September 9, 2016 Show “An Interview with Staff Sgt. David Karnes, Used by God to Rescue Trapped NYC Transit Police Officers in the September 11, 2001 Attack on the Twin Towers”

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century Gospel Minister George Norcross in downtown

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

Now here's our host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming.

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Friday. On this ninth day of September 2016,

I am so delighted to have an old friend back in the studio after many years of absence,

Staff Sergeant David Carnes, who I interviewed on at least two occasions in the old

Iron Sharpens Iron program, and providentially he was in town here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where we broadcast

Iron Sharpens Iron. He was in town today to speak at a 9 -11 memorial prayer breakfast, which was held at the

United States Army War College right here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. That was orchestrated by a local

Christian businessman's fellowship, and David Carnes was the keynote speaker there, and he has a remarkable testimony to tell you.

Many of you may have seen the movie World Trade Center, starring Nicolas Cage and Michael Shannon.

Well, Michael Shannon portrayed in the film Staff Sergeant David Carnes, and he was a

Marine who got used to locate and help rescue the New York City Port Authority police officers trapped beneath the rubble of one of the collapsed

Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, and we are going to be discussing with David Carnes today how his faith in Jesus Christ was used by God to actually lead him to that disaster scene, to Ground Zero, and how the

Lord used him to rescue these two men who would likely have perished if he had not gone into that very dangerous site, and I welcome you back after a number of years not seeing you.

My friend David Carnes, it's great to have you back in the studio. It's good to be back, Chris, and good to see you again.

And co -hosting the program with me today is Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Girard. He is also an elder at Grace Community Church of Dawsonville, Georgia, and it's great to have you in the studio for the very first time ever,

Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Girard. Thank you, Chris. Good to be here and honored to be sitting next to David.

Yeah, well, why don't you tell our listeners, before we go into David's story, why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about the

Grace Community Church of Dawsonville, Georgia? Sure. Well, one of your recent guests,

Ray Rhodes, is our pastor there, Chris, a dear friend and compatriot.

Ray and I serve as the elders of a small congregation about an hour northeast of Atlanta, and the church was planted in 2005 by Ray, and we've grown slowly but steadily in those 10 or 11 years since then, and we've got a congregation of about 80 to 100 folks there each

Sunday. I am absent from them right now as a student at the War College, but anxious to return when my year here is complete.

Great. Well, it's great to have you on the program, and Ray Rhodes has some very high compliments about you and your abilities, and he highly recommends that I interview as a guest sometime in the near future, and I plan to do that with you,

God willing, and I'm looking forward to perhaps even one day hearing you preach sometime, because I heard you're very good at that as well.

Thank you, Chris. Well, it's great to have you fellowshipping with us at Grace Baptist Church here in Carlisle for the next year as you work at the local

War College, and I'm sure you're going to be greatly missed in Dawsonville. I'd also like to give a shout out right now to a dear friend of mine that I've known,

I think, since the late 1980s, early 1990s,

Pastor Jim Barker, who was for a number of years David Karnes pastor, and in fact, the

Lord used Jim Barker to lead David to Christ.

And David, if you could, let our listeners know something about your own upbringing and religious background, and when it was that the

Lord actually transformed your heart and saved you. Yeah, sure, Chris. Well, the process started,

I guess, years back when I was just like 12 years old, and I remember being out shopping with my mom one day, and I spotted a kids

Bible called The Way. It was a Bible, I guess, a Catholic Bible for teenagers.

Were you a Catholic at the time? Yes. My dad was a

Messiah Lutheran, and my mom was Roman Catholic, so she brought up her six kids to be

Roman Catholic, and we went to a Catholic school. So you got beat up by those nuns and black habits.

And you probably deserved it though, right? I was a good kid.

I didn't really turn a while until I hit public school in the seventh grade. But so I brought that Bible home, and even as I've always been kind of a pragmatic thinker, and I thought, well, if we go to church every

Sunday, and it's important, and the

Bible's the Word of God, and everything around the church service is centered on the

Bible, I wanted to read the Bible. So I got that Bible, and I took it home, and I started reading it from page one,

Genesis, and I worked my way, and I eventually read through the entire

Bible at age 12. That was probably a very rare thing for a 12 -year -old

Catholic boy to do, let alone a 12 -year -old Baptist boy. I certainly never did that as a 12 -year -old

Catholic boy. Yeah, and I remember when

I got to, I think it was Romans, and it said, Thou shalt call no man a father except your

Father in heaven. And I asked my mom about that, because the

Catholic priests of the church like to be called father, and I says, Mom, it says here, you're not supposed to do that.

And she said, well, I'll tell you what, Davo, after I drop you off at school in the morning,

I'll go to the rectory, and I'll ask the head priest about it. And so I guess she did.

I came home the next day from school, and I was anxious to find out what he had said. And I said,

Mom, what did Father Nee say about that? And she said, well, he said that you should stop reading the

Bible immediately, because it could send you to hell. Yeah, she said that he said that only you have to have a

Roman Catholic priest present, because he's the only one qualified to interpret Holy Scripture.

And I says, well, Mom, I've already read in the Bible that God wants us to know His Word. I'm going to keep reading it.

And she said, okay, son, go ahead. And I finished the rest of the Bible.

But I had no one to mentor me spiritually. So I still, when

I got done, I went out into the world, and I was just, you know, a regular kid with, you know, a lost sinner.

But it always stayed, everything I had read was in my mind. A lot of it troubled me, because a lot of what we did in the the mass didn't line up with the

Bible. And because I had read the Bible from front to back, and but you know, that's all

I knew. So I stayed in the Catholic Church. And then when I got older,

I started making those long trips from Camp Lejeune to New York to visit my wife and started listening to Christian talk radio.

I listened to a lot of political talk radio. But then when those stations would go off, I'd listen to the

Christian talk radio. And Family Radio was one of them that was on.

I don't think it's on anymore. It was. Certainly has changed since then anyway.

Yeah. But you know, there was enough truth in Harold Campion's preaching that I learned.

And then I read the Bible through cover to cover a couple of more times. And, you know, the

Word of God says faith cometh by hearing and hearing from by the Word of God. And the more I read the Bible, the more

God opened up my eyes to truth. And but you know, then

I got married in a Catholic church in Long Island, and you know, we were attending mass. And then

I was very active, you know, trying to you know, get close to God.

I was a lector in the church. I sang in the choir. I did the priest taxes.

I taught the one priest Lotus Notes. I ate dinner with them at the rectory once or twice a week.

There was like four priests there. But then, you know,

God enabled me to leave that. And that's how

I met you. I was going around to different churches pretty much every weekend and trying to visit that church.

And I would test the church by the Word of God. You know, when

I walked in there, I could quickly see if that service lined up with the Bible. I wanted to see a service that actually lined up with the

Bible that I had read. And I visited your service.

I liked that. But then one day I was closer to my house. I was driving down the street, and I saw this.

I had seen a white tent outside this old fish market before. I didn't know what it was about. But then

I guess they had bought a sign and hung it on the building that was still, they weren't moved into the building yet.

They were still in the white tent that said Bible Baptist Church. And I said, oh, it's

Bible Baptist Church. Maybe they're Bible centered. So I went in there and Pastor Barker was preaching. And I heard good, solid

Bible preaching there that really touched me. And I just kept going to that church. But I still wasn't saved, even though I knew

I was going to a church with good, strong Bible preaching. And I read the

Bible through a couple of times. But my issue, Chris, was being brought up all those years as a

Roman Catholic. That's a work salvation. Grace comes to you by going to Mass and going to confession, going to communion, and you work your way towards your salvation.

And I figured, okay, God, I know

Jesus died on the cross for my sins. But I knew that I was a wicked sinner.

I knew my, nobody knows you better than you, you know, what you had done in your past. And I just felt so unworthy of that.

And I said, yeah, okay. It can mean everybody else, but it can't mean me.

He didn't mean me, you know, because I had a pretty rough upbringing and stuff. That was definitely a sign that God was working on you, because that's the truth.

None of us are worthy. Yeah. And then one day I was in the service and, you know,

Pastor Barker was preaching and the light bulb went off. And I knew right then and there,

I remember where I was sitting. I don't remember what day it was, but I know where I was sitting in the church. And I said, yeah, it means me.

And it hit me that my trying to wait to get saved until I was good enough was sinful.

And at that moment, I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior. I gave to me.

And it was not long after that, Chris, and, you know, we got attacked on 9 -11 and God used that new

Christian to go down to the World Trade Center and rescue two officers.

And backing up a little bit, when did you first begin to believe that you wanted to join the military and the

Marines specifically? Well, that was something I probably always knew that was not necessarily join the

Marines, but join the military. My dad was a sailor. And, you know,

I admired my dad. I love my dad. I have a world of respect for him.

And I just figured someday I would, you know, follow in his footsteps and join the Navy.

And back in, I guess, early 75,

I went down to my local recruiting offices, Armed Forces Recruiting Center.

And unfortunately, they didn't have a Navy recruiter there. They had Army, Air Force, and Marines.

And I walked into the Army recruiting office and said, I want to join the

Navy. And he said, well, you got to go downtown the Pittsburgh MEPS station. That's the only

Navy recruiter around, the closest one around. And I said, okay.

And I walked out and he didn't try to recruit me. As I was walking by,

Chris, there was, the hatch was open on the Marine recruiting office. I think he had that, his glass up against that, the bulkhead there.

And he must've been listening because as I walked by, he said, he said, hey, young man, you want to join the

Navy? And I said, yes, sir. And he said, come on in here. And he showed me the big seal of the

Marine Corps was on the back wall. And he goes, you see this? He says, Department of the

Navy, United States Marine Corps. And I said, oh, okay.

And he, I walked in and he pitched the Marine Corps to me and showed me, you know, bootcamp films and that challenged me.

And I said, well, this looks like it'd be even more fun than the Navy. And so I remember going home and telling my dad and I said, my dad,

I'm joining the Navy. Oh no, you didn't, you dummy. And, but then, you know, after I graduated,

Chris and my dad was very proud of me and he saw, he saw the change in me.

That's what I needed. I needed to join the Marine Corps. And so you joined the Marines and this led you to a point where you had already, you had left active duty by the time that a 9 -11 occurred, correct?

Yeah, I was off. I was, I was out of the reserves, out of active duty. I was off contract.

And what were you doing as a living at that time? At that time I was working for Deloitte and Touche.

I was a securities auditor. I audited Merrill Lynch and some other mid -tier broker dealers and banks.

And my office was normally out of the two World Financial Center.

The World Financial Center complex was connected to the North Tower by a skywalk.

And every morning for five and a half years before the attack, I would take a train in from Long Island to Penn Station, then take usually the

A train or the E train down to the World Trade Center. And then I, you know, that let you out right there at the

World Trade Center underground complex. And I would walk up through the

North Tower, across the skywalk into the World Financial Center. So my workplace, like I said, for five and a half years was right down there at the

World Trade Center area. That was my front yard. But two weeks before the attack,

I was called up to my firm's national office. Well, it was a couple months actually before the attacks.

I went up there for a two -week temporary assignment supposedly. And while I was up there, they liked my work and asked me if I would consider staying on in this management development program, which was a very coveted program that the firm had for, you know, the cream of the crop.

It puts you on partner track. You go to national office, you get exposure in a national office function, and then you go back to your practice office and you're the resident expert in whatever you learned in national office.

And you're, like I said, on partner track. And that was just being handed to me.

And I told, when the senior manager offered it to me the first time, I said no. And then he offered it two more times, and I said no.

And I wasn't interested because I lived on Long Island. And I was only supposed to be up there for two weeks.

And, you know, it would separate from my wife. And, you know, we were struggling through some issues at the time.

And I remember going home after, and I says, she says, how was your day?

And I said, well, you know, that senior manager offered me this management development program for the third time today.

And I told her, I says, it's this, you know, I told her about the program. And she says, are you crazy? She says, say yes.

And what would you say no? And I said, well, hon, I got a lot going on right now. And she says, tell him you want it.

And I said, well, I've already told him no three times. I said, I'm not going to go, no,

I'll say yes, ask him. I says, I tell you what, if he asks me again, I'll say yes.

And I went into work the next day. And sure enough, he came over for the fourth time. And he says,

Dave, I'd really like you to, you know, join this, stay on here in the management development program. And I said, well, uh, my wife said, if you were to ask me again,

I had to say yes. So I'm probably the only one in the history.

So she's your drill sergeant, man. I'm probably the only one in the history of the

MDP program at Deloitte that reluctantly entered into it because everybody else is very competitive.

You have to write something. Why do you want to, you know, be in leadership at Deloitte and this and that?

But had I, and I prayed about it, you know, going up there, Chris, because it was relocating.

You know, there was a relocation package involved in it. My wife stayed on Long Island and I relocated and eventually settled into Stanford, the town of Stanford, Connecticut.

But that was a two -year program, you know, so I didn't enter into it easily.

But had I not taken that program, because now that put me in Wilton when the attacks occurred at the

World Trade Center. And knowing that, you know, being a Marine for, at that point, 12 and a half years and being a police officer for a few years in Pittsburgh and a deputy sheriff down in Florida, and I knew where I would be.

You know, my inclination would be to go across the street and help the NYPD cops and the

Port Authority and the firemen evacuate the buildings. You know, so it's by the grace of God I'm sitting here talking to you today because God relocated me on that assignment up in Wilton after turning it down three times.

So you would have been most certainly in that building if you had gone to work that day, if you weren't sick or something.

You would have been in the towers or close enough where you could have been killed easily.

For sure. And so let me, first of all, before we go any further,

I want to announce our email address if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com,

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

USA. And if for some reason you feel compelled to remain anonymous, you may do so if it makes you feel more comfortable.

But otherwise, please give us your first name and city and state and country if outside the USA. And by the way,

Kevin, Gerard, our co -host, you can feel free to ask a question as well. Anytime the moment strikes you, you don't have to wait for me to gesture you or anything because we didn't really have time to prepare about the program beforehand.

So I didn't want you to think that you'd be impolite by chiming in with a question. So you hear that the towers have collapsed.

Now, was it your sister that told you that or did you see it on a television set? I went into work a little early that morning,

I think at 8 o 'clock, and my phone rang right after the north tower got struck.

And it was my sister from Pittsburgh. She was on her exercise bike working out and watching

CNN. And they had come on and they were showing live footage of the tower engulfed in smoke.

And they were saying at the time that they thought a small plane had accidentally flew into the tower.

And I looked out my window, Wilton, Connecticut, as the crow flies is about maybe 45 miles from the

World Trade Center. And I saw a clear, sunny day. And I said,

Joy, well, there's no way that any plane accidentally flew into those towers.

And if it was a small plane, it wouldn't engulf the entire top of the plane, like building in smoke, like you're saying.

And she said, well, what could it be? And I said, well, I think it's probably a hijacked commercial airliner.

And she said, who would do that? And I said, well, the Arab terrorists. They had been threatened.

They tried to blow up the north tower in 93. And my firm had a lot of our people in those floors.

They were one of the ones that came down that dark ladder well, because the building had no power with their faces covered with smoke.

And it was after that Deloitte made a decision to move across the street into the World Financial Center because of the attack on 93.

And at the time, I was listening to a lot of talk radio. And I remember on talk radio in New York City, New York's got a big talk radio, two big flagship

AM stations. And they were saying that that very week that the blind shake was supposed to be sentenced, the one that tried to blow it up in 93.

And they had threatened, if you sentence him, we're going to bring down the towers. Basically, they're going to complete the job.

And somebody had said that they had heard or read somewhere that one of the ways they were going to do it was to fly hijacked airliners into the towers.

So that threat was actually made. And so when she told me that,

I said, well, they did it. And I just like, wow, how dare they?

So how long did it take? What length of time went by before you said to yourself,

I've got to get over there? Well, after she told me that, I gathered up my colleagues in my group there.

And I told them about the World Trade Center being hit and on fire and what

I thought it was. And I went back. We all went back to our offices. And as soon as I was in there, maybe like five minutes, the phone rang again.

And she said, Dave, you're right. I just was watching on TV. A plane flew into the

South Tower. Now both of them are on fire. And so I called my colleagues together again.

And I'm thinking, well, this is it. And I said, well, both towers are on fire.

It's been confirmed a hijacked commercial airliner. I told everyone,

I don't know if you realize it, but at this very moment right now, we're at war. And I told my boss that I was going to join the

Marine Corps, go back in the Marine Corps. I said, you might not see me for a while because I'm probably going to go down. You just knew right away.

Yeah, I'm going to go down to the Trade Center. And then I'm going to go back in the Marine Corps. But before I left,

I went to my office, Chris, and I closed the door and I went to God in earnest prayer for maybe an hour or two.

And I started, I was thinking of trying to put myself in those buildings to understand what those, what were the conditions for that those people were experiencing?

You know, being in a building trapped above where the planes hit.

And that really, really ripped my heart out,

Chris, because I was thinking, you know, when you're cooking a turkey and you open the oven door, you set the heat for 350, 400.

And when that blast of air hits you in the face, and if you touch the pan, how you get burnt, and it's got to be like that inside those towers.

In fact, if you could pick up right there, and let's go to a commercial break, and we'll be right back after these messages.

Don't forget where you left off, David, because that was a really crucial point that you reached. And we're going to be right back after these messages, so don't go away.

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That's wrbc .us. Welcome back.

This is Chris Arns. And if you just tuned us in, and by the way, we apologize to those of you listening live that we did go off the air momentarily.

And we are back on the air now. And those technical problems are just a part of life and live radio.

And we thank Tyler in Mastic Beach, Long Island, New York for alerting us to the fact very quickly that we had gone off the air.

And we trust that you are listening to us now. But for those of you who just tuned us in, I am interviewing once again after,

I don't know, probably somewhere close to eight, nine years. We have not had

David on the program. And of course, Iron Sharpens Iron was on a three -and -a -half -year hiatus, four -year hiatus.

And then we just relaunched last year. So it's been a while since we've had David Carnes on the program.

But I'm so delighted that providentially he was actually in town in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

The first couple of times I interviewed David, we were at our Long Island, New York studios for WNYG Radio.

But now that we're broadcasting from Carlisle, David happened to be in town speaking at the

United States Army War College at a prayer breakfast. And in fact, before I return to David, let me just get one of the gentlemen who's running the prayer, who ran the prayer breakfast at the

United States Army War College. Brother John, why don't you introduce yourself to our listeners and tell us about this morning and why you folks over at this

Christian Businessmen's Association that you're a part of, why do you run this prayer breakfast and so on?

Yeah, this is John Hoberly. I'm a retired Army officer, and I retired after my faculty experience on the

Army War College faculty here in Carlisle. The Christian Businessmen's Connection, a couple of people, primarily

Peter Ostrowski, had a vision to start a program here in Carlisle and a community prayer breakfast in commemoration of the 9 -11 experience in 2001.

And we did that, the inaugural event was at the, we moved it to the Army War College because we wanted to make it a complete community,

Carlisle, the community of Carlisle, Carlisle Barracks and the Army War College. And so we did that last year and we had about 169 people show up.

And so we were energized to do it again this year. And this year we had about 100 people show up.

And our vision was to, obviously the word of God is a primary emphasis, but we are trying to reach across the entire spectrum of mankind.

And so we decided to do it the second time, as I said. And so we had the prayer breakfast this morning and we had

Peter Ostrowski was the Master of Ceremonies.

We had the Command Sergeant Major from the Army War College tell a little bit of what we do at the

Army War College. And then he led us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Then we had a prayer by Steve Bloom, who is a representative in the area here from the state of Pennsylvania.

And then, of course, we had Dave Carnes tell his story for about 30 minutes. And then we had

Dave Belinsky and Dave Waterman tell what the CBMC regional and local reps do.

And then we showed just a bit of, you know, the World Trade Center and what experience that was.

The clip from the movie. A clip from the movie. Oliver Stone movie. And I highly recommend everybody watch that.

And especially, I've watched it four times in the last several weeks.

But the best is the part by Oliver Stone where he goes footage by footage and scene by scene through the entire movie.

And it's really a real meaningful experience to do that.

And then we had a wrap up by both Art Pace, who used to be a chaplain here at the

Army War College, and talk about his experience a little bit with 9 -11.

And then we, as a chaplain on active duty, and then we had John Kellerson, who is the, he's a professor of ethics at the

Army War College. And he was also chosen by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to be the liaison officer directly with the

New York Fire Department. And he was doing, he did that for four years from 9 -11 onward.

And so we wrapped up with prayer. And it was a unique experience for everyone who attended.

Well, thanks, John. And really appreciated you and Peter putting this together.

And I was so delighted to have Dave Carnes in town, providentially, so we could have him back on Iron Sharpens Iron live in the studio.

It's always much nicer to have a guest in the studio than it is doing it by phone. And also wanted to be able to have this time of fellowship with my brother,

Dave, after so many years. So before the break, you were comparing what it must be like in the the

Twin Towers at that time to actually an oven, you know, baking a turkey or so on.

You were like really giving a vivid description there before we went to the break. Yeah, just trying to imagine what it was like inside the building,

Chris, with, you know, a jet plane full of jet fuel exploding inside the building.

You know that that would have to be incredibly intense heat. And that fireball was contained inside the building.

And, you know, all that fuel would be spilled in the surrounding areas and burning.

So that would quickly heat up the inside of the towers above where the planes hit.

And even below, because the jet fuel probably, you know, went down to the lower floors.

And, you know, that fire was raging and leaking into those compartments. And the

World Trade Center had windows. There was no open windows. People were kicking, breaking the windows open.

You remember, I see them after 9 -11. I saw footage of them hanging outside. They had kicked out.

The windows were hanging outside because the heat was probably extremely unbearable.

They probably couldn't even breathe inside that building. So you could even understand somebody leaping to their death?

Oh, for sure. You know, if you were in there, would you rather suffer that incredible pain?

Or would you rather just leap out and pull yourself down and get it over quickly?

You know, I could fully understand why people were doing that. I mean, the worst way to die is in a fire.

I think the pain is just unbearable. So, you know, that was the condition.

And that really, that ripped my heart out. And I asked

God, I said, God, please, please use me. Our worst fears of this great nation have come, has happened today.

Our shores were attacked. And in a terrible, terrible way. And, you know, a cowardly way, innocent people in buildings.

And so I said, God, please use me. If it means my life today, I want, I want to help in any way

I can. And so, and I prayed like that. And I think God meant, knew that I meant business.

And he put it on my heart to go down there. And I would, he would lead me to whatever he would want me to do, if there was anyone needing rescue.

And, and there were so many things that were providential that all fit together, like even the car you chose.

Yeah, my whole life, I was, you know, my, I was a fourth generation steel worker.

And my dad retired out of U .S. Steel and Homestead Works in Pittsburgh after 32 years.

And his dad, my grandfather, put in like 34, 35 years and retired.

And my great -grandfather, I don't know how many years, I never met him, but, you know, I put in like only six and I got laid off and, and then

I became a cop. And, you know, then I did that for five years and this wasn't fitting the

Karnes pattern, you know. I'm supposed to stick with my job, you know. Why is this happening?

And, you know, then I, I went back in the Marine Corps after I was in the active reserves in Pittsburgh then, you know, really gung -ho

Marine, loved the Marine Corps. I still do. And in 87,

I got the opportunity to go to Operation Team Spirit in South Korea.

We were running those ops every year back then. Excuse me.

There's water in that refrigerator. You want to grab him on? And Dave, the, what struck me this morning as you were telling your story and then again today, you know, you mentioned it.

Once you got the news, you didn't just jump in the car and take off. You stopped and spent some time in prayer.

And I went immediately back to Nehemiah chapter one. You know, Nehemiah gets the news that some of the exiles have heard from, from back home, so to speak.

And Nehemiah doesn't just go charging in to see the king. You know, the Bible says, as soon as I heard these words,

I sat down and wept and mourned for days. And I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven. And then that, that section of scripture finishes,

Oh Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name and give success to your servant today and grant him mercy.

That's, that's the verses I was thinking about as you said, you stopped and prayed before you jumped in the car.

Yeah. I, you know, we're, we're nothing without God. You know,

I, without God's anointing, there's no way that I, I could have, you know, done what

I did that day. And this morning you were even, as I was saying earlier, there were so many things that just seemed to fall perfectly into place, even when you didn't know why you wanted to buy a specific car that you saw on the car lot.

And now you realize that is the vehicle that most likely got you there fast enough to be able to do that rescue.

Yeah, that, that was, that's kind of neat the way God worked that one out. But, you know, we were talking about my careers,

Chris, all those careers that I had, you know, that changing jobs, you know, and not going with the carnage tradition of, you know, staying with one job until you retire.

That all was God worked that out. And it all came together on 9 -11 because when, when

I went down to the World Trade Center, I went there as a, as a

Marine in uniform and I, I used my Marine Corps tactics to, to, to map out a hasty patrol route through that debris field.

I had my, my war belt with my two full canteens, first aid kit,

K -bar knife, I had repellent gear, I even had the, the repellent harness on with the

D -link ready to go. And, you know, and then being a police officer,

I, I was comfortable around law enforcement. I knew that, that the

NYPD is the largest department in the world, that they would be in a state of chaos, you know, and if they could even, if their radios even worked, they would be, you know, probably walking all over each other.

And then, you know, the fireman being a cop, you work with the fireman, but, you know, so that knowledge of being a cop came together too.

And then an accountant, you know, God, that's what brought me to New York in the first place was the accounting job, because my workplace was normally the, across the street.

I walked through the World Trade Center tower, so I knew that area very well. And it's interesting that your theme this morning was prepared and ready to respond.

Yeah. And, you know, other things, like you mentioned the car, that all came together that day.

A couple of months before the 9 -11 attacks, my wife had said the lease was up on her

Nissan Altima, and she wanted to, to buy a car instead of leasing, probably.

And so I was taking her around, showing her cars, and, you know,

I, I really couldn't see paying back then 20 some thousand dollars for a new car when you could buy a really nice classic car for half the price.

And I'm, I'm kind of a car guy, so I was, and I'm kind of tight with money, got a little furloughed that way too.

So I was taking her around to some nice used car lots, and one of them was

Galwing Motors in Astoria, Queens. And we went there, and we were looking at, well, it was, they had everything in there.

They had Lotuses, DeLoreans, Lamborghinis, Ferraris, and Bentleys, all kinds of Rolls Royces.

And, you know, I was like a kid in a candy shop, showing her all kinds of stuff. You know, I sat in a DeLorean, I sat in a

Lotus, and then my wife said, this isn't me, and you know it. And I said, yeah, I know. But when we were leaving, we walked by, right by the front was a, a 79

Porsche, a 9 -11 Carrera Targa. And as I walked by,

I said, hon, look at this. And she looked inside, and the seats were all like in huge holes in the driver's seat.

You could see the springs, and get out of here, I don't want a car like that. But I can't explain it,

Chris, but the, I was, I had a feeling, that's when it kind of started. I have a feeling that attracted to that car, and my wife was kind of mad she wanted to leave.

She walked out, and I, I kind of meandered back in, even though I was going to get in trouble. And I brought out my, my

Marine Corps 90 -degree field flashlight. I crawled under the car. I was shining the light, and I was like,

I couldn't see any rust. I find out later that Porsche owners, they baby those cars. They're usually in garages, because they only take them out on nice days.

You know, and they couldn't, the guy told me, well, we can't cover the seat with seat covers, because you got to show it the way it is.

It's against the law in New York to put seat covers on it. So, and then he, I said, can you flip the hood open?

He flipped the hood open, and the engine was in the back, and he said, you know, it's got 140 ,000 miles on it, but 40 ,000 miles ago, the top end was replaced, so this is like a new motor.

And I found out afterwards, it is, kind of, he's right, you know, that the car is so well engineered. But it was $12 ,000, and I was $65 ,000 in debt.

I didn't need that car. I was there showing my wife, she's the one that needed a car. So, I left there, but I, you know, then

I, that car was on my mind. I asked my, I said to my pastor that night, Pastor Barker, I said,

Pastor Barker, you know, I was showing Rosemary some cars today, and I think

God wants me to buy a certain car for myself. And, you know, I'm in a lot of debt.

I don't need a car, but I think God, I'm pretty sure God wants me to buy this car. He says, well, you know, that's a little strange,

Brother Dave. I know that Brother Barker does not believe in modern -day revelation.

He goes, you know, Brother Dave, God works in strange ways sometimes.

He says, pray about that, and God will give you the answer. So, over the next three days,

I was praying on that, and the more I prayed on it, Chris, the more I was convinced that God wanted me to buy that car.

So, one day in the office at Deloitte, I go on Navy Federal's website, and I didn't even discuss it with my wife, and I submitted for the loan for 12 grand, and miraculously,

Navy Federal approved it. And so,

I bought the car, and my wife said I was crazy, of course. She knows

I'm a car guy, though. But then, I think it was on the way home that evening,

I happened to be driving, because it's a story, and we lived in Valley Stream. I was driving by the church, and Pastor Barker happened to be out at the front, and just had finished up the evening service.

And he's there, like he saw me roll up, and it was a black Porsche. He said, Brother Dave, what are you doing?

He says, this is the car that God wanted me to buy, Pastor, and I bought it.

He goes, Brother Dave, but it's a Porsche. And I didn't tell him it was a

Porsche. And he's there, like, well, praise the Lord. And so then, but then, of course, because I was living in Stanford, working out of Deloitte's National Office, I kind of parked the car there, and I didn't really use it, because like I said,

I didn't even need it. I had an 85 Mercury. It was my parents' car that I had bought off of them, and the only thing

I had done is add a quart of oil to it, and then I just parked it. But the morning of the 9 -11 attacks, my 85

Mercury, I had just dropped off to the shop the day before, getting some rust holes in the trunk repaired right across the street from Bible Baptist Church in Elmont.

And so I had no choice but to take that car to work. And, you know, that was the car that, after God put it on my heart to go down to the

World Trade Center, I walked up to the roof of the building, that's where we had the parking, was on the roof, and I jumped into that car, and I went to the barber shop outside my neighborhood in Stanford, and the barber was in there, no customers, you know.

And it was before I put my Marine uniform on, and I said, I need a Marine Corps, you know, high and tight haircut, and I need it quick.

He said, okay, and then he was talking about the trade centers being, you know, both attacked, and his wife was calling him, you know, begging him to come home, and he should have went home, you know, his wife's afraid, you know.

But he said he felt like he had to be there, and, well, he had to be there because he had to give me a haircut.

And so then I got that haircut, I went to the house where I was staying, renting a room, and like I did back in our home in Valley Stream, I always had a starched set of Marine Corps utilities ready to go in case our shores ever got attacked,

I had a uniform ready to go. My wife used to tell me, you're crazy, you know, you're taking up space in the living room closet, you know, but that's why it was there.

And that's why that had a lot to do with why they gave you access to the Ground Zero.

Yeah, I put that uniform on very quickly, like I said, it was ready to go, and I jumped into that car, and I raced down 95

South, New England Freeway towards Long Island, because I had all my

Marine Corps gear was in storage. I was renting a little old lady's garage, a couple houses down from our house.

I rented her garage out, and I went down there to get my stuff. And as I was approaching the

Throxneck Bridge, the electric signs across the freeway were saying all roads to New York City closed.

And that was like, wow, you know, this is serious, you know. And I had a little boom box sitting on a passenger seat because the radio didn't work, and I never had a chance to do anything to the car.

So I was blasting on the little boom box trying to tune in a station, and they said that the

Throxneck and the Whitestone Bridge, the news on the radio, because all the radio stations kind of interrupted too in New York at that time, and they were just talking about the

World Trade Center attack. And they said the Whitestone and the Throxneck Bridge are closed because they think that somebody reported a bomb on both of the bridges.

So I remember like, wow, God, I need to cross those bridges. Please let me be able to get across.

Instead of looking for an excuse to turn around and go home, go to bed or whatever. Yeah, the whole day

I just kept shooting out prayers, you know, and God kept answering them. And so when

I got up to the toll booth, you would expect that, you know, if the bridge is closed, there's going to be a mile long cars.

They're not going to let anybody cross it. But when I got to Throxneck Bridge, there was no cars around.

And the toll taker just said, I was getting my wallet out to pay the toll. And she said, just go.

And that really struck me too, because they don't even want my money in New York. This is really serious.

That never happened again. As I was crossing the Throxneck Bridge, I used to be able to see the sky.

You could see the skyline of New York City, of Manhattan. And where the two towers were, that was very prominent.

And they were gone. And that's when it hit me that the towers had fallen. All I saw was like two big pillars of black smoke.

And so I kind of put the pedal to the metal when I got down the cross island.

I went to where I had my stuff. And the neighbors were out. They saw me get out of the car in my uniform.

And they knew what I was up to. And I got my gear out. And I asked for Mary to fill my canteens with some fresh water.

And I checked my first aid kit, make sure I had my iodine pills and all that stuff. And had my

K -bar, put that on there. You know, just a gear check like a Marine does before he goes off on a mission.

And so I got that all together, got my rappelling gear, even grabbed an old flak jacket

I had that I bought at the surplus and a helmet. And I threw it, just in case, I threw it all in the car.

Because my intent was to stop off at my last reserve unit on the way. But before I did that,

I went over to Bible Baptist Church was not far. And I went over to the church and Pastor Barker and maybe about eight other people were there.

They were running a Christian day school then, K -12 at the time. And they were out on the sidewalk. And Pastor Barker says,

Brother Dave, you're going down there. I knew you would. And I said, yes, Pastor. I says, can we pray right here?

And he said, we pray right on the sidewalk. And then I got in the car and I drove on the

Belt Parkway, which goes straight into Manhattan.

But you know, in the World Trade Center movie, they show me sitting down in some church and there's like a

Pentecost placard on the side. It's a lot of artistic licenses.

Yeah. The pastor's trying to talk me out of going. That's the way the

Hollywood version of it went down. But so I got on the, when

I tried to get on the Belt Parkway, the NYPD had it blocked off. And they, when

I rode up in that Porsche, the roof, the top was off and they saw a Marine in squared away haircut, fresh uniform and all that gear.

They knew that was a first responder. They just said, they just flagged me on. They let me go on. And when I got on it, there were hardly any cars on it at all.

Everybody that was on it was supposed to be a first responder. But I did pass a few cars that unfortunately people don't, you know, the, the entrance ramps were blocked off, but they got on an exit ramp to enter the

Belt Parkway. But I made it down to Sixth Comm Battalion, which was my last unit and tried to,

I thought maybe the unit was activated and they were going to respond, but they were on alert.

That meant they were home, you know, waiting for the phone call. And I remember asking them if I could draw out an

M16 and a pistol from the armory. And they kind of told me to get lost. In fact, we're going to pick up right where you left off there.

We have to go to another station break. And we do have already a few people waiting to have their questions asked.

We'll get to you as soon as possible. But if anybody else would like to join us, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

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This is Chris Arnson. If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours is Staff Sergeant David Carnes.

He is the Marine who God used to locate and help rescue two

New York City Port Authority police officers who were trapped beneath the rubble of one of the collapsed

Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, as depicted in the Oliver Stone film

World Trade Center. Co -hosting the program with me today is Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Girard, and we were so delighted to be at a prayer breakfast this morning here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania at the

United States Army War College. This was a prayer breakfast to memorialize the horrific events 15 years ago on September 11, 2001, the most horrific attack from a foreign enemy on American soil that we have ever experienced as a nation.

And this memorial prayer breakfast was organized by a

Christian Businessmen's Connection Fellowship, which if you want to know more about this organization, and they do have different branches in different parts of the country,

I understand, but you could go to the local area one nearby Carlisle, Pennsylvania to find out more about this organization and also to find out where a location near you may be, go to centralpa .cbmc

.com. That's Central PA, that's for Pennsylvania, cbmc for Christian Businessmen's Connection dot com.

And we thank John Hoberly, who's also here in studio, for being a part of orchestrating that event, which enabled

David Collins to be in studio with us today. Also, I just want to remind you, our friends at Praise Mill Baptist Church in Georgia are having their conference, the

G3 conference, January 19th through the 21st, and I will be there.

Thanks be to God, and also thanks to the generosity of the folks at Praise Mill Baptist Church and Lindbrook Baptist Church in Lindbrook, Long Island, who helped pay for my expenses to get there.

And this is a really phenomenal conference with one of the longest rosters of speakers

I've ever seen at a conference, at one single conference, and not to mention it's not just a long lineup of speakers, it's a very powerful and impressive lineup.

Speakers that include Paul Washer, Stephen Lawson, D .A. Carson, Voti Baucom, James R.

White of Alpha Omega Ministries, Tim Challies, Conrad M. Bayway, who is one of the most powerful preachers

I've ever heard in my life. He is the pastor of Kibwata Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia, Africa.

He will be at this event. Phil Johnson, the executive director of John MacArthur's ministry, grace to you.

And Rosaria Butterfield is giving her testimony. She is a former lesbian and leftist tenured professor at Syracuse University who was rescued from that hellish lifestyle, or should

I say death style, and transformed by the Holy Spirit. She is a born -again believer and she is married to a

Presbyterian pastor. And she has written two books and she is going to be giving her testimony at this event.

For more details, go to G3conference .com. And G3, just if you're wondering, the three

G's are grace, gospel, and glory. And if you go to register at G3conference .com,

please tell them that you heard about the conference from Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And when you get there, tell everybody there that you heard about it through us.

And also, please make sure you visit me at my Iron Sharpens Iron Radio exhibitors booth there at the conference.

So we are back now to discuss the events that led up to Staff Sergeant David Carnes rescuing these two transit police officers who were trapped beneath the rubble of one of the collapsed towers.

And the last you were speaking about before we went to the break, about you went to your very last unit before going to Ground Zero and you were asking for firearms, which they refused to request.

Yeah. Now, why was that, do you think? Well, you know, I wasn't part of the unit.

I had been out for three years. So probably the inspector instructor staff that was there at that time didn't know me, you know.

So, you know, just a stranger showing up, wanting to draw out a weapon. I could see where they wouldn't do that.

But no, were you thinking of needing a weapon because you thought maybe there was terrorist activity there? I didn't know,

Chris. I didn't know. And, you know, a Marine's best friend is his rifle.

So anyway, yeah. So, you know, I just thought

I knew that was an extraordinary day. And, you know, when you have an extraordinary day like that, kind of everything gets thrown out the window sometimes.

But, you know, so they, so after I was there,

I figured, well, I want to get down there fast. I got this, I had a fast car, but I wanted to get there even faster.

So I went over towards the Coast Guard compound, which is adjacent to the

Marine Corps training facility there. And I know that they had helicopters.

I see the Coast Guard helicopters taking off because it's on the south shore of Long Island. It's on the water. And I would see their orange helicopters flying in and out all the time.

But when I got to that gate, it was protected by two

NYPD police officers because the NYPD has training facilities mixed in with that area as well.

And I said, I want to catch a helicopter ride down to the World Trade Center. And they said, that's not going to happen.

And so I said, okay, and I didn't waste much time with that. I jumped back in my car. And, you know, those were little obstacles, but I tried, you know,

I would try to go down there as a, you know, a Marine and go with fellow military or cops.

But, you know, so I jumped back in the car and I got back out on the Belt Parkway. That cost me a little bit of time because I had to go maybe about five minutes off the

Belt Parkway to go there. But I made up the time and I got on the

Belt Parkway. And I remember, you know, when I was heading out, you know, it's a long, straight four -lane highway, maybe even six lanes at some points.

And I knew I was going fast. And at one point

I dared look down at how fast I was going because I was a little curious. And, you know, on a

Porsche, Chris, the main dial in the middle up top is a big tachometer.

And then the speedometer is this little dial off to the right, you know, so you kind of got to,

I had to duck my head down to see under the steering wheel. Which is always a safe thing to do when you're going 100 miles an hour.

Because I guess with the Porsche, you're not supposed to be concerned about that. And I was going in excess of 130.

And that was back when I could still read the dial. And so it hit me that, wow, this is crazy.

Like, I knew that I was going into a very dangerous situation, but it hit me that I could die before I even get there, you know, just driving like that.

Because I had not checked even the air pressure in the tires. I didn't know how old the tires were.

They could be rotten off the car for all I knew. I'd only added a quarter oil to the engine. And you had hardly ever driven this car.

And I had hardly ever drove it. And here I am, I'm going like excessive, incredible speeds.

And then it hit me that, you know, God put me on my heart to go down to the

World Trade Center. God had me buy this car through that whole prayer process, you know.

And I said, I realize God has it covered. I don't have to worry about that.

So I put the pedal to the metal, Chris. I was flying down the

Belt Parkway. You know, people, you know, some people wrote into some articles that were written, you know, you endangered the public.

But, you know, I was on a closed highway.

And amazing with things people will complain about when you rescued people's lives.

And I just knew, I just felt there was a sense of urgency, you know, to get down there quickly.

And, you know, that sense of urgency actually revealed itself when I got down there,

Chris, because when I did eventually locate the two trapped officers, there was an encroaching fire that we couldn't put out.

And, you know, God eventually sent somebody to put that fire out. But had I not got there when

I did, those police officers would have burned alive after being trapped for 10 hours.

So tell us about the scene of Ground Zero when you arrived at the scene. What was going through your head?

Did it look as you expected? Was it totally different than you expected? Chris, let me jump in.

I want to ask Dave a question. As I heard him talk this morning, this afternoon, one of the things that strikes me is that when faced with a crisis situation, his

Marine training takes over and you don't really have to think a lot about the situation because your training just begins to take over.

You just start doing the things that you know are right. So being a dad, serving as a leader in Christian circles, the applicability of that metaphor to the

Christian life is strong. You know, Paul uses it and Hebrews 12, 11 comes to mind.

No discipline is pleasant at the time, rather painful. But later, it reaps a harvest of righteousness in those who are trained by it.

So I think in a similar fashion, you know, if we apply those lessons to the Christian life, when we face the challenges,

David, as you share with us this morning, when you face your crisis, what we want is for Christians to be so prepared, right?

So steeped in scripture that the right things to do, the right things to think, the right things to say, and the right things to do, the wisdom to know the right thing to do, the courage to do the right thing is instinctual to a mature believer.

It's not automatic. It's the result of years of training in God's word and treasuring it in our hearts.

Proverbs 22 comes to mind, train up your children in the way that to go. So when they're old, they will not depart from it.

But that model, what Dave is describing, those decision -making processes that seem instinctual to us as Marines, because of the way that we have been trained, the ethos that we live, that is applicable to the

Christian walk as believers. We want to be so steeped in scripture, treasured in our hearts, so that when we face those crises, which come every day in little ways or larger ways, temptations, challenges, how do we respond when things happen to us, that we want our, if you cut us, as Bunyan said, right, we ought to bleed

Bible. Amen. Yeah. So yeah, go ahead. And by the way, for our listeners who just tuned in and they didn't recognize that voice, that was

Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Girard, who is not only a United States Marine, but he's also an elder at Grace Community Church in Dawsonville, Georgia, and he is our co -host today.

But if you could tell us about that arrival on the scene and what you were witnessing and what was going through your head when you saw this.

Yeah. So, well, before I got there, Chris, I had left 6th Combatant and it occurred to me that, you know,

I had not eaten all day because, you know, I got the phone call from my sister early in the morning and, you know, then went into prayer and, you know, it was late afternoon at this point.

And I figured, well, when I get down there, I might be on the pile for, I don't know how long, you know, so I knew

I had to put fuel in my stomach. So I stopped off on Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn, and went to a

McDonald's and got a double quarter pounder with cheese and a big

Coke and fries. But I remember as I was seeing, as I was walking towards that McDonald's, there was, you know, some neighborhood youth, you know, on the street walking and behind them, you could see the towers, the smoke going up.

And it struck me that these kids were acting like they were laughing and having a good old time, like just oblivious, totally oblivious to the devastation and the suffering that was just a few miles down the road behind them.

And then when I got in the McDonald's, they came in and, you know, the carrying on that was going on was just astonishing, especially on a day like that, you know, when everybody should have been just reflecting on the suffering and what was going on just a few down the roads.

But no, that disappointed me. I guess that's a commentary that's kind of about today's youth.

As a society, we're becoming more and more ungodly. And people are becoming callous to less compassionate to their fellow man.

It's all about me. Anyway, that's a little side note.

So I wolfed down the hamburger and the fries and the

Coke and got back in the car. And when I got towards the

Brooklyn Bridge, I left that clear, sunny, beautiful day.

And I saw the huge wall of smoke that was engulfing.

I couldn't even see the other end of the Brooklyn Bridge, you know. But when I got towards the other end, the city end of the bridge,

I got there was a NYPD police officer there. And for the first time, I had gone through all those other checkpoints, you know, the entrances to the

Bell Parkway, and they had not ID'd me, but this guy ID'd me. He said, I want to see some ID. And I pulled out from my left breast pocket my expired pink

Marine Corps ID. I don't know why they give reservists pink IDs. It's a little slam,

I guess the military does. And now

I'm a retired Marine reservist. I'm stuck with a pink ID the rest of my life.

But I showed him, I flashed him the retired or the expired ID card.

And he said, this is quoting him, Chris. So he said, give them hell,

Staff Sergeant. And, and I continued on. And I went towards my,

I was going to drive right up to the World Trade Center as closest

I could get, I was going to park right, drive into the carnage if I could, you know. And as I was driving, you know, that City Hall area down there.

And, and there was like, I remember seeing some like NYPD captains and lieutenants in the white shirts and just all kinds of people like walking around the middle of the street and, and just covered with dust and smoke.

And, and I was driving with my flashy Porsche into the crowd and they, they, they coughed.

Everybody, oh, you can't go, you can't go down that road. You gotta, you gotta pull, park over there.

And he pointed towards Pace University, was beside the Brooklyn Bridge on the, on the city side. So I went over there and, and between the

Brooklyn Bridge and Pace University, there was a little park that they had, I guess, for students. And some other cars had jumped the curb and parked next to the picnic tables in that little park.

So that's what I did. And, uh, so I got out of the car, I was all covered with dust because unbeknownst to me, the

Tower 7, the third big tower had just collapsed like minutes before I, I crossed that bridge.

So all the paper and the dust and, and stuff from that was raining down. And, you know, it, it covered the inside of my car and me.

And, and, uh, I got my gear, some of it I left back. I didn't think

I would need it. And I, I put the, the roof, uh, back on the car and buttoned it up.

And I was walking towards the trade center with my repelling gear and all that. And, and I, uh,

I stopped and I looked back at the car and it occurred to me like, you know, cause I know like how

NYPD, the, the, the transit people were the brownies in it.

They, they find any reason to tow you and ticket you, even though, even though it was a tragedy like that, they would still do it.

Uh, that's just the way they were. And, and I, I said, God, I shot out a little selfish prayer.

And I said, God, you know, if I survive, could I keep the car? And, uh,

I just walked off towards the trade center. And when I got towards, uh, the towers, uh, on, uh,

Park Row South and, and, and Bessie Street, the JR Music World was right there on the corner, a big store in that area.

And, uh, in the corner where a group of about five or six military guys in uniform had done similar thing to me, you know, they put on their uniforms and we had some army guys,

I think, uh, Air Force, Navy guy and one Marine Sergeant. And, uh, I introduced myself and they said that, uh,

I said, what do you guys have been doing while you were here? And he says, well, we've been kind of, you know, helping the firemen and the police search the fringe areas of the collapse and Tower 7 just fell a little bit ago.

So, uh, all that's been, you know, stopped. Nobody's, uh, it's too dangerous right now.

So, uh, I said, okay. And, uh, I asked the Sergeant if he would take a walk with me, uh, you know, cause as a

Marine, I'm used to a Marine, someone used to work on Marines. So we walked down towards, uh, uh, down Bessie Street towards, uh,

Church Street. Church Street, uh, was the street that paralleled the, the, uh, the, the back square of the, of the, uh,

World Trade Center complex. And when we got down there, there was about like 20 or so FDNY firemen standing there and like in a platoon formation almost.

And I walked up to the one and all these guys just looked like they had been, they were in shock, every one of them, you know, they were exhausted and covered with smoke and sweat and just their, their spirits were, you know, crushed.

And, but, and I said to the one, I says, uh, to your knowledge,

I said, has anybody been conducting search and rescue operations in the epicenter of the collapse today?

And they said, uh, they said, no Marine, if you go in there, you're going to die. The whole thing's unstable.

Towers are still falling and there's explosions. You can't go in there. And I said, okay.

And then I just said, wow, what an affirmation of what

God laid on my heart when I was praying back in Wilton, because that was exactly what the picture he put on my heart, that it was total devastation and no one was in there.

And, uh, throughout the day as I tried to get down there, everybody was trying to talk me out of it. You know, like even my wife, you know, they said, well, you're, you're not going to get anywhere near the city.

All the roads are closed. And, uh, even if you get there, you know, you're just going to be in the way.

Cause they have thousands of professionals that are trained for that. They're going to be all over the place. And, and, uh, but that wasn't what

God had laid on my heart, you know? And when I got there, it was like, wow, nobody's in there, you know?

And I knew that was my mission to go in there. So I, I walked away from them and they had some police, uh, sawhorses blocking a church street because, uh, the word was that the millennium hotel, which was a big black glass skinny building that went way up, uh, was in imminent danger of collapsing.

Next Sergeant Thomas and confirmed that too. He said, we can't go down the street. The millennium hotel's going to, uh, collapse any moment.

And he says, look at how it's leaning. And I looked and it did look like it was bowed pretty bad, but you know, it was black glass,

Chris. And you know, the bottom half of the building was caked with the dust from the trade center collapse.

And it was just an optical illusion and made it look like it was bowed. And being a steel worker, uh, in Pittsburgh, I made structural steel beams.

I knew steel, uh, and I knew its strengths. I knew its weaknesses. And I knew that, uh, the structural integrity of that building could not have been compromised from the two towers falling, you know, there would not be enough heat for enough time to, to compromise the building.

So I was safe. I was confident that we walked down the street and Sergeant Thomas went with me and we were standing right at the lobby entrance to the millennium hotel.

The door was open. The building was abandoned. And we were looking at the world trade center. And as we looked across to where the courtyard was for the trade center, there was a wall of thick gray, black smoke.

And, uh, then miraculously the smoke just opened up. It started out like a circle, a small circle, and that circle just kind of expanded.

And I could see the sun going down on the New Jersey side of the, of the river was a bright orange sunset.

And it was silhouetting the world financial center complex where I used to work. And I remember saying to Thomas, I said, we're looking at the world financial center.

I said, the towers are completely gone. And that's when it really hit me.

I knew that they had class, but I didn't realize that they were completely collapsed. Wow.

And I said, uh, I said, Hey, Marina, I'm going in there and I want you to go with me.

And he goes, I, I staff Sergeant. And I says, when we cross this street, we're, we're charging forward.

If anybody yells for us to, to stop, we're not stopping. I, I staff

Sergeant. And that's what we did. We doubled time to cross the street and, uh, we could hear some of those firemen and cops down the other end, you know, like yelling, but we were kind of focused and we didn't stop and they didn't come after us.

In fact, right. That's where we got to take our final break. I hate to cut you off at a very powerful moment like that, but it's actually a perfect time.

So we can remember where you left off. And, uh, we're going to be having our final half hour with David Carnes and hope that you don't go away because we'll be right back after these messages.

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Thrivant Difference. Welcome back.

This is Chris Sarnes, and if you just tuned in for the last 90 minutes in the next half hour to come, very perfect sound effects right now.

We have Staff Sergeant David Carnes on the program, a Marine who

God used to locate and help rescue New York City Port Authority police officers who were trapped beneath the rubble of one of the collapsed

Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, as depicted in the Oliver Stone film

World Trade Center. In the studio with me is my co -host today, Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Girard, who's also an elder at Grace Community Church of Dawsonville, Georgia.

And just a quick note from our friends at Pittsboro Baptist Church in Pittsboro, Indiana, tonight and tomorrow is their

Christ Our Redeemer conference featuring my friend Pastor Josh Fryman of Community Baptist Church in Riverhead, Long Island, New York, and also

Russell T. Fuller, who is on the faculty at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

For more details on this conference, go to PittsboroBaptist .com, P -I -T -T -S -B -O -R -O -Baptist .com.

And we are going to get to the questions that have been emailed to us as soon as possible. We thank you for waiting patiently.

But you had just, before the break, had reached a pretty powerful scene where this smoke, this wall of smoke at Ground Zero had dissipated, and you charged through that opening when you saw light streaming through with a fellow

Marine. And if you could pick it up from there, and we have to come to the point fairly soon, how you located the two

Port Authority police officers that were trapped beneath the rubble? Yeah, when we got inside,

Chris, we could see the entire 16 and a half acre debris field, and it was pretty vast, and Hollywood could never replicate that.

The World Trade Center didn't even come close to it. Total devastation.

And, you know, we could see the whole thing, and there was nobody in there but us. And it hit me that, you know,

I said to Sergeant Thomas, I said, something's wrong here. There's billions of, literally billions of eyes around the entire world glued to their television right now on this little patch of real estate, and it's just you and I in here.

And I said, let's pray. And I asked God to protect us and to have us reach or do whatever he wanted us to do.

And if he would, if there was anybody still alive in there, that he would lead us to him. And then we stepped off, and I just did a real quick hasty patrol route in my mind, how we were going to navigate through there.

And we started yelling, United States Marines, is anyone in here, anyone here, if you can hear us, yell or tap on the steel.

And then we would listen. And you just hear like the crackling and stuff, and then we'd, you know, go maybe 20, 30 feet and, you know,

United States Marine Corps, and nothing, you know. So we kept going, and we got towards where the fountain used to be.

It was the centerpiece of that part there. There's a huge water fountain, and it was a big, maybe 10 -foot wide brass metal sphere.

Right where the fountain was, that sphere is sitting on top of the collapsed steel.

And it hit me like, I'm going to use that as a reference point. If we find anybody,

I'm going to guide them off of that. I'm going to tell them to go towards the fountain, where you'll see the metal sphere.

And then I would reference off of that, and later I did use that. So as part of that Marine training, it just happened, just boom, like that.

And just as soon as we passed that sphere, Chris, and there were fires raging, and to the left and the right, it kind of reminded me of the soaking pits at Homestead Works at U .S.

Steel, where they, you know, the ovens were bright orange. They were so hot. And that's those, the remaining towers that were surrounding us were like that.

And I was passing by, I could see like ladies' purses and shoes, and you know,

I remember seeing a little Raggedy Ann doll, and I could smell the, you know, like when you singe your hair,

I could smell human hair. It was very, very powerful. It was just a cocktail of all kinds of smells, but the thing that really hit me was the, this was literally a human barbecue going on, and I didn't know how many people were down there.

I just knew that it could be maybe 20 ,000 people trapped in that, and how horrible that would have been, you know.

And we passed where the fountain was, and just went a little ways, and Sergeant Thomas had just got done yelling, and then

I was like, God had like hit me in the head, you know, just the head.

What you're here for is just the head. And I hadn't heard anything, Chris, but I yelled out.

I says, United States Marine Corps, we can hear you. Yell louder. I hadn't heard anything, but I wanted to encourage them in case they, you know, and we listened.

And at that point, we both heard the muffled cries coming from this huge crater.

When the South Tower came down, the force was so strong and so violent, it left the crater and a rim around it, and those cops were like right on the edge of that.

And we walked over, and there was like smoke and heat crackling up, like there was a fire inside that void.

And I yelled down. I says, this is Sgt. Carnes from the United States Marines. Who do

I have down there? And, you know, they were yelling PAPD, and then I took out my my field waterproof tablet, my

Marine Corps issued waterproof pen, and I flipped it open, and I says, I says, I need your names. And the one says,

Sgt. John McLaughlin. And I wrote it down. I says, I says, how many kids you have, and are you married?

And he says, yeah. So I wrote the number of kids down. And then the other cop, he was yelling his name, and I couldn't understand it.

He was Hispanic from Columbia. His name was Jimeno. And I asked him like four or five times, what is your name again?

And then he's there like, oh, jeez. And I'm like, I says, so hang in there, guy. I got to get this.

I says, how about spelling it for me? And he spelled it, and I wrote it down, because being a police officer, just relying on that cop information,

I knew I had to have my facts straight. Because, you know, even on a day like that, there would be people calling and crank calls, and sure enough, they were.

You know, and I wanted to have something there that they would know that, okay, we're missing these two guys, and yeah, they have, you know, two kids, three kids, whatever.

And then I whipped out my cell phone, and I called my wife. And that itself was almost like a miracle, wasn't it?

That was another miracle. I said a prayer before I did that. I said, God, these cell phone systems down all day.

I says, you know, I'm here. You know, let this call go through. And just like the first ring, my wife answered the phone.

And I told her, I said, hon, I made it here. I'm in the World Trade Center. And I said, nobody knows I'm in here, and I've located two

Trapport Authority police officers. Here's what I want you to do. And relying on that police background, that's why

I made that phone call. I figured they might not believe me, and I didn't have time to waste. And if I only got that one call out,

I wanted her to be able to work the phones on my behalf. And I told her, I says, when you hang up with me, hon, call the operator.

Ask for an emergency patch through to the NYPD Command Operations Center. I told him how to guide in and reference off of that sphere, that fountain centerpiece to right where we were at.

I says, you'll see two Marines in uniform, utility uniform, standing there. And I told him what to bring in.

I says, bring in, like, oxygen. I says, bring in water and, you know, jaws of extrication equipment, things like that, first aid equipment.

And then I called my sister in Pittsburgh, who had originally called me that morning, and that call went through.

And I told her the same thing. I figured I'd get the two of them working on it. And then I just waited, you know, and encouraged the two cops that we weren't going to leave.

And after about 10 minutes, one guy showed up. It was, he used to be a paramedic,

Chuck Sereca. And that's just what I needed. We jumped in the hole together. We started rendering life -saving first aid to the first officer we could get to,

Wilhelm N. O. He ended up, he was a rookie. He'd only been on the job for six months, and that happened.

Wow. And, but then we, you know, he drank both canteens of my water. I mean, I had two full canteens.

He downed both of them. I felt bad for John because he didn't get any. He was trapped further back in.

But then I said, God, I said, send us somebody.

Nobody knows we're in here. This guy doesn't have a radio. You know, send somebody with a radio that can help us. And just a couple minutes later, two

NYPD emergency service unit cops, CSU cops, they jump in. Well, they're highly trained in extricating people from building collapses, and they got a radio.

So they called out, and that legitimized the rescue. And everybody knew that this is actual.

There's two, the two Marines found these two Port Authority cops trapped. And so then we're, they still, they didn't have any extrication tools.

They had heard on the radios from the perimeter and the fire trucks and the police cars that, you know, the call went in.

My wife was able to get through, and my sister, and the two Marines might be in there and found two cops.

And so, but we're working, and then there's that encroaching fire coming at the feet of Wilhelmino.

And Patty McGee, one of the NYPD cops, he's beating it with one of the dead Port Authority cops' jackets that was laying next to him.

It was a five -man team they went in with, and only two of them ended up living after the two towers came down.

Dominic Pizzullo survived the collapse of the South Tower, but then as he was trying to free

Wilhelmino, the North Tower came down, and a piece of that came into the void and killed him. Wow, boy. So he was laying next to Patty McGee, but Patty couldn't put out the fire.

So I said, and Scott Strauss, the NYPD cop, he wanted, he said, we got to leave.

We're all going to die in here. This fire's out of control. So I said, I knew God wasn't going to end like that.

I shot out a quick prayer. I said, God, I said, one more time, send somebody here to put this fire out.

I said, we need somebody to put the fire out. Just a short time after that, it's like only a few seconds,

Chris, you know, Tommy Asher, FDNY, jumps into the void, and he's got a big metal fire extinguisher.

He opens that thing up, puts out the fire. It was just a few seconds after the fire. Wow. And, you know, you think about that.

He entered that 16 and a half acre, extremely dangerous steel collapse with a metal canister, fire extinguisher.

Why would somebody do that? Well, because that's exactly what we needed, and God sent him. And, you know, he sent just the right people with the right stuff to answer the prayers that went out that we needed to extricate those costs.

Unfortunately, that stuff wasn't shown in the World Trade Center movie. It didn't show all that God had done.

So it took three hours to get Will Jimeno out, and then a fresh team came in, and they worked seven hours getting

John McLaughlin out. And they were two of the last pulled out alive.

There was a woman that was pulled out at seven o 'clock that morning. John was pulled out at six,

I think, 630. And then at seven o 'clock, FDNY climbed a north tower heap, and there was a piece of an intact stairwell sticking up.

And they found a woman sitting on that stairwell in utter shock. She'd been there all night through the next morning, all day on 9 -11, all night, and just frozen in fear, surrounded by dead bodies.

And she was badly injured, too. And the FDNY rescued her. But, you know,

God orchestrated that whole rescue from start to finish. And it was just, to me, extremely humbling to watch

God, how He answered prayers throughout the day and guided me. We literally, it was, you know, people say, finding a needle in a haystack.

And those two cops were literally a needle in a haystack. Because that's 16 and a half acres of extremely dangerous, on -fire, collapsing stuff.

And they were 20 feet below. And we found them. So praise

God for that. For some reason, He wanted those two cops found. And they were located.

And they're still alive today. Amen. Now, how many people total, I know that there were people who ran out of the buildings who survived.

They escaped that way. But how many people were actually rescued from the rubble? From what, from being down there for that,

I know some people throw out like 19 or 20. But from, I had heard from the epicenter, like these two cops were in the epicenter, five people were rescued alive after the buildings came down.

And only three are alive today. The two police officers that God had led me to, and that woman that came off of that intact stairwell.

Wow. Wow. Well, praise God. We thank you. And I'm sure they thank

God more than anyone that you were used by Him to rescue them.

And we have a listener all the way in Kinross, Scotland, with a question for you.

Would you say that having served in such an extreme and testing situation, the experience has drawn you closer to the

Lord, perhaps made you more conscious of the Lord's sustaining power, and more confident in being ready, willing, and able to serve in whatever is necessary?

Yeah, like I was saying, Chris, that affirmation of God, listening to my prayers and answering them the way

He did, and the strong, powerful awareness of being led by the

Holy Spirit. Yeah, I know

God's still on the throne. God's in control of this world.

And He cares about the affairs of men.

He created us. He loves us. And He wants a relationship with us.

And in spite of the wicked, sinful life that I had led before,

God saw fit to use me. And that still bewilders me. But you know the

Bible, God has a track record of using people that are unworthy.

And that's all the more to His glory. You know. We have Tyler in Mastic Beach, Long Island, New York.

Are you familiar with the influx of people who went and visited churches the day after the tragedy?

Also, do you think that God uses these things in His sovereignty to awaken people to the fact that they need

Christ? Yeah, I spent eight days down there before I walked off the pow.

Chris, and one of the, I think it was like on day nine, there was an event right in Manhattan, in the city, and it was called 9 -1 -1

Christ for the Rescue. And I was invited to that. And Matt Recker, I think, put that thing together.

Yeah, I know Matt, great guy. Yeah, he's got an independent funnel Baptist church in Manhattan. In fact,

I went with Matt and his congregation to a tour of the memorial there about,

I don't know, maybe two years ago, a year and a half ago, something like that. Yeah, so I went to that and I had an opportunity to talk about, you know, how

God had led me that day. You know, and there was people, a lot of people,

I think, were turning to God. Because we do, when there's times of tragedy like that and crises in our lives, we think about God and ask

God to help us. But then, you know, unfortunately, I think it wasn't very long -lived.

Even in this country, 9 -1 -1 was such a horrible tragedy. But unfortunately, you know, the church attendance immediately, after a couple weeks, dropped off back to normal.

Yeah, that is a shame. I wanted to basically make sure that both of you men have a few minutes to close the program with what you most have burdening your hearts and minds that you want to leave our listeners with before they leave the program today.

And perhaps we'll start with you, Lieutenant Colonel Girard. We'll have you speak for several minutes to really leave our listeners with what you most want etched in their hearts and minds.

And then, if you could close the program, David, with your own thoughts. Thank you,

Chris. It's been a privilege to listen to Dave talk today.

You know, the things that he says are so fraught with meaning. And I've gotten emotional a couple of times, you know, when he talked about Sergeant Thomas responding, you know, aye, aye,

Staff Sergeant. You know, he makes me thankful that we live in a country that we live in where God still raises up young men like that who are willing to follow

Staff Sergeant Carnes wherever that may lead. Just two final thoughts,

I think, Chris. Yeah, those events of that day, the

Lord used those to raise up many, many who would proclaim the same message that we are not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It's the power of God unto salvation always has been and always will be. Amen. And so I'm thankful that we're able to proclaim that from the mountaintops at every opportunity.

We are not ashamed of the gospel, come what may. As David has said, the Lord reigns on high.

You know, Americans, I think, like to remember Jesus as a baby in a manger. They're comfortable with baby

Jesus. But the Bible tells us that he's coming back again. And it won't be as a baby in a manger when he returns again.

And that day, every knee will bow and every tongue confess. And also struck by,

Dave, the thought that we are all wicked. You know, when we proclaim the gospel, you know, we're saying that we are the chief of sinners.

And the two most hopeful words in the Bible, Ephesians 2, 4, but God, dead in my sin with no hope, but God.

And that's the hint, I think, any Christian, their life turns on those two words, but God.

And so I'm thankful for my brother, Dave, and for his testimony today. And I'm thankful for the gospel. Amen.

Thank you. And Staff Sergeant David Collins, if you have a few comments that you'd like to make to close the program, and you could take about five minutes, if you'd like.

Well, I don't know if I need that, Chris, but, you know, one of the greatest verses in the

Bible, and they're all great, but, you know, John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that He gave

His only begotten Son, that whosoever should believe on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

That's everyone. God loves the world. We have a very powerful and mighty

God, and we should all be in awe of His power.

Yeah. I mean, if you think about it, we have a

God that's so powerful that He literally spoke the entire universe into existence.

I mean, we are astronauts, and we have these Hubble telescopes that go way out there, and the universe is infinite, and there's the sun, our own sun is so huge, but there's other planets and other suns out there that make that thing look like a tiny little grain of sand compared to our

Earth. You know, it's like, and everything, the whole world all fits together precisely, and everything makes sense mathematically.

We haven't even begun to touch the knowledge of the complexity of a little gnat or a flea.

We can't create life. Only God can do that. We can maybe tamper with it and try to play

God, but we can't. Only God can create something out of nothing, and He did that.

He just spoke the whole world into existence, and He wants us to have a relationship with Him, and we can have that relationship through His Son, Jesus Christ.

And you know, the Bible says, for whosoever calleth upon the Lord shall be saved. All we need to do is call upon God to save us and believe that His Son went to that cross at Calvary and died for our sins.

He paid the penalty for our sins, which the eternity in hell, because we are eternal beings.

Every one of us has a soul. We're going to go somewhere someday, and if you've trusted in Jesus Christ as your

Lord and Savior, then you're going to go to heaven. The Bible is very clear on that, and the moment that you trust

Jesus Christ, the Bible says you are sealed unto the day of redemption. And you know, if you've never had that moment where you've called upon God to save you, then no matter how good a person you think you are, you're going to go to hell, and that's a terrible place, because hell's real, and Jesus spoke more in the

Bible about hell than He did about heaven, and that was for a reason, to warn people about it, that it's real, and He doesn't want anybody to go there.

Hell was not created for us. It was created for the devil and his wicked angels, but through our sin nature, that's the penalty, because we have a just God, and I think

God wants to use every one of us for a purpose. I think every one of us has a life that has a purpose.

You know, my purpose may have been just 9 -11. I don't think so, because I've had so many opportunities to witness, maybe that was the real reason why

I went down there to rescue those two costs, because God gave me a tremendous testimony, and now

I can go out there and share the gospel, and people have an ear for it, because you know, 9 -11, everybody knows about 9 -11, the whole world.

I've been to the Philippines, and you know, people come up to me and want me to autograph their

Bibles, you know, they look at me as some kind of a hero, and I'm just I'm a normal guy, you know, but you know,

God chose to use me that day, and I'm blessed with an opportunity to share the gospel, and I probably don't do it anywhere near enough as I should.

Nobody does. Because that was the very last charge that Jesus made before he left this world, to go forth into all the nations and share the gospel and teach them, and then he left this earth, and that was a charge, that was an order, and if we don't do that as Christians, then that's a sin.

We're disobeying God. I'm not a big fan of bumper sticker theology, or sometimes the sayings on memes on the internet can be too trite and not take seriously the things of God, but it was interesting that the moment

I sent out the first email to promote your interview, somebody had posted a meme that perfectly coincided with you, your testimony, and this whole story.

It was a very simple statement. Rescued people rescue people, and God rescued you from sin, death, and hell, and he used you to rescue people, not only the physical lives of people that were trapped under tons of rubble and awaiting their certain death had you not shown up, but the

Lord is using you to rescue people spiritually through proclaiming his gospel as you continue giving this testimony and telling this story, and I am so delighted that the

Lord has given me the opportunity to give you this platform. I think this is either the third or the fourth time since I've known you that I've interviewed you on Iron Sherpa and Zion, and I would love to have you back again on the

I'm very blessed to know you, brother, and in closing, don't you think, both of you men, that when these tragedies occur, that very often the ministers of the world really miss opportunities when they merely and solely want to bring messages of comfort, where Jesus Christ used an incident, the

Tower of Siloam falling, and it was a far less significant incident than the

Twin Towers. It was 30 people or something who perished when the Towers of Siloam fell, and Jesus used that as a call to repentance, and he wasn't about to start discussing about who was more sinful, those that perished in the tragedy of the

Towers falling or those who he was speaking to. He said, if you do not repent, you will likewise perish, and it seems that that's a squandered opportunity that the ministers very often miss out on when things like this happen.

Do you have anything to say about that, both of you men? There's a lot of ear tickling going on in pulpits,

Chris. I think any indictment of culture in America starts at the church.

The pastors have abdicated their biblical responsibilities. If you want to know why our culture doesn't take marriage seriously, it's because the church hasn't taken marriage seriously for 50 years or more.

That's right. I think the message of Christ is the message today, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, but there's a lot of false gospels getting peddled and a lot of ears being tickled, and I think people in our day, there seems to be at least a hunger for truth, and so we pray that God will pour out his spirit on our land and that the truth will be preached, and that people will repent for indeed the kingdom of heaven is at hand today, just as it was in the day of Christ.

Well, I want to thank you men for being on the program. I want to thank you,

John Hoberly and the folks at the Christian Businessmen's Connection for organizing the event this morning that brought

David out here. I hope all of you have a blessed, safe, and God -glorifying weekend and Lord's Day.

I want to give the Grace Community Church of Dawsonville, Georgia's website for those of you who want to attend the services there.

If you live in Georgia, near the Dawsonville area, or if you're visiting there, this is the church where our co -host,

Kevin Girard, he is an elder there. It's GraceChurchDawsonville .org,

GraceChurchDawsonville .org, and that's D -A -W -S -O -N ville .org, and Staff Sergeant Karnes, do you have any contact information that you care to give, or should

I have the listeners just contact me? They could contact you, Chris, or if they want to email me personally, it's simply

StaffSergeantKarnes at AOL .com. That's S -S -G -T -K -A -R -N -E -S at AOL .com.

Great. Well, God bless you all, and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater

Savior than you are a sinner. We look forward to hearing from you next week and your own questions for our guests on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.