Jesselp -- I will not even begin to try and imagine what that day was like for you and the days, weeks, months and years that followed. Just reading accounts of being in the WTC is chilling. What we in Washington went through that day, especially those of us who were in certain high-profile targets, cannot be fully appreciated by those who weren't there. It was surreal, and I don't think that I will ever get totally over it unless I lose those memories.

Have you read "102 Minutes?" I was fascinated by its discussion of the lobbying over the NYC building codes which resulted in the 1968 changes in the code that made way for construction of the WTC.

Since Desert Storm, friends and I had been saying it was not a question of whether DC would be hit someday, but only when and how. Yet we stayed. We stay because we don't believe, or choose not to consider, that it will happen in the next second, or the next hour, or this day. And this becomes home and career base, so we stay.

When it happened on 9/11, when the Pentagon was hit and news reports of truck bomb at the State Department and fire at the OEOB and more incoming hostile flights, we were stunned. Many were stunned stupid. The images of what was happening at the WTC and smoke pouring out of the Pentagon, it was an indescribable situation to be in as it was unfolding in real-time.

No one can really know what they're going to do in such a crisis situation until the situation arises. Hopefully the right instincts will prevail. Having these discussions, I think, increases the chances that we'll do the right thing if an emergency situation arises.

If something happens this afternoon, I will be shocked at that instant. But better prepared than on 9/11. Better prepared for anything: terrorist attack or an accidental fire.