On April 19th, 1995, I was still working at Best Buy but had already turned in my two weeks notice. I was working nights then, so it wasn't uncommon for me to get home around midnight and sleep in the following morning.
At 9:02am on April 19th, I was awoken by a low rumble, the kind of vibration you might feel if a garbage truck was idling outside your window. In fact that's what I thought it was until I remembered that trash day was Thursday, not Wednesday. I hopped out of bed and walked outside. I didn't see a garbage truck, but when I looked downtown from my front yard, I could already see the smoke.
For the record, I lived 12 miles from downtown Oklahoma City. 12 miles away, the blast that had just destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal building rattled my windows. According to the weather station in Norman, Oklahoma (16 miles away), the blast registered as a 3.0 on the Richter scale.
I didn't know what had happened yet, but I knew it was bad. Somehow, I had the foresight to toss a brand new VHS tape into the VCR, set the VCR to SLP (6-hour mode) and hit record. That day I recorded 6 hours worth of news as the story unfolded. This became an important matter for me because of revisionism and bad memory. Whether it's intentional or not, I've heard people recount what happened that day and some of it is simply incorrect.
Within a pretty short period of time people figured out that whatever had just happened was intentional. News reporters reported the finding of a second explosive device. Some reports now say they were disarmed devices being stored in the FBI office in that building; others say that no device was found, and some conspiracy theorists say that explosives were planted inside the building. Regardless of which theory you buy into, the fact of the matter is I watched news reporters drop what they were doing and run for their lives, telling the growing crowd to "get back!" as they ran.
I didn't know this at the time, but one of my cousins was working in the daycare that day. The daycare was on the second floor and overhung where McVeigh parked his Ryder truck. She, along with several of her co-workers and 19 kids, were killed.
The death toll is either 168 or 169, depending on who you ask (they found a leg that they never could identify). Not all of those people were inside the building. One was standing in the parking lot across the street. One was a rescue worker that was killed. The infamous "leg" may have belonged to a homeless person who picked the wrong building to sit next to. Who could have known?
At exactly 9:02am, about a block away, a guy was driving by in his Ford Festiva when the axle from a Ryder truck fell out of the sky and smashed his car. The VIN number from that axle led the FBI to where it was rented. It did not take long for the FBI to track down McVeigh (actually, he was already in custody when the FBI put 2+2 together).
Next to the Murrah building memorial is a museum. The first part of the museum is dedicated to life before 9:02am that day. You can read that morning's headlines and find out what was going on. Then you move into a room in which they play an audio recording. There was a court across the street that was recording a deposition. In that small room you get to hear a loud explosion and, in your heart, you can know you are listening to 160+ people die. Then you walk out of that room into the rest of the museum and you can see the twisted metal and concrete that's left. You can see people's shoes that were recovered and unclaimed watches and other personal artifacts. There's an area with 168 little shelves where the families of all those that died got to bring something that represented their loved ones, whether it's a coffee mug or a pair of glasses or a baby rattle for some of the infants. The last part of the museum is all about the evidence. That truck axle I mentioned, along with most of the truck's frame, is there. The gun Tim McVeigh had on him when he was arrested is there, as is the handwritten note he left on the dash of his getaway car, asking that it not be towed.
Outside the memorial are 168 chairs. Each chair has a victim's name on it. At night, the chairs glow. To be honest I've never been able to walk past them without getting choked up, and I just found out that I'm also not able to write about the chairs without getting choked up either.
People visiting the memorial site still bring teddy bears and things for the (dead) children. There's a chain link fence on one side of the memorial and people stick notes and toys in it. Across the street from the fence is a large statue of Jesus. He's weeping with his face in his hands and he's facing away from the bombing site because he can't look at it. I know how he feels.
One thing that bothered me for a long time about the bombing was that a lot of the people who died that day were simply contractors working for the government. For years and years, *I* was a government contractor. I never associated what I did or where I worked with what I represent.
I've heard people say that the country lost its innocence that day, but that's definitely true here in Oklahoma. A few weeks later a large fence and guard shacks were erected around where I work. Before that, the public could simply drive up to the FAA and waltz right in. No more.
I feel kind of bad that this morning I didn't even realize it was the anniversary of the bombing. They say time heals all wounds and I don't know that it heals them but it makes them go away I guess. After 9/11 our little bombing here seems almost quaint. I remember after 9/11 people saying, "well, at least you don't have the record anymore for a domestic terrorist attack," and I can remember thinking, "who the hell wants that record?"
On April 19th, 1995, I was still working at Best Buy but had already turned in my two weeks notice. I was working nights then, so it wasn't uncommon for me to get home around midnight and sleep in the following morning.
At 9:02am on April 19th, I was awoken by a low rumble, the kind of vibration you might feel if a garbage truck was idling outside your window. In fact that's what I thought it was until I remembered that trash day was Thursday, not Wednesday. I hopped out of bed and walked outside. I didn't see a garbage truck, but when I looked downtown from my front yard, I could already see the smoke.
For the record, I lived 12 miles from downtown Oklahoma City. 12 miles away, the blast that had just destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal building rattled my windows. According to the weather station in Norman, Oklahoma (16 miles away), the blast registered as a 3.0 on the Richter scale.
I didn't know what had happened yet, but I knew it was bad. Somehow, I had the foresight to toss a brand new VHS tape into the VCR, set the VCR to SLP (6-hour mode) and hit record. That day I recorded 6 hours worth of news as the story unfolded. This became an important matter for me because of revisionism and bad memory. Whether it's intentional or not, I've heard people recount what happened that day and some of it is simply incorrect.
Within a pretty short period of time people figured out that whatever had just happened was intentional. News reporters reported the finding of a second explosive device. Some reports now say they were disarmed devices being stored in the FBI office in that building; others say that no device was found, and some conspiracy theorists say that explosives were planted inside the building. Regardless of which theory you buy into, the fact of the matter is I watched news reporters drop what they were doing and run for their lives, telling the growing crowd to "get back!" as they ran.
[img]http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Evils%20in%20Government/Oklahoma%20City%20Cover-up/oklahoma_city_bombing.jpg[/img]
I didn't know this at the time, but one of my cousins was working in the daycare that day. The daycare was on the second floor and overhung where McVeigh parked his Ryder truck. She, along with several of her co-workers and 19 kids, were killed.
The death toll is either 168 or 169, depending on who you ask (they found a leg that they never could identify). Not all of those people were inside the building. One was standing in the parking lot across the street. One was a rescue worker that was killed. The infamous "leg" may have belonged to a homeless person who picked the wrong building to sit next to. Who could have known?
At exactly 9:02am, about a block away, a guy was driving by in his Ford Festiva when the axle from a Ryder truck fell out of the sky and smashed his car. The VIN number from that axle led the FBI to where it was rented. It did not take long for the FBI to track down McVeigh (actually, he was already in custody when the FBI put 2+2 together).
Next to the Murrah building memorial is a museum. The first part of the museum is dedicated to life before 9:02am that day. You can read that morning's headlines and find out what was going on. Then you move into a room in which they play an audio recording. There was a court across the street that was recording a deposition. In that small room you get to hear a loud explosion and, in your heart, you can know you are listening to 160+ people die. Then you walk out of that room into the rest of the museum and you can see the twisted metal and concrete that's left. You can see people's shoes that were recovered and unclaimed watches and other personal artifacts. There's an area with 168 little shelves where the families of all those that died got to bring something that represented their loved ones, whether it's a coffee mug or a pair of glasses or a baby rattle for some of the infants. The last part of the museum is all about the evidence. That truck axle I mentioned, along with most of the truck's frame, is there. The gun Tim McVeigh had on him when he was arrested is there, as is the handwritten note he left on the dash of his getaway car, asking that it not be towed.
[img]http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2133/2536468260_8e784da9f7_z.jpg[/img]
Outside the memorial are 168 chairs. Each chair has a victim's name on it. At night, the chairs glow. To be honest I've never been able to walk past them without getting choked up, and I just found out that I'm also not able to write about the chairs without getting choked up either.
People visiting the memorial site still bring teddy bears and things for the (dead) children. There's a chain link fence on one side of the memorial and people stick notes and toys in it. Across the street from the fence is a large statue of Jesus. He's weeping with his face in his hands and he's facing away from the bombing site because he can't look at it. I know how he feels.
One thing that bothered me for a long time about the bombing was that a lot of the people who died that day were simply contractors working for the government. For years and years, *I* was a government contractor. I never associated what I did or where I worked with what I represent.
I've heard people say that the country lost its innocence that day, but that's definitely true here in Oklahoma. A few weeks later a large fence and guard shacks were erected around where I work. Before that, the public could simply drive up to the FAA and waltz right in. No more.
I feel kind of bad that this morning I didn't even realize it was the anniversary of the bombing. They say time heals all wounds and I don't know that it heals them but it makes them go away I guess. After 9/11 our little bombing here seems almost quaint. I remember after 9/11 people saying, "well, at least you don't have the record anymore for a domestic terrorist attack," and I can remember thinking, "who the hell wants that record?"