This Was A Very Bad Day In 1995

ONE MINUTE, THEY WERE going about the usual business of bureaucracy. The next, their lives were blown apart. Capt. Bandy Norfleet, USMC, had gone to the Marine Recruiting Command Center on the fifth floor of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building to talk about funding his station in Stillwater. Dana Bradley had gone to get a social-security card for her 4-month-old son. Across the street at the Oklahoma Water Resources Board, administrative assistant Irish Hall said the blast was instantaneous — a flash of blue lights and then her head was bleeding. For Henderson Baker II, it seemed like cons. The 34-year-old army captain had been chatting with his NCO in the fourth-floor office of the Army Recruiting Command. Suddenly, the floor blew out from under him and he was hurtling down. A hundred things flashed through his mind: “I thought about my wife and my son. I thought, ‘Was this an earthquake? Am I dying? Am I dreaming?’” Then he hit the ground and blacked out.

Newsweek May 1, 1995