Bombing families welcome national memorial at bomb site

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- Church bells chimed on streets that once rang with a bomb's blast. Children saw their reflections in a calm pool where there was once an ugly crater. And families found serenity

Wednesday, April 19th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- Church bells chimed on streets that once rang with a bomb's blast. Children saw their reflections in a calm pool where there was once an ugly crater. And families found serenity Wednesday in a place that has pained them for five years.

On the anniversary of the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, 168 sculpted chairs stood in silent
tribute to the 168 victims of the most deadly terrorist attack on American soil.

"To me it's like my funeral for him, my time to say goodbye," said 20-year-old Sarah Broxterman, who lingered over the stone-and-bronze chair inscribed with the name of her late father, bombing victim Paul Broxterman.

The chairs soon overflowed with flowers as thousands came for the first of two ceremonies to dedicate the Oklahoma City National
Memorial at the site of the federal building.

Later, President Clinton walked with representatives of families, survivors and bombrescuers through the 168 chairs before
the second dedication ceremony. At one point he paused to straighten flowers knocked over in the strong Oklahoma wind.

He stopped before one chair with Jeannine Gist, the mother of a victim, and placed a hand gently on her shoulder.

Clinton dedicated the memorial with the promise that "America will never forget" the suffering inflicted by the bombing.

"As the governor said in alluding to Gettysburg, there are places in our national landscape so scarred by freedom's sacrifice
that they shape forever the soul of America -- Valley Forge, Gettysburg, Selma," the president said. "This place is such sacred ground."

The gate enscribed with 9:01, the time just before the blast, glowed in the evening sun as Clinton officially opened the memorial by untying symbolic colored ribbons: white for innocence, purple for courage, yellow for hope and blue for statehood.

Earlier in the day, bells tolled at 9:02 a.m., the exact moment when the fuel-and-fertilizer truck bomb exploded and stripped the face from the building, turning its nine floors into a tomb of concrete and steel.

After the names of the victims were read, family members, survivors and rescuers stepped through one of two golden gates
marking the entrance to the memorial. There were 149 big chairs for the adult victims and 19 little ones for the children who died.

"I felt their presence there. I feel their presence every day in the office," said Renee Kiel, who clutched roses as she walked among the 35 chairs representing Housing and Urban Development co-workers.

Children with thick sticks of chalk scrawled messages on tiles beneath artwork in the children's area of the memorial. Some dipped
their fingers into the dark reflecting pool that stretches along what once was the bomb crater.

P.J. Allen, who was severely injured but was one of the few children in the building's day-care center to survive, stood waving an American flag. His hand still bears scars and a tube helps him breath.

"I thought it was lovely," said his grandmother, Delores Watson.

An honor guard representing the rescuers who rushed into the building first and stayed for weeks to recover the dead hoisted a U.S. flag over the site. Lifted by a stiff breeze, the flag snapped to its full length.

Clinton, appearing with Attorney General Janet Reno, called the bombing an "attack on all America and every American."

"We may never have all the answers for what happened here," the president said. "But as we continue our journey toward understanding, one truth is clear: what was meant to break has made you stronger."

Reno thanked the community for "showing America how to stand up to evil."

Rev. Robert Allen, a United Methodist minister who coordinated civilian chaplains during the rescue effort, said: "This whole memorial will serve as a reminder that hate may blow up a building but we as a people will never forget."

Just blocks away, Terry Nichols sat isolated in an Oklahoma County Jail cell awaiting an August preliminary hearing on 160 state counts of first-degree murder in the attack. Nichols and Timothy McVeigh were convicted in federal court. McVeigh, who was sentenced to death, is in a federal prison in Indiana.

Nichols had no way of watching or hearing the memorial services, said Sheriff John Whetsel. "It will be just another day in the life of a typical inmate," he said.

Many family members left the memorial content that it met the stated mission to remember the dead, and survivors. But Jannie
Coverdale, who lost her two grandsons in the day-care center, had a different reaction.

"Those empty chairs, they are too sad," she said. "I don't have to go downtown to be reminded my grandsons are dead."

Sarah Broxterman echoed the thoughts of other family members that the memorial offered comfort and serenity. She placed flowers on the fence that long served as an impromptu memorial at the site and left saying she felt somewhat settled by being there.

"Hopefully I can put this behind and find peace," she said.
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