The 9/11 Memorial, Pentagon

The DC area is filled with memorials, but few as poignant to modern-day America as the 9/11 Memorial at the Pentagon. It honors American Flight 77 and the 184 people who were lost there. Some were victims in the Pentagon. The rest were aboard the plane that hit it. My visit last year comes to mind as we mark this occasion once again.

The place itself is quietly beautiful, and words can not do it justice. Neither locals nor visitors to the area should miss this sacred space of remembrance. I had attended last year’s anniversary with a group who comes each year. They held a short service in memoriam.

Afterwards, they handed out long stemmed roses to place on the memorial benches, each inscribed with a name of a victim. As a mother of two girls myself, I reserved mine for the youngest there—a little girl named Dana Falkenberg, just three years of age. Her parents and sister also perished in the crash. One can only wonder how such horror can appeal to an ideological and political cause, and the mindset of those who subscribe to it.