For more than a year after his wife and daughter were killed on Sept. 11, 2001, a pair of little girls’ shoes, size 4, sat at David McCourt’s front door.
His wife, Ruth, and daughter, Juli Ana, were killed when their Los Angeles-bound plane was hijacked and flown into the south tower of New York’s World Trade Center. For months, he would lay crying in a fetal position on his 4-year-old daughter’s bed, feeling that his scars would never heal.
“Losing my wife was like my heart being ripped out; losing my daughter was having my soul ripped out,’’ said McCourt, who moved from Connecticut to Palm Beach after the tragedy.
Monday brought a bit of joy, and more sadness for McCourt, and others who lost loved ones in the attacks, when they learned that Osama Bin Laden had been killed in a surprise raid by U. S. military troops.
As thousands danced in the streets celebrating in New York and Washington, many family members and veterans spent Monday reliving the worst memories of their lives.
“I feel elated,” McCourt said. “But I also have a sense of sadness because it’s a reminder of what this monster did and what he took from me.”
Though he is now engaged, McCourt said the family he lost is never far from his mind. Bin Laden’s death brings some solace, but his life is changed forever.
“The biggest thing people don’t realize is when your family is taken away from you, your identity is taken away from you,’’ he said. Today, he finds comfort by working with disabled war veterans.
His fiancé, Mary Bryant, founded a group that trains veterans in wheelchairs to compete in marathons. On Monday, as most Americans were waking up to the news, Bryant was in Miami’s Curtis Park training some of her students, many of whom lost limbs in the war on terrorism in Iraq or Afghanistan.
“While everyone was relieved, there was a feeling that we still realize we have to be on our toes, we got to watch our backs,’’ said Bryant, Founder of Achilles Freedom Team of Wounded Veterans.
Later Monday, as she drove a U-Haul crammed with wheelchairs back to Palm Beach, she spoke about the hundreds of veterans she has met who, despite life-changing injuries, never thought twice about serving their country. Many of them would go back, if they could, she said.
“They are just amazing,’’ Bryant said.
One of her students, Luke Murphy of Palm City, lost a leg to a roadside bomb in Iraq in 2006. He trained in several al Qaeda missions, and saw some of atrocities terrorists committed in the name of bin Laden in Iraq.
“There were 20 guys we found without heads. These terrorists were driving around blowing up their own people,’’ he said. “ It was all stemming from bin Laden. It’s the same radicalism and same hatred toward America that drives them.”
He added: “As a country we had to sacrifice a lot for that man. And of course I’ll have to pay for it the rest of my life.’’
Janice Saiya Gonzalez of Pembroke Pines found comfort in the news of bin Laden’s death. She lost a cousin on 9/11 at the World Trade Center – and a soldier who was like a son in Afghanistan in 2007.
“I knew we would finally get him, no matter what it took,’’ she said. “I’m glad they finally tracked him down and put a bullet in his head. Now the devil has a roommate.”
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/05/02/2197860/bin-ladens-death-brings-joy-nightmares.html#ixzz1LFpFRKGE
1 comment:
September 11, world trade center 7, WMD, guarding poppy fields in Afghanistan, & the Brand new fake Birth Certificate. Culminating in the dramatic "capture kill" (one of many new phrases invented in the last decade) of a man that is elusive as a jaguar, yet is tethered to a dialysis machine.
We live in an awesome fucking movie.
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