Focus on the Family

Jim Daly: John, can you believe it? Focus on the Family will celebrate 50 years of ministry next year.

John Fuller: That's really amazing, Jim. We know that behind those 50 years, there are countless real-life stories from listeners. Stories about marriages strengthened, babies saved, and even people coming to Christ. Looking back, it's amazing what God has done.

Jim Daly: So we want you to give us a call and record your story. Details and the link are at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.

Guest (Male): The following program is sponsored by Focus on the Family and is made possible by the heartfelt support of listeners like you.

John Fuller: This is John Fuller, and please remember to let us know how you're listening to these programs on a podcast, app, or website. 25 years ago today, terrorists from the Islamic extremist group Al-Qaeda hijacked four commercial airplanes and crashed them into high-value American targets, including the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and the Twin Towers located at the World Trade Center in New York City.

As you may remember, one valiant group of passengers on hijacked Flight 93 heard about the other attacks, realized their jet would become a weapon, and fought back. They stormed the cockpit, and their plane crashed in an open field in Western Pennsylvania. All 44 people on board died. Today, we're going back to New York City to share the story of one man who started running for his life, like any of us would, when the first tower collapsed.

Darren Kinder: But the Lord stopped me in my tracks because all I could hear as that blanket of debris suffocated all noise, except for the cries and the screams of people in the darkness. "Help me, I'm hurt. Help me, I can't see."

John Fuller: Thanks for joining us for this very special 9/11 edition of Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller.

Jim Daly: John, we certainly have a hero's tale to share with everyone today. Our guest is Darren Kinder, a former Secret Service agent who served under five U.S. presidents. After 25 years in the Secret Service, Darren stepped away to become an author and speaker, founding an organization called Fierce Faith. Darren and his wife, Heather, live in Dallas and have four sons. Here now is Darren Kinder, speaking at a men's event at Peace Lutheran Church in Grand Island, Nebraska, on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly.

Darren Kinder: I was assigned to New York in the New York field office. At that time, it was the largest field office in the country. We were in 7 World Trade Center; it was the third tallest building of the complex. 7 World Trade Center was about 50 or so floors. It was directly across the street from Tower 1, the North Tower. Everyone knows Tower 1 and Tower 2, the big ones that dominated the complex and later came down that day. 7 World Trade Center, little known, about 5:00 or so in the afternoon was the third and last building that collapsed on that day due to fire. It caught fire, and the firefighters couldn't get to it. That was my office building.

I was in the gym and I was just getting dressed. I just finished exercising and I was putting on a clean suit. Contrary to popular belief, Secret Service agents do not often wear suits. We hate it, in fact. We're not FBI agents, my goodness. I had to do it; I couldn't stop myself. But we had a big meeting that day, a big planning meeting for this huge event that was coming in a couple of weeks to New York City. So we're all putting on our suits.

At that point, I felt a rumble, felt a little bit of shake, and saw the lights flicker a little bit. I thought nothing of it and continued to get dressed. Then we were being told to evacuate. I didn't know why, so I ran up one flight of stairs to my desk. I went to my desk and I grabbed every piece of equipment that I would not need that day, and I proceeded to leave every piece of equipment at my desk that I would need that day. But I was a young agent. I was only about a year and a half on, about 26 or 27 years old. You're going to see that theme a lot here today: young and dumb.

We evacuated out and we got to the street. I'm looking at the World Trade Center, looking at it burn. Just one plane had hit at this point, and I was angry because I knew that wasn't an accident. As a student of history, I knew 1993 Islamic radical terrorists had already tried to destroy the World Trade Center, and I knew that they promised to try again. I just didn't think I'd be there.

So we're looking at it and we didn't know what to do. Somebody said, "Hey, let's go grab our first aid trauma kits." These were huge trauma kits that we had for work. All the ambulances were marshaling over there. We decided to take our stuff over there and start doing first aid training. It was simple first responder training. I want to leave you with this little nugget right now: Sometimes the answer to the problem is just do the next thing.

You don't have to have the big answer. You don't have to know how it's all going to play out. You don't have to be a genius. Sometimes addressing a problem, addressing pain, addressing suffering, is simply doing the simple thing that's in front of you. You're going to see that throughout my experience. What I would love to see is for you to apply that to your daily walk. Do the next thing.

The next thing for us was to grab some first aid kits and start helping people. That's what we started doing. I'm working on this woman's arm; it was badly burned. I was just working on her, focused. Then, a massive explosion erupted ahead of me, above me. What just happened? Clearly, the second plane just hit the second tower. I was about 70 or 80 yards from the base of that tower, maybe a football field. Crazy close.

If you remember, the second plane came in lower than the first. That's why the second tower was the first one to collapse that day. I didn't see a plane and I didn't hear a plane because I was just so focused on what I was doing. All I knew was that now chunks of metal and rock and steel and burning jet fuel were falling all around us, and we all scattered like ants.

I found shelter underneath this little portico, and I was with two other agents, John and Tom. Tom said, "Hey, we should go across into the World Trade Center into the lobby and help people get out." Check. Let's do that. That's called doing the next thing. That's what we did. We ran across the street, played Frogger to get across, and we got into the lobby.

We found a stairwell where there was a steady stream of people who were evacuating out. It was an orderly evacuation. We found that, we started going up, and they were coming down. Let me be clear, I didn't have the full picture of what was going on here. To be very honest, I didn't know that two 737s had just slammed into these buildings. Had I known that, I might not have been doing what I was doing. So we need to understand that and keep that in perspective.

We're going up and they're coming down. We get to about the 10th floor and there was a woman in the corner slumped over. She was spent. She was overweight and you could just tell she could not evacuate herself anymore down the steps. What are we going to do? Let's just do the next thing. There was a steady stream of people just going by her and not even looking at her. Stop, take a breath, look the problem in the eye, and do something about it.

I told the two guys I was with, "You guys keep going, find somebody else. I'm going to grab her and take her down." That's what we did. They kept going. I picked her up and we got about two steps. I quickly realized this was a two-man job. I literally grabbed another random dude by the collar and said, "Hey, you're helping me." He snapped out of it. He was like, "Oh, my gosh, of course I am." All he needed was one man with a little bit of vision and a little bit of compassion to bring him along.

So we carried her down the steps. We handed her off to a team of paramedics that was at the bottom. Then I decided I needed to go back up. I got up to about the 30th floor. The door was open on this floor, so I popped my head through the door. I looked down the hallway and I saw something I'll never forget. It gives me goosebumps right now. I saw the hallway lined up with New York City firefighters.

They were beaten and bloody, and their faces were dark with soot. They had been in a fight. These men had answered the bell. I said to them, "Any of you all seen two Secret Service agents running around?" And actually, they were like, "Yeah, we did, actually." I asked which way they went, but they had no idea.

I had a decision to make. I had no way to communicate with them. What was I going to do? I decided I was going back down. I was going to hike the 30 floors back. The towers, by the way, were 110 levels each. As I was walking through that doorway to go down to the stairwell, I heard words I'll never forget. I heard their fire commander say this: "Boys, grab your gear. We're going back up." Time to answer the bell.

Here's what makes those men so special. Here's what makes them better than me. They knew the situation. I was ignorant of the totality of it; they knew exactly what they were going into, and they went up anyway. God bless them. I will forever do everything I can to honor and respect the men and women of the fire department, the first responders, and law enforcement that day who died. I have no way of knowing, but I can only assume those men are part of the 343 New York City firefighters who died that day. They were men who answered the call, who ran to the guns knowing the circumstances, and they answered the bell anyway. What's my excuse? What's your excuse?

Powerful men. But I was going back down. I got to the lobby and I said to myself, "Self, you know what would be a good idea? A good idea would be to call your wife right now." So I saw a bank of payphones. Do you guys remember those? If you're under the age of 20, Google that. I had a payphone and I called my wife. I called her collect. Again, Google that.

I speak to high school kids sometimes and they're like, "What is he talking about?" I called her collect and I said, "Hey, I'm in the lobby of the World Trade Center. I'm helping people get out. I am okay. I love you." She didn't know that the second I hung up that phone, I decided to go outside the complex and look for my guys. All she knows is that 13 minutes later, she's watching on live TV as the tower collapsed. The last thing I told her was I'm in the lobby of the World Trade Center. In those 13 minutes, she had called my parents and her parents, my brother and her brother, and all of our friends. They all watched me die on live TV.

But I wasn't in there. I was standing about mid-block near Church and Vesey Street talking to a police officer, and I heard a high-pitched metal-on-metal screeching sound. I said, "What is that?" I turned up and I looked at the top of Tower 2, which I was about 80 yards to the base of. That's called danger close. I saw the top of Tower 2 buckle and start to collapse.

My first thought was I'm dead. My second thought, which I now attribute to the Holy Spirit, was run. I am a man who listens to the Holy Spirit, and I ran. I ran fast. I used to be fast, but I wasn't fast enough. As I was running, I heard the pancaking floors, each one getting louder, each one getting closer. Death was literally falling from the sky. Large chunks of debris were falling all around me just as that cloud was about to take me.

In those seconds, I saw a fire truck that I should slide under for cover. I took a step in that direction and then I kept going straight. As I was rounding a corner, there was a coffee cart and a donut cart about 20 feet from the fire truck. I thought about getting under there for cover, but then I kept going. Moments later, as that debris was falling all around me, day became night. That beautiful, clear, blue September day became night. My eyes and my nose, everything was filled with pulverized concrete and dust and debris. I was still running because stuff was still falling. It sounded like cars falling out of the sky.

Within a few seconds later, I was out of the danger zone. There was nothing falling around me, so I started to walk. I saw the sunlight out of the corner of my left eye. I walked across the street and realized I was looking north up a very narrow alley. At the end of that other alley was sunlight. I went toward the light.

But the Lord stopped me in my tracks because all I could hear as that blanket of debris suffocated all noise, except for the cries and the screams of people in the darkness. "Help me, I'm hurt. Help me, I can't see." What are you going to do? Do the next thing. Answer the bell.

I just stood in the mouth of that alley and I yelled at the top of my voice, "Follow the sound of my voice! Follow the sound of my voice! There's light this way! Come to the light! Come to the light! Follow the light, brothers!" You see where I'm going. I wasn't thinking it at the time, but do you see the beautiful spiritual illustration that this is? As they made their way to me, I would shoot them up the alley. "Go to the light, go to the light." I don't know, 10, 12, maybe 15 people made their way to me in that time. Eventually, I turned around and realized there was no more light.

A lot of crazy stuff happened. In between the two collapses of the towers, I picked up a woman whose femur was sticking out of her leg. A man brought a shopping cart to me; we put her in the shopping cart and took her to an ambulance. Just madness. I saw a man stagger across the street and just get creamed by an ambulance that was trying to get to the scene quickly. Just madness.

I ended up on the same corner of the same intersection where I was before. I heard a high-pitched metal-on-metal screeching sound. I said, "No, no, no, no, I've heard that. I don't need to stop and look, I'm going." Just seconds after I started running, I heard it again. Pancaking other floors. Now I hear that freight train coming to get me. I take a right and I throw my shoulder into a revolving door. I land on my back. I'm in the middle of a bank, apparently, right as that cloud goes by.

I'm breathing heavy, looking up at the ceiling of this bank, and I hear someone say my last name. "Kinder? What are you doing here?" My guys. Can you imagine the relief? I rolled over, I looked, and saw two dudes that I work with, two colleagues of mine. Wind in my sails. I got up, dusted myself off, and we came up with a plan. We waited 10 minutes for that cloud to dissipate, and then we created a search party. We went back out into that intersection where my whole experience happened at Church and Vesey Street. We started looking for people to help. Unfortunately, all we found were bodies. That's just the truth.

The Lord put me almost on my knees in that intersection. I looked across the intersection at that fire truck, the one I was going to get under. It was completely obliterated, flat on the ground. The wheels were bent out. Then I turned the corner and looked for that little coffee cart I was going to try to get under. I couldn't find it; there was so much destruction.

In that intersection was one fire truck. If it wasn't such an awful circumstance, the image could be kind of funny. There's one fire truck in the intersection that's not damaged. I have no idea how. One of the knuckleheads I was with said, "Hey, we would do pretty good here if we could get the water coming out of that hose and start putting out all these fires around us." Everything was on fire. Gas tanks were popping off, police cars were burning up, and there was office paper everywhere. We didn't know anything about fire hoses and fire trucks.

The other guy, the third guy, said, "Well, I was a volunteer firefighter in high school. I bet I could remember." I said, "Okay, you get it, I'll hold this." Within a minute, water was coming out of this hose. They joined me, and it's not as easy as it looks. For the next 20 or 25 minutes, we just dominated that intersection putting out car fires. That's all we did. That's called just doing the next thing.

We weren't solving the world's problems, but we were bringing a little relief to that little sphere of our life together with brothers. That's what we need to do. People say, "Man, weren't you afraid? Weren't you terrified?" Of course I was. "How'd you do this? You're so brave." Well, number one, did I mention young and dumb? Number two, I have found, and the Lord really revealed it to me that day, I have found the secret to fear. Love is greater than fear. Period. Jesus is where fear goes to die. Amen.

All the others were in there fighting fires, and then I looked around and there were professional firefighters everywhere now. They had finally made their way to the scene from all over the city. The ones that were there initially were gone. I told the guys, "I think we're in the way." So we kind of shrunk back and we did some other things. At the end of the day, we found out all of our office had relocated. They had been moved three times because all of our relocation points kept getting destroyed.

We heard they were about 30 blocks north, right on the Hudson River. So we got in one guy's car and we picked up another agent at this point, so there were four of us. We got there and walked in to get some basic medical attention. They flushed everything out. I had some cuts and bruises. I had a quick little debrief, and then I ended up on a police boat and riding back to Hoboken, New Jersey, right across the river.

You walked out of my apartment and walked two blocks to the river, and you could see the World Trade Center. That's where I lived. I rode a police boat across. Most of the Great Exodus from Manhattan Island that day was done by boat. I got across and I had lost my keys at some point, so I walked through town. People were looking at me like I was a zombie. I walked up the flights of steps and I knocked on the door. My wife opened the door. You talk about an embrace.

Let me go back in the story that I skipped on purpose. When we got up to the rendezvous point, we went in there and we looked awful. We looked destroyed. On one side, there are guys like me who are all torn up and beat up, and we're giving each other a nod, thumbs up, and "Hey, brother." Then I looked, and I'll never forget it, I looked on the other side of the room and I saw another group of coworkers, people that I served with, people that I worked with, in clean suits, shiny shoes, and perfect hair.

They're looking across at this group and I can tell they're looking at us going, "Where have you been?" And we're looking across at that group and what do we think? The same question: "Where have you been?" You can answer the bell or you can not answer the bell. But I decided that night, men, that I was not going to die in a clean suit. I decided that night when my days are done and my number is punched, I wasn't punching out of this world in a clean suit.

So there's my third challenge for you guys: Get your suit dirty. Find the valiant purpose that you were made for. Find the problem that you were created to address, because trust me, you were. Getting your suit dirty is walking in the good works that God has placed before you beforehand. Each one of you are designed with unique skills, abilities, and talent to address a problem in this world. I want you to get your suit dirty doing it.

You aren't here by accident. You were born for this time, for this place, for action right now, because He has a purpose for you and there's no safer place to be. God's will is your purpose. I just want you to get your suit dirty doing it. It starts by being the man standing in the alley, pointing people to Jesus. We do it by being driven not by fear, but by love. And we spend the rest of our days getting our suit dirty.

John Fuller: And with those words of wisdom, we've come to the end of this dynamic presentation from former Secret Service agent Darren Kinder on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly.

Jim Daly: Wow, I mean, what an awesome illustration of how men of God should behave in a crisis by getting their suits dirty, as Darren said. And women too; I know there are capable women in the Secret Service as well. We all can be God's hands and feet in our troubled world today, and boy, does the world need us. I hope Darren's message has inspired you to look for opportunities to be that kind of help.

I should note that Darren earned the Secret Service Medal of Valor for his actions on 9/11, a day when nearly 3,000 people died, including over 400 first responders, 350 of which were New York City firefighters. God bless them and their families. I can't imagine the tremendous vacuum those deaths left in that community.

In the 25 years since 9/11, more than 4,000 people have died from cancer and respiratory issues due to toxic exposure that occurred after the event, mostly at Ground Zero. And of course, the events of 9/11 led directly to the Global War on Terror and the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001. So we also want to thank all of our military families for their service, sometimes making that ultimate sacrifice in the brutal years that followed.

If you need to talk to someone about this topic, maybe you've lost a loved one, please give us a call. We have a great team of caring Christian counselors who would be honored to call you back, listen to your story, and provide help. I'd also recommend that you get a copy of Darren Kinder's book. It's called *Bury Me in a Dirty Suit: Discovering Man's Valiant Purpose in the Aftermath of 9/11*. Through his own story and biblical insight, Darren challenges men to live boldly and answer God's call on their lives.

Get your copy from us here at Focus on the Family for a donation of any amount, and we'll also include a free audio download of Darren's message with quite a bit of extra content. We'd also like to encourage you with a free audio collection called *Enduring the Challenges of Life*. You'll hear how to navigate dark times from Dr. Tim Keller, Dr. Larry Crabb, Joni Eareckson Tada, and more. The collection includes today's presentation from Darren. Just visit our website to get access.

John Fuller: Yeah, you'll find that collection and you can request your copy of *Bury Me in a Dirty Suit* when you visit focusonthefamily.com/broadcast. Or give us a call to speak with one of our counselors; that number is 800-A-FAMILY. Well, join us again on Monday when one wife shares some very practical advice to improve your marriage.

Guest (Female): And learning how to communicate that to your husband, because there were things that weren't getting done. I mean, nagging—we come by nagging honestly, because it's not happening and we're frustrated. So, sitting down and saying, "How can we deal with this?"

John Fuller: Thanks for listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller, inviting you back as we once more help you and your family thrive in Christ.