The Patriots Memorial honors the Defense Intelligence Agency employees who died in the service of the United States. The memorial lies at the center of the Defense Intelligence Analysis Headquarters at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling. It commemorates the profound individual sacrifices made on behalf of the United States by DIA members and acts as a reminder of the selflessness, dedication, and courage required to confront national challenges in the past, present, and future. DIA Director Lt. Gen. Leonard Perroots dedicated the memorial on 14 December 1988. In March of 2009, the memorial was redesigned and moved to its present location.

The stories behind the names in the memorial are themselves monuments to the bravery of those who serve in harm's way. Major Robert Perry was the Assistant Army Attaché in Amman, Jordan in 1970. He was killed when fighting broke out between the Jordanian Army and Palestinian refugees who had taken shelter in Amman. In June, a Palestinian gunman shot Perry through the front door of his house while his wife and children were home. After the incident, the United States considered sending troops to Jordan on a contingency operation to quell the violence, but the fighting subsided a few days later.

The memory of five civilian women who served in the Defense Attaché Office in Saigon is also enshrined in the Memorial. In April 1975, a U.S. Air Force C-5A Galaxy transport plane carrying 250 Vietnam War orphans crashed outside of Saigon, killing 100 of the children and many others. Among the dead were these women - Celeste Brown, Vivienne Clark, Dorothy Curtiss, Joan Pray, and Doris Watkins - who took care of the children during the flight.

September 11 Memorial

The terrorist attacks of September 11 was the first time that DIA employees were killed in the line of duty in the United States and resulted in the largest single loss of Agency lives. Rosa Chapa, Sandra Foster, Robert Hymel, Shelley Marshall, Patricia Mickley, Charles Sabin, and Karl Teepe, all of whom worked for the Office of the Comptroller, died when the hijacked aircraft crashed into the outer ring of the Pentagon. On 11 September 2009, DIA dedicated a memorial to the seven employees lost in the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon. The memorial is located in the garden at the Defense Intelligence Agency Analysis Center in Washington, D.C.

These are just a few of DIA's fallen heroes. Their sacrifice brings honor to their country, to their colleagues, and to themselves, and the Patriots' Memorial ensures that their memory lives on.

Poor is the nation that has no heroes, but beggared is the nation that has and forgets them. - Anonymous