Tag Archives: Reclaiming Conservatism

Oklahoma City…Fifteen Years Later

BY MICKEY EDWARDS
 first published on Atlantic.com

 Fifteen years have passed since Timothy McVeigh’s bomb ripped the heart out of my hometown.  Fifteen years since people I knew had their lives cut short by violence planned and executed here in our land by one of our neighbors.  This is one pain that does not diminish over time.

I had represented Oklahoma City in Congress for 16 years.  On the day Timothy McVeigh’s bomb exploded outside a courthouse named for a federal judge I had known, I was far from my home, teaching at Harvard.  I was about to enter a classroom for a 10 o’clock class when I learned of what had happened.  The news was numbing.  Not only was this my home, these people were my friends; my daughter still lived there, my grandchildren lived there.  What was happening?  Who had done this?  Who was safe?

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