Artifacts of History and Heroes

On the USS Arlington, Pentagon Steel Will Recall the County's Darkest Day

The eight crooked and rusty strips of steel and handful of broken bolts in a pile on a table outside the office of the secretary of the Navy last week looked unremarkable.

But for the Arlington County police, fire and rescue personnel who rushed to the burning Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, the survivors of those killed and the people who work in and around the center of the nation's defense, the scraps -- and the journey they are set to take -- are powerful artifacts.

The metal pieces, which held up the Pentagon's stone exterior before American Airlines Flight 77 struck, were dedicated to Arlington officials in a small ceremony on the seventh anniversary of the terrorist attacks and will be displayed aboard the USS Arlington, a vast amphibious assault and transport ship that will soon have its keel laid in Pascagoula, Miss.

"I was here for pretty much two weeks after it hit," said Arlington police Capt. Kevin M. Reardon, who was among the rush of responders. Seven years later, his son has just finished basic training and his county is being linked even more closely to the memory of the attack.

"We're tying it to the military and showing our support at the same time," Reardon said. "Every time they mention the military, it hits a special place in my heart."

The metal, along with a small piece of limestone from a battered Pentagon corridor, will be placed on the quarterdeck and near the ship's gangway, where the crew and others will encounter it easily.

"It's the tangibility of it," said Sen. James Webb (D-Va.). "It gives them something they can directly touch."

Webb, a former Navy secretary, had been in the Pentagon having breakfast with the commandant of the Marine Corps., Gen. James L. Jones, on Sept. 11, 2001. In the early confusion of that morning, one of the general's aides came in and said "it looks like a missile" exploded into the north tower of the World Trade Center.

Jones asked Webb whether he wanted to stay and watch the unfolding events on CNN, but Webb drove to his office overlooking the Iwo Jima Memorial. Once there, "I heard the thunk of the impact of the aircraft. The building smoldered and burned for days," Webb said. "It was a profound personal experience, as well as a national experience."

Four years later, Arlington officials took a side trip to the Northrop Grumman shipyard in Pascagoula while doing Katrina relief work and were awed by seeing what the USS Arlington will look like. The San Antonio LPD 17 class ships can carry tanks and helicopters as well as troops and are meant to evade radar.

"I've never been on anything that large in my life," said County Board member Barbara A. Favola. Having a ship named after Arlington brings "an incredible amount of patriotism," she said.

The idea emerged to include steel from the Pentagon on board, evoking what had been done with the USS New York, another San Antonio class ship that included melted steel from the World Trade Center in its construction. (A third ship named to commemorate the 2001 attacks, the USS Somerset, will include steel from a crane that stood near the crash site in Somerset, Pa.)

But the Pentagon, built in wartime, didn't use much steel, which went to more urgent needs such as tanks and ships. Finding and retrieving the steel from the area affected by the Sept. 11 attacks became an arduous, bureaucratic task.

"I assumed this would be relatively simple," said Frank Shafroth, a former Arlington official who is chief of staff to Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.).

It took two years. Then he got the call from Ralph Newton, a senior Pentagon facilities official who had managed to secure the rusted pieces.

"When Ralph called me and said, 'This is sitting on my desk,' it ended a long, miserable trial. At that point, you're happy it's there," Shafroth said. The effort, he said, builds "a bond between Arlington, the Pentagon, the people on that ship, and the first responders and the family members who lost someone that day."

"You understand how much meaning this will have for them," Shafroth said.