From Valleynewslive · · 1m 20s
Ground breaks on a 9/11 Pentagon education center
Twenty-five years after Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, families finally broke ground on a place to tell the story.
In brief
Twenty-five years after Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, families finally broke ground on a place to tell the story. The Pentagon's 184 dead are getting a building that explains what happened to them, not just benches that name them. Originally reported by Valleynewslive.
One day after the anniversary
The 9/11 Pentagon Memorial broke ground on a Visitor Education Center in Arlington, Virginia, the day after the 25th anniversary of the attacks.
A brother among the 184
Jim Laychak lost his brother Dave when hijackers flew American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon, one of 184 people killed there.
“After Dave died, I began thinking, 'how will we remember this?'”
What the center will hold
Exhibits will walk guests through the attacks with a historical timeline and show how the country responded in the days after.
Context before the benches
The building is designed to work with the memorial grounds, so visitors learn the history first, then walk out to the bench placed for each victim.
Not just New York
Sen. Mark Warner argued the Pentagon and Pennsylvania losses deserve the same place in public memory as the towers.
“There was a tragedy in New York, but there was also a tragedy here at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania”
A first shovel, not a finish
Construction has a long way to go. Breaking ground is only step one, arriving a quarter century after the attack it commemorates.
“We want people to remember what happened here. We want people to remember our loved ones”
The key point
The Pentagon's 184 dead are getting a building that explains what happened to them, not just benches that name them.
