Visit to the Pentagon Memorial

                On our way home from the Pentagon City Shopping Mall, myself and some of the other fellows decided it would be the perfect opportunity to visit the Pentagon and its memorial site.  None of us were sure what to expect when arriving at the area but speaking for myself, I was more moved by the memorial than I thought I could be.

                At first glance, we saw the two memorial stones.  The first stone is below while the second stone consisted of the names of the 184 victims in the Flight 77.  59 of the victims were on the plane headed to the Los Angeles International Airport while the other 125 victims were in the Pentagon building. 

                As we moved into the actual memorial, I was surprised by the layout chosen and couldn’t figure out the symbolism throughout it.  Since none of the other fellows I was with understood it either, we asked a tourist if he could explain the arrangement of the memorial to us.  Willingly, he clarified each part of the memorial for us.  There are 184 benches each with the victims’ names on the end of the bench and their family members’ names below if they were also a part of Flight 77.  The benches are aligned diagonally in order of the victims’ age, starting with Dana Falkenberg, age 3, and ending with Captain John D. Yamnicky Sr., age 71.  Each of the benches lines up with the year of each victim’s birth on the side wall.  The benches that show the names when looking at the sky are the victims who were on the airplane whereas the benches that show the names when looking at the Pentagon are the victims who were in the Pentagon at the time.  Listening to the tourist’s knowledge of Flight 77 and the memorial was extremely touching.  I feel that everyone visiting Washington D.C. needs to make a trip to the Pentagon Memorial to reflect on 9/11.  Because even though one, like myself, may not have directly known a victim of 9/11, it still has affected everyone in their own unique way.

-Brooke Koester