-face meetings. I had been nominated to be the Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but was the Vice Chairman at the I asked my military assistant, who was still in the building,
time. The Chairman, General Hugh Shelton, was on his way to a whether the National Military Command Center was still up and
functioning. He said it was, and I knew that was where I needed to
NATO meeting in Europe and was not available.
go. It was almost surreal; walking back into a building where you
could smell smoke, and the fire alarm was going off all around
James C. Roberts: So that made you the acting chairman.
you, though we were not in any danger. The command center was
General Myers: Correct – I was the acting chairman. When I walked much more quiet and we got down to business as usual. We had
into Senator Cleland’s office for my 9:00 AM meeting, the television a great team, as you can imagine, and they did an excellent job
in the office was showing pictures of the first tower in flames. coordinating our responses while taking in all of the developing

Department of Defense photo

Myers served in the Air Force over a span of 40 years, taking him
from combat in the skies over Vietnam to the highest-ranking
position in the United States military where he served as principal
military advisor to the president.

AMERICAN VALOR QUARTERLY - Spring/Summer 2009 - 26