Behind those windows, five floors below the main concourse, Private Evan Carter was sitting on a hard vinyl chair in the liaison office.

He’d spend the next two hours waiting for a military transport van under the direct eye of Shore Patrol Officer Raymond Knox.

His uniform belt and cover lay on the corner of Officer Knox’s desk, neatly tagged with a red administrative detention slip.

His boarding pass for Flight 1482 was gone, torn into four neat pieces in the office wastebasket.

Corporal Mason Reid and his squad were sitting six rows behind me in the main cabin, quiet and orderly, their bags stowed and their seatbelts already fastened.