9/11 Mother Welcomes News of Bin Laden's Death

Mary Ann Marino said she feels “a little good today,” nearly a decade after her son, Ken, a former Long Beach firefighter, was killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Marino and her husband, Pat, were watching television Sunday night when they heard the news the Osama bin Laden had been killed.

“We were surprised and we were really relieved,” Marino said from her Oceanside home Monday morning. “...I’m proud the president accomplished what he said he was going to accomplish and I’m glad that they got him and I’m glad that they buried him at sea so they can’t make a martyr out of him.”

The Marinos remembered their son Ken who carried out his boyhood dream to become a firefighter. He grew into a burly 6-foot-5 man who earned a reputation as a serious, knowledgeable firefighter who was passionate about his work.  

Ken moved to Long Beach in 1987, volunteered at the city’s fire department and worked at the post office on East Park Avenue. Three years later he joined the New York City Fire Department, but continued to volunteer in Long Beach until 1997. After he moved his family to Monroe, N.Y., he rose through the FDNY ranks and eventually joined Rescue 1, an elite Manhattan unit that was among the first to arrive at the World Trade Center on 9/11. Ken Marino was 40 years old.

On Monday, Marino said that her friends and family contacted her last night after they heard the news of bin Laden’s death. “I got an email from one of my cousin’s last night online that said: ‘God bless America. We finally did it,’” she said. “I knew about it and it was great to have people call.”

Ken is survived by his wife, Katrina, and their two children, Kristin and Tyler, now 13 and 11, who live in Massachusetts. Marino called her daughter-in-law this morning, curious to know how she broke the news to her children.

“My grandson, strangely, said that he had a dream that bin Laden was shot in the head,” Marino said. “My granddaughter said: ‘I hope he’s in hell.' My granddaughter’s reaction really got to me. It was really very poignant. It sort of took me back a little bit, but she’s a teenager now and you notice a difference in her now. You don’t know what anger is building up inside of these kids and what’s going on in their heads.”

The Marinos have a bench dedicated to Ken on the Long Beach boardwalk that they visit each Sept. 11.  

Ken’s remains were never found, and although his name and image are part of many memorials, from his native Oceanside to Manhattan, the bench has come to symbolically substitute as his final resting place.

“We don’t have any place to go,” Marino said. “We never found Kenny.”

While the gold lettering of the bench plaque’s inscription has faded after nearly 10 years, the words remain: “Love is eternal. It has no beginning and no end.”

Each Sept. 11, the Marinos head to the boardwalk with flowers in hand after they attend the morning ceremony in lower Manhattan. They had Ken’s bench placed as far west on the boardwalk as possible, near Grand Boulevard, to be near the West End apartments he rented.

“We put the bench there, and it’s a place that gives us a little solace,” Mary Ann said. “On Christmas and Thanksgiving sometimes, and certainly always on Sept. 11, we’ll sit there and look at the ocean, because Kenny loved Long Beach and the ocean and he would ride his bike on the boardwalk.”