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Near the crash site here today, Fields’ widower, William Fields, a retired Marine master sergeant, and family members of other victims toured the Pentagon Memorial construction site. Slated for completion in September 2008, the two-acre memorial will consist of 184 benches, each dedicated to an individual victim and arranged according their ages, from 3-year-old Dana Falkenberg to 71-year-old John D. Yamnicky.
“Her bench is somewhere over there on the 46th angle,” William Fields said, motioning toward the center of the construction site where his late wife’s stainless steel bench will stand.
Every cantilevered bench engraved with a name of a person killed will rise over a small illuminated pool that indicates the victim’s location during the attack. Basin lips curving away from the Pentagon signify an airplane passenger killed, while those curving toward the building represent those who died inside.
For the retired Marine, the field of benches preserves his wife’s individual memory and symbolizes collective sorrow that the attacks sowed over other families.
“Every day you see somebody or something and a memory will flash by your mind, and I go back to her because she was a wonderful lady,” Fields said of his late wife of 26 years. “I think (the memorial) is a wonderful thing for family members, and its something to remind us that we all felt the pain of that day.”
The $22 million project is roughly halfway complete, with 35 workers laboring eight hour daily shifts onsite, and scores of others working offsite fabricating materials. After the foundation is laid, maples trees will be planted on the grounds, a landscaping amenity made possible in part by a $250,000 donation by the non-profit group American Forests today.
“Trees are unique because you can mark your progress or your time on earth by watching how the trees grow. They put human life in perspective,” said Deborah Gangloff, executive director of American Forests. “Generations down the road, those trees will still be there to symbolize and bring the power home of that event to people who didn’t live through it.”
