It is a beautiful Spring day here in\u00a0Oklahoma City, not unlike the day fifteen years ago when the city was forever changed.\u00a0Timothy McVeigh\u00a0parked a truck loaded with explosives in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building and at 9:02 am, the truck exploded, killing 168 people, including 19 children. Today survivors, rescuers and relatives of the victims gathered to remember those who died. They began a\u00a0memorial service\u00a0with 168 seconds of silence, one for each victim.\u00a0Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett\u00a0talked about the choices made after the bombing, saying “We have chosen strength. We have chose optimism. We have chosen freedom.”<\/p>\n
Former\u00a0Governor Frank Keating, current\u00a0Governor Brad Henry\u00a0and\u00a0Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano\u00a0spoke. The ceremony ended with survivors and relatives of victims reading each name of the 168 who died.<\/p>\n
After the ceremony, people stayed, giving one another hugs and crying. They also visited the individual chairs, each representing a victim who died in the bombing. The chairs are placed near where each person was found.<\/p>\n
For us, we may not think about the\u00a0Oklahoma City bombing\u00a0until anniversaries like this one. But for those who lost loved ones fifteen years ago and for those who still wear its scars, the bombing is never far from their minds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It is a beautiful Spring day here in\u00a0Oklahoma City, not unlike the day fifteen years ago when the city was forever changed.\u00a0Timothy McVeigh\u00a0parked a truck loaded with explosives in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building and at 9:02 am, the truck exploded, killing 168 people, including 19 children. Today survivors, rescuers and relatives […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4735,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-534430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4735"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534430\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}