Those old enough remembered that on April 19th 30 years ago, the always-volatile Oklahoma weather had conspired against them. As the day of the bombing turned to night, it was wet and horribly cold as a big crowd stood outside the ruined Murrah federal building.
As if in remembrance, the early hours of Saturday’s 30th anniversary delivered a burst of hail and thunder and lightning to the city. The morning was cold and sombre. By then, the decision was made to move the remembrance ceremony indoors as the survivors and families of the bereaved looked back on that day from the perspective of three decades.
Not once during the two-hour service were the names of the three perpetrators of the bomb mentioned.
Timothy McVeigh, the former Gulf War veteran turned disaffected drifter, who left the truck bomb outside the nine-storey building, was executed for his crime in 2001.
Terry Nichols continues to serve a life-without-parole sentence in Colorado.
If our lives are going to be dominated by the efforts to dominate people we disagree with, we are going to put the 250-year-old march towards a more perfect union at risk
— Bill Clinton
Michael Fortier, a former friend and army colleague who knew of McVeigh’s plans, served 11 years after agreeing to provide evidence to investigators. He and his family were given new identities after his release, a deal which one bombing survivor described in court as akin to winning “the lottery of the justice system”.
Although the city’s memorial museum is rigorous in its account of the motivations for the bombing and in the attendant lessons of the atrocity, the instinct of the annual memorial has been to acknowledge the lives lost and reaffirm a commitment to what became an unofficial charter, “the Oklahoma standard”, with its three cardinal virtues of “service, honour and kindness”.
It was around those words that former president Bill Clinton framed a 20-minute address that landed somewhere between reminiscence and a call for national unity. He remembered that early on the morning of April 19th, he had been out running in the company of winners of that year’s Boston marathon, “giving me the illusion – and illusion it was – that I was somehow pretty … fit”.
Although the rasp in Mr Clinton’s voice is more pronounced than ever – he sometimes registered just above whisper here – he still has the power to hold a crowd spellbound and to evoke laughter during sombre national moments.
“Then I got back to the White House and the devastating news. That truck bomb, as you all know better than I, claimed 168 lives. Nineteen of them were little children in the building’s day care centre. I always like to start with that when I am talking about this because a lot of times a fanatic will tell you that, ‘I’m sorry this, that, and the other thing had to happen but there has to be collateral damage sometimes to make a statement.’ I have never heard anyone say that who had to live with the damage.”
Oklahoma City mayor David Holt, state governor Kevin Stitt and the Republican senator James Lankford all concentrated on the sustained response from the city to the tragedy. But Mr Clinton linked that inherent community spirituality as an alternative to the political unrest currently governing the country.
Anti-Trump protests took place across the country on Saturday. Oklahoma is, of course, a resolutely red state. In November, it returned president Donald Trump with a resounding 66 per cent of the vote. The state last voted for a Democratic president when Lyndon Johnson ran, in 1964.
Mr Clinton lost to both George Bush and Bob Dole. But for many in Oklahoma City, particularly those most affected by the bombing, Mr Clinton remains an enduring symbol of someone who was available during their most desperate time. He has returned for eight memorial services. And when he spoke towards the end of what was a powerfully simple service – a pipe band, two hymns, a succession of speakers and, finally, the names of all 168 victims read aloud in the First Church – there was complete attention.
Former President Bill Clinton speaks during the 30th anniversary remembrance ceremony for the Oklahoma City bombing. Photograph: Bryan Terry//The Oklahoman/Reuters
“The domestic terrorists who did this awful thing believed that it would spark a nationwide upheaval against the American government. And would eventually destroy our government and democracy and our way of life. Instead, you gave them, as the mayor said so eloquently, the Oklahoma standard. You gave them service, honour, and kindness … And you have given America a great gift.
“In recent years, the country has grown more polarised. And on that awful day 30 years ago you were the centre of the polarisation. Now, look what you’ve built. And yet we have these differences. It seems to me – I listen to this a lot because I am old and I can’t remember anything any more … I’m almost as old as president Trump. But if you listen and read, it’s like everybody is arguing about whose resentments matter most. Whose resentments are more valid. When is it okay to stretch the truth a little bit to increase your advantage?
“If our lives are going to be dominated by the efforts to dominate people we disagree with, we are going to put the 250-year-old march towards a more perfect union at risk.”
The film footage of that day was introduced afresh to a global audience in the latest documentary, Oklahoma City Bombing: American Terror, which streamed on Netflix to coincide with the 30th anniversary. All the speakers alluded to the significance of that chunk of time. An entire generation of Oklahomans have been born and come of age since the atrocity.
“I wish I could live 30 more years to see what is going to happen,” Mr Clinton said.
“Because in spite of all this bellyaching you hear, we are the best positioned country in the world in the 21st century – if we don’t blow it. If we don’t forget how you got from 30 years ago to today. And it is true, I still remember as if it was 30 minutes ago, coming here with Hillary to that memorial service and saying, ‘You have lost too much, but you have not lost everything. You have certainly not lost America and we will be with you for as many tomorrows as it takes’ … But today, Oklahoma City, America needs you.”
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Afterwards, the Oklahoma pipe band led the gathering of about 1,200 people across the street and played as they filed down the steps to the memorial – a reflecting pool and 168 simple chairs, with glass-lit bases, on a grass verge. People hugged and gathered around the chairs on the cold morning.
Downtown Oklahoma, sedate anyway, was defined by an utter stillness. It was impossible to imagine the fear and chaos and breathtaking scale of violence which exploded here 30 years ago. Except for those who lived through it.
