A bench at the Pentagon Memorial commemorates U.S. Navy Electronics Technician Brian Moss, who lost his life in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Each of the 184 benches is inscribed with the name of either Pentagon employee or a passenger on American Airlines Flight 77 who perished in the attack.
The Seven Year Ache
By: Elizabeth Findell
After stepping off of a yellow-line train at the Pentagon Metro station on the evening of September 11, 2008, a quick-footed businessman paused, took out a camera and snapped a photo of the newly updated station entrance sign. The sign had arrows to the yellow and blue Metro lines, the bus terminal and, in fresh lettering, the Pentagon Memorial.
On the seventh anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the first on-site memorial opened along the rebuilt side of the Pentagon. At the spot where the hijacked American Airlines jet crashed and claimed 184 victims, 184 benches, perched above lighted pools of water, will provide a permanent site for reflection.
New York architects Julie Beckman and Keith Kaseman, who personally witnessed the World Trade Center attacks, designed the memorial after a panel selected their vision from over 1,000 idea submissions. Construction began in the summer of 2006. Family members, Pentagon survivors and donors all worked together to create the memorial around the theme “Remember, Reflect, Renew.”
Bill Wing traveled over 2,000 miles to contribute to that effort. Wing is a member of Healing Field, a project of the Colonial Flag American flag company of Sandy, Utah, that creates commemorative “flag fields.” Wing said he drove more than 3,000 flags across the country in a rented truck to set up the Pentagon Memorial flag field. Since 9/11, according to Wing, Healing Field has established more than 200 flag fields around the country.
In the parking lot “field” in front of the entrance to the memorial, a flag for each of the nearly 3,000 9/11 victims waved
in the breeze. One hundred eighty four of them bore blue ribbons and the names of Pentagon victims.
Wing said that at the end of the night he would pack up all of the flags and drive them back to Utah. Most of them will be sold and the proceeds donated to the memorial. The 184 Pentagon flags, however, will be packaged and sent to victims’ families.
Wing said that he didn’t mind the long drive or the hard work involved in arranging the display.
“My mission was focused: get the flags here,” he said.
The flag field at the entrance to the Pentagon Memorial greeted families and other invited guests at the dedication ceremony that marked the official opening of the site on the seventh anniversary of 9/11. The memorial opened to the public that evening at 7:00 p.m., bringing diverse crowds together in common remembrance.
The memorial itself consists of a stainless steel and marble bench for every individual killed, each reaching above a lit pool of water. A victim’s name is inscribed into the end of every bench. The benches are organized in lines according to the age of the victim. The wall along the edge of the memorial rises incrementally from three inches, the age of the youngest victim, to 71 inches, the age of the oldest. Benches are positioned so that someone reading the name of a victim aboard the doomed flight is facing the sky, while someone reading the name of a Pentagon victim is facing the building.
The front edge of the wall is formed by limestone from the portion of the Pentagon that was attacked. An inscription reads: “September 11, 2001 9:37 A.M.” The large vertical stone in front of the wall reads in part: “We will never forget.”
One woman pushed a stroller through the benches, trying to explain to a wide-eyed little girl why they were there. “And then it ran into the building and the whole thing blew up,” she said, urging the next generation not to forget what had happened.
A man wearing a t-shirt reading “Ray” and carrying a large flag stopped to survey the bench of the youngest child killed, three-year-old Dana Falkenberg. A single pink rose lay on the bench, and a stuffed dog sat in front of it. The man exclaimed in sadness that he remembered seeing the child’s picture at a memorial event, and asked someone to take his photo with the flag next to the bench. He then hurried through the crowd, encouraging visitors to pass around what he said is the most held flag in America.
The man, Ray DeFrees, is a retired military vet who sported a red, white and blue outfit as well as a fannypack with water and a sitting pad. He said he bought the flag after 9/11 and then carried it in the first Marine Corps marathon that took place after the attacks. DeFrees said he took the flag to the first event on a whim, but found that it had such an impact on the runners and spectators that he decided to continue the practice to help strengthen the bonds of patriotism.
“It’s just a good thing to do, people respond to it,” he said. “You know, the oldest person to carry this flag was 94, the oldest woman to carry it across a finish line in a race was 85, and the youngest person to hold it with help was 18 months.”
DeFrees was only one of many visitors that wandered through the rows of benches. Men in military uniform mingled with men sporting Harley Davidson club insignia. A woman in a modest skirt and a headscarf walked arm-in-arm with a designer-clad blonde. A man in a blindingly neon bicycle suit hurried past another in a New York Fire Department t-shirt. Uniformed flight attendants placed ribbon rosettes on the benches honoring airline employees.
When the memorial dedication orchestra started playing the Star Spangled Banner, every person present froze to face a three-story flag draped over the side of the Pentagon. Hands over their hearts, they stood in silence, listening to the anthem mingle with jet noise as a landing plane ducked behind the building, an eerie reminder of the events seven years earlier.
Photographers scrambled to catch the moment when a toddler climbed playfully behind a framed picture that a woman and two teenagers had just placed on the bench of Navy Electronics Technician Brian A. Moss.
“Sailor,” the woman scolded, “be careful, get down.”
The child refused, to the delight of the clustered photographers. The little girl named Sailor pranced atop the memorial bench of a man who had been designated Washington’s “Sailor of the Year” the year he died. Teenage members of the girl’s family rolled their eyes and laughed.
“We don’t know her,” the teenagers snickered.
The woman, Mary Lou, explained that Brian Moss was her husband and that the little girl, Sailor—who had been up since dawn for the morning service—thought the benches were slides. As Mary Lou spelled the names of the older children for the press, her expression softened. The teenagers, she said, were only five and seven at the time of the attacks.
“I can’t believe it’s been seven years,” she added. “It’s like you blink and . . . . It was yesterday.”
