Five-year anniversary of bombing brings new memorial

Wednesday, April 19th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- A serene field of empty chairs stood in silent tribute today to the 168 people who died five years ago when the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was blown apart in the roar of a truck bomb.

As the Oklahoma City National Memorial opened, families walked across the lawn where the building once stood and placed flowers and homemade wooden crosses on the chair representing their loved one. There were big chairs for the 149 adults and 19 little ones for the children killed.

Children used big sticks of sidewalk chalk to write messages on tiles beneath artwork in the children's area of the memorial. Others peered into the reflecting pool that stretches along what once was the bomb crater.

A pastor urged the thousands of family members, survivors and rescue workers to "hold on to the memories" but move on wit htheir lives in the first of two ceremonies today to dedicate the new memorial.

"This whole memorial will serve as a reminder that hate may blow up a building but we as a people will never forget," said Dr. Robert Allen of the First United Methodist Church of Wichita Falls, Texas. "We as a people will never forget."

Church bells tolled at 9:02 a.m., the exact moment on April 19, 1995, when the blast of a fuel and fertilizer bomb rattled windows for miles and stripped the face from the nine-story building.

P.J. Allen, who was a toddler when he was pulled alive from the wreckage of the building's daycare center, stood waving an American flag.

"Treasure the gift of life," the minister told the crowd gathered outside a golden gate that serves as an entrance to the site. "Remember the gift of 168 lives who touched ours in someway. Remember the friends and family who reached out to help. Remember the strangers whose live were touched by the event five years ago.

"Hold on to the memories, the memories that this field of empty chairs represents. Treasure them."

Jeannine Gist needed no reminder of the empty chair at her own dinner table. But on the anniversary of the bombing, these chairs brought her peace, she said Tuesday.

"When we first talked about building the memorial, I couldn't imagine it could be a peaceful place," said Gist, whose 32-year-old daughter, Karen Carr, worked and died in the federal building.

Family members, rescuers and survivors bearing bouquets and wreaths were among the estimated 25,000 who trekked to the site this morning for the private dedication of the $29.1 million memorial. The state Legislature on Tuesday approved the final $2.3 million needed to finish paying for the tribute.

President Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno were scheduledto appear at a public ceremony later today.

Robert Roddy, who managed to escape the ninth floor of the building down a stairway, came looking this morning for a memorial that was "spiritual, calming and fitting." His name is among those of survivors listed on a cracked and damaged part of the former federal building's foundation.

"I was worried this might be a little too many bells and whistles but it looks like it's come together real nice," he said. "I was anxious to come in, walk the grounds, see my name and imagine my children and grandchildren walking here someday."

The site of the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil is a picture of serenity now.

Where a bomb once blasted a crater into the downtown street, a black granite pool reflected the downtown sky. Grass and trees stand where rescuers scoured a three-story high pile of concrete and glass for victims. An elm tree whose branches bore the impact of the blast unfolded in a display of green.

Just blocks away, one of the two men convicted in federal court in the attack sat in an Oklahoma County Jail cell with no way of watching or hearing the memorial services.

Bombing conspirator Terry Nichols, who was sentenced to life in prison, is awaiting a preliminary hearing on 160 state counts of first-degree murder.

Timothy McVeigh, who was convicted and sentenced to death, is in a federal prison in Indiana.

"It will be just another day in the life of a typical inmate," Sheriff John Whetsel said of Nichols.

Across from the memorial, at the gutted shell of what was the Journal Record newspaper building, a museum is being constructed where visitors will be able to hear the bomb blast and learn more about the victims. The museum is scheduled to open in November.

The story will be told simply, without drama, museum director Sunni Mercer said, pointing to one example -- a box holding keys plucked from the crumbled federal building.

Piles of these unclaimed house keys, locker keys, gate keys will be on display, all speaking to the normal lives changed by an act of terrorism.

Gist, who helped plan the museum, wants visitors to know who her daughter was and wants them to be changed, too.

"I'd like them to leave thinking `If there is anything I can do to make sure this never happens again, I will do it,"' she said.'

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