Ole Miss Graduate Remembers 9/11 as Defining Point in Career, Life

OXFORD, Miss. – For Victor Minella, three moments changed the trajectory of his professional life: raising his hand to enlist in the Navy in 1987, finding his path at the University of Mississippi and experiencing the loss of friends and colleagues on Sept. 11, 2001.

Twenty-five years after terrorist attacks reshaped the nation, Minella said those experiences continue to shape how he serves, including his work supporting veterans and advancing national security at his alma mater.

"I remember exactly where I was because if it had been any other day, I would have been in the Pentagon," Minella said. "It was just my day off."

Minella, who served as undersecretary of the Navy, had been assigned to the Pentagon as an intelligence officer just three months before American Airlines Flight 77 crashed through the building's western facade, killing 184 people. The attack was one of four hijackings that killed nearly 3,000 people that day.

It took hours for Minella to know the full extent of the attacks and to learn that many people he knew had been killed.

"When you lose so many of your colleagues and friends, you know you can't just be the same person ever again," he said. "And I was not."

In the wake of the tragedy, Minella returned to his job in naval intelligence, an office that, like so many others in Washington, D.C., was suddenly facing questions from the White House, Congress and the American people about whether the country was still in danger.

"The magnitude of what was occurring in our country and in our national security environment, it was breathtaking," the 1997 Ole Miss alumnus said. "No one could have imagined the scope and scale of the attacks on the American homeland, and now we were all involved in protecting that homeland.

"On Sept. 12 and until now, our country has been incredibly different than it was on the morning of Sept. 11 before that attack."

For Minella, the attacks also changed his relationship to his work.

"I think that was the day that I stopped making excuses for anything in my life," he said. "I'm tired? Who cares? I'm alive. I had a lot of anger and grief, and that can be a motivator, if controlled.

"I think I did the best I could controlling it, but I didn't get the help I needed. No one did back then."

In the following years, Minella carried that anger and grief as he served in increasingly senior roles in naval intelligence, eventually serving as the Navy's first deputy undersecretary for intelligence and security. In that position, he was responsible for overseeing the Navy's intelligence, counterintelligence, sensitive activities, special operations and irregular warfare.

"We had to make sure something like this did not happen again," he said. "There were a lot more attacks planned, but you didn't see them and didn't hear about them. We did.

"We stopped hundreds of attacks around the world over the next couple decades, and I was involved in a lot of that later in my career."

Before he retired, Minella knew he wanted to use his experience to help future members of the military, first responders and police officers. And he wanted to do it at his alma mater.

"It's been a lifelong dream of mine to get back to Ole Miss," he said. "I wanted to start talking with the ROTC, I wanted to work with the veterans, and when I reached out, Ole Miss said yes."

While performing the duties of the undersecretary, Minella met with members of the Ole Miss Student Veteran Association in his Washington, D.C., office, returned to campus to meet with students, fired the Magnolia Battalion cannon at an Ole Miss football game and visited the Mississippi Veterans Home in Oxford.

But he wanted to do more.

Today, Minella advises the vice chancellor for research and economic development on ways Ole Miss research can support national security. In late 2025, Minella also became a partner with the National Center for Tactical Readiness and the Center for Information Advantage and Effectiveness.

There, he hopes to provide current and future members of the military with tools and support that he and many others never got in 2001.

"The role that I've been filling for about a year now, since retiring, is bringing to life the university's brilliance in engineering and research and showcasing that to our national security enterprise," he said.

"I wanted to give back to national security and get the opportunity to speak with people who have questions, who need to be shaped. I wanted to be a resource, and I think Ole Miss really gave me that."

Along the way, Minella has become more comfortable sharing his story, and that, too, has become part of his mission.

"I'm not bashful to talk about that, but I was for a long time," he said. "For people in my career field, there was a stigma attached to mental health and mental illness, and there was a belief if you sought mental health care, you would be viewed as not suitable for classified work.

"Being able to come talk about this is a mental wellness thing for me, and I think it could be for a lot of people in the military. My purpose now is to never allow anyone to forget my friends' names or forget what happened."

This fall, Minella moved his daughter, Jaynie Simpkins, an Ole Miss sophomore, into her apartment in Oxford. Many of her classmates were born well after the events of Sept. 11, 2001, but Minella said every generation has a role to play in making sure it never happens again.

"You never graduate from Ole Miss, as the saying goes," he said. "But you will move out into those first jobs that can define and shape the rest of your life. What I would want students to know is that if you have an opportunity to serve your county or your city or your country, do it.

"Remember that we need the next generation of military personnel and civilians to protect and defend this country. The national security machine is made up of every profession that exists."

The experiences students gain from that work will last a lifetime, he said.

"The roles and opportunities you can find in this government are beyond your wildest imagination," he said. "I graduated from Ole Miss with a bachelor's degree in political science, and that set me on a course that I had no idea was in front of me.

"You can't see it now, but there are wonderful things ahead of you, and I hope that service to your country is one of them."

Top: Victor Minella (left), a UM alumnus and former acting undersecretary of the Navy, hangs out with the Magnolia Battalion and his wife, Cyndi Minella, ahead of an Ole Miss football game in Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. Minella, who fired the battalion's cannon after a Rebel touchdown, is working to help connect Ole Miss research with national security needs. Submitted photo