To commemorate the 13th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, a small group of UCLA students planted 2,977 small American flags — one for each person who was killed — around Dickson Plaza this morning.
On the small lawn closest to Murphy Hall, flags were arranged in the form “9 – 11” and on the western end of the plaza the flags spelled out “9/11” and were encircled by flags arranged in a pentagon shape, in recognition of the plane that crashed into the Pentagon building.
“I do it because I feel like it’s something important,” said Jacob Kohlhepp, a 20-year-old third year student majoring in political science and economics, and external vice president of the Bruin Republicans, which has been creating similar memorials on campus for several years.
Kohlhepp was joined by his father, a Culver City firefighter, and friends and fellow students Cindy Wang and Matt Basinger, who is in the UCLA Alumni Scholars club with Kohlhepp. Even though those joining Kohlhepp are not members of Bruin Republicans, they were still out there at 6:45 a.m.
“This is something, I think, that we can all get behind,” Kohlhepp said..
The flags, commemorative pins and pocket-sized copies of the U.S. Constitution, which people could pick up near the flags, came from the Young America’s Foundation. The foundation’s “9/11: Never Forget Project” provides flags to schools across the country to create memorials.
