Timothy Brown was serving as supervisor of field operations in New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani's office of emergency management on September 11, 2001. He was already at work near the World Trade Center when terrorists flew the first plane into the North Tower. He was in the lobby of that building when he got word that a second plane controlled by terrorists struck the South Tower. He immediately rushed over there. Less than an hour later, the South Tower collapsed while Timothy Brown was still inside.

In this edition of Veterans Chronicles, Brown walks us from when he heard of the first attack through the horror of the South Tower coming down all around him. He explains what it felt like and sounded like as 110 stories crashed down around him. He also describes emerging from the rubble and getting out of the area just as the North Tower came down.

Brown believes his life was spared in order to share the heroic actions of firefighters and other first responders on 9/11. And he tells multiple stories of those heroes, many of whom were friends he lost that day. 

Finally, Brown offers his thanks to the veterans who took the fight to the terrorists in the wars following 9/11.