It was 10 years ago today that domestic terrorists bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, OK, murdering 168 people and injuring hundreds more. Please take a moment today to remember the victims of that event and the first responders who went to the aid of the survivors.
I always do, but thanks for the reminder. Today’s my twenty-year wedding anniversary. 
I watched a documentary recently where they said McVeigh knew he was parking the truck under the daycare center.
Too bad we could only execute him once. :mad:
I remember being out all morning, not hearing the news, and coming home pissed because I had been caught in a sudden downpour. Really put my life in perspective.
I just wish McVeigh had been executed three months and a week after his 6/11/01 date so he could have realized that in the world of terrorism, he was chickenshit.
I knew one of the victims. We went to HS together and we both played sax in band. I sat next to her every morning for two years.
A while back I happened to flip by the (IIRC) National Geographic special, Seconds to Disaster. It was weird to see them demonstrate exactly how she died with computer graphics. She worked in the Credit Union and they showed how it was from the suvivors description.
When some people say that McVeigh was doing this to fight the government from taking our freedoms, I ask them how that had anything to do with Jamie.
I imagine everyone remembers that photo of the little girl in the fireman’s arms. Her birthdate was only two days later than my nephew’s. When I see that picture it could have been “Colin”, blond-curly headed, leggy one-year old in a diaper.
My nephew is now in fifth grade. I see in him all the things little Baylee will never be, and I think how lucky I am to have a nephew like that.
“May the souls of all the departed rest in peace.”
This bloody-handed madness took the piss & vinigar out of the Militia boys, & that is the only scrap of good to come out of it.
I grew up in Guthrie, Oklahoma, a small town not far from Oklahoma City.
A couple of years back I went to my graduating class’s 20th reunion. One old friend I met had been a bit of a dumb-ass in high school, one of the types who would start trouble just to start it, and not be very smart about it either. Didn’t do very well with academics. At the reunion he looked … adult. And in great shape. Turned out that after high school he got his act together and became a firefighter. In Oklahoma City.
I asked him if he had been there. He said “yea” and changed the subject.
I didn’t press it. I can’t even imagine. Or rather, I can imagine.
I had that exact though on 9/11/01. I was living near Terre Haute when he was executed so it had been in the news alot with all the protesters. 10 years later and McVeigh’s message still doesn’t mean anything (something about the government sucks) but 168 people were unwillingly sacraficed for it.
And his most famous followers were Eric Harris and Dylan Kleibold…
That was one of the first times I realized how messed up people can be when they fill their minds with garbage instead of common sense and compassion for others.
May all the souls of the dead rest in peace, and their families be comforted in their grief and loss.
I can’t believe it’s been 10 years. I’m from OKC but I was living in Austin at the time. A friend of mine kept calling me at work telling me a bomb went off in OKC. I thought he was talking about a pipe bomb, a prank that some kids pulled. It wasn’t until I turned on the TV at work that I found out what happened.
My father, who lived in OKC, just had surgery for cancer and I went there the weekend after the attack. President Clinton was in town and I remember everyone drove around with their lights on in memory of those killed. It was a pretty sad weekend.
When the bombing occurred, I was working for a company that prepares transcripts and summaries of television news broadcasts. Needless to say, the news coverage of this shocking event was extensive in Oklahoma. I spend most of a week transcribing all the interviews and news commentary from both OKC’s and Tulsa’s TV news teams. I was so immersed in the bombing and its aftershocks that I felt almost as if I had been there.
Happy anniversary!
That’s one of the things I hate about this. Everyone has dates that are important to them, like birthdays of loved ones and anniversaries. Then there are the “national” important dates, like December 25, July 4th. Then there are the dates that pull that day off the calendar, and it will never be normal again, like Dec 7 (although that is fading into the mists of time), April 19, and Sept 11.
So, the Mohammed Attas and Timothy McVeighs, in addition to killing thousands of innocents, ruined a perfectly good date of the year that before was just a mundane date, significant to those few who were born or married on that particular day.
i watched the aaron brown special last night. the segment on the children survivers was amazing. the one boy who finally, finally! was able to have his trach tube removed in '03, read aloud today with 2 other children from the day care. to see the very little boy who had a toy embedded in his brain, in his backyard at 11 playing with his sister (who also read at the memorial today.), was amazing.
i would think about that little boy and wonder how he was.
may the memory of those who died that day and the days following be eternal.
may those who mourn them have comfort and peace.
may those who survived and struggle each day have strength and peace.
Nah, it only weeded out the bad members. Good militias are still around.
McVeigh probably didn’t know about the daycare center; he was annoyed when he learned he had killed children because they were taking attention away from his protest against the government. What an asshole.
I remember walking to class and hearing thunder, and thinking, “Wow, and there’s not a cloud in the sky yet. Good thing I brought an umbrella.” I learned just before class, but I also thought it was a pipe bomb and maybe some deputy had sprained his wrist with it. It was 1:30 before I saw a lot of people watching TV together. That’s never good.
I didn’t know what to do, so routine took over. I had lunch and went to afternoon class. It was cancelled. It dawned on me that OU might be a target, but it was time to leave anyway. I still don’t know what I should have done.
And it did rain later on. Maybe it was thunder. From a clear sky.
A “good” militia?
WTF?