Mr. Dong Lee, fallen patriot of 9/11 - personal memories

These memories of mine I have held to myself on one of those who died on 9/11. They are not in-depth memories nor part of the larger project of remembrance. I will add these memories to the September 11 Victims site, when done here. It has taken time to come to terms with this and such small memories as I have and what can be put out are limited due to the nature of the work done by both of us. But I honor Mr. Dong Lee for his work and the agreements I made concerning it, both with the company he worked for and the Nation.



During my active career I worked at a Federal Agency that was doing Armed Forces support and Intelligence Analysis, with some other various 'cats & dogs' things given to it by Congress. In my career I worked upon a large scale data storage need as part of a larger project and realized a need to have these documents transmitted, stored and forwarded in a secure manner so that critical information could reach the warfighter and not be easily used if it fell into the wrong hands. I searched for a solution to this problem... and finally, via the old 'Friend of a Friend of a Friend who KNEW someone' I found Mr. Dong Lee.

My contacts with Mr. Lee were minimal, carried out in the professional realm, but the personality and skills of Mr. Lee were apparent even so. Working for Boeing, Mr. Lee had a similar problem that his company faced in the distribution of aircraft project documents that would need wide distribution, but have limited information access within them to restricted numbers of individuals. Over the course of meetings and phone calls I realized that his solution was simple, ingenious, flexible and far beyond the scope of the project I was working on although it could be an integral part of a larger solution.

Mr. Lee, during all of this was an affable individual, with a quick mind and sunny attitude, but also took real world problems seriously and quickly realized how adaptations to existing work could be expanded without compromising the original conception. He was very open to questions, acknowledged shortcomings of his work and that of his company, but gave solutions to them which pointed out to me that he had already *thought* about these problems from various points.

In short, Dong Lee was a patriot who understood the value of this Nation's security and the need to keep important information secure and had no qualms about putting his intellect to the service of a company and his Nation. Capable, knowledgeable and able to present ideas so that they could be quickly and easily picked up and understood as concepts and fit into larger schema, all the while being affable, courteous, outgoing and willing to discuss how these concepts could be worked for other things.

I continued to push within my Agency to get Mr. Lee a hearing at a higher level as his work went beyond my scope.

And then came 9/11.

I only learned about the status of Mr. Lee in a week or so after my back recovered enough to let me return from work. A simple phone call informed me he was on Flight 77.

I was furious.

And deep inside that does not rest within me. Cold and bitter fury that does not burn from heat and will not thaw until all those that do these abominable acts put away that conception once and forevermore.

While thought remains with me and memory still, I will never forgive all of those who took part in robbing the world of the bright, capable and honorable Mr. Dong Lee.

And I will never forget him or the rest of those that perished on that fateful day, even once those that accept this type of abominable act vow to end such actions.