Thoughts turn to those lost on 9/11

Lisa Bartholomew Lee, a survivor of the World Trade Center attacks, updated her Facebook status: “Bin Laden dead. Good.”

Patricia Mackey, whose cousin died when the twin towers were destroyed, got chills Sunday night whe

n she heard that Osama bin Laden had been killed in a U.S. raid in Pakistan.

Red Cross employee Glenna Forrest, who helped in New York City after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, said bin Laden’s death needed to happen.

“It feels awkward being glad that somebody is dead. But you know, it was something that needed to happen. I’m glad it has,” said Forrest, who spent about a month in New York in November 2001.

“I wish it had been sooner for the sake of the families left behind,” said Forrest, who works for the Snohomish County chapter of the American Red Cross.

Lee, a 1982 graduate of Mariner High School, now lives in Chicago. On Sept. 11, 2001, she and her co-workers in the North Tower escaped down a stairway after a jetliner slammed into the building. She and her colleagues in an Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield office thought it was an earthquake.

She credits a decision by her boss to go downstairs despite thick smoke for saving her life. Lee’s mother, Pat Harris of Mukilteo, didn’t know about the attacks until her daughter called from outside the tower to tell her she was safe.

“I wasn’t awake,” Harris, 81, said Monday. “She said, ‘We got out of the building.’ When I asked, ‘What happened to the buildings?’ all she said was, ‘They’re gone,’ ” Harris recalled.

“I’m glad he’s dead,” the Mukilteo mother said of bin Laden.

In Chicago, Lee, 46, said Monday she learned of bin Laden’s death when a friend sent her a text message. Lee, who lost nine co-workers in the attacks, believes justice has surely been done.

In Edmonds, 50-year-old Patricia Mackey still grieves for her cousin, Dennis Buckley, who was 38 when he died on Sept. 11, 2001. Buckley worked for Cantor Fitzgerald, a financial company, on the 104th floor of the North Tower.

Mackey attended the funeral for her cousin, who left behind his wife, Cathy, and three children. When she heard about bin Laden’s death, Mackey said, “I got the chills.”

“My second reaction was sadness and relief that it was over. Yes, let’s celebrate the armed forces that brought this to an end, but it’s 3,000 people who had to die for this man to be brought to justice,” Mackey said.

Considering the suffering of victims in the World Trade Center, Mackey also thinks bin Laden did not deserve an honorable burial at sea. “There was nothing honorable about this man,” she said.

Naval Station Everett and Whidbey Island Naval Air Station had no plans Monday to mark or celebrate bin Laden’s death. In Everett, Navy staff members and sailors were glued to TVs on Monday morning as they learned more about the news, public affairs officer Kristin Ching said.

Veterans of Foreign Wars member Grey Hamer, 85, of Lake Stevens, said his first reaction to the news was, “Wow.”

“It took us 10 years to catch that man,” the World War II veteran said. “Some people are critical about how long it took, but I did not see them working to help us.”

Hamer said he wishes military personnel serving overseas could come home.

Bin Laden’s death is meaningful to firefighters, too, said Stanwood-Camano Fire Department spokesman Levon Yengoyan.

“It’s been a long road that has taken a large toll on this country,” Yengoyan said. “It doesn’t bring back all the firefighters and people lost at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. But I hope it can help those who lost loved ones that day take another step in the healing process.”

Mary Trimble, of Camano Island, spent three weeks in New York City and another three weeks in Washington, D.C., following the Sept. 11 attacks, working as Red Cross volunteer. In New York, she was assigned to an emergency center near the waterfront, helping people who had lost a family member or those who lost their jobs.

Bin Laden “was such an evil man,” she said. “I still fear there will be retaliation because of it.”

Trimble admires military members who went on the mission to bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan. “He had to be stopped in whatever way that was necessary. But I would not have been among those cheering,” she said.

Kris Krischano, of Everett, a longtime spokesman for the Snohomish County Red Cross chapter, was sent to New York City in 2001 to work at the federal joint information center. He saw the smoldering ruins of the twin towers as he flew into New York two days after the attacks.

Krischano said his son phoned him Sunday night to tell him of the news of bin Laden’s death.

“My first thought was all the people in the World Trade Center who lost their lives,” he said. “It’s not a closure, certainly, but a sense of relief that the instigator of that tragedy and loss had finally met his demise.”

Al Aldrich was the government affairs director for the Snohomish County PUD in 2001, and was on a business trip to Washington, D.C., when the attacks occurred. He was in a congressional office building when everyone was ordered to evacuate immediately.

“They pushed us outside, toward the Capitol,” he said. “I remember we could see the smoke coming off the Pentagon.”

The raid that led to bin Laden’s death “is a fantastic reminder about the capabilities of special operations people,” he said. “When you can go in and get done what they did and get out with no casualties, it’s pretty amazing.”

Liz Budbill, a licensed practical nurse who works at the Snohomish County Red Cross chapter, made three trips to New York City to help out with the relief efforts, the first just three days after the attacks. Bin Laden’s death brings some sense of closure, she said.

“He needed to be found and either captured or killed,” she said.

“There will still be a huge piece of me … that will always be with New York City because of what happened,” Budbill said.

“I’m glad he’s gone,” she said. “But … we will never forget. We won’t.”

Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460, muhlstein@heraldnet.com.