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CNN Live Event/Special

Two Ceremonies to be Held at Pentagon

Aired September 11, 2002 - 06:07   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Also working with us this morning, as you would expect and as you would expect from the Pentagon, CNN's Wolf Blitzer.
So, Wolf, good morning to you. Give us a quick preview, please.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Aaron.

There are going to be about 12,000 people who will gather here around this site, which has been rebuilt in less than a year, the crash -- the fiery crash of American Airlines flight 77.

Almost exactly three-and-half hours from now, it will be memorialized with this ceremony. It will be the first of two ceremonies here at the Pentagon. Earlier -- the first ceremony with the president, the secretary of defense, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

In the afternoon, they will have a second two-hour ceremony that will honor the construction workers who did an unbelievable job in rebuilding this side of the Pentagon near the helipad, a building that I used to know quite well when I worked here as CNN's Pentagon correspondent during -- before and during and after the Gulf War.

It's a building that lost on the ground 125 employees, workers who were inside this building when that American Airlines plane crashed. There were 64 people on board Flight 77: 58 passengers, 4 flight attendants and 3 pilots, as well as those 5 hijackers who commandeered the plane that had just taken off from Dulles Airport, not very far away from the Pentagon, and slammed into this side of the building, causing that devastation.

We'll be here all day watching what's going on, recalling those historic moments -- Aaron and Paula.

BROWN: Wolf, thank you very much.

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