Eric Allen Cranford died on September 11, 2001, in the terrorist attack on the Pentagon. He was an Eagle Scout who lived in Drexel and attended Drexel First Baptist Church. He graduated from East Burke High School, NC State University, and Naval Flight School. His memory, and that of the other fallen heroes, is honored through a design embodying the Pentagon and including a piece of rubble from the attack, completed in 2010 as an Eagle project by Tyler Andrews.