Normally, the cut-and-paste approach to blogging is something I just don’t do, because I would rather give credit and then pass readers onto the source of the information. Plus, it’s just a damn lazy way to blog. This is a different sort of topic though, and I doubt that Chase will much mind the excerpts that follow concerning the act of terrorism that took place in our state at 9:02 a.m. on Wednesday, April 19, 1995. Whereas I was two hours away in trigonometry class when the Oklahoma City bombing occurred, Chase is able to provide a journalistic account of what transpired on that day. Here is part of what he wrote

I remember being struck by the magnitude of the impacted area. The Murrah building was Ground Zero for the blast, but downtown Oklahoma City, for about a quarter-mile in all directions, looked as if it had weathered a nuclear attack. The YMCA, the Journal Record Building, the Athenian restaurant, the Oklahoma Water Resources Board Building and a multitude of other structures were in a shambles. Downtown streets glinted from sheets of shattered glass.

Near Ground Zero, I remember coming across a friend of mine, a paramedic who was among the first to arrive at the scene. And I will never forget this tall, lumbering hulk of a man crying as he recounted how EMTs set up a morgue for the children who had been in the building’s America’s Kids Daycare Center. He described rows of tiny bodies draped by small blankets, all of them stretched out in the shadow of playground equipment at the YMCA.

Sometime that afternoon, rain began to fall. The nearby Civic Center had been transformed into a briefing area for media. It was there I joined other reporters converging upon then-Governor Frank Keating. And it led to a strange epiphany; I had considered myself a cynical and anti-authority contrarian up to that time, but I was almost flat-out ecstatic to see the governor of the state — as if it really meant something. For the first time in my life, I understood the impressive calming effect of leadership, and for the first time that day, I almost felt safe.

Chase has more to say, and I urge you to read the entire posting. He is absolutely correct – We Will Never Forget.