April 29, 2025 is the thirtieth anniversary of the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history… the truck bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
168 lives were lost including 19 children and babies housed in a day care nursery on the first floor. 850 people sufferred injuries. The principal bomber was a young man, but he had help. I refuse to call their names. They are scum to me, like so many young killers who think they know better than anyone else including older and wiser adults and justify their cowardly killing of the vulnerable through some miserable internal sick rationale. I cannot describe the depth of the contempt in which I hold such deluded, selfish killers.
At that time, I was doing a lot of work in OK City as a reimbursement consultant and account manager in a local hospital. I traveled there regularly, staying overnight for four nights in a local hotel. I reviewed patient records to ensure that the hospital was being reimbursed accurately for the care it gave to patients. The hospital employed a young lady to pull and organize the records for my review. She was a pleasant young woman, sweet, conscientious, gracious and always had the records and a smile ready for me.
I was in Baton Rouge that week, and heard about the bombing almost immediately after it happened. I had no idea of casualties, but I stopped for a moment and thanked God for the OK City hospital where I worked and the talented healers it employed, because I knew they were crackerjack.. that they would be up to the challenge if they received any casualties from the bombing. Later, of course, I realized that probably every hospital in OK City must have been swamped with casualties.
I think it must have been at least 2-3 weeks before I returned to OK City. By that time, law enforcement had worked out most of the major events of the bombing and had the principal actors in custody. When I picked up my rental car at the airport, I noted that the key next to mine on their keyboard belonged to the principal attorney for the young bomber who parked the truck in front of the federal building. That went on for months… the key business.
Oklahoma City was not a large city at that time, claiming a population of 461,000 citizens. Most of them sufferred consequence from the bombing. 7,000 people lost their workplaces. 462 were left homeless. 300 buildings were damaged or destroyed. 30 children were orphaned. 219 children lost at least one parent.
The most touching photograph that I saw was a heartbreaking photo that showed a firefighter, Chris Fields, cradling a dead baby girl. I still get emotional over it. If I remember correctly, I saw the photo on TIME MAGAZINE, but it won the Pulitzer and was published all over the U.S. and probably the world. It can be found on the internet. The baby girl had turned one year old the day before.
When I returned to OK City, I learned that a woman in the nursing hierarchy at the hospital had an appointment scheduled in the Murrah Building some 2 minutes before the explosion. She ran late for the appointment and was just leaving her car and walking toward the building when it exploded. She lived because of a random interruption.
I also learned that the young lady who pulled charts for me lost her brother in the bombing. I was told that he was the young Marine found very late in the recovery process in the basement of the Federal Building.
I still curse the bombers to Hell.