Print edition: 
WASHINGTON — Inside the Pentagon 9/11 Memorial Chapel, a female Air Force sergeant unlaced her combat boots, set them under the pews and slipped her black veil around her hair and over her camouflage uniform.
The men pushed back the altar for Christian services to make room for their large green prayer rugs; then moved the podium from one side of the room to the other so that the congregation would be facing Mecca.
"Allah akhbar," called out Ali Mohammed, a contractor who works at the Pentagon, raising his hands to his face as he chanted the call to prayer. "Allah akhbar."
While politicians across the country in an election year may be debating the propriety of building a Muslim center, including a mosque, two blocks from the World Trade Center site in New York, there's no such debate at the Pentagon.
Instead, roughly 400 worshipers attend Muslim prayer services every week in the chapel, a nondenominational facility built over the rubble left behind when American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into the Pentagon.
Opponents of the New York mosque say it would be disrespectful of those killed on Sept. 11, 2001, to allow Muslims to pray near the World Trade Center site.
That's never been an issue at the Pentagon, where 125 people who worked there died that day. Muslims have been praying at the Pentagon's chapel since 2002.
In the chapel, it's impossible not to think of the terrorist attack. A memorial leading to it lists the names of the victims. Light streaming through a stained glass memorial illuminates the congregation. The memorial reads, "United in memory, September 11, 2001." A poster of a flag with the names of all those killed on Sept. 11 hangs on the wall on the other side of the room." The chapel's windows look out over a much larger Sept. 11 memorial outside.
