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| Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum |
I asked, “By 'placard' do you mean that big diamond sticker
that says ‘flammable’?”
“Actually, it’s not technically a diamond. It’s a square on
point, but most people call them diamonds,” he said.
I learned more than I ever thought I could about those
diamo... excuse me, square on point placards that semis are required to display.
We took a quick detour to Fort Smith, Arkansas, so we could
see 3 giant arrows sticking out of the ground. The arrows were made from 40-foot-long
telephone poles weighing 1,100 pounds each and are part of an art installation
by a street artist named D*FACE, who partnered with the Choctaw Nation to create
them. If something is unusual or weird, I will stop to admire it. We admired the
arrows for precisely 3 minutes and then kept driving.
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| Tiny Chad and giant arrows in Arkansas |
Three hours later, we reached Oklahoma City and drove
directly to the National Memorial & Museum which memorializes the bombing of the
Murrah Federal Building that occurred on April 19, 1995 when Timothy McVeigh
parked a rental truck carrying a 4,800-pound homemade bomb in the drop-off zone
underneath the building’s daycare center. The bomb went off at 9:02 am, and in
an instant 55,000 square-feet of office space collapsed into 7,000 square-feet
of rubble killing and trapping 168 people (19 of them were children ages 5 and
under).
We bought our tickets at the museum and entered the exhibit.
The self-guided tour began with a description of what the day was like for the
people of Oklahoma City on the morning of the bombing. We entered a room which
held a table with a tape recorder on it and 8 empty chairs. We listened to a
recording of a board meeting that took place the morning of the bombing. We sat
quietly as we listened to the meeting proceed as normal when suddenly the sound
of an explosion shook the room for 10 seconds. The tape is the only recording
of the bombing in existence. As soon as the sound of the explosion ended, 168
photos of the victims appeared on the wall across from us. Immediately the
doors opened to the remainder of the exhibit and we were inundated by the chaos
and aftermath of the explosion. A tv played news clips of the devastation that
morning, display cases held debris and personal objects recovered from the
rubble, and we continued through the museum in absolute silence. Our experience
was incredibly solemn, and Chad and I didn’t speak much, but there was a lot of
tapping each other and pointing to displays when one of us found something
exceptionally poignant.
We learned about the first frantic moments of the explosion,
the rescue and recovery efforts, the stories of the families whose loved ones
were trapped in the building and the agonizing 16 days they waited because that’s
how long it took to sift through the rubble. We walked through the Gallery of
Honor where each victim’s photo is posted along with an artifact donated by his
or her family so visitors can learn a tiny bit about the person they were. This
hopeless, depressing exhibit was followed by stories and images of healing and the
powerful telling of how our country and the world came together to comfort and
help the people of Oklahoma City.
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| The Gallery of Honor |
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| The car he was driving The license he was carrying The shirt he was wearing |
In the next room, we viewed the evidence and details of the
investigation that led to the arrest and execution of Timothy McVeigh. We
stayed until the museum closed, and then walked next door to the memorial. The area where the federal building once stood has been
turned into a gorgeous outdoor memorial. The street where McVeigh drove
the truck is now a reflecting pool. Next to the pool, in the footprint of the Murrah
Building, sits the Field of Empty Chairs: 168 chairs, each one engraved with the
name of a victim. 19 of the chairs are smaller to signify the children. The chairs
are arranged in 9 rows, each row representing the floor a person was on when they
were killed. The memorial is so peaceful and every visitor was extremely respectful. As we left, we felt unsettled and sad. The museum gave us a lot to process, and we were worn out by the end but
so glad we visited.
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| A view of the memorial from the museum |
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| Across the street from the memorial stands this statue of Jesus. Inscribed on the pedestal is the verse: And Jesus Wept |
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| All of OKC looked like this |
We sat on a bench in the middle of downtown and the city
felt like a ghost town. Every so often a person would zoom by on a rented scooter,
but other than that, there were no humans anywhere. We looked for hotels and
decided we didn’t want to stay in OKC any longer, so we found a place in
Clinton just an hour away. When we got into town, we called Adamo’s Route 66 Italian Villa
and ordered pizza and salads and brought them to our hotel room. Tomorrow we’ll
begin our tour of Route 66, and we’re looking forward to laughing and being
carefree and making our way west.
“A tragedy like this could have torn this city apart, but
instead it has united this city… and that is an example to us all. The forces
of hate and violence must not be allowed to gain their victory, not just in our
society, but in our hearts. Nor must we respond to hate with more hate. This is
a time of coming together, and we have seen that and been inspired by it.” –
Reverend Billy Graham 4/23/95
- Rachel
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