I’d given myself forty-five minutes to make a fifteen-minute walk.
And it was a damn good thing I had.
“Nope, nope . . . can’t come in here,” the security guy said. “You have to go to the O Street entrance.”
I’d approached the first gate I’d encountered on my walk from the hotel.
It was a Monday morning at the Washington Navy Yard, about a mile south of the U.S. Capitol.
Some big hitters live and work there, so security is understandably tight.
A line of traffic was queued up on the street outside the gate.
I’d timed my approach to take advantage of the break in traffic created by the red light that held cars at the corner of 6th and M Street, right outside the gate.
To be fair, I’d read that the O Street entrance was the only one available to pedestrians at the Navy Yard.
But why should that stop a properly credentialed service member, in uniform, from accessing the base from any other gate?
I stood outside the guard shack, holding out my ID for the security guy to see.
Are you really not going to let me in? I asked him.
I mean, I’m standing right here.
“Sir, you have to go to O Street,” he repeated.
Of course I do, I replied, sarcastically.
And then I turned to walk the entire perimeter of the Navy Yard to the O Street entrance.
You don’t want to get too cute with the security guys at the gate.
For good reason.
First, they’re a military installation’s first line of defense against wack jobs harboring ill intent.
You don’t want to distract them from that vitally important mission.
And second, they have weapons.
I tend to comply with people who are so equipped.
But I don’t have to be happy while doing so.
I continued walking along M Street, picking up the pace.
I was retracing my steps from the night before.
Upon arriving at my hotel, I’d dropped my bags and taken off walking.
I wanted to see exactly where I was supposed to be Monday morning, the route I would take to get there, and how long it would take.
It’s my usual routine when I’m in an unfamiliar place.
Only the O Street gate was open Sunday evening, so I knew it would take an additional ten minutes to walk around the entire Navy Yard to get there.
As I did so on Monday, I came upon another open gate at N Street.
It was manned by a civilian security guard, and there were no cars queued up waiting to get in.
Again, I approached the guard holding out my ID for him to see.
It was just the two of us.
“Sir, you have to go to the O Street entrance,” he said.
I made a show of looking all around to demonstrate there was no one else there.
Just me.
You sure you can’t just let me in? I asked him.
“This isn’t a pedestrian entrance,” he replied. “You have to go to the O Street gate.”
Jesus.
It was exhausting.
This is why I quit the active-duty Navy, I thought to myself.
Because of ridiculous, nonsensical bullshit like this.
I pressed on to O Street.
When I finally got there—this miracle of a place, the only acceptable point at which a person could walk onto the base—I was confused.
There were two guard shacks in succession, just inside the gate.
I approached the first, ID card in hand.
The lady inside didn’t even get up.
“Don’t show me your ID,” she said. “Show it to him.”
She was pointing over her shoulder to the guard shack behind her.
Uh, okay, I said.
And then I kept walking to the next checkpoint.
There, the guy, friendly as could be, waved me on with only a cursory glance at my ID.
Finally.
So . . . what was the purpose of that first guard shack? I wondered.
Doesn’t matter.
I learned to stop asking such questions a long time ago.
I made it to my destination on time.
But I’d consumed the entire cushion I’d afforded myself to get some coffee and do a little snooping around before my meeting started.
Not ideal. But not a disaster, either.
Later that day, I found my way to the security office, where I was able to get my ID card programmed to allow me access to the base through the pedestrian turnstiles located at intervals along the perimeter.
I wouldn’t even have to talk to a gate guard anymore.
I could just swipe my card and let myself in.
That was a huge improvement.
The next morning proceeded smoothly.
But when I got through the turnstile just outside the gate I’d approached the previous morning, I couldn’t help but notice something.
A dude on a bike had ridden up to the checkpoint.
Apparently, bikes and cars resided in the same category when it came to base access.
The guy was having trouble finding his ID.
He’d dismounted his bike and was rooting around inside his backpack.
Eventually, he produced his ID for the gate guard and was waved in.
Wait just a damn minute! I thought.
The moment he got off his bike and put his feet on the ground, didn’t he cease to be a rider and become a pedestrian?
And shouldn’t he therefore have to traverse the entire perimeter and enter through the O Street entrance, just as I had been made to do?
It seemed unfair.
But so had numerous other episodes in my decades-long military experience.
Anyway.
As an additional layer of security, each building on the Navy Yard requires its own unique credentials.
Just because you can get into one place doesn’t mean you can get into another.
Like the cafeteria.
There was a crappy food court outside the Navy Exchange that anyone could access.
I gave it a try and found it wanting.
The garden burger I had looked and tasted like a giant tater tot.
No way was I doing that again.
I’d heard the cafeteria in the building next to the one in which I was attending meetings had the best food on base.
But you needed a visitor’s pass to get in, which required that you go to the security desk, stand in line, and deal with an ill-tempered civilian who hated his job.
I decided to try my luck and skip all that.
I walked to the building’s security checkpoint right outside the cafeteria.
Upon encountering the guard, I played stupid.
I’m just going to the cafeteria, I told him.
“You need a pass for that,” he replied.
Oh . . . okay, I said, trying to sound both ignorant and slightly pathetic.
It worked.
“Go ahead,” he said. “But next time, get a pass.”
Sweet.
The cafeteria lived up to the hype.
I decided it would be my go-to lunch destination for the remainder of my visit.
But, the next day, my luck ran out at the security checkpoint.
It was a different guard from the day before.
“You have to get a visitor’s pass,” he said.
Of course, I already knew that.
“You can get a pass at the visitor’s center,” the guard continued.
Dammit.
He wasn’t letting me in.
So, off to the visitor’s center I went.
I stood in line, signed the logbook, and got my pass.
It only took about five minutes.
But still.
Now, stepping back, I readily acknowledge that the world looks a lot different today than it did when I first walked onto a military base three decades ago.
There are good reasons why security protocols are what they are.
Infuriating as they may be.
And if I went whining to the Navy Yard’s security officer about the various inconveniences his people had caused me, I suspect he’d have a simple reply.
“Good.”
That meant they were doing their jobs.
The bad guys are always watching.
So, if it’s hard for me to get around the place,
Let’s hope it’s even harder
Or—better—impossible
For them.
Especially at the cafeteria.
And, of course,
The goddamned O Street entrance.