9/11 ‘Waves of Flags’ in Malibu: A symbolic vision and a spiritual vow

Overlooking the Pacific Ocean, the annual Waves of Flags display rose up on Saturday at Pepperdine University in Malibu. The eye-catching display is in remembrance of lives lost in the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

Related: 9/11 events, memorial sites in LA area marking 25th anniversary of terror attacks

Volunteers raised 2,977 flags, including one national flag representing each foreign country that lost citizens on that day. The flags represent the victims in which airplane hijackers destroyed the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, crashed a plane into the Pentagon, and crashed a plane in rural Pennsylvania after passengers took a stand against the hijackers.

The flag display at Pepperdine became a tradition in 2008 when university students were inspired by a similar 9/11 tribute elsewhere. The flags will be up until Sept. 18 at Alumni Park, 24255 Pacific Coast Highway (corner of Malibu Canyon Road), Malibu.

The university holds its 9/11 Remembrance Ceremony at 9 a.m. Sept. 11. Register in advance to attend the ceremony that is also held at Alumni Park. Details and to register to attend the ceremony, pepperdine.edu/waves-of-flags

In addition to the annual flag display and the 9/11 Remembrance Ceremony, the private Christian university has a permanent remembrance, the Thomas E. Burnett Jr. Heroes Garden.

Burnett (MBA ’95), a Graziadio Business School alumnus, was among those aboard the fourth hijacked jetliner, United Airlines Flight 93. Burnett and other passengers led a revolt against the hijackers but the plane crashed into a field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania (Flight 93 National Memorial Pennsylvania: nps.gov/flni/index.htm). Read about the Heroes Garden here: pepperdine.edu/about/heroesgarden .

This year marks a quarter-century since the hijacked plane attacks by al-Qaida militants that claimed nearly 3,000 lives in three locations and upended American foreign policy and national security. The unprecedented terror attacks sparked the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and the creation of Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration. The National September 11 Memorial & Museum rose at the World Trade Center site in New York.

Memorials sites also were built at locations all over Southern California, many of them including pieces of the twisted debris left in the aftermath of the deadly attacks. Scores of communities will be hosting memorial events on Friday around the region.