Tucson's soaring lights will recall the two beams that light up the sky over Manhattan each year.

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At dusk on Monday, the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, residents across the Tucson valley will be able to look up and see two pillars of light streaking toward the sky from "A" Mountain.

The beams of light that will flank the red, white and blue "A" on the mountain are intended to mimic the "Tribute in Light" that occurs annually on Sept. 11 in Lower Manhattan.

It was all supposed to be a secret until Monday night.

"Our original goal was to turn on the lights and not tell anyone," said Tucson developer Jim Campbell, who is coordinating the memorial along with local police and fire unions.

But knowing that "A" Mountain will have to be closed on Monday night, and wanting to explain the tribute to some who might not understand it, Campbell said he needed to reveal the plan now.

The park on the mountain, also known as Sentinel Peak, will close at 4 p.m.

The lights will shine from dusk until midnight.

The twin beams are intended as a solemn, subtle and apolitical memorial to the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington, D.C., and Western Pennsylvania, Campbell said.

Each of the twin beams will be made by three lights that are similar to large spotlights, but have the ability to point straight up, he said.

His development company, Oasis Tucson, is renting the lights at a cost of about $1,500 a day. Four of the lights are being brought from Phoenix and two from San Diego.

"We hope people will look towards those lights and reflect on what happened that day," said fire union president Roger Tamietti.

He said the firefighters union joined the tribute because of the common bond that all firefighters have with one another: "There's a common thread that runs through all of us."

Visiting Ground Zero shortly after the attacks was one of the "most emotional things I've ever been involved with," Tamietti said.

Campbell was even closer to the tragedy than that.

He was in Tower Two of the World Trade Center — the second tower to be struck but the first to collapse — when it was struck.

He was in a meeting with Morgan Stanley on the 64th floor when the first tower was hit and was fleeing down the stairs when the plane hit the second tower.

After escaping down 30 flights of stairs and watching the towers collapse, he took a week to drive home to San Francisco and reflect, then promptly sold his business and house and moved to Tucson, his hometown.

But he said Tucson's own "Tribute in Light" on Sentinel Peak isn't about him.

It also isn't a "pro-war or anti-war" statement, Campbell said, and shouldn't be taken as such.

Instead, he said it's about what happened to us five years ago.

And if the night is clear, he said, "you should be able to see it throughout the valley."

Since Sept. 11, the U.S. has invested billions to stave off further attacks. Page A16

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