Preface
I watched the Twin Towers fall from my room in The Judge Advocate General's Legal Center and School (“the JAG School”) on the campus of the University of Virginia. I was a first lieutenant and had just graduated from the 155th JAG Officer Basic Course a few days earlier. I was soon to ship out for my first assignment in Germany and turned on my television that morning expecting to find some anodyne entertainment—only to see an image of thick, black smoke rising from one of the towers and to hear a news anchor's reticent, halting commentary. What follows is something of a blur. I remember being in uniform, staring at the television, and feeling a sense of violation along with a certain feeling of confusion. I also remember the sound of footsteps in the building—both busy and purposive. The televisions throughout the JAG School were tuned to news programs, phones were busily ringing, and—as we all helplessly watched the horror unfold—the world was changing in ways more profound than I could have anticipated.
This experience, at the outset of my legal career, was certainly a formative one and served, in part, as the motivation for this book. Watching