On 9/11, 1941, breaking ground on the Pentagon commenced[1]. On 9/11, 2001, the Pentagon’s 60th anniversary saw two friends of Tony Kimery, Co-founder, CEO, and Editor of Homeland Security Off The Record, at the “Puzzle Palace.” The two men were involved with covert operations and secret data gathering to be engaged in conversations about off-limit topics vital to national security, if not national survival.

One of Tony’s two friends was from the northeastern United States, and the other was from the South. The “Yankee” and the “Reb” — call them Ted and Fred or Tom and Jerry were two great friends serving the United States, sometimes at significant personal risk. Tony planned to get together with them afterward to talk fundamental topics, possibly decry bona fide bastards, or bitch with them over beer, bourbon, and good chow. Their real names don’t make it into this real story. Their work was and remains too sensitive with stakes that remain, some 21 years after the fact, later too high to disclose. The plan to meet up at a watering hole in Virginia later that day evaporated at 9:37:46[2]AM Eastern Time when Tony’s two friends were in the western section of the Pentagon. At that precise moment, a Boeing 757 flying at 530 MPH slammed into the building.[2]

Tony Kimery has worked in intel for decades and has information he can’t disclose. Often that information is routine details on secret data-gathering missions that don’t approach any unique, personal territory. Other times he may have “skin in the game” with strong feelings about the content and particulars because he was involved in hotly argued decisions concerning operations and methods. Eventually, however, these topics settle into garden variety secrets buried away without much trouble once strong feelings cool down. But sometimes the calendar intrudes with its relentless persistence year after year as newscasts shove personal memories to that part of the brain where reprocessing and re-warehousing of intel projects becomes necessary — as does revisiting certain events that are a matter of public record, although the facts surrounding them and the players involved may remain and do remain secret.

Tony’s friends and family wonder why one would suddenly leave the room, excuse oneself, change the subject, or disappear for some sudden, baffling reason. This is the real issue with the late summer calendar that Tony has had to deal with for twenty-one years. Of course, it’s easier to keep the drill well practiced and the remembrances hustled away in the usual manner. But it doesn’t feel any better to replay the well-practiced drill that seems to bother him more. The mental burden of remembering the ones lost while knowing you can not talk about them at times becomes a burden too hard to bear without the significant physical manifestation of that mental burden.

The annual hash and re-hash ritual becomes draining, like too many apps or too much data stored away that slows you down on your phone or your laptop. But some things you don’t want to delete even if you could. Take old pictures that you go back to once in a while, except when you’re with the company and afraid of them getting lost, damaged, or worried about spilling coffee, beer, or ketchup on them. Or tears.

In a never-before-heard interview, Tony Kimery talks about his two friends who loved America quietly and courageously and dedicated their lives to defend her through a profession that can’t openly recognize its heroes, whose names remain a secret to this day. Think of a crime scene involving many memorialized victims except the two who remain unknown to the general public.

The Near East Center For Strategic Engagement was founded on September 11, 2014. The Think Tank brings together people from different places and backgrounds who dedicate themself to keeping the flame of liberty alive and our shared culture of freedom and mutual respect through partnerships and teamwork. It does this to defy the nihilistic barbarians and their accomplices who conspired to make the 9/11 attacks take place and whose violent adherents today still long for the enslavement of humankind.

Our testimonies about those who died on 9/11, 2001, should spur us on reflection and resolution to preserve our institutions and values that courageous men and women have lived, served, and died to protect.

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