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Showing posts with label 9/11. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 9/11. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 11, 2018

My 9/11 memory of Washington, D.C. - "Be careful what you wish for." An avalanche of moods, moments and memories are always front and center




I've seen film director Paul Greengrass's wonderful film United 93 about seven times by now. It always gets me where I live. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0475276/


Every time I see it, I think back to my friends and I at work on Pennsylvania Avenue the morning of September 11th, ten blocks away from the U.S. Capitol, across the street from the FBI headquarters and the Dept. of Justice.
And unlike most of you, I wonder if not but for the bravery and heroism of the United 93 Passengers & Crew, would I even be alive?
Or, alternatively, actually been an witness to the plane's descent into the Capitol building in an attempt to decapitate it, killing thousands of people and demoralizing the country even more than had happned by the attacks on the World Trade Center?


United we stand...

The symbol that was all over Arlington, Virginia in the days and months after 9/11. 
Including on my front door.

Thoughts on The Pentagon and 9/11
Let me relate a 9/11 anecdote that gives you some sort of insight into me, and informs my posts here. I lived for about 15 years in Washington, D.C., and while there, worked on behalf of some of the top law firms and business groups in town, doing all sorts of things on both Capitol Hill and along the K Street corridor. 
While doing so, I was fortunate to meet and befriend lots of very talented, committed and impressive people, including lots from the media, think tank and public policy sectors, as well as the diplomatic community.

On 9/11, I was a few weeks into working on a project for Crowell & Moring on behalf of our client, General Electric's Aviation division, for an upcoming federal trial that would take us to Dayton the following week for what was expected to be 6-8 weeks.

C&M is an international law firm headquartered in DC, and I worked at the main office on Pennsylvania Avenue, right across the street from the FBI headquarters and the Dept. of Justice, and adjacent to the Naval Memorial. 
After the initial reports of the attack in New York and on the nearby Pentagon just minutes after I walked into the office just after 8:30 am with my gym bag, in last time then we realized,  from our vantage point on the large wraparound patio balcony overlooking Pennsylvania Avenue that we had access to from the main reception lobby, we could see past the Old Post Office across the street to our west, and could clearly see the smoke rising up from The Pentagon to our southwest, where many of my neighbors in northern Arlington worked. 
The smoke from American Airlines flight 77 out of Dulles, bound for Los Angeles.

Being slightly closer to The White House than to the U.S. Capitol -but located high enough in the building to be in a position to have seen any attack on either- once we received word right before 11 am from the building's management company to evacuate the building because a plane within range of D.C. still hadn't been counted for and landed as ordered to -what we would all later all know as United Flight 93- I decided to forego playing the starring role of a sardine in a can on the always-crowded Washington Metrorail, and decided to walk the 7-plus miles to my home in north Arlington.

Mostly via K Street, up to M Street in Georgetown, and finally cross the Key Bridge over the Potomac river to Lee Highway in Arlington, and then west for a few miles.
Which is to say, along some of the most densely-populated real estate in the greater Washington DC area.

All along the road from Rosslyn going west, there were city, state and federal police cars everywhere because the fear was so great that there was a second surprise element of the attack that would take place before the end of the day, so police were on high alert for anything unusual, including attempts to blow up bridges.

When I got a few blocks away from the office after our evacuation was made mandatory and was near Metro Center, the middle of the Metro system in downtown DC, literally one of thousands of people walking down the street, as if an NFL football game had just ended to both my east and west, whom do you suppose I walked right into, but the one man, whom, IF things had fallen differently, might've played a much larger role that tragic day, and be a name that most of you would know now?

(As I walked and walked, it was while listening on my Sony AM/FM/TV portable radio, via ABC News' Good Morning America -the same program that had informed my entire floor for 90 minutes after we gathered en masse around my radio with the great sound quality that also allowed us to listen to VHF TV signals in our floor lobby area, maybe 60 of us- that I first learned that some of the planes involved in the attacks had left out of Boston's Logan Airport.
That news made my heart sink, and made the already-long walk home seem far longer than it normally would, since one of my recent former housemates in Arlington, Jennifer Dugan, a wonderfully sweet, thoughtful and immensely adorable University of Rhode Island grad, was, in fact, a flight attendant for the then-US Airways, working out of... Logan Airport. I listened to that radio the entire time I walked home, very fearful of what else I would hear.)

That man I'm referring to is George Terwilliger, then of the DC office of McGuire, Woods, Battle & Boothe LLP, whom I knew from 1627 Eye Street, the home of the New York Times' DC bureau, a place that I spent A LOT of time at over my last 11 years there, which explains why I personally know some of the high-profile people I do, including many Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters and columnists, and DC insiders whose names you would recognize.

Mr. Terwilliger was the man that much of the Washington press corps and Beltway Crowd was reporting was the likely first choice for President George W. Bush to be the new FBI Director, and a person that many of my friends at 1627 had an enormous amount of respect and admiration for, even if they disagreed with him politically. 

When I saw him in passing on the sidewalk near a CVS, with a concerned and pensive look on his face, and he looked at me and shot me a look of recognition, even more than nearly everyone passing us on both sides and spilling out onto the road, all I could think to myself was, "Be careful what you wish for."

As most of you know, President Trump was at the Flight 93 National Memorial 
today.

This is a beautiful but sobering memorial and I urge any of you ever heading across the country to try to see, especially in the Fall. maybe after seeing Gettysburg, another favorite place of mine that never disappoints and always leaves you feeling smaller -and full of gratitude.

Dave
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Friday, May 29, 2015

Personal thoughts on the proposed idea of a gondola going across the Potomac River, next to Key Bridge, from Washington DC's Georgetown area to Arlington County's Rosslyn Metro station. Naturally, it causes me to recall crossing it on 9/11. Don't ruin the views of that iconic bridge -and the iconic views FROM it. NO to the #gondola









GreaterGreaterWashington blog
Yes, it's worth looking into a gondola in DC 
by Topher Mathews 
May 29, 2015


Having lived in Arlington County for about 15 years from 1988-2003, a mile north of Ballston Metro, conservatively, I've walked across Key Bridge about a thousand-plus times to get to and from Georgetown and Downtown DC from Arlington. 
It actually could be even more times, since I also worked part-time for a few years at stores in Georgetown, both at the Abercrobie & Fitch in the Georgetown Mall in the early '90's, and years later at the Barnes & Noble Superstore .and often walked home at night after closing.

 USA Today's Susan Page was a very frequent visitor at Barnes & Noble, especially baseball-related books, and A&F was where I'd first told then-U.S. Rep. Bill Richardson -whom I was a big admirer of- just what I'd heard and read about the newly-elected to the House Bernie Sanders of Vermont, after he admitted that he'd never heard of him before.

Many if not most walks across the bridge came on weekends when the Metro runs less frequently and I could walk to Georgetown and its great Washington Harbour area, one that I so often used as a second home for writing purposes, in about 75 minutes.
Roughly the same amount of time as walking to Ballston Metro and waiting and waiting and waiting... and then walking to Georgetown from the Foggy Bottom metro next to GWU, George Washington University.
If the weather was even halfway nice I'd usually walk, especially on sunny Sundays when I could listen to sports radio on my walk into Georgetown and not really think so much about the distance.
If you hadn't already caught on from previous posts over the past eight years, I'm a longtime walker from way back...

As I've written about previously here on the blog, including back on September 11th, 2011, 

9/11 -George F. Will on the American landscape ten years after 9/11: Commemoration can’t heal what is self-inflicted

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/911-george-f-will-on-american-landscape.html


that includes my experiences on 9/11, walking from my office on Pennsylvania Avenue opposite the DOJ and the FBI, and walking' the seven-plus miles or so home because, 

a.) the Metro was packed like sardines times ten, and, frankly,
b.) I didn't want to be underground for so long and not know what was going on.

Everyone in my office had been kept informed via my awesome portable Sony radio the size of a sub sandwich, which had TV station audio reception back then, before FCC's Digital TV changes changed that.
We all listened to the audio of NBC's Today Show, but I didn't personally see footage of collapsing WTC Towers until hours later, at the Baltimore Orioles team store in downtown DC around the corner from NY Times Washington bureau, where I headed after my building was ordered to evacuate because of the fears that a plane -what we later came to all know was United #93- would be used to attack the Capitol Building or the White House.

Bud Verge was a friend I'd met and the very savvy and friendly manger of the O's Team store then, and it was there while he waited for his wife to come pick him that watching a TV that usually was running Orioles team highlights, that I first saw the two Towers fall.
Then I walked over to the NY Times Washington bureau to hear what some of  my friends and their colleagues had heard or was being reported, before I decided to finsih my walk home, a little bit better infromed than I had been when the fighter jets were flying directly overhead.

Lots of other north Arlington residents I know walked home by choice across Key Bridge from downtown DC or even Capitol Hill because they shared the same concerns I had, that given everything that had already happened that morning, to say nothing of all the rumors we heard reported at the time, like the State Dept. being partially-bombed, something would or could happen on the Metro -or to it.

With my work clothes in my gym bag over my shoulder and that radio under my left arm like a football, every few minutes I'd stop and let a group of passersby catch their breath, too. and together, we'd get caught up on what we "knew" at the time via uncertain voices reporting "facts" from DC or NYC.
And all you could do was shake your head at what you were hearing.

That was never more the case then when standing halfway across Key Bridge over the Potomac looking at the nearby Washington Monument, looming larger than ever.
I still remember exactly how that felt.

So yeah, while I understand the arguments for studying the gondola idea cited by GreaterGreaterWashington, I'm firmly against a gondola that would ruin the view of that iconic bridge and the views that you can see FROM it.
Let 'em walk across the bridge.
Or call Uber or lyft.
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Sunday, September 11, 2011

9/11 -George F. Will on the American landscape ten years after 9/11: Commemoration can’t heal what is self-inflicted

Above, a screen-shot of mine from August 17th of Washington Post columnist and ABC-TV News commentator George F. Will -on left- at a Florida Marlins at Colorado Rockies ballgame at Coors Field, Denver.
George F. Will on the American landscape ten years after 9/11: Commemoration can’t heal what is self-inflicted
The Washington Post
Sept. 11’s self-inflicted wounds
By George F. Will, Opinion Writer
Published: September 9, 2011
On Dec. 8, 1951, the day after the 10th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, the New York Times’ front page made a one-paragraph mention of commemorations the day before, when the paper’s page had not mentioned the anniversary. The Dec. 8 Washington Post’s front page noted no commemorations the previous day. On Dec. 7, the page had featured a familiar 10-year-old photograph of the burning battleships. It seems to have been published because a new process made possible printing it for the first time in color. At the bottom of the page, a six-paragraph story began: “Greater Washington today will mark the tenth anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack by testing its air raid defenses.” The story explained that “the sirens are part of a ‘paper bombing’ of Washington” that would include “mock attacks by atom bombs and high explosives.”
Read the rest of the column, with links in that first paragraph at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/sept-11s-self-inflicted-wounds/2011/09/08/gIQAfjm5FK_story.html
Reader comments at

George Will's time in Colorado later proved grist for an August 31 column of his titled Colorado's fresh brew, which largely dealt with the relative popularity of Colorado governor John Hickenlooper -A Democratic governor who favors less government- and TABOR, the Taxpayers Bill of Rights legislation approved by Colorado voters to limit the Colorado legislature’s ability to raise taxes, which many of the Usual Suspects want to litigate in court to over-turn the decision they couldn't win at the ballot box.
Above, one of the Community Resilience project counseling fliers I've kept which were posted in stores and govt. buildings all throughout Arlington County in the weeks and months following the 9/11 attacks.
Because of where I lived in residential north Arlington, relatively quiet compared to near Reagan National Airport, and because I had an upper-floor bedroom with very large windows, at night, when they were open, I could hear the fighter jets which patrolled the area for months afterwards.
In those very first weeks of the overflights, sometimes, more often than I'd admit then, I couldn't fall sleep until I heard the 3 a.m. overflights soaring directly above.

They were very precise and almost always on time, even when the NATO forces took over after so many of the American fighter pilots were in Afghanistan.
That sound gave me some sense of peace and I could finally relax a bit.
But when they were late, I can recall staring up at the ceiling in the dark, or walking over to the window and looking south towards the Pentagon a few miles away, wondering when it would ever come. At those moments, I felt not a sense of dread, just one of complete exhaustion and a sense that my security blanket was missing.
U.S. FLAG OVER THE PENTAGON
U.S. Flag over the Pentagon United we stand...

2001 HEROES STAMP

2001 Heroes Stamp World Trade Center, Manhattan
I'm re-posting here an excerpt I originally ran four years ago, 9-9-07, on my other blog, South Beach Hoosier, since some of you newer readers may never have seen it before.
It's my personal experiences in Washingon, D.C. on 9/11, working on Pennsylvania Avenue, across the street from the FBI and DOJ, five blocks from The White House and with a clear view on that sunny day of the U.S. Capitol, twelve blocks southeast.
Let me relate a 9/11 anecdote that gives you some sort of insight into me, and informs my posts here. I lived for about 15 years in Washington, D.C., and while there, worked on behalf of some of the top law firms and business groups in town, doing all sorts of things on both Capitol Hill and along the K Street corridor.

 

While doing so, I was fortunate to meet and befriend lots of very talented, committed and impressive people, including many from the media, think tank and public policy sectors, as well as the diplomatic community. On 9/11, I was working on a project for Crowell & Moring, in an office in their DC office right across the street from the FBI & DOJ, and next to the Naval Memorial. After the initial reports of the attack in New York City and on The Pentagon, from our vantage point on the large patio overlooking Pennsylvania Avenue, we could see past the Old Post Office across the street, and could clearly see the smoke rising up from The Pentagon to our southwest.

 

Being equidistant to both The White House and the U.S. Capitol -and thus, in a direct position to have seen any attack on either- once we received word to evacuate the building because a plane within range of DC still hadn't been accounted for -what we would all later all know asUnited 93-I decided to forego playing the role of a sardine in a can on the Metro, and decided instead to walk the 7-plus miles to my home in north Arlington: via K Street, M Street in Georgetown, and finally Lee Highway in Arlington.


When I got a few blocks away from the office and was near Metro Center, whom do you suppose I walked right into, but the one man, whom, IF things had fallen differently, might've played a much larger role that tragic day?

 

(As I walked and walked, it was while listening on my Sony AM/FM/TV portable radio, via ABC News' Good Morning America -the same program that had informed my entire floor for 90 minutes before when we gathered en masse around my radio in our floor lobby area- that I first learned that some of the planes involved in the attacks had departed out of Boston's Logan Airport. That news made my heart sink, and made the walk home seem far longer than it normally would, since one of my former housemates in Arlington, Jennifer Dugan, a wonderfully sweet, thoughtful and immensely adorable University of Rhode Island grad, was, in fact, a flight attendant for US Airways, working out of Logan.)

 

That man I'm referring to was George Terwilliger, then of the DC office of McGuire, Woods, Battle & Boothe LLP, whom I knew from 1627 Eye Street, the location of the New York Times' DC bureau, who's now at WhiteCase, http://www.whitecase.com/gterwilliger/ Mr. Terwilliger was the man that much of the Washington press corps and Beltway Crowd thought was the likely first choice for President George W. Bush to be FBI Director, and a person that many of my friends at 1627 had an enormous amount of respect and admiration for, even if they disagreed with him politically.

 

When I saw him in passing on the sidewalk, with a pensive look on his face, like everyone passing us on both sides and spilling out onto the roads, all I could think to myself was, "Be careful what you wish for."
George F. Will column archives:

9/11 PILOT MOHAMMED ATTA'S FLORIDA DRIVER'S LICENSE

9/11 pilot Mohammed Atta's Florida Driver's License 
As pretty much everyone who knows me knows, I followed the 9/11 Commission hearings very closely, more than just about anyone I knew, watching or taping many of them off of C-SPAN, and, consequently, often staying-up late at night to catch up on their activities. 
Though it seems obvious now, while I'd heard from many sources that some of the hijackers had used Broward County Library computers to access the internet to send messages -and book their flights- it never dawned on me to think about where they lived in South Florida. As it turns out, Atta lived in Hollywood, 4.67 miles from my father's home in Hallandale Beach.
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