Oklahoma City Remembers

Clinton, Cheney Say City Showed Its Mettle After 1995 Bombing

(CBS/AP)  Their voices sweetly out of sync, the four children stood on the stage — a living symbol of hope and healing a decade after the Oklahoma City bombing.

"We come here to remember those who were killed, those who survived and those changed forever," the children said, reciting the creed of the Oklahoma City National Memorial on the 10th anniversary of the blast. "May all who leave here know the impact of violence."

The children, who were all injured in the blast, read the message Tuesday at an anniversary service attended by more than 1,600 people and held in a church that served as a temporary morgue after the blast.

Some of the young memorial service participants don’t remember the deadly day, despite the serious impact it had upon their lives, reports CBS News Correspondent Bob McNamara. While 11-year-old Joseph Webber, an excellent art student and little league player, has no memory of the day, the man who saved Webber's life has all-too vivid memories.

The bombing memorial is so painful to Oklahoma City Police Inspector Don Hull that he has never gone back.

"I can close my eyes and envision some of the most horrific things that you can imagine," Hull told McNamara.

Minutes after the blast, in the federal building's rubble, Hull unearthed 18-month old Joseph Webber. He says he had to do CPR on Webber several times. He not only wasn't breathing, but Webber's injuries were so severe that Hull literally had to hold his small body together.

But today, thanks to Hull, 11-year-old Joseph Webber couldn't be healthier.

Other children, who lost parents in the bombing, read the names of everyone killed, and the dead were also remembered with 168 seconds of silence at the moment Timothy McVeigh blew up the building a decade earlier.

CBS News Correspondent Barry Bagnato reported from the scene of the bombing in 1995, and returned to Oklahoma City for the day of remembrance. He reports the day was part memorial and part motivational, as Oklahoma City looked at how far it has risen since the day it faced, as Vice President Dick Cheney put it, "bottomless cruelty."

"Your strength was challenged and you held firm," Cheney said. "Your faith was tested and it has not wavered"

But ten years after the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, just 46 percent of Americans think similar acts can be prevented in the future, a CBS News Poll reveals.

Former President Bill Clinton counseled the community, saying that as another anniversary passes, so does some more pain, Bagnato reports.

"Time takes its toll not only on youth and beauty, but on tragedy," Clinton said.

Across the street at the Oklahoma City National Memorial, in the grassy field where the building once stood, 168 empty chairs were a solemn reminder of the carnage. Teddy bears were placed on miniature chairs representing the 19 children slain in the building's daycare center.

"You learn to accept it. You can't change it, so why carry that bitterness for your entire life?" said Larry Whicher, 44, of Russellville, Ark., who lost his brother Alan Whicher.

The blast at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building took a giant bite from the front of the building, sending the top floors pancaking onto the offices and daycare center below. The victims were federal workers, people applying for Social Security cards, kids whose parents had just dropped them off.

P.J. Allen, Christopher Nguyen, Rebecca and Brandon Denny — the four children who read the memorial's creed and who are now teens and preteens — were injured in the daycare. Brandon still suffers seizures after losing part of his brain.

"Oklahoma City changed us all. It broke our hearts and lifted our spirits and brought us together," said Clinton, who was in office that sunny April 19, 1995, morning.