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WASHINGTON - The public is being invited this weekend to sign steel beams to be used in the National September 11 Memorial & Museum.
For many waiting in line at Washington's Newseum, today was about getting the chance to sign a piece of history - two 37 foot long structural steel beams parked outside the Newseum for the public, first responders and those directly touched by the tragic events of September 11 to sign.
Tom Heidenberger of Chevy Chase lost his wife Michelle, a flight attendant, on the plane that hit the Pentagon.
"I signed it for my two kids, Allison and Thomas, thanking her for watching over us, and that she's sorely missed," said Heidenberger.
New York City firefighter Mickey Kross was inside the north tower when it collapsed.
"I heard this tremendous noise over my head - like a roar - and it was the building pancaking. It was coming down at 100 mph, it sounded like a machine gun," said Kross recalled.
The beams, which will be used to help build the new memorial at Ground Zero in New York City, will be here Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. for people to sign.
The New York memorial is set to open on the 10th anniversary of the attacks, and will include two pools in the footprints of the twin towers, each with 30 -foot waterfalls. There'll also be a memorial museum, which will display the 'notes of Hope' people were also writing today at the exhibit.
"We need never to forget; our folks are out there protecting our country just so this doesn't come to our land again," said Alice Nunez, of Woodbridge.
"When she gets grown, she'll know what happened; why it happened and what kind of consequences it had on all of us," said Orlando, Fla., resident Raymond Vales of his daughter.
Officials from the 9/11 museum under construction at the World Trade Center site have been traveling around the country since 2007 with the steel beams. Tens of thousands of people in 27 states have signed their names and shared their thoughts about 9/11.
The memorial is expected to open on Sept. 11, 2011.
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