Families find solace in Pentagon site

Construction crews are hurrying to finish the job.

Washington Post

WASHINGTON — Jonathan Fisher walked slowly, searching for a name Friday among the stainless steel benches laid out in rows along the Pentagon’s west wall.

His feet crunched on the gravel as he stepped around concrete basins and the pipes that will create pools of flowing water under each bench at the Pentagon Memorial. He bent to peer at the names etched on the benches. Then he spotted Gerald P. Fisher.

His father, known to friends and family as Geep, was a defense contractor for Booz Allen and Hamilton working at the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. The Potomac, Md., man was among the 184 killed when terrorists flew a hijacked American Airlines jet into the building, passing directly over the spot where Jonathan Fisher now stood.

Fisher rubbed his hands slowly on the granite slab. Nearby, a kneeling construction worker cut steel bolts with a power saw. Fisher seemed not to notice the racket.

“This is the place where my father died,” said Fisher, 36, of McLean, Va. “Seeing there is some place we can go to, a place to draw strength from, even though it’s very upsetting to come to this place, it’s comforting.”

The Pentagon Memorial is to be dedicated Sept. 11, the seventh anniversary of the terrorist attacks. Friday, at the start of the Memorial Day weekend, Fisher was among more than a dozen family members of victims gathered at the site.

Construction crews are rushing to complete the work, working seven-day weeks now to make up for time lost to recent rains.

The 184 benches, each honoring a victim, are in varying states of completion. On the southern side of the two-acre park, where the benches for the youngest victims will be, concrete basins sit atop footings. In the memorial’s midsection, stainless steel benches have been installed atop the basins. The benches on the northern side, where Fisher’s father is honored, have already been fitted with granite tops.

The Pentagon Memorial Fund has raised $19 million of the $22 million needed for construction, including $3 million collected in the past three months, fund president James Laychak announced Friday. An additional $10 million is needed for an endowment that would maintain the site.