Finally, tonight here, the F-16 fighter pilot, father and husband, and what he was willing to do on 9/11. He and another pilot were in the air, and they were ready, knowing it could have been their final mission. Tonight, the gratitude, the send-off, all these years later. Here's Martha Radetz.

You are watching US Air Force Lieutenant General, Mark Sasseville suit up for the last time. Great.

Take a place, sir. Thank you.

Walking out to the fighter jet with his name on the side his call sign, SAS, taking off from Joint Base Andrews, near Washington. The same base where 23 years ago. He was sent on a mission he thought could be his last. When you take off in your fighter jet. You don't really know what your mission is.

We don't really know what our mission is.

Two hijacked planes had hit the Twin Towers, and just a few miles away, another had hit the Pentagon.

One of the memories that will stay with me forever is seeing the Pentagon on fire and being able to smell the fumes that were coming off of that, just the burning concrete, the fuel from the airplane that had hit. I tell you, Martha, what I was thinking about was December seventh, 1941. Here we go again.

He would get his orders, along with F-16 pilot, 26-year-old Heather Penny, find a rogue passenger jet, United Flight 93. Their F-16s did not have missiles on board. It was a different time. So Penny and Sassiville, Sassiville with two young children at home, decided that they would ram the missing hijacked plane with their fighter jets. You both agreed that if you had to, you would engage in a suicide mission. It's a testament to Sass's leadership that he didn't ask anyone else to lead that mission. He wouldn't ask anyone else to of what he was unwilling to give. The fighter pilots would later discover the passengers and crew on Flight 93 had stormed the cockpit, the plane crashing into a Shanksville, Pennsylvania, field.

If those heroes on 93, and by the way, those are the real heroes, if they hadn't taken action and they hadn't done what needed to be done, it would have been a very different outcome for me and my family.

But he kept quiet about his own role that day. When you went home, your wife and kids there. What'd you say?

Well, I said nothing at first. I hugged them and squeezed them very tightly, and I didn't tell them, actually, for a while what had happened. I told them that I loved them, and I was going to be gone to work for a long time because something very bad had happened to America.

Eventually, his wife, Karen, hearing the whole story. What did you think of what you did?

She was in awe.

She was proud of you.

She was.

Karen and the kids were there for his retirement ceremony this week after some 40 years of service.

It has been a tremendous honor and a privilege to serve and a truly rare opportunity for me and my family to make a difference. Now, you have the watch. Thank you all.

One last speech and one last flight. Karen moved to tears. His children Lauren and Luke waiting with pride. The fighter pilot who was prepared to give his own life to save others. Oh, dad, I'm so proud of you. Oh, I love you.I love you, too.

And so tonight, we salute Lieutenant General Mark Sasseville and retired Major Heather Penny for their service and what they were willing to do on that fateful day.