<p>Ten years ago today I was in Washington DC in my office at the Old Post Office Building, the corner of 12th and Pennsylvania. Security ordered us out. I could see the smoke from the Pentagon when I got to the street. My son was going to school off of Connecticut Ave. in Cleveland Park. It was a beautiful day. I didn’t want to take the subway uptown. I remembered the day of the Air Florida disaster there was also a subway crash. People died. I walked the two to three miles to the school accompanied by 1000s of people.</p>
<p>The school, which was an international school with lots of children from the international banks and a few embassies, had decided not to release the students early. I didn’t want to get my son out of class early because the automobile traffic would be horrendous so I stayed there until the end of the school day.</p>
<p>When school was over we took a nearly empty subway to the Federal Center SW exit near where my car was parked. Streets were almost empty. It was like the scene in the original On the Beach where they show an empty San Fransisco. I passed the Capitol Hill PD station. An officer told me that they 14th Street Bridge was still open. We drove by the burning Pentagon. Then, and for days afterwards, you could smell the aviation fuel when you drove by on 395.</p>
<p>President Bush wanted us to be at work the next day. My son didn’t want to go to school so I stayed home with him. My wife was in Williamsburg VA at a conference. I couldn’t bring myself to watch the pictures of the planes going into the Towers until days afterwards.</p>
<p>I didn’t like what DC became after that. I happily left in 2004 after 30 years. It took me nearly six months though not to have to automatically take out my ID and open my attache case every time I walked into a building at the University where I worked after leaving DC.</p>