A Time To Remember

Loved Ones: Museum A Symbol Of Hope

(CBS)  Nearly six years after a truck bomb ripped through the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in the worst domestic act of terrorism in U.S. history, Oklahoma City Monday dedicated a museum to commemorate those who lost their lives in that tragedy.

"Your loss was great and your pain was deep," President Bush told the crowd gathered for the opening of the Oklahoma City National Memorial Center on Monday.
"Far greater and deeper was your care for one another. That is what lasts," the president said.

A children's choir sang Let There Be Peace on Earth before Mr. Bush spoke. The president and his wife, Laura, earlier toured the center, located near the site where a powerful truck bomb sliced into the Murrah Building in April 1995, killing 168 people, 19 of them children. More than 500 were injured.

At the tour's end, the Bushes signed white tiles to be added to a guest registry on one wall. Mr. Bush signed his name and "God bless," while the first lady wrote "With love" and her name.

"A time for mourning may pass," Mr. Bush said in his remarks. "But a time for remembering never does."

The Bushes stopped first at a wall showing a montage of pictures from ordinary days at the building before the blast. They stood grim-faced before a gallery of photos and mementoes of the dead.

Mr. Bush walked past pictures of Secret Service agents who died. "We knew some of the agents here," the president said, noting Alan G. Whicher, who had served on the elder President Bush's detail.

At the ceremony, Robert M. Johnson, chairman of the Oklahoma City National Memorial Trust, said he hoped the museum would stand as a testament to freedom from fear and violence.

"Without it, the future could not come here and learn and take home a resolve to do what they can in their lives to prevent such violence," he said. "Without it, the future could not understand the pain and suffering brought about by hate."

"I believe that we will be judged by the future. The future will see that evil did not triumph here," Johnson said.

CBS News Chief White House Correspondent John Roberts reports the museum is a story of lives and of death, of rescue and rebirth.

It tells the tale of the April 19, 1995, bombing chronologically, beginning with an exhibit featuring photographs of Oklahomans on a typical spring morning.

Then visitors step into a mock-up of the meeting room of the Oklahoma Water Resources Board, which met at 9 a.m. the morning of the bombing in a building across the street from the Murrah Building. An audio recording of the meeting starts with talk of an application for a ground water permit.

At 9:02 a.m., the discussion is interrupted by the sounds of the explosion from the truck bomb that ripped apart the Murrah Building. As museum vsitors hear the blast, photos of each of the 168 victims illuminate on a wall. Then they slowly fade into darkness and the doors of the small room open to the rest of the museum.

The next section is filled with personal effects of the victims: car keys, watches, a brown leather briefcase, the pink-and-white sneaker of a four-year-old girl, as well as window blinds, file cabinets and concrete mangled by the blast.

And, a small part of the museum focuses on the perpetrators, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols — whose fate, some survivors and victims' families say, is part of the legacy of the bombing.

Priscilla Salyer lost co-workers and friends in the bombing. She fell three stories into the pit and was trapped for four hours. She has asked to be in Terre Haute, Ind., as McVeigh is put to death by lethal injection.

"I have to be there because I need to know that justice has been served," she said.

Salyer will not allow herself anger, because she says that would give McVeigh his victory.

Jannie Coverdale lost two grandsons, Aaron and Elijah, in the bombing. Shoes from the daycare center where they and 17 other children died are now part of the new museum.

"We still have to let people know what really happened that day," she said. "We still have to touch people to make sure this never happens again."

For Coverdale, anger and anguish are now her only companions. Watching McVeigh die may let her finally move on, too.

"I promised the boys the day I was told their bodies had been identified that I was going to follow this through until the end," she said. "And the end is Tim's execution."

Defiant to the end, McVeigh has declared he will not ask Mr. Bush for clemency. Barring any last minute appeals, McVeigh will be executed May 16th.