D.C. Hellscape

Ignorant people are outraged at President Trump's decision to call out the National Guard as peacekeepers in our nations' capital.  Following is a tiny part of why it's a good idea.

From 1970 until 2009 I lived in Washington, D.C. and just across the line in Maryland, with time off for good behavior (four years in Salt Lake City, a year in Baltimore and a year in Berkeley, California). During my D.C. days I was mugged by three teenage assailants in the parking lot of a Safeway supermarket, had my car stolen from a repair shop three blocks from my home, had a glass entry door broken at night by a would-be intruder at my home six blocks from the Capitol and lost two friends to murder during their home invasion in the Logan Circle neighborhood. 

Another friend was raped by two men while she was pregnant with twins, her husband forced to watch, in their Georgetown ground-floor apartment. More recently, the young son of a close friend had his throat slit one night as he was about to enter his home in the trendy neighborhood of Adams Morgan, on the same street where Justice Sotomayor lived.

I did not have one friend or acquaintance who was not the victim of crime while living in D.C. My young son -- at the time he was 19 -- had his bike taken from him just blocks from the White House, by a group of thugs who surrounded him.

Our family endured three weeks of terror in 2002 during the reign of the so-called "D.C. Sniper," when 14 random people were shot down -- seven fatally -- on the streets of the city for no reason.

I walked my dog carrying a baseball bat at night and locked my doors when I took the trash down to the end of the driveway, even in daytime.

I never slept when my husband was out of town on business, despite the fact that we had an alarm system installed. 

That's why it's a good idea.