{"id":12,"date":"2005-04-19T10:04:16","date_gmt":"2005-04-19T14:04:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xanga.nertzy.com\/index.php\/2005\/04\/19\/"},"modified":"2020-08-08T23:28:23","modified_gmt":"2020-08-08T23:28:23","slug":"12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xanga.nertzy.com\/index.php\/2005\/04\/19\/12\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Ten years ago on this day I sat working on an assignment for my math
\nclass.  I had tested out of a chapter of work and was working by
\nmyself on a project to present to the class.<\/p>\n

Sitting in the independent project classroom, we felt the building
\nshake.  At first the teacher told us it was probably a sonic
\nboom.  She used to live near an air force base, and recently on
\nthe news people had talked about the possibility of stationing B2
\nstealth bombers at Tinker Air Force Base.  I thought it could have
\nbeen an earthquake.<\/p>\n

We looked out the window and saw a plume of smoke, like a brush fire, about 10 miles away.<\/p>\n

Around 9:00 am on April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh drove a Ryder truck
\nfull of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and nitromethane racing fuel in
\nfront of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma
\nCity.  At 9:02 am the truck detonated, ultimately killing 168
\npeople, from ATF agents to children in a daycare center.  At the
\ntime it was by far the largest terrorist attack on American soil, and
\nto this day it remains the largest domestic terrorist attack.  The
\ndeath toll came out to approximately 13 times that of Columbine, the
\nschool shooting that would take place exactly four years and one day
\nlater.<\/p>\n

Reports came back to school slowly.  We didn’t really know what
\nwas going on, but over time it became clear that it wasn’t
\nnormal.  Some students were told that their parents were OK. 
\nSomething had happened downtown, and everyone was waiting on more
\ninformation.<\/p>\n

My mom ran outside, thinking that a plane had exploded in the
\nair.  She had her window open and could hear the blast from 15
\nmiles away.  She later went to the local Wal-Mart and saw a
\nphotographer run in to get pictures developed.  They need to get
\ndeveloped now!  They need to get to the media…<\/p>\n

That day was the first day my aunt was to do court reporting for a
\nfederal trial, instead of the local and state trials she had been doing
\nbefore.  She sat in court in the Federal Courthouse, immediately
\nbehind the Murrah building, certainly on the side one would rather be
\non.  Her cassette tape recording of the trial caught the blare of
\nan enormous explosion, following by frantic voices and the judge
\nordering everyone to immediately leave the building because a bomb had
\ngone off.<\/p>\n

When I got home CNN was showing the same thing as the local news, and
\nevery other channel for that matter.  Bulletins were put out for
\n“middle eastern terrorists” that never panned out.  A white
\nsupremacist Gulf War veteran named Timothy McVeigh was arrested for
\nexcessive speeding going north on I-35, away from the blast.<\/p>\n

Once everyone figured out that it was a truck bomb, and the dust
\nsettled, people began the rescue effort.  From all over the
\ncountry, and indeed the world, firefighters, police, medical personnel,
\nand volunteers poured in to help.  Some of these officials would
\nlater die in the September 11 attacks at the World Trade Center. 
\nRobots were used to dig through the rubble in the hopes of finding
\nsurvivors.  After a few days, these hopes were dashed and families
\nhad to admit defeat.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, my parents took me and my brothers downtown to catch a
\nglimpse.  We weren’t going to get close, just get within
\neyeshot.  It was a media circus.  It seemed like every local
\nnews station in America had a van parked there.  Police lines were
\neverywhere, blocking square miles of downtown.  Some extra line
\nwas hanging off of a tree and I cut off a piece of it, which I have to
\nthis day.  You could see the damage clearly from a mile
\naway.  The mood was somber and quiet and people were moving about
\nmatter-of-factly.<\/p>\n

A week later, once all hope was lost, and to further protect the
\nimmediate area by preventing an imminent collapse, the Murrah buidling
\nwas imploded and cleared away.<\/p>\n

April 19.  The date doesn’t mean much outside of Oklahoma, but
\nthere it automatically means the bombing.  A nameless federal
\nbuilding housing seemingly unrelated federal offices that I had never
\nheard of was attacked by a man who wanted to avenge the botched siege
\nby federal agents of the Branch Davidian complex in Waco, TX, two years
\nearlier.<\/p>\n

No one really knew why Oklahoma City should be a target.  Everyone
\nin the nation started talking about the “heartland”.  It was
\n“terror in the heartland<\/a>“.  Where you’d least expect it.  The
\ngovernor of Oklahoma was on national television constantly, and each
\nday the police would report to the public the updated tally of those
\nwho had died.  It ended at 168.<\/p>\n

Months later, the State of Ohio donated some trees to plant at the
\nState Capitol, one each for the people who died.  I was a Boy
\nScout, in Troop 78, and I volunteered that day.  I was up on stage
\nduring the dedication holding the Oklahoma flag up so that it wouldn’t
\nfall over in the wind.  That was the first and only time that I
\nheard the names of those killed read aloud.  It took about 45
\nminutes.  Many if not most of the survivors were there, as well as
\nfamilies, planting trees for the people they knew and loved.<\/p>\n

Just over six years later, terrorists attacked four planes, New York
\nCity, Washington, DC, and Pennsylvania.  Perhaps the worst part
\nabout that day was knowing how it would play out, what the aftermath
\nwould be.  First off, remember the date, September 11, we’ll be
\nhearing about this for some time, just like April 19.  Second,
\nthere will be a relief effort.  People will come from all over to
\ndig through the rubble in order to find survivors.  Third, the
\ntime will come where no one could be expected to live under this
\nrubble.  People will still want to search, but they need to stop
\nsometime.  People will fight to keep looking, but realistically
\nit’s already too late.  And there will be a few key images that
\npeople remember.<\/p>\n

For Oklahoma City, it is usually the firefighter holding the baby, who would die in the next day or so.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Ten years later, things are going a lot better in Oklahoma City. 
\nThe other day we were featured on the front page of the B section of
\nthe Wall Street Journal in a glowing article talking about the urban
\ndevelopment, increased tourism, and how well the city had moved past
\nthe stigma of being a victim.<\/p>\n

Read more about the bombing:
\n| Wikipedia<\/a> | CNN<\/a> | Oklahoma City National Memorial<\/a> | Yahoo!<\/a> |<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ten years ago on this day I sat working on an assignment for my math class.  I had tested out of a chapter of work and was working by myself on a project to present to the class. Sitting in the independent project classroom, we felt the building shake.  At first the teacher told us […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xanga.nertzy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xanga.nertzy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xanga.nertzy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xanga.nertzy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xanga.nertzy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/xanga.nertzy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50,"href":"https:\/\/xanga.nertzy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12\/revisions\/50"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xanga.nertzy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xanga.nertzy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xanga.nertzy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}