April 19, 1995

Tweet

Oh, do I remember that day. I was in college, and as usual I spent my entire day at school on Wednesday. And, as usual, I'd call my mom in the afternoon before my last class to check on her (she and I lived together at the time) to ensure she was home from her part-time job and that everything was okay at home (I had a dog who, 99.999% of the time, could hold her bladder between 12:30 and 5:00....99.999% of the time, that is!). My mom said something about a bomb going off at a building. I joked, "It wasn't me, I've been here all day." She was unusually upset about my jovial nature. Naturally I suspected she meant something like those mail bombs that the Unabomber or the pipe bombs they warned us about in the Navy and at the Post Office. Something that might destroy a desk and a coffee cup, not remove half the side of a building. Oh, was I in for a shock when I got home and saw the news. One side of the Alfred Murrah Federal Buiding in Oklahoma City was gone. It was the worst act of terrorism on American soil at the time, and remains the worst act of domestic terrorism that an American ever unleashed against his fellow Americans. On June 2, 1997 I was at a bluegrass festival in McAlester, Oklahoma. Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver began their afternoon set with Lawson announcing that Timothy McVeigh had been convicted of the bombing. That earned a standing ovation. The unfortunate thing about this is that, to this day, people claim that the government did this. It seems that any time we have some tragedy such as this there are "conspiracy theorists" who claim that the CIA did it. This, of course, goes back to JFK's assassination in 1963, where many claimed (and continue to claim) that it was an "inside job" by the CIA or someone else in the government to get rid of JFK. Because of this, it's difficult to find legitimate footage of the Murrah Building coverage. Instead, we get spliced, edited, and chopped news reports run together to "prove" one's "conspiracy theory" notion. It's awful that people take advantage of things such as this to push their political agenda, whether it's an anti-gun politician after a mass shooting or extremist anti-government groups after an act of terrorism. Today is a sad day in U.S. history. I'd rather remember the dead and pray for the survivors that argue about any "conspiracy." A short video with footage of the devastation and the memorial where the Murrah building used to stand: