As Pentagon tribute opens, others years away

Yes Folks, another year without a Terrorist Attack.

From USA Today

ARLINGTON, Va. — Gravel crunches under Kathy Dillaber's feet as she walks to the cantilevered steel and granite bench that bears her sister's name. It is one of 184 benches, each hovering above a pool of lighted water.

To read the one inscribed "Patricia Mickley," the Army civilian must face the building where she and her kid sister were working on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. Dillaber still works there. Her sister, a Defense Department civilian, lies in Arlington National Cemetery.

In between the Pentagon and the cemetery is the first permanent memorial at one of the three sites defined by the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

"I have a love-hate relationship with this place," says Dillaber, her eyes welling as she gingerly sits on Patty's bench. "I love all that went into it, all the compassion. … I hate that it has to be here."

Seven years after terrorists crashed passenger jets into the Pentagon, the World Trade Center and a grassy field in Pennsylvania, the first major memorial to their nearly 3,000 victims will be dedicated here Thursday. The 2-acre site will open to the public at 7 that evening. Memorials in New York and a rural township near Shanksville, Pa., won't be dedicated for at least another three years.

This is really bizarre for once a government project was completed before private projects. I feel faint. One has to ask "why". I don't have the answer yet, but will be researching it. How 'bout you? Technorati Tags: news, 911, pentagon, NY, memorials, Pensylvania