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Families of Mercer and Curry Thankful for Freedom of Aid Workers

Aired November 22, 2001 - 09:44   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: If you've been with us throughout the morning, you'll notice that we have been asking people, off and on throughout the morning, what it is you're going to be thankful for today.

Well, the families of Dayna Curry and Heather Mercer say that they are offering their thanks today for the safe rescue and return from Afghanistan of these two young ladies.

U.S. officials are still debriefing the two aid workers. Now, you may recall their story from last week. They were among the group of eight who were held captive by the Taliban for three months. And then last week, U.S. forces airlifted Curry and Mercer, and the others, to safety in Pakistan.

Dayna Curry told reporters that that's when Thanksgiving started for her.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAYNA CURRY, AMERICAN AID WORKER: I just know that it was through the prayers of the people that we were able to come out completely unharmed, even healthy and doing well. And we know it's through the people's prayers that we were given strength and able to make it through the whole thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: Dayna Curry's uncle, Harold Cassell, and her cousin, Leanne Malone, join us now. They are in Nashville -- happy Thanksgiving to both of you, and thank you very much for coming in on this morning and talking with us.

LEANNE MALONE, DAYNE CURRY'S COUSIN: Thank you.

HAROLD CASSELL, DAYNA CURRY'S UNCLE: Thank you.

HARRIS: Now, I notice you were watching that videotape that we were just running there.

CASSELL: Right.

HARRIS: Ah, ha, and I noticed a little reaction there in your eyes. What were you thinking when you were watching that videotape?

CASSELL: Well, I was thinking that, you know, how great she looks after all of the ordeal she's been through, and how happy she is and for and the others to be released, so she really looks good.

HARRIS: Yes, you know, you would never look at that videotape and think that she had just spent three months in a Taliban jail, would you?

CASSELL: No, not at all.

HARRIS: Well, that's got to be very hard. Well, Leann, have you talked to your cousin at all?

MALONE: Yes. We got to talk to her the night of the press conference. She called and we put her on speaker, and there was a whole lot of screaming going on.

HARRIS: I'm sure.

MALONE: Every time somebody else spoke up, she would just scream again and go, "I didn't know you were there!" And she just sounded absolutely fabulous.

CASSELL: Ecstatic.

HARRIS: That's great. Now, do you know where she is right now?

MALONE: We are being told she's in Europe. We aren't exactly sure of the location.

HARRIS: Well, have you both had any idea at all at how soon she'll be home and able to celebrate with you in person?

MALONE: We're being told the first of next week. We aren't exactly sure when. We're hearing rumors of a White House appearance Monday or Tuesday, but honestly, we don't know quite yet.

HARRIS: Well, what do you do for Thanksgiving in the meantime?

CASSELL: Well, we're going to have our family over at our house today, and also we're going to, of course, have our prayer thanking the Lord for bringing Dayna back to us and having her on her way home. Also today, we want to have a special prayer for her, the victims -- the families of the victims of the New York attack, and we want the world to remember those today, because they're not going near through the emotions we are. They're on one end of the scale, and we're on the other, and we want everybody to remember them, because it was such a tragic thing to happen to them.

HARRIS: Yes, you bring up a great point, Harold. Let me ask you about that. Now, I know that you've probably definitely had some feelings in your heart for people in New York when the World Trade Center disaster happened. But going through what you've gone through, and especially considering what you've experienced and felt in the last week or so, does it -- I don't know -- does it make you feel more at one with the people in New York?

CASSELL: Well, I was in New York a couple of weeks after that happened, and we could see the smoldering site of the World Trade Center. And it just broke my heart to see all of that and knowing the tragedy that the people have had happened to them, and to know that they emotions that they must be going through with the losses that they were suffering. And it just -- it's really tragic, and it really hurts us to have that had happened.

HARRIS: And I should say here folks, I did not mean to forget those who are involved in the Pentagon plane crash...

CASSELL: That's true.

HARRIS: ... and the folks in Pennsylvania, that site there in Pennsylvania as well. We want to be mindful of all of them.

Leanne, let me ask you a similar question there. Going through what you've gone through now, does that make you feel more at one with the people who have gone through tragedies with those other incidents as well? And does it make you think differently about these sorts of things from now on?

MALONE: Well, you can't help but feel differently about things in general, since what happened happened. It's just been an eye opening experience, but as badly as I did feel for the people in New York, and my heart broke every time I'd see the plane or the video of the plane going back into that building or the plane crash site at the Pentagon. It was awful, but being there really made it hit home.

You could see these pictures -- I saw one guy must have posted probably a thousand pictures of his wife in all of the places we went saying have you seen her. And that quite literally broke my heart, because he didn't give up hope. I know now he probably has started to accept that, but I wanted so bad for him, every time I saw that picture, for her and everybody else that was missing to be found alive.

HARRIS: Finally, let me ask you the both this question: Have you ever stopped to think about what would happen, or what would have happened, to Dayna had there not been a war on Afghanistan or in Afghanistan right now? Because I have to think that that put a lot of pressure on the Taliban to act as quickly as they did. Who knows how long she could have been locked up there?

MALONE: Right. We figured she would have been locked up probably for five years is what they had been telling us all along, or life, but we were kind of anticipating five years being there (ph) before all of this happened in the war.

CASSELL: It -- the war accelerated things, and we're glad that she was released. We would have loved to seen them say, OK, really this -- we're going to go ahead and let you go anyway. But I guess it took this act of war to get them to be released, or rescued actually, they weren't really released.

HARRIS: Yes, it gives you something else for which to be very thankful for.

CASSELL: Absolutely.

HARRIS: Instead of a five-year wait, you may have only another five days or so.

(CROSSTALK)

CASSELL: We hope so.

MALONE: That's right. And we want to thank everybody who prayed for her, and we want to thank God just for the awesome miracle that this rescue was, because there was nothing -- it was nothing short of a complete and total miracle in modern day.

CASSELL: Absolutely.

HARRIS: Well, we want to thank both of you for coming and sharing with us on this Thanksgiving.

MALONE: Thank you.

HARRIS: Here's hoping that your family has a very special Thanksgiving.

CASSELL: Thank you, you too.

MALONE: You too.

HARRIS: Take care -- Harold Cassell and Leanne Malone.

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