(The Center Square) – Visitors moved among the 184 memorial benches at the Pentagon on Friday, leaving flowers and stopping at individual names as the nation marked 25 years since the Sept. 11 attacks.

Wreaths stood across the memorial grounds, while an American flag hung from the Pentagon overlooking the site. Near the entrance, the date and time of the attack are engraved in stone: Sept. 11, 2001, 9:37 a.m.

The National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial honors the 125 people killed inside the Pentagon and the 59 passengers and crew members killed aboard American Airlines Flight 77.

Each memorial unit includes a stainless-steel bench, granite inlay and a pool of water. The 184 benches are arranged in a timeline by age, from the youngest victim, 3-year-old Dana Falkenberg, to the oldest, 71-year-old John Yamnicky.

The benches are also positioned to distinguish those killed aboard Flight 77 from those inside the Pentagon.

Visitors at memorials honoring those killed inside the Pentagon see the victim’s name and the Pentagon in the same view, while memorials for those aboard Flight 77 face the direction of the plane’s approach.

The $22 million memorial sits on about two acres and was dedicated Sept. 11, 2008.

Twenty-five years later, attention is also turning to how the history will be carried forward for generations with no personal memory of the attacks.

Gov. Abigail Spanberger, speaking Friday at Arlington’s separate anniversary ceremony at Fire Station 5, said the station’s ladder truck was the first Arlington County fire unit to reach the Pentagon, arriving roughly four minutes after impact.

“This building was the infrastructure for the response, not just a place that firefighters worked,” Spanberger said.

She also pointed to the challenge of explaining Sept. 11 to children who were not alive when it happened.

Spanberger said her 12-year-old daughter asked her Friday morning whether anyone aboard the planes had survived.

“I was struck by that question because it means there’s so much more for me as a parent, for all of us as community members, to make sure that the next generation understands the absolute devastation,” Spanberger said.

That same concern is part of the push behind the planned Pentagon Memorial Visitor Education Center.

A groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled Saturday for the long-planned center, which is targeted to open in 2029.

The planned center will include artifacts, interactive exhibits and firsthand accounts from survivors and victims’ family members.

The fiscal 2026 defense bill included $12 million in federal funding for the project, while Virginia’s current budget provides $1 million to Arlington County to support construction.

Del. Patrick Hope, D-Arlington, told The Center Square the project is increasingly important as more Americans grow up without a living memory of Sept. 11.

“The attack on the Pentagon happened right here on Virginia soil, and as we approach 25 years, an entire generation of Americans has grown up with no living memory of September 11th,” Hope said.

For now, the memorial remains the Pentagon site’s primary place of remembrance.

Flowers rested on individual benches Friday as visitors walked among the rows of memorials beneath the Pentagon.

This post was originally published on The Center Square.