This weekend marks the 20th anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil that changed the world.
The flames, the falling towers, the carnage, images of that fateful day can be so overwhelming – many people refuse to revisit them.
Pepperdine University has set up its annual “waves of flags display.”
Nearly 3,000 of them, one for each victim of 9/11, as well as national flags of the countries that lost a citizen.
Pepperdine feels a special connection to 9/11. One of the alumni, graduate student Thomas Burnett, is credited with being one of the heroes aboard united flight 93 who prevented hijackers from flying it into another building, instead crashing the aircraft into a Pennsylvania field.
There will be a solemn spectacle in Orange County on Saturday.
The Richard Nixon presidential library in Yorba Linda will commemorate 9/11 with a ceremony that will include 23 tons of wreckage, “sacred steel,” from the World Trade Center.
Meanwhile, near LAX, the airport’s trademark pylons will glow red white and blue to mark the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.