Patriotic week

The week started with a march on the Pentagon. Or, rather, a march to the Pentagon. We walked from the hotel in Crystal City, under the I395 overpass, onto the Pentagon parking lot. it is a far cry from the parking lot I remember in 1982, when I carpooled there so that I could take the Metro downtown. Today, the Pentagon entrance is controlled, access to its interior Mall is restricted. Too bad, inside the Pentagon, there is a giant shopping Mall, with a CVS, a barber, souvenir shops, a donut shop, banks, a dentist, etc...
Built in 1941, the Pentagon is the world's largest office building, with a current occupancy of 23,000. The building consists in 5 concentric "rings" of buildings. The A ring in the center and the E ring on the outside. In case you were wondering, Donald Rumsfeld's office is in the E ring on the river side. The inside is a maze of ramps, stairs, a warren of offices and elevators. The walls are decorated with paintings and portraits of wars, warriors and heroes. Before 9/11, a tour was available that even took the visitor to the Secretary's office. Today, all you visit is the Memorial to the 9/11 victims. A monument outside is being planned. I well remember that day, when I saw the building in flames and smelled the awful results. A DIA officer who had been on a tour with me a year before, died in his office that day. And I will never forget the abandonned cars, at the end of my street, waiting for their owners to come back from their carpool to the Pentagon....in vain
After the usual briefings and presentations, we repaired to Ground zero stand, the hot dog stand built in the center of the complex, no doubt the bull's eye of many a Soviet missile.

Yesterday, I was at the State of the Union speech. An annual ritual, that has lost some of its importance in the age of the Internet, it is interpreted in many languages, live over VOA. Hence my presence, year after year in a VOA booth to spread the good news urbi and orbi. We usually obtain the speech in advance, and the many perfunctory standing ovations give us time to breathe.
This year, the President was more subdued than usual, and more modest in his pronouncements. Suffice it for you to know that the State of the Union is strong, that we are "staying the course in Iraq", and that "we will win". Cindy Sheehan, the grieving mother of a fallen soldier, who pursues the President with her grim reminder, was arrested , handcuffed and booked by the Capitol Police for wearing the wrong T-shirt. Later, the police apologized, and their chief announced they would have to undergo some remedial training......

A group of African officers, observing the ceremonial, was very impressed by the very democratic proceedings, and by the noisy dispproval manifested by the Democrat minority. If on the one hand we noticed a small democratic glitch, they, had noticed greater freedom than they had ever imagined.