7th anniversary of 9/11: Pentagon memorial's opening brings closure for many

Surely no one who had seen the Pentagon burning seven years ago could have envisioned the scene that unfolded there on September 11.

When the dedication ceremony for the Pentagon Memorial ended about 10:30 a.m. and the dignitaries had left in their motorcades, the families of Sept. 11 victims began filing into the park, searching for the steel and granite memorial benches with the names of their loved ones. They carried flowers, balloons and photographs, and soon, a festive, almost celebratory mood began to take hold among a group long accustomed to spending the day in sadness.

It was the children who set the tone, really, treating the austere objects like playground equipment rather than representations of the dead. They ran among the rows of benches, playing with the water in the pools below and sliding down their smooth, arcing outlines, a stone's throw from the spot where American Airlines Flight 77 tore into the western side of the Pentagon seven years ago, killing 184.

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