<p>WASHINGTON Maj. Rob McGovern had long since left NFL glory behind on 9/11 for other forms of heroism, prosecuting drug dealers for the Manhattan DA while serving in the Army Reserve.</p>
<p>After watching the twin towers fall he raced home, donned his fatigues and spent four days helping to recover remains from the rubble.</p>
<p>In a turn of fate that would strain even Hollywoods imagination, 11 years later McGovern will confront Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other 9/11 conspirators as a prosecutor in their death-penalty trial at Guantanamo Bay.</p>
<p>Those people went to work on a Tuesday morning and they had every right to go home that night, McGovern told NFL Films in 2007. And yeah, theres an anger there.</p>
<p>They didnt do anything wrong, I dont give a damn what somebody says about our foreign policy. Its not an excuse for killing people, or killing civilians in particular, he said.</p>
<p>The seventh of nine kids from Oradell, N.J., McGoverns play as a 6-foot-2, 225-pound linebacker for Holy Cross earned him a 10th-round pick in the 1989 NFL draft.</p>
<p>He played four seasons with the Kansas City Chiefs, Pittsburgh Steelers and New England Patriots.</p>
<p>McGovern, 45, then headed for New York and earned his law degree at Fordham University. He interned for federal Judge Kevin Duffy during the trial that ended in the conviction of four co-conspirators in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.</p>
<p>After 9/11, McGovern was called to active duty as an Army lawyer. He deployed to Afghanistan and later to Iraq, advising superiors and prosecuting insurgents.</p>
<p>Back home in 2005, McGovern argued in the prosecution of Army Sgt. Hasan Akbar in the March 2003 fragging murder of two officers at Camp Pennsylvania, Kuwait.</p>
<p>Akbar was convicted and sentenced to death. His sentence is now under appeal.</p>
<p>McGovern chronicled his journey in 2007s unapologetically titled All American: Why I Believe in Football, God, and the War in Iraq.</p>
<p>Read more: Maj</a>. Rob McGovern was in the Army Reserve on 9/11 and helped at Ground Zero, now he's part of team prosecuting Khalid Sheikh Mohammed - NY Daily News</p>