Site museums and Memory Initiative that connects past and present changing the world, one memory at a time and as part of his effort, braided has trained hundreds of organizations and Dialogue Community engagement planning and operating at the intersection of history and justice. Thank you marcia and hi everyone, my name is braden ater and im the director of the International Coalition of conscious of the coalition is a network of beginning the Historic Sites and places of memory, more than 330 sites and more than 65 countries around the world were regularly seen communities of around the globe thinking about how to use memorials and places to think about the past feel in the present and youve been to move into the future. In a more just and humane future and really excited to talk to you all today and hear from these folks who are doing is really important work and a number of memorials around the United States. If we are lucky enough to be joined today by Stephen Clark superintendent of the National Parks of western pennsylvania which include oversight of flight 93 National Memorial and executive director of the pentagon memorial fund, and another executive director of the National Law Enforcement memorial and one follows today and Amy Weinstein curator oral history and Vice President of collections for the National September 11th memorial. Welcome everybody thanks for being with us today. And maybe just get us started to think about the rules that memorials can play in our many communities and if we could just step with each of your memorials came from and could you tell people a little bit about the how your memorials was created and who created it and with her hopes were for it and they had in mind as they were creating that. Pat would you get us started pretty. Absolutely of the two of the most beautiful spot in the world to me, National Law Enforcement officers memorial located in washington dc, in 1984 and 1988 and also those two years the congressman, they went on an effort to try to make it National Enforcement officer memorial a reality and they do so 1988 and it took until 1991 for memorial to be a reality which well see today at washington dc. And it was made for everyone without Law Enforcement family select a lost loved one and for citizens they served and protected him for generations and years faithfully known as they died in the line of duty and this is the most amazing place that you can see when you walk through it and today i had a conversation it briefly with our ceo marcia and it she said will how are you feeling about this i said i feel these powerful stories and contributions yet to be exposed because each and every one of those on that wall were there because they chose that profession they chose to be there for their duty. No one chooses to die was a possibility so this Memorial Service to recognize them, not annually, every day and thats what we choose to do here at the memorial and weve grown obviously from the museum and we have grown twopoint were trying to keep our offices safe for the safety and wellness and the person who created our memorial, would be remiss not to say buckley, our architect in his duty as displayed and as we see again, his artwork as he goes unfortunately, and expansion of because our wall is growing because each and every year officers die and unfortunately, a living memorial we currently set at 22611 souls and officers men and women it now to be that moving forward next year and again as we in may of 22 and unfortunately again it will be sharing those names printed thank you. And thank you. And thank you and what pat just said, one respondent and while also explaining so will see what i can do. The National September 11, memorial was created of an International Design competition which began in early 2020, but really the desire to create a memorial began within a few days after 911, at least in new york and i think around the country and around the world, people began the ideas about what might be appropriate. Among those people was michael, an israeli born american architect who sketched out some ideas about water in doing a memorial and deliberate in the hudson but there was an official organize International Design competition and michael submitted an entry and he is part of the process, he and peter walker, architect came together to evolve the design. And it has a name, called reflections and it reflects the absence of life that the trees reflect the growth of life in the movement and progress of time. Something pat said about expanding the memorial, weve only been open a few years but we realized that with so many people dying because of 911, related health consequences, and health issues, cancers and respiratory issues, that we wanted to do something to honor their loss we created a new section of the memorial called glade. Is a bit more abstract and that there are no names on the glade. As there are around the north and and south part of the pool and we wont know all those names because as part of you more years to come but they are honored collectively. And for us, september, guess its a date in the calendar but it is something were acutely aware of and live every day. Thank you and were going to move in to do a wrap up of introductions and then will get to some of those responses. Thats one of the values of coming together with all of your different experiences and to be able to share and build together for maybe add something and thinking about the memorialization it in their own life and world in some way. Thank you. Thank you and good afternoon. On superintendent of the 93 National Memorial collectively with our partnerships and our volunteers, which of the story of the United Airlines flight 93. It was hijacked airliner on september 11th, 2001. So the beginning it of the memorial similar to what amy and pat and shared, and with that really kind of came from the ground up read kind of a concept that immediately following september 11, that one of the attack sites, was going to become part of the National Park system. A branch of the department of interior and always a series of a processes and flight 93 came to be that unit of the National Park system. So often the National Parks take decades to the research and ultimately congress and the president s signed into law but remarkably this case, george w. Bush signed the memorial into law in september 24, 2002 pretty suggested little over a year which is again unheard of in flight 93, National Memorial was born into a series of a tremendous partnerships and many years parcels of land were purchased and then finally the ten Year Anniversary in 2011, on the plaza in the wall of the names and it was created and dedicated through 2015, page two which is the Learning Center in the Visitor Center and then finally, the image behind me is the tower of voices dedicated in september of 2018. In the tower is almost ten stories, 93foot high tower. Has 40 windchimes features and they each weigh 300 pounds driven by the northwestern pennsylvania wind. So being a National Memorial is similar to Oklahoma City in the u. S. S arizona 70 within the National Park service. We stand very proud along with jim and the memorial and of course amy and alice and all of the colleagues in new york and certainly has a Law Enforcement officer myself and the National Park service, 29 years before he came into the superintendent right security and i too have lost dear friends in the line of duty, state troopers and nonfood enforcement who are on that wall as pat mentioned it. And nothing but the utmost respect for what pat and his team do and police week means so much to me and so many again its an honor to be part of this statement thank you and i think for a lot of folks listening and the folks on the panel because you are saying it, the personal and the professional. Its sort of rude in the individual lives and in the larger view that you are taking as well for your work. So thank you for walking both sides of that. Jim. Thank you for allowing me to participate in thank you everyone and i lost my brother dave, at the pentagon on 911, that is essentially how i got involved with the creation of the pentagon memorial. And the fund which is a nonprofit that i now serve as executive director of been very similar to the new york memorial, we worked very closely with the Design Competition were very closely with partners of defense because the Family Members all felt the memorial needed to be there on the ground on the pentagon this was a little bit of a different situation that we were closely with the pentagon and the Design Competition and it started shortly the planning it started shortly after the attack. That was probably a month where the families come together and asked me members. There is an International Design competition, the New York Museum and basically they had designs or ideas and posters that were held in the National Building museum in washington dc and you can imagine it going through room after room of these designs. There were 2000 designs that were submitted it 56 Different Countries around the world and it was really unbelievable to see these designs. So we went through a process on the designs and we selected i think six finalists predict and then we came up with a model in the Concept Design and the jury met again and it was consistent of Family Members myself and another woman who lost her father on the Design Competition committee, former secretaries of defense that were on it, artists and architects from around the world. And around the country to participate in. And Carol Anderson also worked on the core of engineers so it was a very interesting project and process but we basically came up with the design that was submitted by a couple from new york, and essentially a memorial unit for each person that died and was arranged according to the age of the lives of the victims starting with a three yearold little girl, was on flight 77 all of the late up to 71 yearold victim it was also on the flight brady and i described as an individual or collective memorial that tells the story about what happened that day because each memorial unit is arranged according to the age that the victim was more. And we work closely with the department of defense to design and build a memorial dedicated september 2008 with 3 9 11 memorials in this country and i remember talking about what Family Members wanted. They wanted people to remember loved ones and we wanted people to remember what happened and they wanted people to remember that feeling of unity that came through with our country after 9 11 and bringing people together to convert all those who were in such pain so the memorial has stood the test of time very well. Its on the grounds of the pentagon right now and right now and its closed over concerns of covid because theres no way to regulate a memorial so there was concern that groups of visitors could gather together in a tour bus. Its a well visited memorial that over time visitors can come every year when its open threequarters of them schoolkids. Her next focus is to create an Education Center close to the memorial to complement the memorial. Theres a whole generation of children and kids that are growing up that have no memory of 9 11. They dont remember the horror and the audacity of what happened so our focus now is to build a visitor Education Center to help educate this generation growing up with no memory of 9 11 like we all have experienced so appreciate your time and look forward to the discussion. Thank you jim and thanks everyone for helping us see where you are coming from and jumping off point to some of this conversation all of you have mentioned change in a number of ways. And i think sometimes we start to think about memorials and something to create memorials in permanent materials, marble and granite and steel and we think they are just unchanging objects but each if you had talked about in some way the memorial that they are growing and changes in being added to. Do you think over the course or for the life of the memorial so far what are some of the biggest changes in how its used or experienced by visitors . I can go first if thats okay and as usual im not going to answer your question 100 directly but it made me think of something. Yes we used stone and metal and the water in the trees are softer and more organic and more a living breathing part of the memorial and so its interesting that you said memorials are built to be solid and to be unchanging but people change them. We knew that our Family Members and perhaps friends who visited might want to believe flowers or small tokens that we did not anticipate that people would do things like use scotch tape to make sure that their tribute would stay so we had to evolve with ways. Its very important because it was important in my vision that every Visitor Experience it as though it was the first day in this though was their first time with flags from the previous day taken away. It changes as part of memorial. Keep a calm they leave an American Flag and flight attendants leave blanks and people leave notes. People leave memorial cards in addition to flowers in people leave highly personal items. It may be a jerk beach sand was one of the first tributes left left at the memorial be had to scramble a little bit to make sure for whom they were left and make sure to save them with the appropriate contextual information. I think the memorial is the same every day but its new every day and i think the water and in the past few years we could see the trees grow. We were seeing Little Things when we first planted them and they have grown upwards, they have grown outwards and they make a real difference to the life on the plaza. Go ahead amy, im sorry. Thats okay. Just want to say i had the privilege of visiting and i think i first visited flight 93 maybe in 2007 so ive seen it grow and i first heard about the power behind you steve and i have been waiting ever since just to see that trait ive been back several times but not since its been completed and that auditory element was added so i am so looking forward to that opportunity to hear that into visit again. Thank you amy and i can share for those viewing this particular panel, if after the panel you go to and type in tower of voices you can actually view and listen to the tower 24 7 and it was dedicated in 2018 and since then we have had over 3 million views so really a beautiful part of the memorial but something you said triggered me with the brickandmortar element of the Law Enforcement memorial and the incredible majestic beauty of the pentagon and certainly the elements of flight 93 had that element of brickandmortar but another part is often overlooked are the natural elements. When flight 93 plummeted to the year if it landed in an abandoned strip mine so was the very starved landscape in overtime the original design by paul murdoch from los angeles, part of that was 150,000 those of years ago we started reforestation planting trees and these 1215inch seedlings are now 10 to 12 feet high. Its pretty cool and id love to have jim and pat the there will be 132,000, so thats our goal midapril and would like to have the volunteers from the memorial, celebrate that milestone turning that hard landscape into the beauty that we see today so again a vindication from our partners of these great memorials in late april. Maybe join us for a day or two. We would love to. I am definitely coming. I am too on april 9. That is great. I love it. When you spoke about bricks and mortar and someone had asked me how you feel when you walk through, the powerful doing of this wall when they had expand what would that be look like . In washington d. C. Its easier than anywhere else have all the areas that are so pure and important that they wanted to make sure that this memorial look like they grew rather than expanded hourly hourly and away and it would look natural. If it looked unnatural people would be asking more questions and i wouldnt have the feeling and the emotion that we want our visitors to have a net Mutual Understanding where they leave these belongings and personal notes and we want to make sure we dont take that away. Unfortunately as we see over 300 names of post9 11 death because of cancer and 72 onsite and being great that year but the importance of it is that we are evolving because the world has evolved and changed in our adaptation and the people who responded make it more palatable and possible to make the memorials grow. With covid its been a leading Law Enforcement concern. The very day, 177 of them are covidrelated and 46 or gunfire and we have 31 that her other. If you take a look at those numbers and you look at the increases, whats going on . We have to think about that but you said the question earlier and i dont mean to take much time but who did it impact . That memorial has to impact everyone because its not meant to be a private thing. Its not meant to be for one group, one person or one thing. Thats the beauty of art in order for someone to feel and express themselves the way they feel to honor those who honored them in whatever capacity it may be whether its an officer a brother or sister, can be from any capacity. As long as its responses. Thank you. A great conversation and there are couple of things i wanted to say as things change over time. The first trees we planted at the memorial and some of the Family Member said dont make 184 trees because was the one true representing my loved one will die. It was not to make it representing that the first tree i planted where and those trees did not do very well at all to of those trees needed to be under canopy. Its essentially next to the pentagon so those tides and we ended up putting in maple and those a flare so its interesting to see now how the plant life in the vegetation has made it a very special place its next to the pentagon and a major thoroughfare and a lot of times i go in there and you lose yourself in the memorial and you think about what happened there and the impact and you dont hear all the street noises nearby but i remember when we were meeting they said its going to be a place its hard to get too so we want to make sure there is meaning in things to consider so people can spend some time there and its really evolving. Another story i will share is the way the memorial units are organized. You have five children that were killed on flight 77. They work to little girls with their parents and the kids run a National Geographic school trip with their teachers so those age lines are near the park so you walk up and you will see five memorial units with trees scattered around and then theres a big gap. Its interesting how people react to that gap because it picks up with someone where three kids were 10 and 11 years old in the 1990s and then someone who is working age so there were 22, 21 when they died and probably sometime in the 80s and thats been interesting to see how people react to the fact that these were children. Then it picks up a working age adults and i dont think a lot of people recognize those were headquarters that were hit but you had five children but also died. You have laid out a couple of interesting threads to follow and one we will set aside for another day but theres a powerful connection between nature and natural environments and healing and the way that can be provocative for us. One of these other threads they keep coming in are the number of connected to this so all levels and talking about from families and descendents and survivors to visitors from locally regionally nationally and internationally. Each of these places that you care for and the stories you think about touches a lot of people and impacts them in different ways. Im curious how you think about balancing all of these voices making space for all these voices and when you choose to center on the larger set of people who are connected. My microphone is off. I will go ahead and jump in. Braden one of the things general of the idea of education and the ability to share some of the stories as you mentioned in the visitor education which we are planning for now is the exhibit space. The exhibit space is all about the response the continued response. Our memorial and our Visitor Experience about what happened that day and how we responded in the years after 9 11 and the creation of Homeland Security the way we board airplanes with these different agencies that we set up overseas but then also how we continue to respond today, 20 years later so its interesting and i feel we are fortunate because there is that her experience is about what happened that day of and also what happened after that so we continue to respond and we continue to tell those stories that are relevant. So much has happened after 20 years and the 20th commemoration and all thats happened is we still continue to deal with terrorism and deal with these issues and i think its just a very interesting event. All this happened in a short period of time we think about it, 20 years. I would add that we offer interpretive guided tours of the memorial. I was lucky. I think both times i visited the pentagon memorial and learned about it from two different people but nonetheless i was floored both times when i saw tina and zoes names. I knew who they were in a new why they run that plane by i emotionally slid down looking for their parents names. I was looking for their dad and i knew what their names were and their age but i will tell you i started to cry. Even though there was good reason and once i remembered then it did make perfect sense so i think having that interpretive tour even though all of these places like the pentagon are totally selfguided and you can totally understand a lot. Its nice to have a little interpretation and it turns out the interpretive tours whether in person or through some of our audio tours you can learn a bit more about the unusual things that certain people did like the man in the red bandanna who is so wellknown or firefighters and Police Officers who were trapped and rescued and im trying to think of other examples. Thats another growing part of the memorial is learning from the public about what they want including teachers and School Groups who visit. These are really interesting and powerful examples. Im also curious thinking about some of the things that folks might encounter in the memorial spaces that they are connected to, how you start to think about voices that are coming into conflict with each other in the spaces and if they want to remember them differently and express that. It could be descendents of Family Members and people who have really different lived experiences of these live events in the aftermath of them. Im curious about voices that dont necessarily each other in the spaces. I will jump in row quick. One of the things we are trying to do at our Education Center is have the space as well to be able to have just what you are talking about. Bringing different speakers and in some of these things you bring up, how we change and look at things differently and what does that mean as it relates to that of those are some the things that was the genesis of the idea of the Education Center. There needs to be some kind of interpretation for people to understand because sometimes its too hard to figure out when no one can explain it to you but the idea of being able to have the ability to talk about these things with groups of people is what we are hoping to do. A few weeks ago Family Members and synagogue leaders of the tree of life in pittsburgh, and i dont think they might be sharing this but they came to flight 93 just before september 11 and shared the entire day. We spent the entire day together long with families of the flight 93 and the objective and the vision was they want to memorialize the special care of their loved ones who died in october of 2018 in that shooting. Thats the beauty of memorial collectively. We will continue to Work Together and look at the trials and tribulations of new york in the Law Enforcement morrill and the pentagon which are continually evolving but one thing is for sure when theres another group of men and women who want to do Something Special for their community and their families and for their loved ones, that something we take tremendous pride in. One further thing i would say is the oral history program. Thats the pride and joy of bringing together individuals who were there. A state trooper who was first on the scene and a firefighter from shanksville. We had over 880 oral histories and we shared them with researchers in on our web site and so forth but we all know we are not going to be in these positions forever. We are going to give the next generation of our successors these tools and before you know it will be 50 years and the park service in my cases in the forever business but i really feel collectively with the experts who are able to do these oral histories with those who were there and thats a very important element just like it is to jim and pat and all the other memorials around this great nation. Solidifying in time a piece of history tragic as it may be and oftentimes braden thats exactly what they are but they are our history and how we remember them and talk to those who were there is rooted really critical. I couldnt agree more and the memorial is unfortunate and fortunate. Each year we make sure it during our vigils that we are giving the most amazing tribute to however many names of officers have lost their lives in that previous year. Doing so we shared occasionally for the family and the civilians and people across our country and outside of our country and the sacrifices and the stories of Law Enforcement and we expanded as you were saying, educationally. We wanted the museum ended doing so we wanted to go back to our stakeholders to make sure stakeholders were being represented the best they can in survivability and they desperately need the assistance from all the stakeholders and thats everyone. Thats not just Law Enforcement. We have to survive together your education social media partnerships and also appeared donations and the ability for us to survive and for memories to continue. I think this year in a few short days where having art candlelight vigil and where having it live on the mall. Two years of our surviving family come over 700 names and as we celebrate their contribution to their memories we are educating the community and the public. We did not stop and thats our duty. As people who represent our everchanging what goes on around us. Its something we can honor that is very powerful. And thats the most powerful education you can provide for anyone or he can feel it in your heart and you can feel it in your mind your body and your soul and jim your book about all the memorials will have that because it represents true heroism. So thats the honor i have two hopefully share with you in the future and educate the public. Its unique that we have this opportunity and we should do it with honor and representation. Thats really powerful and you all have talked about and you can hear the waves impacted each other so you can visit each of the sites that impacted you personally. People have talked about education and in a few moments here we will talk about how it is not just living in a mind that living in the heart and living in the body and living in the spirit. One of the challenges and i know you tried to put things in their petition in and one of the challenges that memorials and memory workers around the world face is the subject matter we are gauging with. All of these things youve been talking about the grief and the pain and the beauty and the unity that you mentioned as well and the highest virtues of humanity. As people come into contact with that our reaction is grief and pain that can push us into positive reactions but it can push us into a very harmful reactions too. Im curious in your education and the way you construct the site how do you help people come into contact with these things and find responses that are possible towards themselves and other people. I can try to tackle that. Im not a curator or an oral historian and i dont have a bias training so im giving you my sense of what her educators do. Three things are very important to her educators. We want to help kids especially the people of all ages find themselves in their store either as responders or perhaps through the k9s who came to be part of the searchandrescue and the therapy dogs and the ethnic diversity. People for more than 90 nations its to say that people from other countries were killed so we want people to understand it wasnt just americans i wasnt just new yorkers and visitors from all over are part of this story. Another thing we try to and i hate to use the word combat but i cant think of a better one is we want to provide Accurate Information so children especially can learn to distinguish between conspiracy theories grounded in thin air and actual reality facts from the people who were there or who studied it and what happened and its very important for us to not. Islamaphobia or to foment hatred on any level so those are three big areas that her educators are trying to touch on that are important. In the museum its the job of the museum is to present and to interpret and to educate. The memorial is more about the people who were killed but as i said many countries and almost 3000 people. Just to capitalize a little bit on the education element and you have asked about whether our ambassadors in new york and the fact is these men and women many of whom lived in here for over 20 years literally since day one they come here on an ongoing basis to try to bring a smile or just a warm heart as a greeting. Oftentimes not even having to say anything but having the visitor know that they are there and we could not do what we do with flight 93 without our ambassadors. More than 10,000 hours a year outside of shanksville. Its remarkable what our volunteers do. Without being said we have instituted a significant Distance Learning program and covid as challenging as its been for all of us in so many ways one of the bright spots as it is forced us to look at the technology element. With doing webinars and so forth not too long ago we reached over 360,000 across the United States within the technology. Ive been doing an excel spreadsheet that theres a lot of these young kids and they are able to bring these programs to the fws American Legions and Senior Centers in high schools all over the United States and im very proud to report that next year we are going to israel germany and new zealand to bring these programs to those in other countries. For us its not just flight 93. We talked about the nation and the other sites but we also talk about courage in doing the right thing in patriotism so its very coordinated and students whether they are fourth grade or 11th grade whoever the recipient is when we hang up that its our hope they have perspective with themselves and those seated to the right into the left of them about being a better person and better stewards of this great nation and the flag that we honor so greatly. I was going to comment on what amy said about combating conspiracy and islamaphobia. We have been pushing out a social Media Campaign and we have gotten so many responses through social media. There no parts of flight where we here we go out right outside of the building. Some of it may be people can see the buildings hit new york but they didnt see something at the pentagon because it had been so quickly and there were cameras in shanksville so its strange to me how people can think that it didnt happen. Another thing that i think about islamaphobia remember being interviewed a year ago and they asked me to you hate muslims . I had the presence of mind to say i dont hate muslims but i hate terrorists. I grew up in a military family and we spent time in tehran iraq iran in the 70s and i remember my mom saying to me to accept that one of the stories that sometimes is not told of flight 77 plane came to the building 50 or 60 feet away from a nondenominational chapel at the pentagon where services are held almost daily but more importantly every friday there is an Islamic Prayer Service held their because there are muslims who serve in our military and chaplains who attend so again you talk about the stories in combating these ideas that people dont understand that to me is the importance of visitor Education Center to get out some of the stories. Subtwentyeight talked about being in the fervor business and pat you talked about the society around us. We vote. We posted a pass to me both to the present i wonder if we can think for a moment about the future that lies ahead of us all. We will keep evolving and her relationships will change. I was in portland just the other day at a memorial to the main battleship and i was thinking about how different my experience of that memorial would be then someone from 1900 it shifts and changes over time. If you think about the future of your memorial, you talk about these buildings and wanted to start new programs. How do you vision a memorial growing in the next couple of years and decades where do you see the growth coming in . From a memorial perspective we need to be able to get all all voices and all years whether through social media or education we shouldnt have any heirs of the medication. That should be our high point in her adaptation is shown that when you have people in areas of social media to provide those resources but when youd do things like our event and memorials how are we able to bring everyone and and when i say everyone touching everyone. We share with everyone and thats why you want social media. We want to make sure its in the classroom and make sure people see things in the museum. We want all those things to Work Together and as we have with earned new ceo marsha has clearly created the three pillars of our organization and the foundation being a memorial and then you have the museum and in the memorial memorial you have have to sacrifice the remembrance and honor and the story continues on into the museum and on the third pillar that is the education portion and thats where we try to do our off officer Destination Zero program enhancing our social Media Outreach in the best practices for Law Enforcement and this is coordinated through federal funding could we have grant for these programs but overall the memorial is not federally funded so we have to figure out ways to be able to reach everyone. Its not easy to just say to one group this is what we do in the message goes out immediately. We have to think outside the box and my teachers would say think outside of the box. We have to think outside the box for us all to make that kind of an adaptation. We are in many ways strong and concrete and stone and steel but our duty as our ability to adapt to our social needs and socialize their stakeholders and to our world from afar when i cant reach it and they can see it from the classrooms and learned the historical aspects and they can see during the wind its a stakeholders when they feel important as they should and what they do each and every day so i say when you look at it from a memorial perspective thats how are adaptation follows with the best intent communicated, transparent open with honor and powerful statement of what our contributions of the stories are regarding the memorial and the museum. You see it with amy and jim howell powerful and theres doris will be shared as long as we have the ability to share it. And im talking about the media too. Dont have to ask. As we share the most important part of that remember it of the historical contributions these folks have made. Stack thank you. Sin well said pat and i just wanted to share september 24 is a very big day for two reasons. Today september 24, 2001 the fbi turned over the site to the local Law Enforcement community and its also the day in 2002 that george w. Bush has been mentioned but the memorial into law. September 24 just a few weeks ago what we did was we brought back, we sent out an invitation nationwide to every single First Responders who was on flight 93 during september 112001 through september 24, 2001 and im happy to say we have about 100 hurt he individuals many of whom flew in to the coast from texas. We had retired state trooper is an fbi agent said red cross firefighters. The mortuary group they came and as well as to if the i chaplains out of the Pittsburgh Division who were there from day one and still on the job. So we have wrought together a combination. And we called a thank you 924 and its a beautiful beautiful event on a friday afternoon and it culminated with Family Members inviting all 30 of those individuals to the crash site to the boulder and prayer in moments of silence and again it was the 177 lives that were lost that day, very powerful, powerful afternoon and it culminated at the local American Legion where individuals were able to leave the memorial and have a beer and a cheeseburger and a sandwich and really a continuation many of whom who have not been back and hadnt seen so many colleagues that meant so much to them so i just wanted to share my connection to Law Enforcement that is profound and again honoring these men and women in Law Enforcement. We do it every day and we invite troopers Law Enforcement to train here in the back 40 so to speak with k9s or whatever it may be and it too i am in the two i will always be and again at having been to the Law Enforcement memorial several times a being so closely affiliated with the mall and u. S. Park elise and others part police and others its an honor to be a part of it into here from jim and amy about these other places that remember it that mean not only so much to the United States but to everyone around the world. I was just going to say you got me thinking about something that pat said and when you talk about the memorial, the more it was going to be there for a long time but what changes are the discussions you have with visitors and i think thats what we are trying to do is for the Education Center to continue to evolve and meet the needs of different groups and i wrote down the were discussions in asking the hard questions and talking about 9 11 and what happened in 20 or 30 years later, 50 years later we need to be prepared to continue to evolve and serve the needs of of generations that are growing up after 9 11. I think that will be an important part of the Education Center in the programs. I dont know what they are going to look like because i dont know what the needs are going to be 10 or 15 years from now but its important to be adaptable to new programs to support the needs of future visitors. The memorial will be there but we will look back at it differently. And to be able to have these discussions. Thats why we continue to do oral histories. We are far from finished. We have acquired so much that there are so many more stories to learn about a new its to hear about and the objects that survivors have saved and that the 20 year mark i think freed some people up to let go of some that they had been hoping whether survivors stress and the voices and the impact of covid and the impact of whats been have been named in afghanistan and seeing the world and there are connections between the attack of 9 11 and other attacks around the world and connections are not literal in terms of ideology and in terms of who did it and why. Still the notion of terrorism is what binds terrorism and memories that binds us together. Thank you all and we have many, many more things to talk about but our time together is coming to an end so maybe one last question for everybody. One more time to the folks who are listening whatever day that may be for them. You think about the folks who may have been able to come to your site or they may not have been. They may get there sometime in the future. What is one action a mindset of give a value from your memorial that you hope they would take away and live with for the next however many days, something they would take to your from your memorial going forward. They would take away on her and responsibility on her honor and do what they are still doing. People to realize that passion and that they cans they can steal that and understand the true emotions of the 22,611. I would Say Something very similar to the first word he said was honor and thats exactly the word that came to my mind. Honor the sacrifice of those who died on 9 11 and those on the airplane and those inside the buildings including the pentagon and the World Trade Center but also those who are dying each and every day, both through suicide as well as the ramifications of the medical complications and the disease that is now coming and its such a plague for First Responders at the attack site and i think thats where collectively as a group we remember those that died that day but also we continue to honor our First Responders and our Law Enforcement officers need us more today more than they ever had and to say thank you and just go up and shake a hand and just let them know that we appreciate what they do in the First Responders the emts, the paramedics and firefighters and we could go on but thats why flight 93 in my particular case but i think all memorials that we are here discussing today that so we do each and every day is bring those peoples memories alive and at the same time letting folks know to appreciate those who help us in our biggest time of need and to me thats what we try to do. I would say i would i would agree with everything that pat and steven said and i would add one i walk through the memorial day look at it and i think we are all brothers, sisters, moms and dads and nieces and nephews. When you look at the crosssection of people who died we are more alike than we are different and to me thats the message that i stay with as we look forward to how to create a special place for people. I dont know how to answer that question. I do agree with what everyone has said but one thing the most important thing ive learned as an oral historian is how compassion and being compassionate was such an element of the response and the response starting on those planes and inside the buildings the moment of the terrorists actions began. The care and compassion and courage and bravery that the flight attendants felt for their passengers whom they felt responsible for both inside the towers, holding the doors for each other and helping each other down the stairs, the kids and families in canada who made apple pies and arrange them to truck them to new york and across the border and the woman in iowa who made a quilt for every single 9 11 Family Member. Its the human compassion that saw the light of day on september 11 and afterwards. Thank you for those and thank go. Good afternoon and welcome to our audience here. And as mr. Larson said on cspan, the 2022 James Madison lecture, a lecture with the provocative title was James Madison truly the father of the constitution. Our lecture is akhil amar, sterling professor of law and Political Science at yale university, where he teaches constitutional law both in yale college and Yale Law School. After graduating from yale college, summa cum laude, and from Yale Law School and clerking for then
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