Memorial Service at Bombing Site May 5, 1995
The sound of drums and bagpipes echoed off the windowless Journal Record Building at 1:56, and the band approached from the southeast, rounding the corner of the building at a slow cadence. As the pipers played “Amazing Grace,” a dozen men and women in different uniforms placed a large wreath in front of the shrine. They formed a circle, holding hands, a National Guardsman in camouflage and a firefighter in an orange-billed cap flanking a blond FBI agent. The pipes echoed through the building`s shell.
As fire and police buglers Jerry Aduddell and Terry Turner played “Taps,” the rescuers moved slowly toward the red tape in front of the pit. First, one rose sailed into the rubble, then a dozen, then a hundred. The floral carpet grew and spread. One Native American policeman gave two barking tribal yells. A tall ATF agent threw his rose high into the swirling breeze; it settled on a ragged outcropping of cement. He turned and hugged a tiny firefighter, who shredded the petals from her rose and scattered them into the pit.
They were all moving forward now, the Salvation Army and Red Cross workers, the deputies and marshals and special agents and sergeants, to add their roses. It was a salute, a farewell, and an apology, too, to those they couldn`t save. For many who witnessed it, the moment was the most dignified and moving of their lives. For the rescuers, it was over.
From the book In Their Name, edited by Clive Irving, Project Recovery OKC. Copyright © 1995. Reprinted with the permission of Random House, Inc.
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Photo courtesy of Oklahoma City Fire Department.
