Parents Of 9/11 Victim Feel Snubbed By Lack Of Invite To WTC Memorial
LOWER MAKEFIELD, Pa. (CBS) -- At the Garden of Reflection in Lower Makefield, Bucks County, you will find name after name representing victim after victim of Osama bin Laden. Eighteen people in all killed on September 11, 2001 called this county home.
For all of those families, it's been just as emotional a week as it has for any other victims' families, but some here feel they have been neglected.
Gary and Judy Reiss had hoped to be invited to Ground Zero in New York Thursday – the site where their son Josh died – to watch President Obama lay a wreath, but they were not asked to go.
"I don't know anyone that was invited," said Judy. "That's what bothers me."
"Forget about us being invited; it doesn't make a difference," said Gary. "No one from here was invited."
The White House says it invited 60 relatives of victims and used the staff of the National 9/11 Memorial for guidance to choose a "cross section of family members from various 9/11 organizations."
The Reiss' say the same people are typically invited time and again; people who head those various organizations.
"The heads of these [9/11] organizations have met with the president any numerous numbers of time," said Judy. "But I didn't see the normal people. The people like my husband and I."
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The Reiss's say they have gone out of their way, as have many of the families in the Philadelphia area, when asked to help by government officials. For Judy and Gary that meant taking a week off to attend the hearings of some terror detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
"They wanted us to go to Guantanamo Bay, we were the first," Gary said. "I'm good enough to take five days off to go to Guantanamo Bay, but I'm not good enough to be at Ground Zero where my son died."
The Reiss' say they don't hold any of that against President Obama, who they believe has acted absolutely appropriately all week, including laying a wreath at Ground Zero but not speaking.
"I think it makes the week have a beginning and an end," said Judy. "It's like the president saying 'It's done. We're not celebrating it; it's a solemn thing that happened, and now we have to go on.' We can't sit here and dwell on it; we have to go on."
Reported by Ben Simmoneau, CBS 3
