A Recruit for the NSA

Standing in line at the post office today, I noticed a college student getting her passport photo taken. It's a small lobby, and I was able to overhear her conversation: she was spending the summer studying in Italy, and needed her passport by the end of May.

That reminded me that I needed to renew my passport. It expired a year ago, and besides, the picture was from my freshman year of college. I was barely 18 in the photo and now, 12 years later, I look quite a bit different. Even if the passport wasn't expired, I should get a new one just so I look like my photo.

Finished with my business at the post office, I at the nearby convenience store for a copy of the Washington Post. This is the same convenience store where I used to get my morning coffee and donut before Thursday ROTC class. As it turns out, the same ladies are working behind the counter as 10 years ago, when I was a regular.

I stepped up the register, and as I set my paper on the counter, the cashier looked at me and said, "Hey, did you used to come in here a long time ago."

"Sure, a long time ago," I said. "Yeah," she replied, "You were one of the ROTC kids, right?"

Wow, good eyes. Last time she saw me, I was a nameless but regular customer buying coffee. I was also 10 years younger, 30 pounds lighter, wearing Army fatigues, and clean shaven with a high-and-tight haircut. This morning, on the other hand, I was in standard-issue khakis and button down, baseball hat, glasses, full beard, and displaying all the trials, tribulations, and pounds of the intervening decade.

Nevertheless, she spotted me. It was remarkable, really. More than just seeing in me the youngster I used to be, the cashier was able to pick me out of the nearly 12,000 new students she's seen in the interim.

That's genius-level facial recognition. That's why I'm calling General Jim Jones (the President-Elect's NSA Adviser, as well as the former Supreme NATO Commander, and fellow Hoya) as soon as I'm done with this post. We're going to sit the convenience store cashier down with a book of wanted terrorists' pictures. Once she has them firmly planted in her mind, we'll let her to wander the streets of the Middle East and other hot spots, picking terrorists out of the crowded cafes, and markets. "Hey," she'll say, "didn't you used to bomb the U.S.S. Cole?" The suspect will pause, pale, and flee - only to be nabbed by nearby U.S. agents.

And thus will end the War on Terror.