Fighter pilots recall mission to take down Flight 93 on 9/11
CBSN
After two fighter pilots watched two planes hit the World Trade Center 20 years ago, they scrambled into their F-16s knowing that it might be their last mission.
The Air National Guard pilots, Lieutenant General Marc Sasseville and Heather Penney, had no time to spare. The country was under attack. They knew of at least one plane still in the sky that was flying low. It was United Flight 93. "We knew immediately, as soon as we saw the images, that we needed to protect and defend," Penney said. "We understood what the threat was. We were looking for a rogue airliner, flying low, that was not communicating with air traffic control."Ashley White received her earliest combat action badge from the United States Army soon after the first lieutenant arrived in Afghanistan. The silver military award, recognizing soldiers who've been personally engaged by an attacker during conflict, was considered an achievement in and of itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White had earned it for using her own body to shield a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that broke out in the midst of her third mission in Kandahar province. All of them survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.