{"id":10482,"date":"2026-09-12T00:23:20","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T00:23:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/radio406.org\/?p=10482"},"modified":"2026-09-12T01:24:32","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T01:24:32","slug":"retired-texas-air-national-guard-pilot-recalls-protecting-air-force-one-on-9-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radio406.org\/?p=10482","title":{"rendered":"Retired Texas Air National Guard Pilot Recalls Protecting Air Force One on 9\/11"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Retired Air Force Col. Rolando Aguilar, a former Texas Air National Guard F-16 Fighting Falcon pilot, remembers the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, a day off that turned into a scramble to intercept an inbound aircraft he didn&#8217;t yet know was Air Force One.<\/p>\n<p>Woken by his unit&#8217;s crew chiefs with news that a plane had hit the World Trade Center, the young airman scrambled to get ready as the alarm sounded for battle stations.<\/p>\n<p>He ran for his jet and was strapped in when his wing commander gave the order to intercept an aircraft with &#8220;one of our former members&#8221; aboard.<\/p>\n<p>Aguilar didn&#8217;t understand what that meant until he was airborne and caught his first look at the unmistakable blue-and-white distinctive color scheme of Air Force One.<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 640px;\" class=\"wp-video\"><video class=\"wp-video-shortcode\" id=\"video-10482-1\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" preload=\"metadata\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"video\/mp4\" src=\"https:\/\/d34w7g4gy10iej.cloudfront.net\/video\/2609\/DOD_111964475\/DOD_111964475-1280x720-3000k.mp4?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/d34w7g4gy10iej.cloudfront.net\/video\/2609\/DOD_111964475\/DOD_111964475-1280x720-3000k.mp4\">https:\/\/d34w7g4gy10iej.cloudfront.net\/video\/2609\/DOD_111964475\/DOD_111964475-1280x720-3000k.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n<p>With the Federal Aviation Administration grounding every other aircraft in the country, Aguilar and his fellow Houston-based guardsmen, flying for the same squadron a young George W. Bush once flew with, escorted the president&#8217;s plane toward Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, carrying authorization to fire on any aircraft that failed to respond.<\/p>\n<p>The mission, Aguilar said, was executed flawlessly.<\/p>\n<p>Twenty-five years later, he calls it a legacy his unit can be proud of.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The National Guard stepped up,&#8221; Aguilar said. &#8220;We had a role in a real important day in history.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"date\"><span class=\"author-block\">By <a class=\"article-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.war.gov\/News\/Author\/160254\/air-force-2nd-lt-vincent-pfeifferling-texas-military-department\/\">Air Force 2nd Lt. Vincent Pfeifferling, Texas Military Department<\/a>, Pentagon <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Retired Air Force Col. Rolando Aguilar, a former Texas Air National Guard F-16 Fighting Falcon pilot, remembers the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, a day off that turned into a scramble to intercept an inbound aircraft he didn&#8217;t yet know was Air Force One. Woken by his unit&#8217;s crew chiefs ...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10483,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,578],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radio406.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radio406.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radio406.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radio406.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radio406.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10482"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radio406.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10484,"href":"https:\/\/radio406.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10482\/revisions\/10484"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radio406.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radio406.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radio406.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radio406.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}