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For each of the groups working to erect a memorial to the people killed at the Pentagon on Sept. 11, the effort is personal.

September 7, 2003 6:03 am

ROSEMARY DILLARD was sitting in a managers meeting at Reagan Washington National Airport when she heard screams coming from a frequent-fliers lounge.

The American Airlines flight-crew manager raced into the Admiral's Club to investigate and saw newscasts showing a jetliner strike the south tower of the World Trade Center.

By the time Dillard reached her office, employees there were aghast: Another jet had slammed into the Pentagon--just 31/2 miles away.

"One person said it was Flight 77--one of our crew," Dillard recalled. "I said, 'It can't be 77. I just put Eddie on that plane.'"

Nearly two years later, images of Sept. 11, 2001, are still vivid in Dillard's memory. Tears immediately flow as she recalls the morning she lost her husband of 15 years and the four flight attendants she'd gotten to know since relocating from Seattle seven months earlier to manage American's crews out of the three Washington-area airports.

The pain remains fresh, the reality still difficult to grasp. She still cannot part with her husband's belongings and each day her mind slips into denial, thinking he'll walk through the door of their Alexandria home.

But Dillard, 56, has not let the pain consume her life. From the start, she has been part of the families' steering committee for a memorial to the 184 men, women and children killed when terrorists crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the nation's defense headquarters.

She is now vice president of the Pentagon Memorial Fund Inc., a tax-exempt, nonprofit corporation created to raise $20 million--$11.6 million to pay for the memorial and the rest to cover long-term maintenance of the site designed to help the nation reflect on the events of that day and remember those who were killed.

When a contract was signed Aug. 15 with the firm that will fine-tune the design and build the memorial, Dillard was at the Pentagon, representing the families who had lost loved ones.

"This means an awful lot to us," she said that day.

"We don't consider ourselves victims because just as our lives changed, everyone's lives changed."

The Pentagon Memorial could be finished as early as spring 2005, but whether it will hinges to a large degree on funding. Just $320,000 has been raised so far, with $1.5 million needed to begin the first major phase of the project, according to Jim Laychak, president of the Pentagon Memorial Fund Inc. and brother of David Laychak, one of the civilian employees killed that day.

No tax money is going toward the memorial, but Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved an in-house campaign that ran from July 21 through Aug. 8 and brought in $250,000 from department employees.

Laychak said the family group's fund raising is just starting, having gotten its federal nonprofit status only in July.

Its current effort is two-pronged--targeting large individual donors and corporations, and what has been dubbed "The Pentagon 9.11 Campaign."

The "9.11 Campaign" encourages individuals to make donations using that configuration of numbers in some form.

"If we got a million people from the community to donate $9.11 we'd have $9.11 million," Laychak said.

Because the memorial is being built under the federal government's procurement rules, the money is needed upfront before any phase can go forward.

But when the memorial is finished isn't paramount to family members of those slain that clear September morning.

What counts most for everyone playing a role in developing the memorial--from the families to the designers to the management team to the companies responsible for constructing it--is the final product.

"Nothing about this project is being rushed," Dillard said. "It is so important that it is done right and it is collaborative--and that is the priority."

It was 8:48 a.m. when Julie Beckman emerged from the subway on Seventh Avenue near Union Square in New York City.

She was headed south toward 14th Street to meet her boss and look at a building under construction when she glanced skyward and saw an incomprehensible sight--a gaping hole in the north tower of the World Trade Center.

At the same time, Keith Kaseman walked into his office on 37th Street in midtown Manhattan to find his co-workers huddled around a radio.

Beckman and Kaseman met in the fall of 1999 when they enrolled in Columbia University's graduate school of architecture. Out of school less than six months, they were living in Manhattan and just embarking on their careers when two of the city's architectural icons were felled.

Like others in New York, Beckman and Kaseman were dazed and frightened those first days as sirens seemed to wail incessantly, buildings were evacuated for bomb threats and people wondered what was next.

Over the next few months, they found themselves spending more time with friends, trying to cope with "the funk" they said everyone had fallen into.

"It was coming to grips with our entire downtown that felt wiped out," Beckman said. "So when we found out about the [Pentagon Memorial] competition, we thought, 'This is what we do. This is what it's about. And this is part of our grief process.'"

Their winning design for the Pentagon Memorial was sketched out over several evenings inside an Italian restaurant one door down from their studio apartment on the Upper West Side.

Once they moved to the electronic stage, they relocated in-house--literally--finalizing plans on their computers, sitting elbow-to-elbow in the 280-square-foot space they shared on Amsterdam Avenue.

There, in what Beckman cleverly dubbed Kaseman Beckman Amsterdam Studio, was born the design that was chosen over 1,125 others for the memorial to the men, women and children killed in the Pentagon attack.

From the start, the pair agreed there must be something to represent each victim. As they read all they could find on the Internet about those who died, a vision emerged.

The vast age range of the victims--from 3 to 71--would be shown by grouping the 184 memorial units into timelines. They would group people of the same birth year on the same line and place them in rows paralleling the jetliner's path into the Pentagon.

And to distinguish those killed inside from those on the flight, the units would face in opposite directions. Each memorial unit would be a cantilever bench etched with the victim's name, extending over a lighted pool of water.

The names of the people killed inside the Pentagon would be visible as visitors faced the building. The names of those on Flight 77 would be visible as visitors faced the sky.

One of the goals, the pair said during a recent interview, was to tell the story of that day on two levels--at the individual level, telling something about each person; and at a collective level, showing both the magnitude of the loss and that those killed were people of all ages, going about their everyday lives.

The designers also wanted to feature color and light by including a grove of trees. They favored paper-bark maples chiefly because their leaves are bright red in the fall and are among the last to drop--giving a sense of suspension of time, especially when seen in contrast with other trees at the Pentagon or at nearby Arlington National Cemetery.

The design elements came more into focus the better Beckman and Kaseman got to know the people they were memorializing. But that research also added another layer of emotion to the project.

"The reality of it really starts to set in when you start seeing the faces," Beckman said.

After getting through the first phase of the design competition--they were among six finalists--Beckman and Kaseman got even more insight into the lives lost as as they began interacting with the victims' families.

"Working with the families has been so special to us," Beckman said. "The families have embraced us."

That respect for the families brought the pair from Amsterdam Avenue to Old Town Alexandria in July--to show their commitment to seeing the project through and convey how honored they are to be involved.

Kaseman, who, at 31, is a year older than his partner, said they still struggle to put into perspective the project in which they're now immersed.

"The enormity will be something we'll never be able to put our arms around," he said.

Bidding on high-profile projects in the Washington area was nothing new for Centex Construction Co.'s Mid-Atlantic office.

The company built the Dirksen Senate Office Building and the Department of Labor's headquarters. It expanded the CIA's offices in Langley and now is building a $500 million research hospital for the National Institutes of Health.

But when the opportunity came to bid on the memorial to the people killed in the terrorist attack on the Pentagon, the mood was different, said John Tarpey, president and chief executive officer of Centex's Mid-Atlantic office in Fairfax.

"We had employees with relatives who were employees at the Pentagon or relatives in New York City in the World Trade Center," he said. "We didn't see it as much of a business proposition as to give back somehow."

And when Centex and Washington design firm Lee and Associates--as Centex Lee L.L.C.--were awarded the contract last month, Tarpey said the reaction "was the greatest I had ever seen."

"It was a huge morale boost," he said. "This is the kind of project people volunteer to be on. You don't just see that."

Jeff Lee's landscape-architecture firm at 7th and I streets didn't lose anyone in the attacks. But the 16 or 17 people in the office that morning felt the terror as rumors swirled of attacks on the Capitol and the White House just blocks away.

Lee said his employees in no way compare their experience to that of the people who lost loved ones. To them, taking part in the memorial is a way to help heal the nation and those grieving relatives.

"We tend to look at it more as a mission than as a personal mission," he said. "If we make it too personal, it's a little presumptuous because nobody has more of a stake than the families.

"That's not a club you can join."

Though they don't yet have funds to begin working on the actual memorial, Centex Lee has begun the $50,000 first step in getting the project moving.

Personnel are carefully reviewing the 1.93-acre memorial site to determine what lies beneath it.

"Once the memorial is finished, we don't want to dig it up," said Pentagon Renovation Program Manager Mike Sullivan. "It will, in essence, be hallowed ground."

Determining what utilities lie underground and are still in use requires some high-tech detective work since records date to the 1940s and are sketchy.

The other important starting point for Centex Lee focuses on research and development--figuring out how exactly to construct the Kaseman-Beckman design.

Centex Lee plans to build a full-scale model of one of the 184 memorial units to precisely calculate how the entire memorial will fit into the site's boundaries. It also needs to solve engineering questions for the pools that will be lighted at night and sit beneath each cantilever bench.

The bigger challenge, however, is coming up with the right mix of materials to meet the specifications outlined by the designers, said Paul Nassetta Jr., who is serving as Centex Lee president and CEO.

Kaseman and Beckman's plan calls for a "crunchy but semi-hard surface" for the walkway within the memorial. Centex Lee's toughest task is finding--or creating--a material for the benches that will match the walkway in texture and color and be able to withstand all weather conditions.

Nassetta said recently that progress is being made on that, but the ideas still need to be reviewed by others involved in the memorial.

When Jeff Lee began envisioning a role for his landscape-architecture firm in this project, he came up with a symbol he thought represented the key to its completion. It features five circles joined together and then surrounded by a pentagonal shape.

The circles represent the five key groups coming together to get the memorial built: Lee's firm, Centex construction, the Pentagon Renovation Team, Beckman and Kaseman, and the families of those killed.

"Obviously, it's not just about steel and concrete and pools and aluminum," Lee said. "It's about continuing that process--where all of those five elements continue to work as a team to implement the memorial."

That was the one thing Sullivan, of the Pentagon Renovation Program, stressed in discussing the project.

He said his renovation team cares deeply about the memorial, having seen their labors destroyed in an instant and one of their colleagues killed. The section of the Pentagon where Flight 77 crashed was five days from being fully renovated--the first part of a complete overhaul of the building that is still in the works.

His team's personal interests aside, Sullivan said, what's critical to the success of the memorial is the role of the families, with whom he meets each month.

Not long ago, plans were being discussed for the placement of fencing. Initially, the idea was to put it between the memorial and the Pentagon.

But family members didn't take to that, saying it left them feeling "fenced out"--and they'd rather be fenced in.

And so the team took that idea to heart.

"We found we could achieve the same level of security," Sullivan said. "It actually made more sense from the footprint of the Pentagon. It provided a buffer and a more serene environment for the memorial."

Designers Beckman and Kaseman also incorporated family members' suggestions into their work. The families felt the memorial was most powerful when visitors entered at the timeline representing the youngest victims--the children ages 3 to 11.

Sullivan is at the Pentagon for the long haul, being tasked with renovating the rest of what is now the largest office building in the world. So it's critical to him to see the memorial built right.

"It's not the biggest project dollar-wise," he said during a recent interview. "But it is the most sensitive and critical to the program and to me personally."

And Dillard is pleased the memorial is so important to all of the parties involved--and that she's one of them.

"The great thing is, it's really a team," she said. "Everybody's opinion counts."

To reach PAMELA GOULD: 540/657-9101 pgould@freelancestar.com