On April 19, 1995, the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil prior to September 11th, 2001, took place in Oklahoma City at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. On this solemn anniversary, the members of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows send our most heartfelt condolences to those families who lost loved ones, families whose inner wounds and private pain we understand and whose grief we share.
The Oklahoma City bombing claimed the lives of 168 people, 19 of them children. The attacks were planned and carried out by members of an anti-government paramilitary group, allegedly in retaliation for the government’s tragic assault on the Branch Davidian complex in Waco, Texas, two years earlier. The attackers believed in violence and revenge as a way to respond to what they perceived as excessive government power. What they achieved was inflicting death, pain, and suffering on hundreds of innocent people and the life-long mourning of all the family and friends of the dead. They succeeded only in perpetuating cycles of violence.
This week, as the nation remembers those who were lost and injured in the bombing, let us be moved by the spirit of the people of Oklahoma City, who erected a memorial on the grounds of the Murrah Federal Building that entreats:
May all who leave here know the impact of violence. May this memorial offer comfort, strength, peace, hope and serenity.
We hope that all who read those words will be inspired to work to break the cycles of violence engendered by war and terrorism, and work to create a safer and more peaceful world for everyone.
| 
Fair Use
