I knew my life would change when I saw fighter jets with full afterburners screaming over Washington, D.C. They were so low that when they passed, the shockwave knocked people to the ground, shattering windows.
Those jets were racing to intercept the plane that would eventually crash in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
At the time, I was teaching at George Washington University. It was the first week of classes.
That evening, after spending the entire day trying to get home, I saw the Pentagon on fire, troops deployed across D.C., and anti-aircraft missile batteries stationed around the city. I had listened to the Twin Towers collapse over WAMU radio—it sounded like a bad radio drama—while spending nearly six hours crawling in the wrong direction, on the wrong side of the GW Parkway.
America was at war. We all knew it. We didn’t know what that war would mean or where it would take us.
But I knew I wouldn’t sit on the sidelines.
I wasn’t planning to enlist—I had just started my doctorate program at GW. Instead, like many in D.C., I immediately submitted my résumé to the alphabet agencies: CIA, NSA, DIA, NGA, DoD. One by one, my friends got called. Most ended up in intelligence agencies.
In my About page, I talk about the day I got a call from the man who would eventually give me a job at the Pentagon. Unlike “Elon,” I went through an intense vetting process to become a “special government employee.”
And then, suddenly, there I was.
The Pentagon.
It’s a feeling few ever get to experience. At the time, I thought, Wow. The Pentagon. This is incredible. I’m never going to do anything cooler than this.
Then I met the Secretary of Defense. Then the Secretary of State. Then the Attorney General. Then I went to the White House. Then the Situation Room.
By the way, the Situation Room? Completely overrated.
On TV, the Sit Room in the West Wing looks badass. In reality—at least when I was in government—it was just a conference room. We had nicer secure conference rooms in the Pentagon.
The only room that looked like the movies? The War Room in the Pentagon. A hybrid between WarGames and Dr. Strangelove. And yes, everyone cracks the joke: “There’s no fighting in the War Room!” It’s impossible to resist.
Everywhere I went, everyone I met, I felt unbelievably lucky. What I did mattered.
The days were long—seventeen-hour days were normal. I was constantly reading, writing, advising. I was still in grad school (I had stopped teaching), but my job was to guide the people you saw on TV every day.
There’s that scene in Broadcast News where Albert Brooks says, “I say it here, and it comes out there.”
Yeah, I did that too.
Every day, I knew I was doing something that few ever get to do—impacting lives for the better. I know the work I did saved lives. It wasn’t always popular, but during my time in public service, America was safer, stronger, and, yes, better.
Why?
Because we—the people working for the President—understood our positions as a sacred public trust. We worked for the American people.
We swore oaths to the Constitution. Those of us with access to classified information (like I had) took on even greater obligations—lifetime obligations, with consequences that included, say, a lifetime in prison. (LOL!)
At the time, The West Wing was on TV. It got a lot of things wrong, but it got one thing absolutely right: the dedication to public service. Every person I worked with—whether they were political appointees or career civil servants—had that same drive.
There’s this idea that government workers are lazy, unproductive, just sitting around collecting paychecks.
Look, the government is massive. Sure, there are slackers—there are slackers in any massive organization. But the majority of government employees are serious about their work. And 99% of them? They’re not on TV. They’re not making national policy. They don’t get to meet the President.
They inspect your food. They write the regulations that keep your medicine safe. They create the standards that make your cell phone work. They guide aircraft through the sky.
They do countless things every day across the country. Yes, they get a paycheck—but they also do it out of a commitment to public service.
I was a political appointee. I served at the pleasure of the President. My job was to push policy and politics. But Presidents come and go. When Bush’s term ended, I moved on. I worked briefly with Obama’s team, but that’s how it goes.
The civil service is what ensures continuity. It’s not some vice that needs to be gutted.
This idea that the government should be “run like a business”? Nonsense. The government’s goal isn’t to maximize profit—it’s to maximize benefit to the people it serves.
How is firing two million people and replacing them with an army of ass-kissing sycophants in the national interest?
Public service is an honor. So few of us in policy ever get to do what I did. I knew it at the time. That’s why I treated it as sacred.
When Trump was elected the first time, some folks approached me about joining the administration. I was skeptical. When Michael Flynn was tossed to the curb, I stopped all conversations.
I told my friends, Clearly, you have a different idea of public service than I do. Flynn was working for himself, lying about it, and then you unceremoniously cut him loose. That’s not how this works.
They looked at me like I had a third eye.
Because here’s the thing:
If you’re a public servant, you don’t lie—at the very least, not to your own leadership. There are times you can’t tell the whole truth, but you don’t hide facts from your colleagues unless it’s absolutely necessary.
If you’re a public servant, you don’t stab each other in the back. Politics is hard enough.
And yet, Trump? Lie. Cheat. Steal. Backstab. Loot the Treasury. Steal from the American people.
That is not what public service is about.
Public service is a trust. And in one day, the right people in government can accomplish more than most people could in a year.
That’s a fact.
I’ve done things and been to places where people's mouths hang open when I tell the stories. Hell, sometimes I think, Wow. That happened.
That’s the power of working in our government—the most powerful institution in human history. Especially at the Department of Defense, the second-largest institution in the U.S. government.
Public service is a public trust. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
It’s also the thing I miss most.
I miss the people I worked with in the trenches. I still talk to them, even now, twenty years later. Many of them are on Substack. Some run the biggest ones out there.
I miss the challenge. I miss the impact.
And when I see Trump and his merry band of thieves, it enrages me.
So much wasted potential. So many lives are disrupted or destroyed because he lines his own pockets instead of serving the public. As much as I despise the red-hatted mob that elected him, I know they desperately want him to be their salvation—not their downfall.
In their warped way, they’re praying he delivers on his promise.
He won’t.
And we will all be worse off because of it.
It’s not just wasted time—it’s wasted opportunity. Opportunity to improve the lives of all Americans.
Public service is a public trust.
Yes, I finally feel seen. I work in planning for a land management agency. Good job for my area, but also full of great people serving the community we live in. People who know me know I am not the enemy. But there are too many people believing that less government workers at any cost is an answer to anything.
Fantastic writing, and thank you for your service. I started in the military as a kid, so a life long public servant in multiple places. This is crazy town.
I'm enraged too by what's going on. Just joined Indivisible.
Fascinating, spot-on piece. Thank you.
"Because we—the people working for the President—understood our positions as a sacred public trust. We worked for the American people."