Thursday night after stuffing ourselves at Buca di Beppo, we headed over to the Pentagon Memorial. I had yet to be visit the memorial so it was a new experience for both of us. The memorial was dedicated September 11th, 2008 on the seven year anniversary of the attacks.
It was sobering to see all 184 benches lit up at night (59 from flight 77 and 125 from the Pentagon) it didn't hit me how many people lost their lives in the Pentagon until we saw it like that. Tragedy - it really was.
The focus of the memorial is 184 cantilevered benches built over a pool of lighted water. Each bench is engraved on the end with the name of one of the 184 people who died on board Flight 77 or in the Pentagon that day.
The benches are arranged by age, with the bench of the youngest victim, 3-year-old Dana Falkenberg, in the far southeast corner and the bench honoring 71-year-old John Yamnicky in the northwest corner.
The benches for the 59 victims on board the plane are arranged so that someone reading the name on the end of the bench will face the sky where the plane came from. The 125 benches for the victims inside the Pentagon face the opposite direction, so someone reading the name will look up and see the south facade of the Pentagon, where the jet hit that day.
above description from cnn.com
There was a Pentagon police officer on duty who told us a little bit more about the Memorial. One of the things he mentioned was that gravel was used as ground cover so when you walk, it sounds like you are not walking alone. I cannot wait until the trees are filled in, it will be a beautiful memorial.
2 comments:
wow. that's really powerful. Thanks for the description, I'd love to see it in person.
cool!
Maybe we could go to see that??? (if it is not covered in snow, of course....)
Post a Comment