Working in my grad school research lab. I had the radio on as I always did, when the breaking news came across. Didn't know the extent of the tragedy until I got home and saw TV that night.

Tomorrow is the Columbine 11th anniv. That very day, 4/20/99, I defended my PhD dissertation in the morning and watched TV coverage the rest of the day.

I was at work in Akron, Ohio, leading a sales training group. Someone came in and whispered to me that a bomb had gone off in Oklahoma and killed lots of people, including children. Just the night before, I had started reading Grisham's, "The Chamber" and was strucky by how eerilly similar the descriptions were.

I was in high school at the time. There were rumors about a bombing that when first heard most assumed were fake- we'd had a bomb scare 2-3 weeks before. It was only later that the school mentioned what happened during all-school meeting. Being an hour outside of DC, we were worried someone would hit there next.

It was a blur to me because my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer the very next day. It wasn't until a couple of days later that I realized what had happened.

I was at work and one of my colleagues said 'we need to bomb those arabs into the stone age". when i pointed out it wasnt clear that "Arabs" did this he said, "that's alright they're asking for it". i assume he is a tea bagger now.

I had just moved to Pensacola. I was at work in a place very foreign to me. When my coworkers and I gathered around to listen and commiserate, it drew us all together. I still remember the disbelief.

While I do not remember exactly where I was - I do remember the confusion about the source of the attack. Early word that it was foreign and perhaps related to the first WTC attack. Just so many rumors & tons of uncertainty. Being on the West Coast I was probably on the way to work when news broke. I know I stayed tuned to the radio for news but really didn't grasp the impact until I got home & turned on the TV.

However, what I do remember is the shock at learning it was an American who was responsible. And I remember on 9/11 expressing initial doubts about the *certainty* that it was an outside attack. I kept saying "remember Oklahoma"

I was in nursing school. That day, I was assigned to work in a dialysis clinic. The clinic is filled with TVs, so the patients have something to do while they are getting their treatment. It was so surreal to sit in a room with over 20 TVs tuned to different stations, all showing what was going on. Everyone was glued to the screens, patients, nurses, students, family. None of us could believe what we were seeing.

Let's try this again....

I was working in NJ, and we first heard via the internet. I went home at lunch to watch the coverage. I could not believe the amount of damage. I also remember thinking that it was odd that a terrorist attack happened in the middle of the country. When I think of this bombing, I remember the photo of the fireman carrying the body of a baby out of the rubble. I think it's the only thing that pushed the whole OJ murder trial off the front pages.

When 9/11 happened, I was at work in MA. A friend told me that a plane hit one of the towers in WTC. I told him that it *had* to be an attack because there's no way to accidentally hit those towers on a clear day. We watched and saw the second plane hit. The rest of the day was spent trying to figure out what to do. Is this the beginning of the end? We were totally unable to get any internet access, the Prudential building was closed, and I had my sister who was in college stay with me that night. Earlier in the week, I had wondered out loud when the news would stop speculating about the missing intern Chandra Levy.

I was in 5th grade at Jones Elementary School 15 miles away from Downtown OKC. The entire school shook, and a few windows broke. I had no idea what was happening, but I do remember the look on the teachers face when another teacher came in to tell her what had happened.

The only other thing I remember that day was seeing a close friend of mine crying when he found out his dad, who worked in the Federal Building, wasn't at work that day.

God bless the families and victims.

On April 19, 1995, I was a 9th grade student at Brink Junior High in Oklahoma City. I remember an odd announcement coming over the intercom during class around 9:30 that morning. “If you have a parent who works in the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, please come to the office,” said the voice on the intercom. We wondered aloud what might have happened to require such an announcement.

Many of us in Oklahoma City, and around the country, still recall that morning. How can we forget it? My mom spent the next week or so volunteering downtown, helping serve meals to the rescue and search teams. My step-dad, a retired Oklahoma City police officer, volunteered to work at security check points around downtown.

Oklahomans from all backgrounds came together and looked out for each other. In that moment, we were reminded that ultimately, we’re all in this together as Oklahomans. The focus was not on what separated us, but on what made us all the same—stories of heartache, loss, tragedy, love, kindness, and compassion; the stories that make us human.

Today we remember, and as the words inscribed at the Memorial state:

“We come here to remember those who were killed, those who survived and those changed forever. May all who leave here know the impact of violence. May this memorial offer comfort, strength, peace, hope and serenity.”

www.brittany4hd84.com

I was 11, and I was in bed (sick, I think). I found out about it from the news on the television, and it took me most of the day to even grasp the magnitude of what happened.

Fifteen years ago today, I bore witness to a tragedy that was unlike anything that had ever happened in this country before. The destruction that I saw first hand and the people that I knew that didn't walk out alive that day will never be forgotten.  It is not something I've ever really been comfortable talking about.  I remember when the WTC attacks happened six years later, I immediately relived that terrible day in my mind. I understood right away what they were having to endure and what they must have been thinking and feeling.  Please, I ask everyone to take just a moment or two today, and reflect on those that suffered through this terrible experience, and also those that didn't survive at all.  They need your strength right now.

And to those out there that would use this day to "protest" or "rise up", I say how dare you!  How dare you attempt to use the victims of this day to score some cheap political points.  How dare you try to turn these poor, suffering victims into martyrs for a questionable cause.  How dare you even think of claiming that even one of the lives lost that day was necessary or justified.  Would you make light of another tragic day in our history?  9/11?  Pearl Harbor?  JFK's assassination?  I think not.  The people like me that were there that day deserve to be remembered better that this.

I was in high school, I remember that day there was a power outage at the school, they tried to have school anyway but it was too dark in the classrooms to work, and they had to send us home early because you can't have a full day of school without serving lunch. I got home around noon Eastern, and OKC was all that was on every channel. At first I didn't understand the magnitude of it, I couldn't understand why all the New York stations were devoting so much time to coverage of a bombing in Oklahoma. Then they showed footage of what was left of the building.

At home. Turned on the news somewhere around midday to see this eerie, hollowed-out shell of a building and initially wondering, "What part of the Middle East/Some other Third World Wherever got hit now?"

And I've never gotten over the fact that if this had been a foreign terrorist, we'd have instantly been at war with that country (or if it were up to a Bush, some other unrelated country). We'd have completely altered our view of that group, whatever group the bomber was from. But as it turned out to be an American, a self-described patriot, the general reaction from other self-described patriots ranged from various states of apathy to quietly applauding him.

Nauseating then, nauseating now.

I was writing my dissertation, working at home. As usual, I had CNN on as I worked, so I watched the story develop that morning. Needless to say, I didn't get much writing done that day.

I was at home sick with strep throat. I was lying on the couch watching one of the morning programs on TV when they interrupted normal programming to report about this horrible event.

I happened to be in Oklahoma City on that day. I had the great fortune to be performing in a new piece about John F. Kennedy in conjunction with the University of Oklahoma in Norman OK. entitled JACK.

It was the morning after our first performance where I was playing President Kennedy. The Piece eerily mirrored what was going on that day by reflecting on some of the past. A Kennedy Quote from the show included: "how can we preach freedom around the world when we permit our own children to be killed" And the show concluded with the unintentional foreshadowing line..."The age of Violence begins" It was a palpable feeling of Art imitating Life, Imitating Art.....

We debated on whether or not to continue with our scheduled performances because of the close proximity to the Murrow Building, and finally decided to go forth in the hopes of giving some relief and hope to the community. Theater can be a very powerful tool of healing and comfort, of raising debate and understanding peoples differences. This had never become more clear to me than on that morning, Hearing the reverberations of the Age of Violence beginning.

I was at home grieving for my dDad who had just died on April 4th when I called one of my brothers to cry with him a little. Instead, he answered the phone saying, "Are you watching this?!" Of course, I had no idea what he was talking about so turned on the TV to see why he was so excited and that pretty much cleared up my grief...for a while. I knew that Dad had been gone for 15 years this year but when I heard RM announce her program of the McVeigh Tapes and the 15 year anniversary of the bombing, it struck me even harder than April 4th had. Rest in peace, Dad, and all the victims of this horrid domestic terrorism.

I was at home, nursing my week old baby daughter. I turned on the news while I was nursing and saw the horrific images. I sat in my chair, holding my baby girl and had tears running down my face as I heard about children in the daycare and all the devastation.

I was 19, a year out of high school.. I was working for a local deli, and a customer said "Did you hear about what happened in Oklahoma?" I replied with a "No?" The customer said a bomb went off, lots killed. Naturally we had no TV, our radio had poor reception so we couldn't figure out what was going on. This was before the days of texting where information flies in seconds. Finally when I got home I turned the TV on and saw that building with the gash right through it. The images and the stories started flooding in and it was just horrifying. Late that night I was watching a show, and the host of the show was SURE that this was the work of some Middle Eastern Terrorist, only to find out it was one of "our" guys. I still remember the story of that woman who lost both her young boys in the day care center. I am now a mother of a 4 year old boy, and the thought of something happening to my son... I cannot even imagine. That is a nightmare I hope to never experience. My thoughts and prayers go out to the survivors and those who lost loved ones, and also that this sort of thing never happens again.

I was living in Dallas and was comforting a good friend after the funeral of her son, who committed suicide rather than live with the unrelenting pain of his AIDS-related neuropathy. That evening, I called my own mother, who was terminally ill with cancer, to check in with her. She told me then, in no uncertain terms, that she was no longer interested in living in a country where innocent men, women and children can be sacrificed for someone's warped political agenda. She died a few months later and I think I died a little myself that day.

I was at work for Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services in Vinita, OK. At the time all State agencies went on high security alert because no one knew if it was just a Federal Govt. attack, or all Govt. agencies. Every employee was glued to TVs, people were crying, all people were praying the children would be found safe. America will never be the same since that day, but did we really learn anything from this horrific act? Today, hatred spews from our airways, a candidate running for OK Governor espouses forming a militia to protect OK from the Fed. Govt., Congress refuses to work together in a Bi-partisan manner for the betterment of America, militia groups are growing in number, and hate organizations are on the rise. Our government was created by men of very diverse beliefs, backgrounds, and religions or lack of. They must be turning over in their graves at this time. Remember what anti-government hatred did on April 19, 1995, and don't let those Oklahomans die in vain. Pray for love and respect to return to America.

All the comments bring it back. But I am too old. I remember - announcement on the radio and my father said "They've bombed Pearl Harbor. Soon he went over seas and was gone for nearly four years. This country has been at war ever since.

I remember Kennedy's assassination. I was at home with a 6 month old child. Later Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. Time stood still for me. If we are ever at peace. the army will go out of business. Constitution says the military should never be more that two years' duration. so all our contracts are open ended.

I don't know how a Timothy McVeigh thinks. But I know that Kennedy's shooter thought he would be hailed as a hero. So did Lincoln's assassin. When editors and politicians think that talk is too cheap to worry about, some misguided souls will think they are being helpful.