With state troopers, local police and private security blocking seven lanes at the Bernie Beck Main Gate, minivans, pickups and SUVs poured into the nearby visitor center.
Talking and texting on cell phones, and listening to their car radios for updates, mothers, fathers and friends grieved for the unknown dead and ached to hold loved ones safe in their arms. People who had quit smoking bummed cigarettes from their new neighbors. Three soldiers wearing fatigues stood upright in a pickup truck bed, shuffling feet and smoking. A woman sitting in the backseat of a red sedan openly wept. Others looked stunned, but some were merely solemn.
