Reflections On Terrorism

I went to visit the Oklahoma City Memorial today. It was the first time I have been back down there since they built the Memorial. I had been down there right after the bombing before they imploded the building and again to the fence; but not to the Memorial. I guess I just wasn’t ready to go back down there until today because of all the painful memories of that day when Oklahoma lost her innocence at 9:02 A.M. Yes, I know a lot of you are going to say things like, “Well Oklahoma City was not as bad as 9/11” or “Oklahoma City was Domestic Terrorism.” Well yes, I realize it wasn’t anything like 9/11 and that Tim McVeigh was an American. (Even though it is believed that he had a Middle East connection.) The fact remains that Terrorism is Terrorism and Oklahoma City was my home when I was growing up and Oklahoma is my state.

As I sit here and reflect on what I experienced today, I can’t help but think about Lost Innocence, Terrorism, Lost Life and the way The World Has Chanced Forever. Walking around down there today just brought back so many memories, good and bad. The place where the YMCA stood is now a parking lot. I remember walking by that building with my Grandmother when I was a child. The church with the pretty stained glass windows that were damaged in the blast across the street to the East of where the Alfred P. Murrah building once stood is still there and has a Prayer Garden for people to go and pray in.

As you walk into the Memorial, you can feel a solemn hush fall on you and all who are there. It says on the entrance, “WELCOME HERE TO REMEMBER THOSE WHO WERE KILLED, THOSE WHO SURVIVED AND THOSE CHANGED FOREVER. MAY ALL WHO LEAVE HERE KNOW THE IMPACT OF VIOLENCE. MAY THIS MEMORIAL OFFER COMFORT, STRENGTH, PEACE, HOPE AND SERENITY.”

It is such a peaceful place now, nothing like the sights and sound and smell it was on that fateful day in April. As I went in to hunt the chair of my childhood friend and I read the names of those who died on the chairs and I tried not to let it break my heart; all the small chairs of the children who died in the Day Care Center. The rows of the chairs reflect the floor of the building each person was on when the bomb went off. I finally found my friend’s chair in the 3rd row. She worked at the Credit Union. They said they found her purse still sitting under her desk. I have so many memories like that.

I walked up the steps to the Survivor Tree, and turned to look back down onto the Reflecting Pool and the Chairs. It says there on that wall, “The spirit of this City and Nation will not be defeated, our deeply rooted faith sustains us.” Those words mean so much and speak so much for the Spirit of the people of America.

Terrorists want to take all that we hold dear away from us. Yet just as Timothy McVeigh underestimated the American Spirit; Al-Qaeda and the 9/11 Terrorists have too. Recently I watched the movie Flight 93. The people on that hijacked airplane turned the tables on the Terrorists and fought back and probably not only saved our Capital Building but many lives too. They were willing to give their lives so that others might live. I remember the day of the Oklahoma City Bombing that people ran to the Murrah building to help not away from it. That is the American Spirit that Terrorist want to take from us but never can.

On one hand my heart is heavy at all that was lost on April 19, 1995 and even on September 11, 2001. And while I lost my Innocence on April 19, 1995 and many other Americans did on September 11, 2001, we have not lost our Resolve and never will. So I will just leave it with the words that hit me so hard today written on the Journal Records building by Team 5 of the Resuce workers:

Team 5

4-19-95

We Search For the Truth.

We Seek Justice.

The Courts Demand it.

The Victims Cry for it.

And GOD Demands it.