We took advantage of a recent no school day get the boys down to the Pentagon for a tour. We were in luck this time--the weather was nice and the Pentagon Memorial was open!
The Pentagon Memorial commemorates the victims of the events at 9:37 AM, September 11th, 2001, when a hijacker flew American Airlines Flight 77 into the side of the building. 184 lives were lost that day, some on the aircraft and some on the ground.
The memorial is a collection of individual memorials to each victim, and is arranged by date of birth, from the youngest, aged 3, to the eldest, a 71-year-old Navy veteran. The memorials are cantilevered benches with a flowing pool of water underneath. If you face the end with the name of the person, you look either at the Pentagon, if that person was there, or the ridge over which the plane came, if the person was on the plane. 125 people in the Pentagon were lost that day, and 59 on the plane.
It’s an elegant, simple memorial, interspersed with Crepe Myrtle trees still in their youth, which one day will shade the etched stone and steel names of those that lost their lives that fateful day. It's an incredibly peaceful place to just sit and reflect on the enormity of what happened and pay tribute to the souls who were lost.
If you look closely, you can tell the new stone from the building's original stone, which gives you an idea of the area of impact and amount of damage to that side of the building.
If you haven't seen this memorial and you're anywhere near the Pentagon, you should definitely make time to go.
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