Ash and Honor

Publishing for the 25th anniversary of 9/11: A dramatic, never-before-told, minute by minute account of the military, national security, and aviation response to the devastating attacks against the United States

On September 11, 2001, the United States faced the deadliest terrorist attack in its history. While the events of that day have been widely reported, Ash and Honor is a masterclass of narrative journalism, putting into a shocking new context what really happened.

Investigative journalist Jeffrey Robinson weaves together the stories of more than 60 eye-witnesses to history, many of whom who have never spoken publicly, taking readers on a unique journey deep inside the most crucial and devastating 368 minutes of our time.

Ash and Honor draws from the voices of people in the air and on—or below—the ground, all making crucial, split-second decisions. From the pilot in the cockpit of what was possibly “the fifth plane”; to the pilots in the cockpits of the fighter jets on a suicide mission to stop the hijacked planes from reaching their targets; to Air Force One, where the pilot, facing a direct threat to the plane, told his crew, “Time to be Tom Cruise,” while the Secret Service agent responsible for President Bush’s safety refused his demand to return to Washington.

Robinson reveals what happened in a bunker five stories below the East Wing of the White House, where an illegal order was made to shoot down a civilian passenger jet; in a tense meeting in the National Military Command Center’s top-secret Air Threat Conference; and in NORAD’s underground Cheyenne Mountain, where a direct threat to NORAD was so menacing that the commanding General declared “Battle stations” deep inside and ordered the 30-ton hardened steel blast doors shut.

Meanwhile, the FAA’s national operations manager took it upon himself to order all planes in the air to land; the Canadian Minister of Transport suddenly found himself with 238 planes and 33,000 passengers diverted to Canada; and a three-star general in Alaska stared down Vladimir Putin, who deliberately sent Russian bombers right up to the edge of US airspace as America’s nuclear response was put on a worldwide 15-minute alert.

ASH AND HONOR is the definitive chronicle of the chaos and confusion, the turmoil and pandemonium, told by first-hand sources who guided America through the ash and honor of its darkest day.