An Alfred mother heard her son’s voice from his location near the Pakistan border in Afghanistan early Monday afternoon, bringing welcome relief.
“I just heard from him. He’s safe,” said Sue Babb-McKinney of her son, Army Sgt. First Class Joel Babb. “It was so nice to hear his voice.”
Babb-McKinney said she is glad Osama bin Laden is gone. But as she and her husband Chris celebrated Monday morning, her thoughts were with Joel, who has been on the ground in Afghanistan since April 10.
“We were doing the happy dance,” said Babb-McKinney, when she and her husband learned the U.S. Navy Seals had taken out bin Laden. “But after the elation, we were wondering and hoping it doesn’t get worse for Joel.”
She sent an email to her son but had no reply and was getting pretty nervous by the time the phone finally rang. The connection was poor, with many delays, and the call was an all-too brief three minutes, but still, she heard his voice, and knows he is okay.
Babb-McKinney said her son, who served two prior tours of duty in Iraq, told her at that point, civilians in and around his location hadn’t gotten the word that bin Laden is dead. The war is heating up, he told his mother, but he said his fellow soldiers told him that always seems to happen in the spring.
In America Monday, the talk in the coffee shops, the workplace and at veteran’s posts was of bin Laden and the Navy Seals and how at long last, the man who symbolized the War on Terror was dead.
Marge Trowbridge remembers well how New York looked in the days following Sept. 11, 2001 after the World Trade Centers came crashing down and upwards of 3,000 people perished. Trowbridge, who once lived in the city, couldn’t reach her friends at first, so she took a bus to New York, arriving after midnight Sept. 13.
“I could smell it,” she said of the devastation as the bus rolled into the city.
Her friends were okay. One was working at the World Trade Centers site and took her there one afternoon.
“It was awful,” said Trowbridge. “People were crying.”
Jim Coady of Wells was with the U.S. Air Force stationed in Saudi Arabia at the close of hostilities in the first Gulf War and has a son-in-law serving as a loadmaster on a C130 overseas now, “I’m not sure where, but somewhere in the area,” he said.
Coady, one of a dozen people at the Thomas Cole American Legion Post in Sanford Monday afternoon, said he wasn’t sure what to expect Sunday night when President Obama came on television.
“It was a glorious day,” hearing the news that bin Laden was gone, Coady said. But his jubilation, like that of others, is tempered with caution.
“It wasn’t a one-man deal that brought the (twin) towers down, there’s still a lot of work ahead of us,” he said. “I don’t see an end in sight as long as there are Islamic terrorists. Fundamentalists like that, you won’t sway them.”
Robert Provost, the service officer for the post, said he was celebrating at the news. A Navy veteran, he pointed out it was a Navy Seals team that conducted the mission that resulted in bin Laden’s death.
“I’m proud of the service of these young people have given to the country,” said Provost. “It’s nice to know we have plenty of patriots around willing to do the job.”
“Like Bush said, ”˜We’ll get ya.’ We got him,” said Provost. “It took another President, but we don’t forget.”
In a statement issued by his press office, Gov. Paul LePage said bin Laden’s death brings some measure of justice to the families who lost loved ones on Sept. 11, 2001. LePage noted the 2,752 Americans lost in the attacks, along with the 57 soldiers with ties to Maine who have perished in the ensuing war.
“While this does not mark an end to the Global War on Terror, it does give us reason to celebrate and reinforces the determination of our military and our counterterrorism professionals that serve us all so well,” LePage said.
Babb-McKinney, speaking from her Alfred home, said the situation still scares her.
And while she’s happy bin Laden is gone, Babb-McKinney made an observation.
“You can’t say ”˜closure’ because so many lost loved ones,” she said. “It’s a mixed feeling.”
— Senior Staff Writer Tammy Wells can be contacted at 324-4444 or twells@journaltribune.com.
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