Hijacked commercial airplane attacked the Pentagon around 9:40am. As well as the damage of World Trade Center in New York City, the attack against Petagon brought huge number of casualties. I think this terrorism has considerable meanings that it attacked the headquarter of "the U.S. military as No.1 in the world".

Even though the people in Washington, D.C. were rather calm, the traffic got confusion after declaration of state of emergency. A part of the metro (subway lines) closed due to the security reason.

The Pentagon is located in Arlington, VA, southwest of Washington, D.C. across Potomac River. Many people living in Virginia used the metro to go home because bridges over the river closed. On the other hand, people from Maryland, north of nation's capital, were caught in heavy traffic because no traffic limitation were applied.

As for myself, I was just under ground of the Pentagon at the time of the attack, riding the metro to go to downtown D.C. to attend a meeting. Fortunately, though, I didn't notice the incident because the metro is supposed to be secure enough to function as shelter at wartime. The luncheon meeting with Zoellick, the U.S. Trade Representative, and the seminar on IT, both of which I was about to attend were canceled. I collected information from TV broadcasting at the corner of the streets, and went home.

Fortunately enough, I just visited the Pentagon last Friday. Please take a look at pictures that I took there. I don't think the tour at the Pentagon will resume soon.

The metro bound for Virginia was indeed packed with people. Yellow line, whick crosses the bridge over the river, was closed and Blue line, which goes under ground, was extremely crowded. The stops at the Pentagon and the National Airport was closed. I saw the smoke over the Pentagon at the National Airport where the metro comes up onto the ground.

I got a call from my anxious parents in Japan on my cell phone just after the noon. I tried to call my grandmother in Onomichi using KDDI line, only to fail because the line was busy.

Watching TV and radio broadcasting, I feel many people regard this terrorism as "the second Pearl Harbor". Does that mean it's going to be war?

A friend of mine was working for JETRO, which was located in the World Trade Center, just until June. He says he and his ex-co-workers are safe. However, the number of casualties is supposed to increase because that was a huge building.

A missile reportedly hit Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. Though the responsible has not yet been determined until now (9pm Tuesday, EDT), what if it's going to be war? Will I be able to go back to Japan?

I have just suffered from the terrorism: a friend of mine canceled her trip to here in Washington(;_;) Damn terrorists!

Tac (taclow@d2.dion.ne.jp)
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