President Obama was among the hundreds of people who visited to the Pentagon Saturday to honor to the 184 people killed there — and the 3,000 others who died in New York — during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks nine years ago.
A steady stream of visitors commemorated the nine-year anniversary at the Pentagon memorial, where 184 stone benches are engraved with the names of everyone who died when a band of terrorists hijacked a plane and smashed it into the west side of the Department of Defense headquarters.
Mary Turcotte said she traveled from Florida to visit the Pentagon memorial on the anniversary.
“It’s awe-inspiring,” she said of the memorial. “It represents strength through firepower. And it makes me proud of my country.”
Chris Barry, 23, of Arkansas, said Saturday was his first visit to Washington.
“If you are going to see it, this is the day to do it,” he said.
Charlie Bird of Fairfax-based Balfour Beatty Construction said he’s been to the memorial — and the Air Force memorial across the street — “too many times to count.”
Bird helped build both exhibits, he said, and he happily explained every detail of the memorials’ construction to visitors.
“It was a thrill and honor to work on this,” he said.
Obama spoke to victims’ family members in a morning ceremony.
“The highest honor we can pay those we lost, indeed our greatest weapon in this ongoing war, is to do what our adversaries fear the most,” he said. “To stay true to who we are, as Americans; to renew our sense of common purpose; to say that we define the character of our country, and we will not let the acts of some small band of murderers who slaughter the innocent and cower in caves distort who we are.”
The president’s remarks focused on religious liberty and tolerance, alluding to the divisive debate over a planned mosque near ground zero in New York.
“As Americans we are not — and never will be — at war with Islam,” Obama said. “It was not a religion that attacked us that September day — it was al-Qaida, a sorry band of men which perverts religion.”
