SKRAPS: October 15, 2015 Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum

We drove into Oklahoma City today, about 20ish miles west, and went to the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum. I don't have the words to tell you how impactful this place is and how much we were moved by it. It is a very powerful place. The museum documents the events of April 19, 1995. On that day, at 9:02AM, the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was bombed and 168 lives were lost. The outdoor memorial area is stunning. There are 168 chairs placed across a field of green. Each chair for each life lost, smaller chairs for the children. The chairs are bronze and stone resting on a glass base etched with the name of the victim. At night the bases are illuminated. They are placed in nine rows, which represented the nine floors of the building. It sits on the site where the building stood. There is a reflecting pool in front of the chairs and at each end of the pool are granite "gates" with the time of 9:01AM at the East Gate and 9:03AM at the West Gate. In this area is also a 90 plus year old American Elm tree that survived the bombing and which is carefully cared for.

The museum takes you through that horrible day. There are a lot of video displays and stories told by survivors, first responders and families of the victims. There were 19 children killed that day - have to tell you that really got to me. I cried listening to their families talking about that awful day and the moment they realized there was no chance their child survived. Unimaginable horror, pain and suffering for all.

It's so hard to understand that kind of evil. The suspect and his two accomplices are evil personified to me. They were Army buddies. You have to wonder, what went wrong? How did they become so evil as to plot the killing of innocent people? How does that ever happen?

I have to say, if any of you are ever in the area, it is a must see. It's hard to see, but everyone should see it and say a prayer for those poor souls lost that day, the families they left behind and the evil doers responsible.