9/11 survivor recalls the ‘best of America’ overcoming pure evil

On Sept. 11, 2001, former U.S. Secret Service Special Agent Darin Kinder was inside the World Trade Center when chaos began.

While he witnessed the destructive power of evil that day, he also watched ordinary people refuse to stand aside amid the flames, confusion and destruction as strangers bled and buildings burned. 

“I like to say that on Sept. 11, 2001, I had a front-row seat to pure evil. But I also saw the best of America,” Kinder told The Christian Post. “And those scenes, those individual scenes in my mind are still very powerful for me to this day.”

With Friday marking the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, Kinder remembers how an ordinary morning turned into one of the darkest days in American history.

Employed as a Secret Service agent for about a year and a half, on Sept. 11, 2001, he and the other agents were in the locker room of the New York field office, located in World Trade Center Building 7, getting dressed for what was supposed to be “a boring day of meetings.”

It was after 8:46 a.m. — the time when hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 (from Boston to Los Angeles) crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center — when the agents were ordered to evacuate the building. 

When he walked outside and stood across the street, Kinder saw flames everywhere and wounded people walking around as he stood. 

“When I came out onto the street after evacuating, I looked up and saw flames pouring out of the tower,” the former agent explained. “I really did not know the enormity of what had happened. I knew that what I was looking at — I don’t know if it was training or instinct or whatever — but I knew it wasn’t an accident.”

Kinder remembered the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, when terrorists attempted to bring down the complex with a bomb in a parking garage that ended up killing six people. 

Even though he did not understand the scale of what was unfolding before him, Kinder knew the World Trade Center had been targeted before. 

Around 30 Secret Service agents, Kinder included, responded immediately to the crisis happening in front of them, providing first aid to the wounded people around them.

“We just kind of flipped the switch,” he recalled. “We went from special agent to first responder.”

As Kinder treated a woman whose arm had been badly burned, a second plane (United Airlines Flight 175) screamed overhead and struck the World Trade Center South Tower. At that moment, he knew for sure that an attack was underway. But he still did not believe the towers could collapse.

After the second impact, Kinder and two other agents entered the North Tower to search for wounded people and help carry them down.

“I remember saying out loud, I’m ashamed to admit it now, but I remember saying out loud to several people as we went up the stairs and they were coming down, ‘Don’t worry, be calm. Nothing can bring these buildings down,'” he remembered. “And gosh, I mean, how naive and ignorant of the situation I couldn’t have been more so.”

Kinder became separated from the other two agents around the 10th floor when he stopped to help a woman who could no longer evacuate on her own. He and another citizen carried her down the stairwell and handed her over to emergency medical personnel.

When Kinder went back inside, he searched for the two agents he initially entered with and continued looking for others who needed help. 

He never saw those two agents again that day, although he later confirmed that both survived. Kinder entered the North Tower several times and eventually made it as high as approximately the 30th floor. In the stairwell, he helped two people by carrying them down.

After the towers came down, Kinder helped evacuate people, clearing the scene and tending to the wounded. At one point, he and another citizen placed an injured person whose leg bone was protruding through the skin into a shopping cart.

Amid the panic, the agent watched as New Yorkers emerged from bodegas, pharmacies and convenience stores carrying water, food and medical supplies. He also saw several individuals tending to the wounds of total strangers — ordinary people who chose to enter the chaos rather than simply look away.

Kinder said he nearly died three separate times that day.

The first came while he was outside the World Trade Center, roughly 80 yards from the base of one of the towers, when it collapsed. Kinder heard the sound and saw the building coming down around him. 

He remembered sprinting away as large pieces of the building and debris fell around him as he ran for his life. But about 30 minutes later, he was back at the site trying to render aid when the second tower collapsed. 

This time, Kinder recognized the sound because it was the same noise he had heard before the first tower came down. Once again, he ran for his life. 

Kinder nearly lost his life for a third time after both towers had already fallen, as he and others went with New York City firefighters to the mezzanine level to search for survivors. While they were there, part of the structure collapsed, and the group was ordered to evacuate.

Although many died on Sept. 11, 2001, Kinder made it out alive. The following day, he asked God why he lived, and others did not: “If You have saved me for a reason, for a purpose, for a mission, what is it?”

“I made a promise to Him that I was going to spend the rest of my days doing the work,” Kinder said. “I call it getting my suit dirty for the glory of God because, by most accounts, I shouldn’t be here.”

Within a year, Kinder received the U.S. Secret Service Medal of Valor for his actions during the attack. He was one of many people recognized for their actions that day.

For 15 years, the framed medal and its citation sat on the floor of his closet until Kinder’s wife convinced him that their four sons needed to see it. Kinder reluctantly agreed to put the medal on the wall in their bedroom.

While the honor of receiving the medal matters to him, Kinder’s thoughts focus on those who never returned home that day, especially the first responders who perished in the line of duty.

Kinder’s book, Bury Me in a Dirty Suit: Discovering Man’s Valiant Purpose in the Aftermath of 9/11, is dedicated to the more than 400 first responders who gave their lives to rescue people. 

For Kinder, remembering 9/11 now involves pausing at 8:46 a.m. Eastern Time and thinking back to how his own morning began. He sometimes calls or texts Secret Service colleagues who were with him that day. His family members call, too.

Remembering the impact that day had on the United States is about more than looking backward, however. Kinder wants Americans to teach younger generations about what happened and the magnitude of the event. He wants people to remember the first responders through how they live and interact with them.

For Kinder, that comes down to a distinction between being a civilian and being a citizen.

“A civilian is focused on self, focused on their own comfort, focused on what’s next for them or what’s in it for them,” he said. “A citizen is different.”

A citizen, he explained, looks toward the community, extends a hand to help and chooses to enter into the problems of their community.

That is how Kinder remembers the people he saw on Sept. 11 — the strangers who brought water and medical supplies, tended wounds and stepped into a day none of them could have imagined.

“So that’s my challenge to people,” he said. “Focus on being a citizen and not just a civilian.”