Service Held To Mark 20 Years Since Oklahoma City Bombing

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) —

About 1,000 people gathered Sunday to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil until the Sept. 11 attacks six years later.

Former President Bill Clinton and Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin were among those who spoke at Sunday’s service at the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum.

The service started with a 168-second moment of silence to honor the 168 people who died in the April 19, 1995 attack. It concluded about 90 minutes later with survivors and tearful relatives of the dead reading the names of those killed.

“This was a place of unspeakable horror and tragedy,” said Frank Keating, who completed his first 100 days as Oklahoma’s governor the day before the attack. “How some evil individual would do what he did … is unforgiveable and absolutely unimaginable.”

Timothy McVeigh, an Army veteran with strong anti-government views, planned the bombing as revenge for the deadly standoff between the FBI and Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, that killed more than 70 people on April 19, 1993 – exactly two years earlier.

McVeigh was convicted on federal murder and conspiracy charges in 1997 and executed in 2001.

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