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The Pentagon Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery

Arlington National Cemetery, one of America’s most sacred sites, is the final resting place of 285,000 people. Among them are 64 of the 184 people killed when American Airlines Flight 77 struck the Pentagon. Most of them (50) lie together, near the simple granite marker bearing all 184 names. (The others are in various locations throughout the cemetery.) The Pentagon itself can be discerned through nearby trees. Inside the Pentagon chapel shine new stained glass windows made by survivors of the attack. “The heroes that sleep in these hills” will always be remembered.

The Pentagon Memorial will consist of 184 cantilevered metal “Memorial Units." Each one is simultaneously a bench, a place for mementos, a permanent inscription of each name, and an individual reflecting pool. The pools will be lit each night, as glowing symbols of remembrance.
After a lengthy search for a suitably long-lasting, strong and attractive metal, a Super Duplex stainless steel alloy with high pit resistance equivalent (PRE) was chosen. Fittingly, this is the same metal used in the restoration of the Statue of Liberty. The Pentagon Memorial committee continues to work to finish the Pentagon Memorial – a “place designed for a lifetime”

On September 24th, 2002, Congress passed the Flight 93 National Memorial Act. The Act created a new national parks unit to “commemorate the passengers and crew of Flight 93, who, on September 11, 2001, courageously gave their lives, thereby thwarting a planned attack on our nation’s capital.”

The design competition for the Flight 93 memorial is now under way. The competition will be carried out in two stages and is open to professionals in the design and art disciplines as well as the public. Individuals or teams may register for a nonrefundable fee of $25. Registration ends on December 27, 2004. All Stage I submittals will be presented as a concept on a single board and will be judged anonymously (without the jury knowing the name of the entrant).

The Stage I Jury will select three to five finalists who will advance to Stage II and participate in a Site Master Plan Workshop. The finalists will receive a $25,000 honorarium each to further develop their concept and present it with additional drawings and a three-dimensional model. The Stage II Jury will recommend a winning concept to the Flight 93 Advisory Commission, which then presents the recommendation to the Secretary of the Interior and to Congress ). Click here for a complete schedule for the competition.

On February 26, 1993, a car bomb exploded in the World Trade Center’s subterranean parking garage at 12:18 pm. The explosion killed six people, John DiGiovanni, Robert Kirkpatrick, Steve Knapp, Monica Smith, William Macko and Wilfredo Mercado. At least 1,040 others were injured.

Smoke rose to the 93rd floor of both Towers and cut off the emergency lighting system for the Towers. The nation was shocked by the attack. Mario Cuomo, governor of New York at the time, was quoted as saying, “We all have that feeling of being violated…Until now we were invulnerable.” The BBC, unwittingly prophetic, quoted Bruce Pomper, an eyewitness to the explosion, as saying, “It felt like an airplane hit the building.”

In May, 1994, four men – Mohammed Salameh, Nidal Ayyad, Mahmud Abouhalima and Ahmad Ajaj – were each given life sentences for their roles in the bombing. The next year, Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman was also sentenced to life for masterminding the attack. Other arrests and convictions have followed, though no one has been sentenced for the actual bombing itself.

A memorial to the victims was erected directly above the site of the bomb. Sadly, this memorial did not survive the collapse of the Towers on September 11th 2001.

If you know of another memorial to include, please email us at info@911families.org.