15 Years Later - Survivors Remember Oklahoma City Bombing
Survivors remember the Oklahoma City Bombing 15 years later. How are they doing? What are their secrets of survival?
The Survivors Club pauses today to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building.
Today, hundreds of survivors, victims' relatives and other attended a ceremony at the Oklahoma City National Memorial to remember the 168 people killed in the April 19, 1995, explosion. Another 600 were injured at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the city’s spirit served as an example to the nation. ‘‘What defines us as a nation, as a people and as communities is not what we have suffered, but how we have risen above it, how we’ve overcome,’’ Napolitano said.
‘‘We can resolve that the Oklahoma Standard becomes the national standard,’’ she said of the willingness of Oklahomans to help those in need without compensation.
‘‘Time heals nothing,’’ said Debi Burkett Moore, who placed a floral display on the seat and back of the chair honoring her brother, David Burkett, a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. She said the ceremony ‘‘makes it a little more bearable, but it heals nothing.’’Kathryn Burkett, David Burkett’s mother, said she is saddened more by her son’s death with each passing year.
‘‘Why it is sadder, I don’t know why,’’ Burkett said. ‘‘You just live with it.’’
Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett said the city remembered the day of the bombing with reverence, ‘‘not because we can’t forget but because we choose to remember.‘‘We have chosen strength, we have chosen optimism, we have chosen freedom, we have chosen to move forward together with a level of unity that is unmatched in any American city,’’ Cornett said at the ceremony.
