Remembering A 9/11 Victim From Gaithersburg 20 Years Later

GAITHERSBURG, MD — Montgomery County will remember and mourn residents who died 20 years ago on 9/11 at a ceremony on Friday.

Nearly 3,000 Americans, including 11 from Montgomery County, were killed in the suicide attacks carried out by 19 militants associated with the Islamic extremist group al-Qaida.

Two decades ago, Americans watched as first one and then another plane flew into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001. As the truth dawned on people watching from their TVs that America was under attack, another plane took aim at the Pentagon. A fourth was brought down in a field in Pennsylvania in a final act of heroism by passengers who realized their flight had been hijacked.

On the 20th anniversary of the attacks, Gaithersburg remembers and mourns:

Lt. Darin H. Pontell, 26, Pentagon

Pontell was almost done with his 12-hour shift at the Pentagon when the attack happened.

He had graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1998 and was then designated as an intelligence officer, he reported to the Navy and Marine Corps Intelligence Training Command in Dam Neck, Virginia. He was then ordered to Carrier Air Wing Seven as the Collections Officer. Pontell was stationed in Norfolk and he deployed to the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf aboard the U.S.S. Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The Columbia native was recently married, and lived with his wife of six months in Gaithersburg.

"Darin was ‘one of those people who you hope to run across in life,’ ” said his wife, Devora, according to a memorial. “He was thoughtful and generous and wanted to make everyone around him happy. He would do whatever it took to make his family and friends smile.” [The National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial]

Honoring Victims

All 9/11 victims will be remembered at memorial services planned across the nation on Sept. 11 to mark the 20th anniversary of the attacks.

In Montgomery County, a ceremony honoring local victims will be held on Friday, Sept. 10 at 11 a.m. in Courthouse Square Park in Rockville. It will honor all 11 Montgomery County resident who died: William Edward Caswell, Dr. Gerald Paul Fisher, Capt. Lawrence D. Getzfred, Michele M. Heidenberger, Angela Marie Houtz, Teddington Hamm Moy, Lt. Darin H. Pontell, Scott A. Powell, Todd Hayes Reuben, Patricia J. Statz and Ernest M. Willcher.

At the 9/11 memorial in Lower Manhattan, New York — an area known for years after the attacks as “Ground Zero” — the names of the fallen will be read aloud.

“Throughout the ceremony, we will observe six moments of silence, acknowledging when each of the World Trade Center towers was struck and fell and the times corresponding to the attack on the Pentagon and the crash of Flight 93,” the 9/11 Memorial & Museum wrote on its website.

The annual “Tribute of Light,” which are lights pointed to the sky in the shape of the Twin Towers, will go on that night.

Most 9/11 victims were from either New York or New Jersey, where many who lived across the Hudson River from the World Trade Center recall the horror of watching the twin towers collapse from their homes in Hoboken and Jersey City.

More than 2,700 people died at the World Trade Center alone on 9/11, including the passengers of American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175. Another 184 were killed when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into The Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and 44 died on United Airlines Flight 93 near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

This story was written with information from the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial.