Jack Fisher's Official Publishing Blog

I remember exactly where I was on September 11th, 2001.

I also remember where I was when I first heard about the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Talk to anyone who was alive on that day and chances are they’ll have a story. They can recount where they were, how they found out, and the plethora of emotions they experienced. There’s no question that this was a historic event that traumatized a generation. Even those born after the events of 9/11 have felt that trauma. And people around my age often agree.

After this day, America was never the same. The world was never the same. Many argue that things have gotten progressively worse since that day. And honestly, I’m inclined to agree.

However, the events of September 11th, 2001, were not America’s first experience with terrorist attacks. There have been others, but none were as destructive or as deadly. That doesn’t negate the tragedy and the loss of human life. But they do tend to get lost in terms of a larger historical context.

But there’s one particular terror attack that has been more overshadowed than most. It was deadly. It was traumatizing. And it scarred countless people for years to come.

On April 19th, 1995, a truck bomb was detonated in downtown Oklahoma City just outside the Alfred P. Murrah building. It ended up killing 168 people and injured nearly 700 more. And some of those deaths were young children who had been at the daycare center operating within the building.

It was, by every measure, a horrific attack. Before 9/11, it was the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil. While I don’t remember exactly where I was on that day, I still remember it being a big deal. Even though I don’t live anywhere near Oklahoma City, my school and my community held vigils. We even had this elaborate tree on which we placed cards commemorating the victims.

For weeks and months after this event, there was a great deal of fear and panic. If one truck bomb could do this kind of damage, what’s to stop other similar attacks? And if it came from some well-funded terror cell operating internationally, how could we possibly feel safe?

But then, the story surrounding Oklahoma City shifted when federal authorities identified the primary suspect. It was not some terrorist group who had trained overseas. It was not an operation conducted by a rogue nation or some anti-American government. It was perpetrated by a white American man named Timothy McVeigh.

He was not Osama Bin Ladin or Saddam Hussain. He was an all-American man born in upstate New York. He’d also served in the military and fought in the first Gulf War. He did not fit the image of a stone-cold terrorist. He did not match the narrative that most Americans surmised from such a devastating attack. The idea that a white male American veteran would commit a terrorist attack against his own country wasn’t just unthinkable. It made no sense.

Now, McVeigh did have his own twisted reasons for carrying out this attack. He was an extreme reactionary, having fallen in with militant right-wing organizations that had been operating in America for decades. They’re anti-government, anti-liberal, pro-gun, and often racist. I won’t delve too much into the details surrounding McVeigh’s ideology. But it’s disturbing in terms of how mainstream it still is in modern right-wing groups.

And I think it’s because of those parallels that the Oklahoma City bombing got completely overshadowed after 9/11. Because that terror attack, in addition to having a higher death toll, better fit the narrative that most Americans assume. The perpetrators weren’t homegrown. They were all foreign born, having embraced a radical religious ideology that is not at all mainstream in the United States.

It’s much easier to frame terrorists like that in a typical good versus evil dynamic. And it was much easier for the recourse that followed to play out. Unlike Oklahoma City, the 9/11 attacks prompted a quick response against the Taliban, who had harbored Al-Quida. It allowed the news media to play endless stories about America striking back against the evil foreign terrorists who dared to strike our country and kill our citizens.

That certainly made for a better narrative. But a better narrative also left little room for nuance. There’s no question that what happened on 9/11 was an atrocity. And that atrocity warranted a response. But whereas American committed themselves to never forgetting the events of that fateful day, they seem all too willing to forget about the Oklahoma City bombing.

One is simple in that it was an outside force who attacked us.

The other is complicated because it came from a fellow American who’d been radicalized by a dangerous, homegrown ideology.

One requires a forceful response on a foreign land. The other requires introspection and a deeper understanding of what’s happening within certain parts of American culture. Naturally, the recourse that requires less thinking is going to win out. That doesn’t make it right or wrong. But it does obscure our collective perceptions.

I don’t doubt that there’s a real threat posed by Islamic terrorists. Subsequent attacks all over the world after 9/11 have demonstrated that. However, in terms of likelihood and proximity, most Americans are far more likely to be attacked by an extremist in the mold of Timothy McVeigh.

I don’t even need to travel very far to encounter people who share his extremism. If I were to drive about an hour from my house into some of the more rural parts of my region, I’ll come across communities that are deeply conservative and extremely reactionary. Get any one of them talking about the government, gun control, or anyone whose political leanings are slightly to the left of Ronald Ragean, and they’ll seethe with a hatred that is neither rational nor justified.

I’ve had to deal with these people when they are agitated. They are dangerous in their own right. And I’m a lot more wary of them than I am of any foreign-born terror threat. But if I were to articulate this to them or even others who share my leanings, and chances are I’ll get some strange looks. I might even be attacked for thinking my fellow Americans are a greater threat than foreign terrorists.

But I still consider myself a proud American. I want my country to succeed. And I want us to confront any and all threats, be they foreign or domestic. The Oklahoma City bombing on April 19th, 1995, proved that the domestic threat is very real, just as September 11th, 2001, proved that the foreign threat is very real.

Yet we always fear one more than the other. And we’ve committed to never forgetting one while eagerly ignoring the other. But we shouldn’t. If we, as Americans, are to truly become the great country we strive to be, we must remember and learn from both traumatic events, especially if the lessons from one are a lot harder to swallow than others.