Travelogue

All of D.C.'s memorials to the dead are powerful.

I certainly haven't visited them all in our short two years here, but from Lincoln, to King, from WWII to Vietnam I'm always impressed by how artists can use stone and script to make you feel an urgency to understand and remember the people whose lives and deaths shaped our nation.

But there's a separate class of monuments that do more than just impress. The places where people actually died -- hallowed ground -- have a grimness that stops you in your tracks.


We visited the 9/11 Pentagon Memorial last week and it was stunning.

There is a plane-wing-shaped marker for each soul lost that day and a birth year to signify their age and stage of life. 

There were toddlers, 20-somethings who would have been my age by now, married couples, veterans. Some were going about their workday, others were on a plane.

And mixed with the stone and steel -- permanent sentries, keeping watch over the years -- there is life in rows of lush crepe myrtle trees, and water flowing gently beneath each marker.

Next week we get to be part of a national day of remembrance for the 9/11 victims. We'll work to spruce up graves at the Congressional Cemetery. Visiting the Pentagon crash site reminded me that life is precious and death is often random. For these reasons, it feels right to remember those who died here.