‘I Just Got Damn Lucky’ 9/11 Fighter Pilot Reflects on Liberal Arts Education
As a Senior Fellow and defense policy expert at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies in Arlington, Virginia, Heather "Lucky" Penney spends her days studying advanced and emerging technologies while dovetailing them into future operational concepts. She is best known, however, for her role as a USAF lieutenant who was one of two F-16 pilots who flew their unarmed planes in an attempt to ram and down United Airlines Flight 93 before it reached Washington, D.C., during the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. She is also a graduate of Purdue's College of Liberal Arts where she received her BA in English (1995) and MA in American Studies (1997).
We sat down with Heather to discuss America today, literature, and the importance of arts and humanities in 2024.
In 2020, you said to the Washington Post: “There are things in this world that are more important than ourselves. We belong to something greater than ourselves. As complex and diverse and discordant as it is, this thing, this idea called America, binds us together in citizenship and community and brotherhood." How do you feel about your words now?
I think recognizing that we all belong to something that is bigger than ourselves that binds us together is ever more relevant and ever more essential in today's current environment. We see the nation being ripped apart, not by the majority of Americans, but by a much smaller number of individuals who understand the power and addictive nature of self-righteousness, vitriol, and hate. We have political parties that are not fundamentally interested in solving America's problems and bringing Americans together, but in perpetuating their problem statement for their own party power.
Who we are as America, the “American Dream,” is about throwing the net of potential and opportunity as wide as possible. That's part of the reason I'm so passionate about the College of Liberal Arts and, specifically, American Studies, because by focusing on and considering who we are as Americans, and bringing all the different disciplines within the liberal arts and humanities together to look at the issues of today, we can address where we've been, who we’ve been, and where we're going. We're not interested in counting the number of angels on the head of a pin. That's not where today's humanities are. Today's humanities are: How do we use these tools? How do we use these disciplines? How do we consider the vast intellectual work that has gone before us to make today's and tomorrow's world a better place?
That's what I love about Purdue. They seek to apply the humanities. It's not just a self-licking ice cream cone. That's not what Purdue’s about. Purdue’s liberal arts is about the application. How do we equip and empower our future young people today? How do we empower them to make America an even better, grander place?
When you were deciding to go to college as an undergraduate and you chose Purdue, what led to that decision?
My parents and I needed a couple state lines between us. I was a good kid, but I was finding myself. I was a terrible procrastinator, and, at the time, different universities had different application dates. My high school counselor was like, “Purdue’s a good school.” So, I said, “Okay.” I applied and thank goodness Purdue accepted me because it was the only school left, having the latest application date from the ones they had picked for me. So, I just got damn lucky. That was it. A better way to phrase it would be: “Fate chose Purdue for me.”
After you were here, what were your thoughts about feeling like it was fate? Did you feel that you were drawn here, specifically, while you were in your major?
I stumbled into literature at first because I thought that I wanted to be an engineer. If you want to be a fighter pilot, then, of course, you have to be an engineer. I discovered engineering was not for me. But I'd always loved literature and English in high school, so I started taking classes in the Liberal Arts. It was magnetic. It was like a force of gravity that just drew me in: because of the richness of the material, because of the level of critical thinking, because the professors were so invested. They were so skilled in, not just the material, but helping cultivate the minds of students. I mean, I just felt like I was flourishing under the teachings of Dick Thompson and Susan Curtis and Bob Lamb. They were my core professors. I would have not become me had it not been for them. They were able to ignite that intellectual curiosity and, at the same time, direct and cultivate it in a manner that gave me the communication and critical thinking skills necessary, the ability to think across disciplines, to deconstruct, to synthesize any problem, and then put that forward with clarity, elegance, and essence. I could not have gotten that anywhere else.
Today, I have research assistants that are brilliant. They're highly motivated. They're highly educated. But their training is still fundamentally very academic. They haven't been able to cross the divide into the real world just yet. It feels like their analysis is mere reporting. They're able to cast a wide net, get a lot of information, but they can't turn that information into meaning. They can't turn that information into consequences. They can't distill what the problem is, and how to move forward.
How does liberal arts, or your education in liberal arts, affect your day-to-day tasks?
I couldn't do what I do today if it weren't for my training in the liberal arts. Whether it's the art of rhetoric, the ability to think outside the box, to apply critical thinking skills in understanding real-world problem sets creatively and then finding potential solutions. Today, there is so much that’s simply ingrained into who I am. It's hard to say, “These five things I got from Purdue.” No, Purdue made me who I am today.
What are you reading these days?
I am reading a combination of history and military future fiction. And, I have to admit, I love children’s literature. Kate DiCamillo, I just love her rhetoric. I love how she crafts her words. Her stories are so hopeful and heartbreaking at the same time. I also read a lot of James Salter. I’m big into Salter right now. I'm reading a lot of aviation “There I Was” books; so, individual pilots talking about their stories. A lot of these pilots are Korean War or Vietnam vets, and so forth. It's kind of all over the place.
The best thinkers are the widest readers. It's interesting that you mentioned fiction writers. What do you think the value of fiction is in your sphere of influence? How does fiction inform your decisions, your tasks?
A lot of people, when they hit the professional world, are like, “I can only read books that will make me smarter and better at what I do.” Reading is suddenly all about productivity. And, while I do enjoy military fiction books because they're fundamentally thrillers—very much like science-fiction where the best works are often very grounded in actual science—they're imagining what could be. So, I use military fiction as a way to play with military capabilities, operational concepts, strategic scenarios, and so on. I might be listening to or reading a book and think, “Pfft, that could never happen.” Or, I might think, “Ohhh, I understand why they use that particular imaginary conceit!” It's useful because it allows you to imagine something in the future. So, not only do I enjoy military fiction, but it is actually useful in my professional work.
Fiction is so important, especially artful fiction. There's value to beauty. When we take time to rest and read something that is beautiful, it restores our soul. It fills us back up. It is an oasis for our hearts and minds. It takes us outside ourselves, because when you enter the world of fiction, you're not just reading what an algorithm feeds you. You are empathizing with, believing in, and feeling for someone who is not you. You have to step outside your own skin. It opens our hearts. It opens our minds. It makes us bigger than who we are in ways that simply walking around the world or reading nonfiction never could. Story and narrative are so crucial to who we are as humans. It's not only how we pass down our history, our knowledge of how the world works and how to do things; story is fundamentally about who we are. When we stop reading story, when we stop opening our hearts to that, I think we lose a key part of what makes us human.
Have you ever thought about writing your own book?
I'm struggling with that right now. I do want to write my own books. What I'm struggling with really comes down to structure. I know the main themes that I want to write about, but how do I do that? It's not going to be an autobiography. It's not chronological. It'll be more of an episodic memoir and reflection kind of book. So, how do I manage the hero’s journey through three acts as I focus on themes of bravery, service, belonging, and community? If you know any good editors, I'm totally up for recommendations.
Since we're on the topic of writing your story—knowing what you’ve done, what you worked through, and the themes you’re still grappling with—what advice would you have for students writing their own story?
Writing your story is a choice that we all make about who we are, what is meaningful about our existence, and how we want to impact the world. We are not constrained or chained by who we were or what has happened to us in the past. We have the privilege of understanding our paths in new ways, and I would encourage people to tell the story of hope. Hope is our personal responsibility. No one else can give us hope. It is our duty to create our own hope for who we are, who we can be, and what the future might hold.
Read more about Heather Penney and her historical actions on 9/11 at The Persistent Pursuit.