Timothy Mcveigh's Oklahoma City Bombing

Tragedies seem unreal for people who are directly affected by them. There something that can either unite or destroy people. Just like making life decisions can take away a life or give life. A similar decision was made to take away Timothy McVeigh’s life as a sentence due to his action to bomb 168 individuals in the Murrah Building on April 19, 1995. This horrific circumstance is remembered as the Oklahoma City Bombing. One man’s decision to inflict pain, due to his strong faith, caused another to return the favor on a more intense level.Who is America to decide that she will be the bearer of life or, in McVeigh’s case, a barrier of death? “While the horrific scale of McVeigh’s crime seem to demand the ultimate penalty, there’s something
“The Army taught him how to be a soldier, how to carry out a mission and how to [eliminate] the enemy” (Wertheimer 2). His career in the military was very second-nature for him given the fact that he was “intelligent and well-mannered” (Wertheimer 2). As a “decorated veteran of Desert Storm” (Wertheimer 1) McVeigh decided to join the Green Berets, “[but] on the second day of a 21-day tryout for the Green Berets, McVeigh quit, and soon left the Army altogether” (Collins 2). After his discharge from the military, he went back home looking for work. McVeigh didn’t have much luck in that department so he “drifted, living in motels, visiting Fortier and Nichols” (Collins 2). Along the way, Timothy McVeigh picked up “The Turner Diaries.” “The Turner Diaries laid out for, Timothy McVeigh, a blueprint for political action. Blow up a building; start a revolution; change the country” (Wertheimer 2). All these examples of circumstances helped influence his decision to bomb innocent people. In McVeigh’s eyes, they were not innocent because they had wrong the American rights in the Waco Incident. A group of extreme believers was taken out because the government felt that they were a threat to the nation’s security and
From that point, McVeigh gathered and researched information about the best possible way to get the government's attention. One of McVeigh’s army buddies, Michael Fortier, assisted in “[casing] the Murrah Building several months before the bombing” (Lacayo 2). Evidence also reveals that “McVeigh’s fingerprints were found on a receipt for one-fifth-pound (90-g) bags of ammonium nitrate fertilizer-- the chief ingredient in the Oklahoma bomb” (Lacayo 2). In order for the bomb to be made, “McVeigh and Nichols stashed the fertilizer in rented storage facilities, then mixed and assembled their bomb in a park near Nichol’s farm” (Lacayo 2). McVeigh’s military training for, planning his mission to strike the Murrah Building, proved to be effective. The several months it took him to plan and collect all the necessary materials and chemicals needed for the bomb proves that he knew what he was getting himself into and the consequences that would soon follow. He was aware of those consequences and still went forward with his decision because he saw his action as a start to a revolution of changing the government. “Yes, I bombed the Murrah Building and here’s why I did it… it was a retaliation for Waco… There was gonna be no justice, so I had to take justice into my own hands” (Wertheimer 4). His crime is in no way valid, but neither is the