Pentagon
DC Trip Presentation
United States Department of Defense
On August 10th, 1949 the Pentagon Building was built.
The Pentagon was also built by descendants of slaves.
The Pentagon is located in Arlington, Virginia.
George Edwin Bergstrom - Architect of the Pentagon
George received a degree in architecture from MIT in 1899. As chief architect for the U.S. Army in July, 1941, he was given the assignment to come up with a design for a 4 - million square foot office building. Construction began on Sept. 11th, 1941, and the first occupants moved into the building in early 1942.
Design Requirements
Among the design requirements, Somervell required the structural design to accommodate floor loads of up to 150 pounds per square foot, which was done in case the building became a records storage facility at some time after the end of the current war. A minimal amount of steel was used as it was in short supply during World War II. Instead, the Pentagon was built as a reinforced concrete structure, using 680,000 tons of sand dredged from the Potomac River, and a lagoon was created beneath the Pentagon's river entrance.To minimize steel, concrete ramps were built rather than installing elevators. Indiana limestone was used for the building's façade.
Protests
The Pentagon became a focal point for protests against the Vietnam War during the late 1960s. A group of 2,500 women, organized by Women Strike for Peace, demonstrated outside of Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara's office at the Pentagon on February 15, 1967. In May 1967, a group of 20 demonstrators held a sit-in outside the Joint Chiefs of Staff's office, which lasted four days before they were arrested. In one of the better known incidents, on October 21, 1967, some 35,000 anti-war protesters organized by the National Mobilization Committee to end the war in Vietnam, gathered for a demonstration at the Defense Department (the "March on the Pentagon"), where they were confronted by some 2,500 armed soldiers. During the protest, a famous picture was taken, where George Harris placed carnations into the soldiers' gun barrels.The march concluded with an attempt to "exorcise" the building. On May 19, 1972, the American radicals known as the Weather Underground Organization successfully planted and detonated a bomb in a fourth-floor women's restroom in the Pentagon. They announced it was in retaliation for the Nixon administration's bombing attacks on Hanoi during the final stages of the Vietnam War.
Renovations
From 1998 to 2011, the Pentagon underwent a major renovation, known as the Pentagon Renovation Program. This program, completed in June 2011, involved the complete gutting and reconstruction of the entire building in phases to bring the building up to modern standards, removing asbestos, improving security, providing greater efficiency for Pentagon tenants, and sealing of all office windows.
September 11 Attacks
On September 11, 2001, the 60th anniversary of The Pentagon's groundbreaking, a team of five al-Qaeda affiliated hijackers took control of American Airlines Flight 77, on route from Washington Dulles International Airport to Los Angeles International Airport, and deliberately crashed the Boeing 757 airliner into the western side of the Pentagon at 9:37 am EDT as part of the September 11 attacks. All 59 civilians and the 5 terrorists on the airliner were killed, as were 70 civilians and 55 military personnel who were in the building. The impact of the plane severely damaged the structure of the building and caused its partial collapse. At the time of the attacks, the Pentagon was under renovation and many offices were unoccupied, resulting in fewer casualties. Only 800 of 4,500 people who would have been in the area were there because of the work. Furthermore the area hit, on the side of the Heliport façade, was the section best prepared for such an attack. The renovation there, improvements which resulted from the Oklahoma City Bombing, had nearly been completed.Contractors already involved with the renovation were given the added task of rebuilding the sections damaged in the attacks. This additional project was named the "Phoenix Project", and was charged with having the outermost offices of the damaged section occupied by September 11, 2002.
Other Damage -
On March 4, 2010, at 6:40 pm, two police officers working for the Pentagon Force Protection Agencywere shot at near an entrance to the Pentagon and fired back with their pistols at the suspect. The officers were slightly injured but were treated in a hospital and released. The suspect, identified as John Patrick Bedell (age 36), died at the hospital. No clear motive was established. On October 19, 2010, shortly before 5 am, an unidentified gunman shot at the south side of the building, shattering windows on the third and fourth floors.
Earthquake - On August 23, 2011, a 5.8 magnitude earthquake in Mineral, Virginia, shook the Pentagon. The building suffered minor damage, with flooding from broken pipes.
Security -
The Pentagon Force Protection Agency (PFPA) is a United States government agency composed of sworn federal police officers, the Unites States Pentagon Police and civilianCBRN technicians, and non-sworn civilian anti - terrorism investigative and physical security personnel, and is responsible for the protection of the Pentagon. The Department of Defense created the PFPA after the September 11, 2001 attacks. The new agency absorbed the Defense Protective Service (DPS) and assumed its role of providing basic law enforcement and security for the Pentagon and Department of Defense sites in the 280 acre (1.1 km2) "Pentagon Reservation" and greater National Capital Region (NCR). PFPA was also charged with providing force protection against the full spectrum of potential threats through robust prevention, preparedness, detection and response measures. The United States Pentagon Police is the primary federal law enforcement arm of the Pentagon Force Protection Agency.
Hall of Heroes -
Located on the Pentagon's main concourse is the Hall of Heroes, a room dedicated to the more than 3,460 recipients of the Medal of Honor, the United States' highest military decoration.There are three different versions of the Medal of Honor: the Army version, the Sea Service version (Marine Corps, Navy and Coast Guard), and the Air Force version. All three versions are displayed in the Hall of Heroes. Along the walls of the room are the names of each recipient. An asterisk next to some of the names denotes service members who received two Medals of Honor for two separate acts of bravery. Dots next to other names denote Marines who were under the command of the Army during WWI and received both the Army and Sea Service versions of the Medal of Honor for a single act of bravery. The Hall of Heroes was opened during a Medal of Honor awards ceremony on May 14, 1968