ONE OF THE QUIET WONDERS of the last year has been the swift reconstruction of the Pentagon. While New York City has gone through a long, public grieving process for the World Trade Center, Washingtonians seem almost oblivious to the impressive work of the Phoenix Project. But no longer. On July 4 the National Geographic Channel will air a documentary, Inside the Pentagon, that goes a long way to showing the valor and everyday heroism of the military men and women who work in the capital.

To understand the Pentagon, you have to first grasp its size: 6 million square feet of space connected by 17.5 miles of corridors. It is home to 23,000 workers who, being largely military folk, start getting to the office around 6:00 a.m. every morning.