Military Officer - September 2006 - (Page 107) pagesofhistory Pentagon Memorial Those who died in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the Pentagon are remembered as construction begins on a memorial at the site where the hijacked airliner struck. O n June 15, ground was dedicated to the memory of those killed in the terrorist attack on the Pentagon five years ago. Senior Defense leaders, cabinet members, members of Congress, Pentagon employees, family members, and friends gathered for a ceremony to mark the start of construction on the Pentagon Memorial. The memorial will be built at the place where hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon Sept. 11. The memorial will cover a 2-acre site and contain 184 illuminated benches, one for each person killed at the Pentagon. During the ceremony, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and others unveiled a memorial marker stone. The Pentagon Memorial Fund has raised about half of the money needed to build the memorial, which is scheduled to be completed in 2008. be commissioned in 2007 (at which point she will receive the USS designation), but the 684-foot vessel already has a motto: “Never Forget.” The ship’s bow stem was formed from roughly seven tons of steel that was salvaged from the WTC and melted down. “We’re very proud that the twisted steel from the WTC towers will soon be used to forge an even stronger national defense,” New York Gov. George Pataki said. Additional vessels in the Navy’s San Antonio class will pay tribute to victims of the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and United Flight 93. — Christina Wood L “Never Forget” PD 21, the fifth amphibious transport dock of the Navy’s 12-ship San Antonio class, has been christened New York in honor of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center (WTC). New York is scheduled to THIS MONTH IN HISTORY ■ On Sept. 30, 1954, the U.S. Navy commis- POW Exhibit Opens A sioned the world’s first nuclear submarine, USS Nautilus, constructed under the direction of thenCapt. Hyman G. Rickover, a Russian-born engineer who joined the U.S. atomic program in 1946. PHOTO: PETTY OFFICER 1ST CLASS CHAD J. MCNEELEY, USN/DOD new exhibit at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton, Ohio, helps visitors learn what it was like to be a POW in Southeast Asia. Visitors can look inside re-created prison cells for an up-close picture of POW living conditions. Photographs, videos, dioramas, and artifacts tell the story of prisoner torture, political exploitation, and filthy living conditions. Also on display at the museum is the C141 Hanoi Taxi, which was the first aircraft to return American POWs of the Vietnam War to the United States. MO SEPTEMBER 2006 Attendees applaud the unveiling of an inscribed stone at groundbreaking ceremonies for the Pentagon Memorial. MILITARY OFFICER 107
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.