Inside the Pentagon on 9/11 | Ambassador Matthew Klimow

Jack Murphy (0:00)

Hey, everyone, welcome to The Team House. I'm Jack Murphy, here with our guest tonight in studio, Ambassador retired Matthew Klimow. He retired as a Colonel out of the military, and then served in the Senior Executive Staff.

Matthew Klimow (0:15)

A Senior Executive Service.

Jack Murphy (0:16)

Thank you. At State Department.

Matthew Klimow (0:17)

At the State Department for over 20 years, and was the Deputy Assistant Secretary General of NATO for transformation. And my other overseas assignment was five years as Ambassador to Turkmenistan.

Jack Murphy (0:31)

And his book is As the Pentagon Burned. As we're going to talk about, you were in the Pentagon on 9-11. So we'll get into all of that.

Matthew Klimow (0:40)

Sure.

Jack Murphy (0:41)

But thank you for coming into the studio.

SPEAKER_3 (0:43)

It's a great pleasure, Jack.

Matthew Klimow (0:44)

Myer, your work. Thank you. Thank you.

Jack Murphy (0:46)

I appreciate it.

So I ask pretty much all of the people on this show, if you could tell us your origin story. How did you grow up and how did that take you towards military service? Yeah.

Matthew Klimow (0:58)

Thanks for asking.

For my generation, it's a typical story. I grew up in Johnson City, New York. It's upstate near Binghamton, Triple Cities. It was an ethnic city, a factory town. All my grandparents were born in Eastern Europe, Slovak, Polish, what's now Ukraine, and my neighbors were the same thing, either first, second, or third generation Americans. Seemed like all the Slovak countries were represented on the north side of Johnson City, the Irish are on the south side, Endicott, New York next to us, big Italian American community. We had big factories there, Endicott, Johnson Shoes. Factories dotted the whole valley. And IBM, that's where Thomas J. Watson had his factories. But they were manufacturing things too, not software, but hardware.

My mom and dad, I had the perfect match, Jack. My dad was the sweetest man in the world. I mean, everybody just adored him. Didn't have a mean bone in his body. But my mom was a driving force in my life. And that's how I ended up at West Point, I'm sure of it. Dad fought in World War II.

He was at the Battle of the Bulge. In fact, I took him back when I was stationed in Germany to retrace his steps through Belgium and Germany. Because he was not only at the Battle of the Bulge, but he was in the town of Melmody, huddled near the train station hiding when they got word that the POWs were being gunned down by the Nazis. So he talked about how much fear he had. He was at Remagen Bridge when it actually fell.

Jack Murphy (2:54)

Your dad, he immigrated from Eastern Europe?

Matthew Klimow (2:58)

No, my grandfather.

Jack Murphy (2:58)

Oh, your grandfather did. Okay. Because there are some people who immigrated here and then got drafted into the military and sent right back.

Matthew Klimow (3:04)

No doubt.

But he had an eighth grade education. My mom finished high school, and he worked in a factory for 40 years. But he always dressed well. Here I am in my French cuffs.

He didn't talk a lot about the war, but when he did, you pay attention when you're a little boy. I remember watching the Army-Navy game on television with him and just being so blown away by the cadets in uniforms and the midshipmen. But I was a good student, but not a great student, and I never thought I could ever get into an academy. But the typical story, I had a high school history teacher who really believed in me and said, the West Point recruiter is coming next week and I want you to go and meet with him. And I was kind of surprised he said that, but I went and got the nomination from a local congressman and got accepted. And that was life changing, obviously, but at West Point was not to me, this is going to be an army career, it was a destination itself. I didn't know what was going to come after.

Jack Murphy (4:20)

What year was this that you show up at West Point?

Matthew Klimow (4:21)

1970 So, as I explained to somebody recently, talking about the turmoil that we see in our own country right now, I'm a child of the 60s, I was a teenager in the 1960s, we saw Washington burn and Detroit burn.

Jack Murphy (4:41)

There were race riots on naval ships.

Matthew Klimow (4:44)

So, I know our country has had its ups and downs and I'm a strong believer that we'll see our way through this. But I remember being asked by my political philosophy instructor, a guy named Wes Clark, went on to be a four-star general and-