Where everybody could go in, credit union and snack bar. We were constantly inundated with people just coming in to visit or draw a little money for their lunch or apply for a loan. Everybody, everybody visited the credit union. I got there as early as i could that morning. I had my cruise pictures from vacation the week before. I was going to share all those with these gals when we met that morning. So, we didnt get started on this meeting until about 8 20 that morning. And i would turn around and look at my computer screen at the next item that we were to discu discuss, and i went back in my chair and let them chat about who is going to copy this, do this, get this ready for the Banking Department so they could hurry with their audit. I just turned around in my chair and kind of reared back and was getting ready to discuss the next item that i had mentioned when the bomb went off. And it had to be longer, but it was just like seconds. And then all the girls that was in the office with me disappeared. And i thought they had ran out and left me alone. And i started hollering, where are you guys . Where are you guys . And then i realization set in somewhat, and i realized that, i dont know where they are. Theyre gone. And eventually i found out that there was when the bomb went up and everything started coming down that the seven floors up above us had took them down into what was eventually known as the pit. There was just an erie silence that fell over the whole scene. The papers were still fluttering, but when the glass and stuff stopped there was glass found on buildings, you know, blocks away and everywhere. But this eerie silence was something. I had been flown on the floor and packed in to my spot with stuff packed around me. I found out later that there was only like 18 inches of exterior wall that did not break away, which kind of held me there. But my desk was sitting just at an angle, right ready to topple over into this hole that the bomb had made, where all my employees had landed. My first thoughts, actually, was it had to be a gas explosion of some kind. And then later on they started saying bomb. And that was pretty shocking. But my first i had been asked this by quite a few people. What was your first thought when you saw this stuff going up, the whole building blowing up before you . And my answer to that was i always hated movies where they blow up perfectly good buildings and bridges. And theres so much of that now in the movies, and i dont like that. Never did. And my first thought, literally was oh, my gosh, this is like a bad movie. Ive got to get up and get out of here. Im asked that a lot. Were you angry . Did you get mad . And my answer has always been, i did not let myself get angry, because who it would have only hurt florence if i got angry. It caused a lot of changes in my life. I retired early, earlier than i anticipated. Its never gone away. Those 18 that i lost had worked for me 128 years total tenure. So they were like my daughters, some of them, you know. And some of them had worked for me decades. And it hurts to see their families and to know that, you kn know, here i am, having great grand babies and those families wont ever have that opportunity. So, it did change my life a lot. I just say that the man upstairs wasnt through with me yet. And so here it has been 20 years, and at the time of the bombing i was 59 years old. So you can do your own math. He let me live long enough to see my hair turn gray and have three great grandbabies and do some things other than just my job. Never know when youre not going to come home from an ordinary day at work. And i usually close my remarks when im giving my story to people that my advice is dont ever miss an opportunity to tell those you love, you love them, because you dont ever know when you might not come home from that ordinary day. You look at this you show up on a scene like that and clearly, its huge. I was in waco during the First Trade Center bombing, you know. You kind of keep track of those sorts of things. This was clearly, from inception, a unique and major event. You know, how it tied into mcveighs perception to waco, linking those two things together was unusual, which we learned later on. The scope of it, from the time i drove up, was obvious. I was there around 9 30, 9 35. Very early on. As i said, the fires were still burning and i remember part of that Site Assessment was to get a sense of what had gone on. You could still see people trapped on the upper floors of the building and, of course, the firefighters were putting the fires out and paramedics and ambulance there. There were a lot of wounded people, walking wounded. You know, its emotional. But theres a lot to do. And its not that youre not, you know, empathetic or sympathetic, but you have to push through that to get to the job at hand. Just like i cant help somebody as a paramedic could or the firefighting apparatus. Everybody has a specialty and you just have to rely on those other First Responders, that theyre going to take care of their part and presume im going to do my part. We were on site a lot. I remember the red cross would bring out something hot to eat on occasion because it was difficult to leave, but, you know, it was almost like the world was going on outside that bubble, but my wife has told me that friends and people i havent heard from in a very long time would call the house just to see how she was doing, see how i was doing. There would be a call on the media for boots or gloves, and they should show up by the truckload. There was a building not far from the murrah building that was full of supplies. And over the years, talking to some of the urban rescue folks that came in from other states and remember today, 20 years later, they couldnt buy a cup of coffee. They would go into a restaurant to try to eat before going to sleep for a little bit. They would go to pay and they were told someone has already paid for your meal or its on the house. Its become now known as the oklahoma standard, that the way the Community Just turned out completely. It was moving. People were used to these onehour shows where they solve complex crimes. This was just not the case. This involved a 1,008,000 man hours. Looking back over 20 years, it was a very thorough and protracted investigation. I made three trips to denver during the trial. Its hard on your family. Its hard on the victims. Its hard on everybody. Im proud that things worked as they should. The system was followed. Everybody got a fair trial. And the jury did their job. Judge did his job. Things worked as they should. Initially, it was categorized as a bombing. And i didnt know the size of it. As i was talking to my asac, one of the things he brought up is, bob, do you know what today is . At first i didnt know what he was talking about. I said what do you mean . And he said today is, you know, april 19th, which was the last day of the standoff at waco. So then that immediately set off antenna that we had probably a reprisal that had probably taken place as a result of the waco situation. We were literally setting up another fbi field off from the basic infrastructure of getting telephones together, of trying to get together a Records Management system, coordinating with the Fire Department to get our teams on the ground, to seal off the inner perimeter, to have an outer perimeter, to have control of the press, as to how we were going to handle messaging. So youre really starting almost from the ground up building this infrastructure that was necessary to respond. At the same time, integrating all these various agencies from local police, local fire, local sheriffs, federal agencies all into this process. And setting up a structure that hopefully would last. When i got through with the meeting, with the chief of police and the chief of the Fire Department, they said, you know, its clear its a terrorist event and the fbi has lead responsibility. Well be here and give you whatever support you need and basically good luck. And then we all went back to doing what we were doing. And i kind of stood there in front of that building by myself there for a while. And all i could think was, lord, this is overwhelming. You know, where do you start . And basically said a prayer that obviously i cant make it right but hopefully we can find justice in this process. We found out that an oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper had made an inquiry on tim mcveigh within about 90 minutes of the bombing. And so we had one of the people working on our task force, atf agent named mark mahalleck call the Highway Patrol and identify the badge number. When you make an inquiry you have to identify yourself as a Law Enforcement official. That badge number belonged to a group of charlly hanger. We had hangers name and found out that hanger had been heading south toward Oklahoma City, based on a Highway Patrol dispatcher call for all available troopers to head to Oklahoma City to assist. He had gotten a discontinue. He was about 62 miles north of Oklahoma City. And he turned around in the median on interstate 35. As hes starting to head back north, hes passed by this yellow mercury marquis thats missing its rear license plate. So he pulls that car over and the driver gets out of the car and hanger has to order him to stay by the door of his car. And so hanger gets out, tells the guy to back up toward him. As mcveigh is backing toward him, he notice mcveigh has a bulge under his left jacket. He reaches out, grabs him. Mcveigh says its a gun, its loaded and hanger has a gun next to mcveighs head and says so is mine. He relieved mcveigh loaded withe rounds that can shoot through an or mored vest. So once he had that gun and a knife that mcveigh had hid enon his person, he took mcveigh into custody and took him to the noble county jail end per in perry, oklahoma. So our investigate orasked hanger what happened to him . I dont know. He may still be in custody, i may not. So one of our investigators contacted sheriff jerry cook and talked to him and said well mcveigh is in custody but hes going released within probably an hour. So we put a federal hold on him. At that point myself and several other agents got into a helicopter and flew up to perry. And when we got up there, myself and another agent interviewed the different people that had been in mcveighs cell. We were asking them questions, you know, has mcveigh said anything. Did he comment about the bombing at all . Anything of that nature . They said no he was just attentive to the radio that was giving updates what was going on with the bombing and investigation and then finally mcveigh was brought into an office that sheriff cook gave us and i asked mcveigh, i said do you know why were here. And he said that thing in Oklahoma City, i guess. And i said what do you mean by that . And he said that bombing. I want an attorney. But one of the really beneficial things of trooper hanger taking him into custody was the fact that when they lodged him in the noble county jail they collected all of his clothing and put it in paper bags. Well when we sent that alcoholing baalcohol i clothing back to the Fbi Laboratory and they did a chemical analysis they discovered he had ptem am over his clothing. Five years after the bombing, i brought my wife and children to the dedication ceremony of the memorial. And we could have gone in with clinton, but we chose to go in with the victims. And i wasnt prepared for the emotional impact that hit me when we walked in there and i saw the people who had lost kids putting stuffed animals and flowers on the little seats. Theres big seats for adults. And little seats for the kids. And when they went in there and put the stuffed animals and the flowers on the little seats, i couldnt talk. I said i cant talk. I just walked on the hill by myself for a few minutes until i kind of composed myself. But it was so sad, you know, what happened with those kids. It still is the defining moment, you know, for Oklahoma City. When you try to talk about when something happened, let see that was before the bombing, that was after the bombing. Its a measure of time like a krrc and ad. Stories went through different directions. They didnt have that. In Oklahoma City they did. I think the aspect of it that led in no small degree to my interest in joining the bureau was the reaction i had to dealing with this event and that the reaction that many of the other team members, most of whom are firefighters had. After the shock of seeing the extent of the damage, which was far greater than television or the newspapers portrayed, the next reaction was anger. And this was compounded by the realization that this was a home grown domestic incident. And without going into the details of the remain that we recovered because to this day we like to avoid that, i do remember very clearly that the first time that our team was in that position of recovering the remains, there was a pause and then one of the firefighters commenting in very salty language, okay, lets do this right, lets do this carefully, and basically the gist of what he said was and lets be sure that whoever did this is brought to justice. I spent a number of days in this environment, as i mentioned to you before, rapidly transitioning between the impression that i really would have preferred to be somewhere else and then immediately thereafter realizing i didnt want to be anywhere else and that this was probably one of the most important things id ever done in my career. Recently reading some of the quotes in the news at the time, some of which were quotes of me, i was struck by the fact that i was thinking in terms of terrorism is a crime and it should be approached as such and we have all the laws and all the capabilities that we apply to murder, should apply to mass murder, and the more i thought about this the more i thought that after a decade of fixing what pembroke and working in a Trauma Center you do get a lot of experience with dealing with the victims of violent crime, now dealing with the aftermath of domestic terrorism, it began to occur to me thats it often does to physicians of a certain amg th age that preventing injury is in some ways a more, a more important and a more interesting task than dealing with after the math. And when an opportunity came along to join the fbi, those thoughts were very much in my mind. I think its very tangible. One of the things you become acutely aware of, you can talk to a small child or very elderly person in oklahoma. And what you will find, even though their way of expressing it will be vastly different, they will have an awareness. It seems to be a salient horrific memory regardless of the amg groge group you talk to. If its a child and they werent born at that time, its almost like it was passed on. The schools, they are educated in it. They have toured the memorial. They know its a part of their existence as oklahomans. And it seems like it tragically changed the life of every oklahoman on a public and a personal level. Regardless who you talk to. But what you realize from that is they are resilient people. Its one of the things you will not find Law Enforcement take lightly. When we go around the state and we talk to our Law Enforcement partners about terrorism, whether its International Terrorism or domestic terrorism, they have an acute awareness. They may have never left the state of oklahoma but when you talk about terrorism, they think about the Timothy Mcveigh and terry nichols. They think about the 168 people, 149 adults and 19 children who perished. Who came to the Alfred Murrah Federal Building and never went home. And they they dont want that to happen again. The memorial is really built to be those who were killed, the survivors that changed forever. When we tell the story of the perpetrators its about remembrance and Lessons Learned and how we cull that information together so we hopefully can prevent or teach against future acts and we think without remembering youre more likely to repeat the same stupidity, i mean the same negligence just thinking that by doing these things you can change lives. And we want to encourage people of all ages that to Work Together within whats within the law, if they want to change something to work within government and through thats set forth, weve seen that done since. And thats a big part of our mission. So we want kid to come to under the role the fbi had in the story and how a, you know, an ordinary, a patrolman doing his job, did it really well and have this one circumstance had to force Government Agencies at all legality to Work Together, city, state, federal and that within the federal government and our agency work and thats something that i think is a lesson, a life lesson that we try to teach and show very clearly for people. A building was attacked. A government building was attacked in a way to try to defeat the government. What happened was a unity that none would see. People came together and worked together and said the government will survive and two days the federal credit union reopened and the agency reopened. People Work Together. Thats the story i want to tell. Even though people try to bring down the very government we believe in well survive and its that same government that will defend the criminals and prosecute the criminals at the same time. Youre watching a special edition of American History tv. During the week while members of congress are in their districts due to the coronavirus pandemic, tonight at 8 00 p. M. Eastern well tour an exhibit of the u. S. Holocaust Memorial Museum for a look at how the u. S. Public and government officials reacted to nazi germanys persecution of jews between 1930 and 1945. American history tv, now and over the weekend on cspan 3. Every saturday night American History tv takes you to College Classrooms around the country for lectures in history. Why do you all know who lizzy bord borden is and raise your hand if you have heard the murder trial of jean harris. Well find the true meaning of the revolution in this transformation that took place in the mind of the american people. Well talk about both of these sides of the story here, sfliegt the tooshlgs the techniques of slave owner powerer and also talk about tools and techniques of power that were practiced by enslaved people. Watch history professors lead discussions with their students on topics ranging from the American Revolution to september 11th. Every saturday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on American History tv and lectures in history is available as a podcast, fine it where you listen to podcasts. 25 years ago on april 19th, 1995, a massive truck bomb exploded outside of the alfred p. Murrah building in Oklahoma City killing 168 people including 19 children in a daycare center. A year later femas Emergency Education network a satellite broadcast service for emergency workers produced a Live Training Program from Oklahoma City. Next on reel america, manage terrorism events, the oklahoma experience. Five leading First Responders describe what happened after the bombing. How the response was organized. Successes and problems. And Lessons Learned. This Program Comes to us courtesy of the National Emergency Training Center library in emitsburg, maryland
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