The week before, I’d been at a conference in Austria where I remember quite a few of us were struck by some unexpected remarks from the podium by an ex-government official in central Europe who vented, if in a matter of fact way, his view that American foreign policy and activities globally were heavy-handed, disingenuous and increasingly distrusted. Before leaving Europe, on Tuesday, September 4, I had lunch in one of the continent’s oldest eateries that was carved 1200 years ago from Alpine cliffs. One week later, at the San Diego airport, at about 6:00 AM ET, September 11, I heard two DC-bound people I did not know commenting that a co-worker of theirs had left one of them a voice mail and had “joked” that the Pentagon was “on fire”. a was standing in a line to board a US Air flight back east.
Photograph by Thomas E. Franklin.