Pentagon Memorial Remembers 9/11 Attacks

Sept. 11, 2008 -- Remember… Reflect… Renew.

Such is the call to visitors of the Pentagon Memorial, which is being dedicated today to the memory of the 184 people who perished in the Sept. 11 attack on the military headquarters.

Seven years after American Airlines flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon, the nation's first major memorial to the tragic events of 9/11 will open to the public later today following a dedication ceremony attended by 20,000 guests, including President Bush.

It is a small park of memorial benches and trees located just feet from where the plane struck the building. Its completion has been a labor of love for those involved in the construction and of fundraising for the privately funded memorial.

Family members of those who died in the attack played an important role in raising the millions needed for the memorial's construction and insisted that the memorial should be placed at the site of the plane's impact into the building.

Everything about the memorial's understated design is intended to provide visitors with an individual experience to reflect on the lives lost in the attack on the Pentagon.

"We wanted to layer in specific hints and clues about who these people were and …just to the point that we could allow interpretation to be what this place is all about, that it's just a contemplative place," says memorial co-designer Kevin Kaseman.

"It's an individual memorial. It's a collective memorial. It kind of tells a story of what happened that day," says Jim Laychak, who heads the Pentagon Memorial Fund and whose brother David died on 9/11.

Small trees and cantilevered benches emerge from the gravel that covers the entire park.

The benches are aligned along the plane's flight path into the building and arranged according to whether a victim was on the plane or in the building. If the victim's nameplate on the bench can be read with the Pentagon in the background, the person died in the building. If the sky is in the background, the person died aboard the plane.