Dear Diary:
Overheard below Washington, DC’s Walter E. Washington Convention Center last month on the Green Line Metro platform during the annual conference of the Association of the United States Army, which describes itself as a “private, non-profit educational organization that supports America’s Army” and “provides numerous Professional Development Opportunities.”
Above the Metro, banners for the Association were hanging from seemingly every lamp pole in sight. The banners featured a line of gun-carrying soldiers and read, “America’s Army: The Strength of the Nation.” Facing the Convention Center, two large, desert-tan armored military vehicles (one, fully amphibious and tracked), bearing the license plates “BAE” (a British weapons manufacturer), sat, at the ready, on the grass alongside the busy New York Avenue thoroughfare that runs through the heart of DC. Around the corner, inside a vacant storefront adjacent to the Convention Center, a local bike shop was running a “bike valet” as part of Green Festival DC, which was also being held at the Center.
On the subterranean Metro platform, which was festooned with posters for ITT Defense & Information Solutions, a group of well-dressed men were standing together in a small circle, waiting for a train, each wearing a pass from the Army conference around his neck.
One of the men, in civilian khaki pants and a smooth blue polo shirt, said, “Isn’t it ironic that there’s a Green Festival [just above ours]?”
“Yeah,” replied an Army chaplain in combat fatigues. “War is a terrible thing for the environment, not to mention for people.” And then he laughed.