September 11, 2022

Once again we must pause to remember. Thousands of our fellow citizens,neighbors, friends, relatives, human beings were sacrificed: for reasons we will never fully understand. We could go on forever about the "whys" of this horrific event and probably never fully agree or understand the reasons or on what "would've, could've, should've been done in response, or to prevent. Never.

What we can do is remember. And, grieve. And honor those lost, injured, and affected by this ungodly act.

As you  may know, if you follow along here, I try to visit, photograph and honor 9/11 memorials wherever I may find them and then on most years try to post something here.

This year I have chosen to share a memorial found on The Commons in Boston.

The Commons is a beautiful park in central Boston. One could just wander for hours enjoying the trees, flowers, bridges and abundant water. Water birds of various types add much to the beauty and tranquility of the park. Along one of the many walkways you will come across this beautiful tribute to those lost on the 11th.

Time touches all more gently here,
here where man has said, No:
trees and grass, and flowers will remain,
where the first born sometimes sees
his father's eyes
reflected in the shallow pool,
feels an ancient heart beat
in the palm of his hand
pressed against a willow;
and seeking comfort, seeking shade
lies beneath the golden leaf elm
watching swanboats glide in season.

   Lawrence Homer from   

Boston and Sea Poems

So, once again on this day, like some others, that will "live in infamy" take a moment to remember, hug someone you love, vow to be better.

Next time, the aforementioned return to West Virginia ( in the previous post) will take place. Join me on the 16th, as always, at 9:00am.

To see additional memorials from any state in the Union, please click on the state name on the left side of this page.

If you follow along here you know that I always ask readers to send me any memorials, that I have not featured here, that they may have seen. I promise to give photo credits (which might only matter to professionals) and hope that some might do so. A number of you have honored me and our fellow vets by doing just that and I hope this will encourage more of you to get in touch.

If you have photos, please send them to the address at the right side of this page

9/11/ 2020

Hard to believe that it has been 19 years since The Twin Towers fell, the Pentagon crumbled, and the fields of Shanksville, Pennsylvania were forever marred.

Our lives, for those of us who remember, were inexorably changed (even if you don't remember, your life was altered too.)

There are memorials to this event in every state of the union and today, I will share one of these with you in honor and remembrance.

Belen, New Mexico is about 100 miles southwest of Santa Fe and has a population of about 7,000 people.

I was looking for a Vietnam memorial, as usual, and I stopped to ask for information. Right near the Wells Fargo Bank on Main Street was this really extensive memorial to 9/11.

This detailed explanation  is attached to a huge section of the Pentagon. 

This mock-up of the Twin Towers stands eight feet tall.

This is an actual shovel used at the Pentagon by first responders

Finally, this guy protects it all. His wing span is over eight feet!

The bricks in the wall just behind all this list the names of service men and women from New Mexico who made the final sacrifice.

So, nineteen years later it astounds me that people now in college and high school, a whole generation, were not even born when this fateful day occurred. Take a moment, then, to recall, to remember, and to honor those lost by telling them about it, what you were doing at the time and how you felt.

Next time, on the 16th, we will return to Maryland, so as always, meet me there at 9:00am.

To see Vietnam memorials from any state in the union, please click on the state name on the left side of this page.

9/11 2018

17 years ago the world was changed forever. New considerations, new understanding, and new fears were thrust upon us all.

We all know, and will ever remember, exactly where we were and what we were doing when the news, the horror, the terror, altered our consciousness for all time.

I think The World Trade Center and the Pentagon, which are featured elsewhere on this site,  are probably better known than Shanksville. Pa., so I went there last week to honor the lost and learn more about the sight and the way we have honored the 40 passengers and crew members from Flight 93.

One enters the memorial site from Rte. 30 very near Shanksville and drives along a winding road lined with many trees to a parking lot at the entrance of the site.

The first thing that you see are large walls that dominate the space.

The walls are bisected by a dark path and funnel visitors to the observation and are said to reflect the height of the plane as it passed this spot . The path, said to represent the coal once mined here, turns out to be the exact flight path of the plane.

Along this path is a visitors Center that has any number of interesting and disturbing displays of TV broadcasts from the day, artifacts from the crash site and a huge window that looks out over what is now called The Field of Honor. 

The path itself is marked with a timeline of the other events of that fateful day.

The flight path ends, for the moment, at the observation deck.

From the deck you view the whole area including many of the 40 groves of 40 Red and White Maples,  Oak Trees, and Hemlocks planted as part of the remembrance of the 40 heroes aboard the ill fated airplane.

Debris from the wreckage was spread over a large area, some light weight materials, paper, etc. were found 8 miles from the site.

One can walk one of the paths leading to the crash area or drive along the road which is said to encompass and protect all that were lost there. There is parking near the plaza area from which you must walk the last bit of the journey.

This is the view of The Wall of Names as you approach and the one just below is of the observation deck from the above position.

Along the enclosing wall are several places specifically for visitors to leave small mementos as someone has done here.

The flight path continues from The Wall of Names to the gate which protects the actual impact area which is private.

The gate is made from some of the 100 Hemlock Trees which were destroyed by the crash.

Each of the 40 names is inscribed upon an 8 foot marble panel.

This 14 ton rock marks the actual impact spot of Flight 93 and is considered a burial spot and is reserved for the families of the lost. I had really wanted to place my hand upon it, but that is not allowed and I respect that.

On September 9th, 2018, the last feature of the memorial will be dedicated. It is a 93 foot tall Tower of Voices with 40 wind chimes that will sound in the constant wind which sometimes blows at 150 miles an hour here. The Park Service person on the site said that it will be dedicated but not actually completed by the 9th. There is some issue with the mechanism that holds the, often, very large chimes in place.

I will write more about it sometime in the future, when actually complete,

So, today, take a moment to recall this day 17 years ago and all that it has lead to, all that has happened and all that might yet come. Have a thought for those on board and their heroic actions that may well have saved the lives of countless others. No one actually knows where this plane was headed, but, I do know that many government agencies and personnel were told it was headed for them. Every agency in DC and elsewhere was on alert. I know of one where the employees were told to evacuate and they refused, they chose to stay and do what they could to fight back. Eventually, armed Marines showed up and "escorted" them out of the building.

We will never know if that was, in fact, necessary.

Next time, on the 16th, we will return to visiting Vietnam memorials, this time in California, so join me there at 9:00am.

To see other 9/11 memorials, browse this site, I have posted a few over the years from Arizona, California, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and The Pentagon.

9/11, 2016, The Pentagon

15 years ago today, I was teaching a class on computer maintenance and repair to a group of students at my school. This was a three hour class. so "breaks" were built into the schedule. Just before one of them my colleague walked in and whispered in my ear that the World Trade Center had been hit by an airplane and that it was thought to be terrorism.

I actually thought, "Oh, that's crazy, that can't be true."

Well, the scheduled break came and I walked across the hall to a classroom that had a TV on, just in time to see the second plane hit the building.

As you might imagine, or perhaps remember, the rest of the day was chaos. Rumors abounded. We heard that the Capital was on fire, we heard that Camp David was ablaze. and on and on and on. Later, as the truth became clear we knew that a plane had gone down in Shanksville, Pa., and that another one had flown into the Pentagon.

My sister's friend was killed in the Pentagon, my wife's boss had just walked away from an office that was hit. This was personal.

I am not completely sure why, but I had not visited the memorial at the Pentagon until now. It seems to me that the 15th anniversary is a good time to so so.

So, on a day much like the  one in 2001, sunny, bright blue sky, warm, I ventured down.

I guess because it is, after all, the Pentagon, they don't make it easy. You can only drop off or pick up people near the memorial, not park. I drove around and around and found nothing but restricted parking. I finally asked some guys in uniform and they said you had to park at a local Macy's. Well, I had no idea where that was or how I might get back to the site, so I continued to just keep driving around. I finally came to a guard shack and  went over to ask. Nobody in the guard shack. I was getting pretty frustrated. Finally, a guy walked up, no uniform, and asked if he could help me. He was wearing some kind of Pentagon badges, so when he told me a could park nearby, if I was going to be an hour or less, I took his word for it.

It turned out the parking area was right near the entrance to the memorial but was not marked as visitor parking, I parked anyway.

I walked in and the site is quite beautiful and serene.

The first thing you see is this black stone marker announcing the site.

All of those lost are listed on this adjacent marker. The numbers, to the left of each name, are the year in which each was born.

At the entrance is this inscription which is on a salvaged piece of stone from the Pentagon, itself.

Inside the memorial are 185 stone "benches" one for each of the lost. they are arranged chronologically be age. the youngest (3 years old) to the oldest (71 years old) On the wall surrounding the area dates are specified so that one might, more easily, find a particular persson's bench.

The "benches" are placed along the flight path of the plane and each one is engraved with a name.

 If you look carefully, you will see that there is a name on the end of this bench, but look into the water below and you will see that there are others there. this is all one family that was lost together.

If you are facing the Pentagon as you read the name, that means that the person named was in the Pentagon. If you are facing away from the Pentagon, it means that the person named was on the plane.

The site is planted with 85 white Crape Myrtle trees, very beautiful, but I have been unable to determine if that number is significant in any way.

There is a wall the encloses the space, nearly two acres, that  reminds us of the ages of those lost. It begins at 3 inches for the youngest child and rises to 71 inches for the eldest victim.


I am making plans to travel to Shanksville, Pa, and New York City to honor those memorials as well. More on them in the future.

Next time, on the 16th, we will be back on track with Vietnam memorials. Join me in Kirkwood, Missouri, as usual, at 9:00am.

To see other 9/11 memorials or Vietnam memorials from any state, just click the names, or dates,  on the left side of this page.

September 11, 2012

Last year it seemed "not quite right" to write about Vietnam memorials on 9/11. I remembered that I had photographed a couple of 9/11 memorials along my journeys and decided  to honor and remember those lost on this fateful day in our history instead. 11 of my neighbors were lost at the Pentagon and in their memory, as well as all the others, I posted a couple of pics of some of  the ones I have seen. Below are the names of those who were lost from my area at the Pentagon;

William Edward Caswell
Dr. Gerald Paul Fisher
Capt. Lawrence D. Getzfred
Michele M. Heidenberger
Angela Marie Houtz
Teddington Hamm Moy
Lt. Darin H. Pontell
Scott A. Powell
Todd Hayes Reuben
Patricia J. Statz
Ernest M. Willcher

You can see last years post by clicking on last September in the list to the right of this page and then scrolling back to the post.

The above memorial is in Rosemead, California. Located near the Vietnam memorial at the city hall it immediately caught my attention. A piece of the World Trade Center is supported by two hands made up of individual birds. There are 2976 doves, exactly the same number of birds as victims on 9/11. The birds were cut from sheets of stainless steel and then hand formed  by the artist so that each one fit perfectly into its place. This part of the project, alone, took nearly 5 months and the artist is quoted as saying "Every time I got tired of bending metal, I remembered that each bird was a human life" and that kept him going. Dedicated on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, this memorial along with the Vietnam memorial and others will soon be relocated to a new plaza that is under construction in the city. The marker for the memorial was in storage, in prep for the move, when I was there. The head of the Parks Dept was kind enough to go get it so I could photograph it, too.  Thanks again!

Back to 'Nam sites on the 14th. Join me at Aberdeen, South Dakota at 9:00am