4-19-95... Remembering The Horror Of That Day... (pic heavy)

[SPKrazy]

I had the good fortune to visit the Murrah Federal Building memorial in Oklahoma City. Oklahoma City is to intrinsically tied to me in so many ways. My mother grew up there, my grandparents lived and died there, I visited there many, many times as a child. I later as a teenager moved 70 miles away from OKC and visited there. I have friends that lived and live there today. I had not been to the memorial before today however.

I still remember that day, of course it is shadowed by 9/11 today, but the horror and sorrow of that day came flooding back into my memory today. I remember where I was that day when I heard about it, much like I do 9/11. I remember that on that day there was a man delivering a new copying machine. He was from Oklahoma City and was bringing the copier from there. He told us that on any other morning, he would have been servicing machines in the Murrah building. The person that usually delivers out of town was out that day and he had gotten assigned the delivery to us. He said he would normally have been there at 9:00 a.m. Unreal...

Here are some pics--taken with a camera phone because my digital phone was dropped on the street and it broke a few months ago... so I KNOW these aren't good quality pics, but I had to take some pics and wanted to share them with you my friends.


The reflecting pool that is approximately where the street running in front of the Murrah building would have been, and where the bomb was set off.


A view from the side of the building that wasn't bombed, the landscaped area is all still there, the playground where the kids played is there (no play equipment) just grass and a fence with crosses and little bells :cry:


Trying to show the "chairs" (monuments) and the large ones for adults and the small ones for the children.


The view from the other end of the reflecting pool.


All of this was very sobering and moving for me today. I literally had chills the whole time I was there and I had no idea I would be that moved.


This was a message written on the building next to the Murrah building by one of the rescue teams.

[crim son]

1. I've never been there. Great pictures & thanks for posting them.

The message on the side of the building... I wonder what exactly it refers to.

[SPKrazy]

3. It Is A Message

that one of the search team members sprayed on the wall... I think it was borne out of frustration and disbelief.

also, remember this is the buckle of the bible belt we're talking about, God, guns, and guts!

:shrug:

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

2. wow, powerful.

Thanks for sharing

[SPKrazy]

14. Thanks MAHNY!

it is a pleasure to do so.

[liberaltrucker]

4. Lest we forget

OKC will NEVER be forgotten as long as I'm alive.

Let it not be forgotten that it was a white "Christian" that did this.
Not a radical Muslim, a radical "Christian". Suck it, TSA.

[SPKrazy]

5. So True...

"on our soil" was the motto they have for OKC

the DHS has tried to put it in with the terrorism around the globe thing, but BS... it was terrorism, grown and brainwashed in the good ol' USA

[wildhorses]

6. you should repost this on the anniversary date

thanks for the pix.

[SPKrazy]

8. I May Just Do That...

thanks

:hi:

[mentalsolstice]

7. It was the day we started to lose our innocence...

to extremist terrorists. American citizens or not, it makes no difference!

[SPKrazy]

9. I agree to a large degree

it certainly was the loss of our virginity so to speak

I think that the day we lost our innocence is the day we started allowing terrorists to harass, kill, bomb, abortion clinics actually.

I think that the tolerance of that by society and the religious right gave way to the kind of extremism that drove McVeigh (and any others that were involved) Elohim City, a small community in Oklahoma not far from where I live is full of the kind of extremist views that McVeigh had. He reportedly spent time there. The country is full of people who are only a fertilizer truck away from McVeigh's actions, of course, that's a big step to take thank Gawd!

[mentalsolstice]

19. Extremism SUX!

I lived across the street from the abortion clinic bombing that occurred on Dec. 25, 1984 (wee hours of the morning), in Pensacola, FL. The blast shook me out of my bed and I found myself, literally, on the floor. My soul was shaken when I saw the news and Dan Rather reporting on it a few hours later.

On Jan. 29, 1998, I was sleeping late in the morning in a Southside neighborhood of Birmingham, AL. I was awakened by a loud blast. We lived close enough to the airport, so I thought it was just a jet fart. An hour or so later, I learned that a police officer, Robert Sanderson, was killed in a bombing of a women's clinic (that I had gone to during law school for birth control). One of my very good friends, Mike Coppage, was the police chief at the time. It was so painful to see him on TV, for such an ugly episode in our American history. My heart broke for my friend and my city. Additionally, there was EMILY LYONS, the nurse who was gravely injured in that blast. Since the bombing, I've seen her (very casually) around town, in restaurants and stores. Every time I've seen her, I go home with a heavy weight on my heart...yet I'm inspired by her spirit to keep on moving on!

Oddly enough, my husband was camping near Murphy, NC when Eric Robert Rudolph was captured for the B'ham bombing.

McVeigh started it...because of him we know the face of intolerance. And it, to this day, continues. The question is how the story ends?

[SPKrazy]

21. My Fear Is That We Will Find Out

and it ends in martial law being used to "control" this kind of problem

:shrug:

call me paranoid, I prolly am... ;)

[fizzgig]

10. crappy camera phone or not

those are very powerful pictures, thank you so much for sharing them. it has been many years since then and we now live in a post-9/11 world, but we still have to bear witness to the horror and tragedy of that day.

i was only 14 at the time, but i will always remember what i was doing when i heard the news. i had missed the school bus and my mom couldn't get me to school until later, then it happened. she and i sat on the couch and cried. i still went to school that day and it was a very somber day, even for a junior high. i think that is when i lost my innocence.

[SPKrazy]

12. Ay, and it was a day that is etched in my brain forever too

I was a few years older than 14 (:rofl:) but I can tell you where I was, the disbelief that I had, I still remember hearing Jim Inhoffe, the Oklahoma Senator talking about how it was "Muslim extremists" when it happened.

I guess that would have been an assumption, but then things turned on a dime so fast that it made my head spin.

I still remember where I was when they figured out they had caught McVeigh, I was not far from Perry, Oklahoma that day.

glad you're home

:hug:

[fizzgig]

17. i also remember the talk

of it being 'muslim extremists' but knowing it wasn't. i only have vague memories of when they caught mcveigh, though.

i'm glad you're home too :hug:

[SPKrazy]

18. Yeah, it was weird...

they had him in jail for no tags and they were getting ready to release him when they realized he fit the description of who they were looking for. He was that close to getting away, and he didn't even need a body dumping site because his were all gone :(

glad i'm home too :hug:

[mentalsolstice]

20. I remember being in Applebees (NO FLAMING, PLEASE!)

When a couple of our law students came in and asked if we knew what had happened. Thankfully, we were in Applebees that day, because they had an abundance of TVs we could stay glued to!

[SPKrazy]

23. Damn You Were There Early?

I guess 11 might have been the time Eastern before you heard, or even 12?

:rofl:

[mentalsolstice]

24. I'm on Central, like you

But "way back then" there wasn't instant news like we have now. I do remember it clearly. and the students coming in and asking if we had heard. However, I don't remember if I had the lite quesadilla or the Cajun Lime Tilapia .

[SPKrazy]

25. Prolly Neither

bloody mary's and breakfast would be my guess

:hug:

[Maddy McCall]

11. May I add the photo of that day that still touches my heart?

Rest in peace, Baylee Almon.


Firefighter Chris Fields carries Baylee Almon
away from the wreckage.

[SPKrazy]

13. Yes Indeed...

that pic is amazingly powerful.

One thing that I was reminded of today is that while 167 people died at the time or from the explosion directly, there was one nurse that died after driving 3 + hours to OKC from Arkansas, and died rescuing.

:hi:

[fizzgig]

16. that picture breaks my heart

always has and always will. but it also, for me, put a human face on the tragedy more than anything else ever could

[SPKrazy]

26. yup...

what a good picture though, geez, truly gives the picture of what really happened, the kids... :cry:

[reformedrepub]

28. I dont know if anyone knows this or not

but Firefighter Chris Fields committed suicide several years after this picture was taken. Apparently that fact that he couldnt save Little Baylee was a major factor in his suicide....RIP FF Fields..another victim of that day.

[kath]

30. Where did you hear this? Tried to Google it - could find no mention of his

suicide. Did find a story written at the time of the 10th anniversary that included some brief interview statements from him - so he was alive in 2005.

[Maddy McCall]

48. I think I read that interview, too.

Yeah, I'm gonna google around and see what I can find.

[Maddy McCall]

47. Holy shit. I did NOT know that.

I'm going to see if I can find that photo in hi-rez--gonna frame it and put it in our station.

Thanks for telling me that. :cry:

[CaliforniaPeggy]

15. My dear Southpawkicker.......

Your pictures are just perfect......

Thank you so much, sweetie....

What an excellent, and sobering reminder of that day your thread is...

:patriot:

:hug:

[SPKrazy]

22. Thanks Peg...

:hug:

[fishwax]

27. Great pics, thanks! Did you get to go to

the museum? It is really a great museum, I thought. The memorial overall is very powerful.

I was in Norman on that day, and I will certainly never forget it. Over the next 10-12 years I visited the site a few dozen times, when it was all rubble, when they had the fence up and nothing more, through various stages of development of the memorial and then the museum. The memorial is beautiful, in my opinion, and I think they did justice to both those who lived through that day and those who sadly didn't.

I think your pics are fantastic, camera phone or not. Thanks so much for sharing them. I'd like to add one more, since it's one of my favorite parts of the memorial, and that is of the "survivor tree," which somehow lived through the blast. (It's also visible in the second picture you shared, in the upper left corner):

[SPKrazy]

29. No didn't make the museum

another trip

thanks

:hi:

[Manifestor_of_Light]

31. Great pics.

Yes I have been there. The first time was Xmas of 1995, after the debris had been cleared and mementos were all over the fence around the bare ground. Extremely moving.

We had just gotten a satellite dish in April of 95 and were getting raw feeds on it. My SO is from OKC, and when he saw some bombing reports, he thought maybe some nut had bombed the courthouse in L.A. where the O. J. trial was going on at the time, or something like that.

Then he heard the reporter say they were reporting from the steps of St. Anthony's Hospital. That's where he was born, and it was then that he realized that that bombing was in his hometown, and he started to cry.

One of his high school friends, who is a prominent lawyer now, was on the committee that had to listen to victims and come up with the words written on the two metal slabs at the ends of the memorial. He said that a lot of people quit because they just couldn't handle the emotional stress.

I've seen it since it was finished and think it's an excellent design. I'm no architect. It seems to me that a good monument is not like the old fashioned kind of a statue of some guy on a horse, in the air above you, and you can't touch it or really look at it. Nowadays effective monuments are interactive. They are at ground level.

You have to walk through it from one end to the other, like the Vietnam Wall or the OKC memorial, or at the SPLC memorial, see the water moving and dip your hands in the water of the round fountain with names of the victims of the civil rights movement (Maya Lin designed this one and also the Vietnam Wall).

The walking from one end to the other symbolizes the time line of the explosion from 9:01 to 9:03, and the Vietnam casualties are arranged by year, like a time line.


When it happened I said, "I bet they are going to blame this on Muslims and it's going to be a white boy who is in a white supremacist group, and they are going to be baffled."

[SPKrazy]

37. Wow, Did You Call It Right Or What?

yeah, I forgot to mention the 9:01 to 9:03 times on one end and the other.

thanks for your comments they are very relevant and meaningful to me!

:pals:

[RFKHumphreyObama]

32. I can remember that day vividly

I don't live in the US but it naturally dominated the news coverage even where I am. I remember my mother was overseas and my late paternal grandmother was staying with us. I remember watching the unfolding events on TV with shock and with horror as our morning programs kept us updated. I remember that it coincided with a bombing that happened in Madrid and that the subway Sarin poison gas attack in Tokyo also occurred in close proximity to the sequence of events. In retrospect, it was one of the most frightening periods pre-9/11 involving terrorism

I remember watching the news bulletins the days afterward and being profoundly shocked and saddened by the senseless loss of life and tragedy caused by such an evil and destructive act. I remember seeing loved ones who had lost relatives and their grief and pain and sadness. So many lives destroyed and families torn apart. I remember especially the day care centre which had the children in it and which was affected by the bombing

I remember how the event was originally blamed on Arab terrorists and then it was later revealed to be the work of home grown extremists. I remember watching McVeigh and his arrogant and self-righteous demeanor and feeling utterly sickened and angered by what a cruel and callous monster he was. I remember watching his trial and the heartbreaking interviews of families who had lost loved ones and the emotions the trial invoked in them

The bombing of the Alfred Murrah building was a senseless and horrific act and an immense tragedy and my deepest and most sincere thoughts, prayers and condolences go out to all those affected by the tragedy :hug:

Those are good quality pictures Southpawkicker. Thank you for sharing them

[SPKrazy]

38. Thanks SD1981

I am honored by your comments and humbled a little by my myopic view of events as you place the more global perspective on what else was happening in the world.

Thanks

:pals:

[GenDem]

33. I was visiting my brother in Atlanta that day

It was over Easter vacation. I was working out in the gym where my brother lives when it came on TV that fateful morning as a breaking news story. I watched CNN for days upon days after that.

Thank you for sharing your pictures. I always wondered how they handled memorializing that space.

[SPKrazy]

39. Thanks GenDem...

they really did an amazing job in memorializing the space.

:hug:

[BarenakedLady]

34. Wow.

Thank you for sharing those pictures.

:hug:

[SPKrazy]

36. welcome BNL!

:hug:

[Casper Alabaster]

35. Excellent post,

I remember mastering the way cool game Toe Jam-n-Earl on Sega.
My first suspicion was that it was an act of jihad, and the initial media reports guessed along the same lines in the first hours. Only later did everyone come to know it was an American combat veteran from the first gulf war, the late fuckhead McVeigh.
What a prick. He abused his training to murder 168 innocent people. At least he's dead too, finally.

[SPKrazy]

40. Welcome To DU Caspar Alabaster

yeah, it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy (McVeigh)

[YellowRubberDuckie]

41. I live across the street....

Actually, my building is on the side of the first one.
I'm reminded by it every day when I look off the balcony of my apartment.
if you were in town this weekend, and didn't call me, oh, I'm hurt!
Duckie

[SPKrazy]

42. Ruh Roh....

:blush:

I was there duckie...

we were pretty busy, but I'm sorry.... I could have prolly thrown a pebble at your window then!

:pals:

[YellowRubberDuckie]

43. It's ok... I totally understand...

Hope you guys had fun. Hope my fellow Oklahomans were good to you!!
Duckie

[SPKrazy]

44. Pretty good time...

I still think of myself as an Oklahoman... OKC is so much a part of my life that it brought a lot of emotions to go there, always does.

Hadn't been there at all since my mother died a year and a half ago.

:hi:

[bertha katzenengel]

45. I doubt that what they build at ground zero can top this for memorializing every lost life.

Mrs. V. and I went there in 2000, and I have to say it was the most tranquil, the saddest, and the most beautiful place I've been to. I've been other places more tranquil and more beautiful, but this Memorial holds all three elements.

One of the most moving things, to me, wasn't even part of the Memorial. Across the street there is a Catholic church. This church erected a statue of Jesus with his back to the memorial, with his head low, holding his face in his hand.

More people died on 9/11/01, but I don't believe in comparative degrees of tragedy. This Memorial will always far outreach anything built in memory of 9/11, IMO.

Mrs. V. had two friends who were killed there, and a third was nearly killed when she "caught" a plate glass window while standing in her office across the street.

Thanks for posting your pictures, SP Kicker.

[SPKrazy]

52. Wow, that was a close to home thing for Mrs. V

sorry to hear that

people that died there were someone's family and/or friends though. Same as 9/11, or any other attack.

Yes, the "Jesus Wept" statue is moving, especially in the context of the church that is right there by the memorial

it is a tranquil, sad, and beautiful place though, i agree...

[Nicole]

58. Jesus Wept is the name of that statue.

[bertha katzenengel]

60. that's the one. moving even for me, a sometime-atheist

is that your own photo?

[hedgehog]

46. I remembering catching the first news blip on the radio and knowing

at once that it was an American who'd planted the bomb. My mother was more shocked by the bombing than I was. I don't know if that's because I grew up seeing the attacks on the Civil rights workers on television and coverage of the Vietnam War when I was a kid or what. I also wasn't too surprised by the reports of Americans torturing prisoners, but then I am familiar with the Amnesty reports on US supported torture in Latin America.

Here's something worth noting; I didn't recognize the date in the OP. For whatever reason, that wound has been allowed to heal while 9/11 has been ripped open over and over to keep it fresh in our minds.

[SPKrazy]

51. prolly the government didn't use it the way that b*sh has used 9/11

and the magnitude wasn't as large, or the ramifications as spectacular...

that given, it was a tragedy that is still very real to us all, and one that fearfully enough, could happen again as we have trained our valuable soldiers to defend their country, and then to have a government that betrays them... what will the next several years bring us from psyches that are damaged, or maybe some that weren't right in the first place and get damaged further and have the skills to do terrible things?

:scared:

[cwydro]

49. That is one of those days

where I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing.

I was vacuuming my house and my girlfriend and I were going out to dinner that night. She was at work. I had just come back from a run. I remember the CNN "breaking news". I turned off the vacuum and just watchd, horrified.

How the hell does one spell "vacuum"? It does not look right...

[SPKrazy]

50. vacuum...

vacuum is right

yeah, it is one of those red letter days (right term?) anyway it was horrifying.

:pals:

how's it going cwydro?

[cwydro]

53. Going good bro

but I am SO over the wind. My arms are so tired I can't lift them. I am so sick of the neverending wind. It's a bitch in a little boat.

But hell, the worst day in a kayak beats a day at work anytime..oh damn, it is almost Monday.

[SPKrazy]

54. damn you!

damn you and your ocean and your kayak and your wind!!!! ;)

yeah, it's almost monday!

back to the old grinder, er grindstone, er, whatever?

:pals:

[cwydro]

55. Back to the salt mines.

Salted over from the ocean and her angry waves today...but tomorrow I have to don my work persona and shed my kayak. (I do take my bike with me to work and ride along the ocean at lunch for an hour).

Being outside and exercising...hell, it is the only way I stay sane.

edit: always typos

[SPKrazy]

57. i grow more envious of that every day...

not just the outdoors but the opportunity to be in it and access right there.

:thumbsup:

[cwydro]

56. dupe

[Nicole]

59. Good pics.

:hug: