by Alfred E. Newman

Created on: June 28, 2009   Last Updated: July 03, 2009

April 19, 1995, 9:04 A.M., a Wednesday morning on a lazy spring day, walking casually to my car headed to work. Suddenly a muffled but huge ka-rump rumbled and a small concussion wave swept past, the tiny hairs on my neck standing on end, after flinching heading for the ground, I looked around remembering I was In Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and 20 years removed from a war zone. Surely, that was not a bomb, not here. Shrugging I continued to work driving south on Interstate 40 coming out from under a bridge to the west I could see downtown and the rising pillar of dust and smoke.

With the assistance of co-conspirator Terry Nichols, militia member, sympathizer and ex-soldier Timothy McVeigh, with a fertilizer and ethanol bomb hidden in a Ryder Truck, blew up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The destruction of the Murrah Building, until September 11, 2001, would be the worst ever act of domestic terrorism and remains the only homegrown attack on American soil. The blast destroyed or damaged 324 buildings within a 16-block radius, burned and destroyed 86 cars, shattering the glass windows in 258 other buildings. Total damage in property and human life was $652 million dollars and 168 fatalities including six children.

McVeigh was motivated by the way the Federal Bureau of Investigation had handled the Ruby Ridge incident (1992), and the Siege in Waco, Texas (1993) against the Branch Davidians. McVeigh timed the explosion to coincide with the second anniversary of the Branch Davidians Siege in Waco. Just south of Perry, Oklahoma 90 minutes later, Oklahoma State Trooper Charlie Hanger pulled McVeigh over for driving without a license plate. Moments later, McVeigh was arrested for carrying an unlawful weapon. Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were quickly linked to the attack; they arrested Nichols days later and the pair was charged in Oklahoma Federal Court with having conspired to bomb the federal building. Later Michael and Lori Fortier were tied to the two conspirators and were charged with conspiracy.

Six hundred sixty-five rescue workers, some of whom gave their lives in the efforts, spent day and night conducting extensive search efforts, assisted in rescue and recovery operations by local, state, federal, and worldwide agencies. In the wake of the bombing substantial donations were received from across the country and from around the world. An estimated 646 people were inside the building when the bomb went off; by the end of day, twenty had died, including six children, with over one hundred others injured. Eventually the toll would reach 168 confirmed dead, with possibly an unidentified 169th victim. The federal government employed 99 of those killed. Not counting the gestating fetuses of three pregnant women killed in the blast, 19 of the victims were children, fifteen of whom were in the America's Kids Day Care Center.

The 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, before the Oklahoma City attack occurred, which killed 189, was the greatest loss of American life in a terrorist incident. The Oklahoma City terror attack remains the deadliest homegrown terror attack. Until the September 11, 2001 attacks, it was the deadliest act of terror committed on American soil. An estimated one third of the 387,000 people in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area knew either someone killed or injured in the attack or knows someone directly affected by the Murrah Building Bombing. The Oklahoma City National Memorial, built on the site of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, is a place that one must experience because words are just completely inadequate.

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