Remember

It was 12 years ago this morning… 9:02 CST to be precise… that the face of our nation truly began to change.

It was on this date 12 years ago, in Oklahoma City, that two men detonated a truck bomb outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.

168 people were killed…

… more than 800 were injured.

I was in college when it happened… getting ready for class, watching CNN, when they suddenly broke in with breaking news.

(Back then ‘breaking news’ was actual news… not something like the true father of Anna Nicole’s baby… but that’s another post for another day…)

My immediate thought was on my family, who lived in Norman but worked in Oklahoma City. I called my Mom, who was at work and hadn’t heard about the explosion, who then proceeded to try and get a hold of her brother and his family.

Thankfully, they were okay… physically okay, but mentally drained by the events of that morning.

On a trip last September to visit them in Oklahoma, my wife and I visited the Memorial, our second such visit. The previous visit was in January 1997 when the blast marks, and debris were still very-much visible.

This time we saw the completed memorial; The Field of Empty Chairs, The Survivor Tree, The Musuem… and still, to this day, it effected us.

For all who lost their lives on that day… and for all who were and still are affected by the events of that morning; my thoughts and prayers go out to you all.


Cross-posted at Kemp’s Blog