CRANE, Ind., Sept. 10 -- Naval Sea Systems Command issued the following news release:
On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, at 9:37 a.m., American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon, claiming the lives of 184 people. In the immediate, chaotic aftermath - just a day after the hijacked plane's wreckage was pulled from the side of the building - a small team of historians and curators was granted access to the impact zone. Among them was Dana Wegner, the Navy's senior curator of models from Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division.
Their grim task was to walk through the devastation to mark and save artifacts that would tell the story of the attack to future generations. They navigated a space where the building had been oblite...