Friday, September 11, 2015

Pentagon 9-11 flag

Not the least of the many strengths of the National Museum of American History in Washington is that its scale allows it to house and display some immense objects from its collection of some three million items--from the Star Spangled Banner (originally 30 x 42 feet; now 30 x 34) to an entire Ipswich, Massachusetts house.

Another of the largest was just a temporary guest: the great garrison flag that hung from the façade of the Pentagon from September 12 to October 11, 2001. Fittingly, the installation was in Flag Hall, where the Star Spangled Banner was formerly displayed.

I was lucky enough to see it when it was on display from 2002 to 2006.



It was a striking sight whose power the photo can barely convey, though the visitor's head and top of the Christmas tree at lower right give you some sense of the scale.

It is now back home in storage at the U.S. Army Center of Military History at Fort McNair.

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National Museum of American History online exhibit, September 11: Bearing Witness to History.

2 comments:

Larry Kelley said...

I just wish they could find the one three firefighters put up over Ground Zero late in the afternoon on that very sad day.

Jim Wald said...

Yes, novelist and popular history television personality Brad Meltzer tried featuring it on his new series, "Lost History": http://www.history.com/shows/brad-meltzers-lost-history/episodes and offered a reward of $10,000 to the finder http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-meltzer/the-911-flag-from-ground-_b_6029606.html.