Oklahoma City Remembers

Clinton, Cheney Say City Showed Its Mettle After 1995 Bombing

(CBS/AP) 
At the Oklahoma City National Memorial on the grounds of the destroyed federal office building, reports McNamara, bronze gates mark the minute before the bombing and the minute after. There are also 168 chairs that represent each person who died in the blast

The speakers focused not on the images of death and destruction, but on the response of those affected by the nation's worst act of domestic terrorism.

"All humanity can see you experienced bottomless cruelty and responded with heroism," Cheney said. "Your strength was challenged and you held firm. Your faith was tested and it has not wavered."

Across the street, Juanita Espinosa wiped away tears as she stood in front of the pint-sized chair of her cousin, 2-year-old Zackary Chavez.

"They found his head one week, and his body another week," she said. "It's still too much to think about."

Regina Bonny, a retired undercover agent with the Drug Enforcement Agency who was pulled from the debris, placed wreaths and flowers on the chairs of four slain co-workers. "I pray over them. I talk to them," she said. "I'll never let anyone forget them."

McVeigh was convicted of federal conspiracy and murder charges and executed on June 11, 2001. Conspirator Terry Nichols is serving multiple life sentences after being convicted in federal and state court.

"I'm on the road to forgiveness," said Jannie Coverdale, who lost her two young grandsons, Aaron and Elijah, in the blast. "I will feel much better once I can forgive Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols."

In a statement, President Bush said Oklahoma City "will always be one of those places in our national memory where the worst and the best both came to pass."

Clinton got a chuckle when he mentioned the Survivor Tree, the scrappy elm that was heavily damaged in the bombing and is now a leafy green reminder of it.

"Boy, that tree was ugly when I first saw it (in 1995), but survive it did," Clinton said.

"We took little sprigs and planted them," Frank Keating, Oklahoma's governor then, told Bagnato before Tuesday's ceremony. "I have one — a lot of us do — as memorials of this pretty courageous tree."

Seedlings were being planted this year in communities that lost citizens that day.

"Trees are good symbols for what you did. You can't forget the past of a tree. It's in the roots, and if you lose the roots you lose the tree. But the nature of the tree is to always reach for tomorrow. It's in the branches."

Behind him sat the four fidgeting children who survived the blast. The former president stood and applauded them as they read the memorial's creed.