Xenophon Strategies

September 11 Remembrances: Arlington, VA

Jason Meath

Editors Note: As our nation commemorates the 10^th anniversary of the September 11 attacks on The World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Flight 93 in Shanksville, PA, our staff will share their memories of that fateful day.  Whether they were in New York, near the Pentagon, at an aviation conference in Seattle, conducting business in London or sitting in high school classes around the country, each of us took time to reflect on the moments of that day which changed the way we live in the United States.

I was working a half mile from the Pentagon in Arlington, VA, editing a series for the Discovery Channel on the morning of 9/11.  The series was on federal law enforcement officers, and when hearing the World Trade Center had been attacked, I immediately thought ‘terrorists.’  Nevertheless, my editor and I turned away from the news coverage to focus on our own TV show.  The sound-proof editing room was dark and it was a little too easy for us to get immersed into our tasks.  Suddenly, a cell phone rang.  It was the young pregnant wife of my editor who was at home mere blocks from the Pentagon.  She was watching the news and growing worried.  Just then, she screamed and the line went dead. 

The editor jumped out of his chair and yelled running from the room, “a plane just hit the Pentagon.”

I sat there for a moment trying to absorb what was happening.  My wife was working just two blocks from the White House, and I had the car.

Leaping to my feet, I grabbed the keys and tried in vain to get a cell call through.  The day was warm and bright, yet the city was dead quiet.  I was in one of a handful of cars on the road.  The sidewalks were deserted.  Everyone was inside... watching. 

As I crossed the Key Bridge heading into Georgetown, I glanced to my right.  Piercing the picture perfect scenery along the Potomac River was a pitch black column of billowing smoke furiously rising from the Pentagon.  Intermittently, an explosion of flame would flare hundreds of feet into the air. 

I reached my wife’s office in record time.  Still no cell signal.  I hit the hazard lights and crossed the empty street to find her.

Once my wife and I made our way outside her building and back to the car, there was chaos everywhere.  Parents pulling kids from daycare, running to the Metro. Cars stuck in gridlock along K Street.  People ducking for cover amidst sonic booms from fighter jets overhead. 

It took us hours to go just 20 blocks back home to Capitol Hill.  In those 20 blocks, the world was changing forever. 

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