9/11 Tribute: Craig Scott Amundson

Please forgive me as I depart from my normal tips, tricks, and reviews. I will deviate today in order to leave a remembrance.

Every year I find this this week difficult. We start seeing all of the remembrances for 9/11. I personally had a cousin pass in the Pentagon crash. He was in the military and working in his office when the crash occurred. I can still remember attending his funeral at the Arlington Cemetery, literally in the shadow of the Pentagon. You could look out over the lawn and just behind the trees you could see the Pentagon still with a gaping hole in the side of it and all the rubble that lay there.

He died when he was only 28. He was the same age as my older brother, who is 4 years older than me. It seems to be very odd to think that I am older than he was when he passed. I also find it odd that the Pentagon is rarely remembered when we look back on 9/11. So this is my tribute specifically to that, all those that perished in the 9/11 attacks, specially those on the ground and on the flight that hit the Pentagon. My thoughts and prayers are with all those friends and family members as that date creeps up on us yet again.

To find out more about the Pentagon Crash, the Pentagon Memorial, and the victims please see the links below:

• http://www.whs.mil/memorial/ 
• http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/metro/specials/attacked/victims/viclist.html
• http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/pentagon-attack.htm

AMUNDSON, CRAIG SCOTT (Age 28)
SPECIALIST US ARMY

Of Fort Belvoir, Virginia, on September 11, 2001. Beloved husband of Amber Ann; father of Elliot Reed and Charlotte Marion. Also survived by his parents, Orland and Karen Amundson of Missouri; two brothers, Barry Amundson of Texas and Ryan Amundson of Missouri and his grandparents, Marion Brusven and Arthur and Sophia Amundson, all of North Dakota.

Spec. Craig S. Amundson, 28, was assigned to the Army's Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel as a graphic artist. Amundson, who was living at Fort Belvoir, enlisted in the Army in August 1998 in Kansas City, Mo., near his parents' home. After basic training at Fort Knox, Ky., he worked for three months as a multimedia illustrator at Fort Meade. In May 1999, the Iowa native was moved to the Pentagon, where he worked for the Army's deputy chief of staff for personnel.

Amundson had recently joined the Military Career Transition Program at Old Dominion University and was working toward becoming an elementary school teacher, the Virginian-Pilot reported.

Source: The Washington Post, AP and washingtonpost.com