Pentagon Mother: Teach Our Children About 9/11

For Basmattie Bishundat, the passage of 25 years has done little to diminish the loss of her only son, Kris Romeo Bishundat.

“It’s been such a hard 25 years,” she said.

Known as Romeo to family and friends, Bishundat was born in Georgetown, Guyana, in 1977 and came to the United States as a young child. He grew up in Waldorf, Maryland, graduated from Thomas Stone High School in 1995 and enlisted in the Navy days before his 18th birthday.

“He was full of life,” his mother recalled. “He liked to party, loved going to the beach.” Shortly before his death, he bought a black Jeep Wrangler — his “pride and joy.”

After serving aboard the USS Yorktown and USS Shreveport, Bishundat was assigned to the Pentagon’s Chief of Naval Operations Telecommunications Center in 2001. An Information Systems Technician 2nd Class, he was 23 when American Airlines Flight 77 struck the building on Sept. 11.

His mother remembers thinking the Pentagon was the safest place he could possibly be.

Today, Bishundat is active with American Gold Star Mothers, volunteering for veterans, preparing packages for troops and participating in other service projects. For 20 years, her family also awarded scholarships at her son’s high school.

Her focus now is ensuring future generations understand 9/11. While the Pentagon Memorial honors those killed with individual memorial units, Bishundat wants a permanent education center where their stories can be told.

“My grandkids don’t know anything about 9/11,” she said. “There’s a whole generation already.”

“I would love to really see an education center right here to tell their stories, to tell what happened, to learn about everybody,” Bishundat said. “That is very important, especially young kids.”

And on Sept. 11, as she has for years, she plans to return to the Pentagon.

“I’m not going there for anybody,” she said. “I’m going there for my child.”