By Wayne Dawkins
ARLINGTON, Va. – Day after the shooting outside the Pentagon, my college student daughter called to ask, “Can’t they make the Pentagon entrance more secure?”
Standing outside Fairfax Drive here, I told my daughter that don’t let the “lack of security” deceiver her. Because terrorists crashed a commercial jet into the Pentagon on 9/11, the shooting scene, the Pentagon Metro train stop entrance, was pushed back from the building to allow more room to carefully screen people.
But as one person interviewed in a local TV newscast said, “How do you protect against just plain-and-simple crazy?” Just a few weeks ago, a so-called “mild-mannered” software engineer flipped out and crashed his small engine airplane into the IRS building in Austin, Texas. Suicide flyer Joe Stack expressed contempt for American government.
Reports about the Pentagon shooter say he made paranoid ravings about the government too. He was motivated enough to drive from California for a death wish at the door of American military might. Thursday was my first visit to the Pentagon. It was for business and it will memorable. Instead of driving to the Pentagon, I took the 20 minute ride on the Metro to the Pentagon stop.
My hosts prepared me: Once I reached street level, a stream of military personnel and civilian employees would flash their badges in order to whisk past security. At least 20,000 people are at work at any time in that fortress. Visitors like me had to travel on the left then be stopped, questioned and searched, and then an escort would take me to the area where I was to conduct my business.
About 5 p.m. I returned to the Pentagon station for an uneventful ride back to the Ballston/Marymount University stop. At 6:45 p.m. while about to bring takeout food up to my room, I watched an Arlington police cruiser roll up to a crowded intersection then blasted the siren to push past the vehicles. Then, it shot off like a race car. Where was the cop rushing to? I wondered if the officer was rushing to something more urgent than a fender bender.
Yes indeed. Upstairs, while watching the end of the network news, the local newscast cut in: three people were shot at the Pentagon train station, said WUSA-TV anchor Derek McGinty. I was at that scene 90 minutes ago.
A young, nearly dressed man emerged from the subway and walked up to the security post, but instead of flashing a security badge he flashed a 9 mm handgun and without speaking fired at two security guards, wounding both. The guards returned fire and critically injured John Patrick Bedell, 36, who later died at the hospital.
Day after the assault, entering and exiting the Pentagon was challenging and tense. I rode the Metro to the Pentagon City stop, and hopped the shuttle bus to the Pentagon. The more convenient Pentagon Metro station, which would have let me out just across the street from the facility, was closed because it had become a crime scene.
When I left I passed a ski-masked soldier guarding his post with an automatic rifle. No, didn’t even think about trying to make eye contact, but I felt a weird sense of security. On the one hand, the guard’s presence reminded me that anyone thinking about taking any threatening action would not have a chance; on the other hand, I was saddened and ashamed that Bedell’s erratic behavior and removed the nation’s false sense of security. He was scary secure. It’s a shame that erratic behavior has pressed such a show of force.