Matthew Klimow was in the Pentagon the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, engaged in some intense multitasking.
An Army colonel and executive assistant to the vice chairman chief of staff, he was talking on secure phone lines to two members of high command regarding the shocking and unprecedented attacks on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City.
Klimow was so focused on the phone calls he didn’t feel or hear the impact made by a plane crashing into the Pentagon. Office secretary Mary Turner had to inform him what had occurred.
Later in the afternoon, after listening to President Bush vow revenge for the attacks but cautioning not to rush to judgment regarding the identity of the perpetrators during a phone call in a secure room of the Pentagon and meeting with various government and military officials to determine how to respond to any further attacks, he went outside and was greeted with the incongruous sight of a badly damaged, still smoking Pentagon and a beautiful blue sky on a day that left an indelible memory on many Americans 25 years ago.
Klimow, 74, is a resident of Monterey. He and his wife, a retired Army major and nurse, moved to the Upper Cumberland Plateau in 2025.
Klimow is a retired Army colonel and diplomat. As an infantry officer and Silver Star recipient, he understood military combat and strategy but, like most Americans, was caught offguard by an unknown enemy on 9-11. His memories of that harrowing and surreal day and the lessons learned form the basis of his book, “As the Pentagon Burned.”
Explained Klimow: “I wanted to write a leadership book, not a memoir. Donald Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense, for instance, ran outside the Pentagon to assess the damage. As the secretary of defense, he should have been inside. I address the issue of how to train for an emergency. I admire the leaders and how they responded. I saw people unafraid to making calls such as shooting down a civilian airplane. I saw a high degree of selflessness.”
Klimow, who had served as executive assistant to Vice Chairman Chief of Staff Richard B. Myers for one year following command of the 18th Airborne Corps Support Brigade at Fort Bragg, NC, was going over reports in his office; his boss, Gen. Myers, had gone to Capitol Hill to meet with members of the Senate Armed Services Committee leading up to his Senate confirmation hearing as joint chief of staff. When Klimow happened to glance at a nearby TV monitor, with the sound muted, and saw a picture of smoke pouring out of the World Trade Center’s North Tower. He turned up the sound and heard commentators speculate a small plane had crashed into the building.
Klimow said he found it unfathomable that it was anything but an accident.
He soon found it otherwise. Once the reality of the situation set in, Klimow sprang into action and made calls to Gen. Ralph Eberhart, commanding general of NORAD, and Gen. Shelton, the joint chief of staff who was on a flight to Hungary.
Klimow was discussing the attacks and possible responses with the two generals when Turner interrupted him with another shocking development — a plane had crashed into the Pentagon.
Myers, who had been informed of the attacks, called Klimow and told him he was headed back to the Pentagon by sedan and would be there in several minutes.
Klimow, accompanied by Turner and office staffer Air Force Master Sgt. Tony Angle, rushed out of the office and into corridors that evoked a scene out of a disaster movie — employees headed out of the Pentagon, smoke, the eerie sound of the fire alarm siren, and a taped message to evacuate the building; he noted the crash took place on the opposite side of the Pentagon from his office.
The chaotic scene continued outside, where the trio met Myers and led him past two civilian police officers assigned to prevent people from going back inside the compromised building and a crowd of military and civilian personnel who had evacuated, with many covering their faces with handkerchiefs, and went back inside the Pentagon. They jogged down the smoke-filled corridors to the secure National Military Command Center, where Klimow took notes while a cadre of government and military higher-ups watched news coverage of the day’s events on TV screens and discussed possible responses to a situation filled with uncertainty and posing more questions than answers.
When carbon dioxide from the plane crash and subsequent fire seeped into the room, the group, including Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, headed to a new command center, OSD Cables, featuring a soundproof room, and fielded a call from President Bush.
“The president was just perfect,” said Klimow, noting the former had been taken to an Air Force base in Nebraska for security reasons. “He hit just the right tone: firm, sure and unflappable. He said, ‘No faceless thugs will hold our country at bay. I want you to find out who did this, I want you to track them down, and I want you to destroy them.”’
The CIA’s preliminary assessment, according to Klimow, pointed to al-Qaeda and bin Laden as the likely perpetrators of the attacks. Following the president’s inspiring words and a moment of silence, someone on the conference attached an obscenity to bin Laden’s name, prompting the commander in chief to issue a quick reproach.
“He said, ‘Now wait a minute. First, get the facts. Second, clean up your language.’”
Some seven hours after his routine day turned into one of the most challenging and harrowing of his life, Klimow went outside and saw the jagged hole in the Pentagon caused by the plane crash and subsequent explosion and framed by the brilliant blue sky. After midnight, following a number of high-level meetings in secure areas of the Pentagon, Klimow, covered with soot and smelling of smoke, drove home to Alexandria, VA, and hugged his wife, who had gone to the middle school their son attended following the Pentagon attack to assure the latter his dad was OK. Lying in bed, the couple heard the sound of fighter jets patrolling the skies.
“It made my heart sink, knowing fighter jets had to patrol the skies,” Klimow said. The next day, heeding Rumsfeld’s edict, he and other Pentagon employees were back at work. Reflecting on the 9-11 attacks, Klimow said the intelligence community didn’t put the pieces together. “There were warning signs,” he remarked.
With the world forever changed, Klimow remained at the Pentagon for another year before serving as special advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney and retiring from the Army in 2003. He subsequently embarked on a diplomatic career that culminated with a position as ambassador to Turkmenistan from 2019 to 2024.
It all started with a high school history teacher who encouraged Kimlow to pursue his dream. Growing up in Binghamton, N.Y., he wanted to attend West Point but didn’t think he had the grades. When a West Point recruiter came to the school, the teacher urged Kimlow to meet with him. He did make the grade, earning an appointment to the prestigious service academy and following up with a 29-year career as an infantry officer and 21 years in the diplomatic field.
“There’s no greater honor than to serve your country,” Kimlow said. “Both my wife and I were dedicated to serving our country. If you have the ability and inclination, it’s a noble pursuit.”
Kimlow recognizes it’s a pursuit fraught with challenges, none more than on Sept. 11 when the country’s mettle and its leadership faced unprecedented attacks that changed the world. Most people won’t face terroristic attacks, but the lessons learned from that fateful day have wider applications in their professional and personal lives.
“Regardless of where we find ourselves” Kimlow wrote in the closing pages of his book, “every day we have an opportunity to touch a life, be a positive influence, and leave a legacy of service. It is a choice we make. We are at our best when we look beyond ourselves. That is where we find courage in adversity and is what defines human excellence in the face of crisis.”