Some wear fatigues, others dress uniforms, and I could say good morning to many of them by name, since they wear their names on their sleeves — or close to them.

If I keep at my new walking route long enough I’ll know some of these Pentagon workers by heart.  The hordes who pour out of my standing-room-only bus, the others who stroll in from satellite parking lots and from the apartments off Army-Navy Drive.

Almost all of them are walking to the Pentagon — while I’m walking away from it.

The reason, of course, is simple. I work a mile or more away from the place. I just jump off the bus early to stretch my legs.

But I have to confess that it gives me a thrill to walk against this particular traffic.

My mornings at the Pentagon … are brief.