9-11 living near the Pentagon just outside DC

Anthrax attacks including Senate Hart Building

Attacks on 9-11

Airports closed

Friend closer to Pentagon says windows in their building shook, thought we were being bombed

The sound of military jets breaks the silence

Silence

The streets are all empty

Watched Bush speech at a local bar - Chadwick's on The Strand in Alexandria, VA

Shutting down the subway system 'the Metro'

Evacuating DC repeatedly the first few days

Barricades in the streets and stopping people for their identification

Arresting people for taking photographs of buildings in a normally tourist friendly city

Obtaining documentation needed to work such as social security numbers is a terrorist activity for migrant workers or others here without proper documentation

Non-stop crap about dirty bombs, pills to protect the thyroid in case of exposure, possibility of terrorist attack on our water supply, Connie Chung babbling about buying drop cloths to seal off a room in case of a dirty bomb attack nearby, possibility of dirty bomb attacks in our subways in major cities

'Beltway Snipers' attack in Virginia, DC, and Maryland

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The Patriot Act actually passes into law and Supreme Court says nothing

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Tractor driven into 'tidal basin' the cherry trees surround,and the roads and bridges in and out of the city are closed  AND

AND Bush gives his we are going to war speech that night

AND I watched it at Harry's Bar in the Harrington Hotel in DC with my mother while we waited for the roads to reopen

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Bush says not to protest the war and parks giant black tanks, said to be the National Guard, on 'the Mall' which is the grassy area between the museums from the Lincoln Memorial to the US Capitol (AKA building where Congress votes, the building with the Capitol rotunda and the statue of Freedom on top of it on Capitol Hill)

We see embedded reporters killed on television

We see reports from nearby hotels in Iraq with grainy footage and no information

The national news is often the local news in that area and the news we had been listening to for facts stopped being news long before we gave up on it, although the Patriot Act passing and the Supreme Court allowing it pretty much turned me off. I started watching soap operas because they weren't as stupid as FOX news. I still listened to NPR and still read the Washington Post until I left the area January 2004.

NPR aired an interview with a US citizen who was dining out in New York City when heavily armed men wearing all black with ski masks and bullet proof vests and military looking gear, stormed the restaurant and took the cell phones and identification of everyone dining there and forced the staff into the kitchen. They were held at gun point for several hours. They were eventually questioned and THEN told the men were police looking for illegal immigrants because they could be terrorists. I pulled over and could not stop crying. It sounded like something that occurs in other countries, not America. War torn countries without law and people fleeing to avoid death or imprisonment or torture. Without law but plenty of police, military, and other criminals. Places like Bosnia. (Places we later find out contractors like DynCorp, are selling children for the sex slave industry.)

Police cars lined the streets. Near the Pentagon they were lined up with lights flashing blue day in and day out.

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Washington National Airport which is renamed Regan Airport is the last to reopen due to proximity to DC. One of the planes came from Dulles but that didn't seem to change anything.

Regan is patrolled by National Guard in green camouflage with large dogs and full automatic weapons we are told don't have 'safety' setting and they are working 12 hour days for days on end so they are exhausted.

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Cops were pretty much the same thing at first as far as working overtime and being stressed out and exhausted, but not as scary, not there, not yet. The locals are freaked out and people still actually care.

There are locals. People living in the area for years, decades, generations, without being in the military, or working for a government contractor, or being in politics.

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 It isn't the easiest place to catch your breath and put things in perspective. News isn't all there or all correct. The images and the words don't sync later but at the time it is just another tragedy in a non stop flood of tragic events. Out of context. Out of bounds for reality. But at the time just trying to act normal where nothing is normal anymore.

Why were the journalists so exposed? Why were we, the most over funded over armed military probably on the damn planet, so vulnerable and ill prepared in an area we have been to before? In an area with nearby bases? In an area we have extensive satellite and air surveillance of? Maybe because some were killed to send a message, some were killed for not going along with the policy of torture, many were killed by friendly fire, many deaths were well documented and heavily aired. And we watched another grainy night vision video of bombings that seemed like the last war there. The embedded journalist was shot during the day and the footage was crystal clear.

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