From Families' Grief, a Symbol of Loss and Hope

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The Nation's First 9/11 Memorial

Seven years after the tragic events of 9/11, the memorial park, featuring 184 light benches for the 184 victims that lost their life at the Pentagon, will be dedicated.

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"It was one of the hardest things I've had to do," she said. "Here were all of these people who were still so raw, still grieving, and I had to call them to ask them to get involved."

To a person, they all agreed.

Soon, the group was meeting monthly with officials from the Pentagon Renovation Program, the agency in charge of the rebuilding. Four or five locations for the memorial were proposed, Falk recalled, including one adjacent to the Metro station, which would be especially convenient for visitors.

"Some were nice spots," Falk said. "But the families said 9/11 had picked the site." They insisted that the memorial should rise on the grounds of the building's western side, exactly where the plane hit.

By February 2003, an 11-member jury of design professionals, scholars, Pentagon officials and victims' family members selected the winning plan from 1,126 entries. It was drafted by a young couple, Keith Kaseman and Julie Beckman, who proposed a parklike space with shade, trickling pools of water and rows of arcing, cantilevered "light" benches that would set the site aglow at night.

The Pentagon donated the land, but the construction cost of Kaseman and Beckman's project soon rose to $22 million. For legal and strategic reasons, the Pentagon Memorial Fund was created not long after that, with nine family members as its board of directors.

Having raised the money to build the memorial, the fund is developing a $10 million endowment to cover maintenance and other expenses. Lisa Dolan, one of the fund's board members, said the families' work will not end when the memorial is finished.

She plans to work on an initiative to encourage teachers to incorporate the site into their history lessons. "I'll still be out there working to keep the whole thing alive, so people don't forget," said Dolan, whose husband, Navy Capt. Robert Edward Dolan Jr., was killed in the attack. "I don't think the public thinks much about 9/11 now."

Laychak, who lives in Alexandria, also plans to continue in his role. Recently, Falk said that when Laychak called her, the two discussed what he would do once the memorial was open. At the end of the conversation, Falk said Laychak thanked her for picking him as someone who could get the site built. "He said, 'You changed my life,' " Falk recalled. "And I told him: 'No, you picked yourself.' "