Bin Laden's Death Stirs Memories for Local Couple Whose Son Died in 9/11

Yorkville residents Dwayne and Kay Collman don’t know much about their son’s last moments as a flight attendant on the hijacked plane that struck the north tower of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11.

But they were thinking about him and the soldiers who killed terrorist leader Osama bin Laden as they watched President Barack Obama speak Sunday night. Dwayne Collman felt a surge of patriotism as well.

“I wish I could have been in Washington out in front of the White House,” Dwayne Collman said. “I was almost going outside and yelling myself, I was so happy. We’re just appreciative of all the brave young men who are fighting for us, went in there and took him out. It was unbelievable.”

The last 10 years have presented more than a few unbelievable moments for the couple.

Their son, Jeffrey Collman, a 1977 graduate of Yorkville High School, loved tennis, traveling and being a flight attendant, Dwayne Collman said. He wasn’t supposed to be on that flight from Boston that day but took the assignment so he could get a few extra days off to watch tennis at Wimbledon.

“He switched flights with somebody,” Dwayne Collman said. “He saved somebody’s life, I guess.”

The Collmans traveled to Boston and New York City not long after the attacks, seeing dignitaries like then-U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton at public events and seeing the destruction (shattered windows and collapsed buildings) at Ground Zero. They had a memorial service for their 41-year-old son, according to an online memorial, but no traditional burial.

“From what I heard, they found a couple of bones from his fingers through DNA, but that was all,” Dwayne Collman said. “I don’t know what happened from the time they left Boston to the time they hit the tower.”

But the couple does know their gregarious son—who once charmed Joe DiMaggio into autographing an American Airlines dinner menu, according to Dwayne Collman—was remembered.

After the attack, they received cards and letters from people he had helped as a flight attendant, people who remembered him lending a hand with their children or assisting older women with their walkers.

Almost 10 years later, it’s still hard for the Collmans to see footage from the Twin Towers attack on television. The couple watched some television news Monday morning but then went about grocery shopping and planning yard work.

It’s hard to think about going to church on the 10^th anniversary of the attacks, which falls on a Sunday, Dwayne Collman said.

“We just go day-by-day and hope something happens that will resolve this,” Collman said. “We know he’s not coming back, but at least the guy who planned all this is not coming back either.”

Standing in their kitchen, not far from a quilt a woman from Australia made them to memorialize Jeffrey Collman, Kay Collman reminds her husband that Monday should be a happy day, not a sad one.

Bin Laden’s death, however, brings up so many memories.

“I felt bad, because we know he’s never coming back, but at least his murderer is never coming back,” Kay Collman said. “… Anyone who could ever think of doing such a thing and brag about it is such an evil man.”