Travel Thumbnail: Oklahoma City National Museum and Memorial

This is the seventh of a series of periodic reports on specific places I've visited -- and which you might want see to as well.

On the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, this poignant memorial bears witness to a great American tragedy

The Place: Oklahoma City National Museum and Memorial

The Story: Who can forget the horror of the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building by two crazed individuals with a grudge against the federal government? Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols conspired to detonate an explosive-filled rental truck. Six-and-a-half years before 9/11, these misguided young Americans, whom no one would take for terrorists by their appearance,  committed a deadly act of terrorism against their fellow citizens. The blast claimed 168 lives, including 19 children under the age of eight, and injured an additional 680 people..

In addition to scarring the survivors and demolishing the Murrah Building, the blast changed the face of downtown Oklahoma City. In all, 324 buildings within a 16-block radius were destroyed or damaged, totaled 86 cars and shattered building glass in a three-mile-square area. Property damage was more than $650 million, but the damage to the collective American psyche was incalculable -- partly because the tools of their terrorism were so ordinary: a rental truck loaded 

Both McVeigh and Nichols, clean-cut and unremarkable in appearance, were Army veterans. Part of the US army oath is, "...solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic..." They themselves became the very domestic enemies against whom they had once sworn to protect the country.

My Experience: I arrived in Oklahoma City in the evening for a conference. On that mild autumn evening, I left the hotel and walked along quiet streets. The walk took only 15 or 20 minutes, and I didn't know what to expect. I walked up a few steps to the outdoor memorial -- a reflecting pool and sculptures of metal chairs atop lighted cubes, one for every victim -- and was not alone. Other visitors walked reverently along the paths. It is a powerful site, and I walked back to the hotel in sadness and humility -- glad to have had a solitary experience.

Later in the week, as part of the conference itinerary, I visited the museum -- powerful too but also heartbreaking. Many of the exhibit rooms were poignant and personal. Children's toys. Glasses, Keys. Shoes. Office equipment and supplies. Ordinary artifacts of ordinary lives cut short in an instant by two ordinary-looking men packing an ordinary agricultural product into an ordinary truck. How, I wondered then and still wonder, can anyone feel such rage?

Cost: It costs nothing to visit the outdoor memorial. The museum is open Monday through Saturday, 9:00 a.m. 6:00 p.m., and Sunday 1:00 to 6:00 p.m. Admission is $10 for adults and $8 for 62+, military with ID, student aged 6 to 17 or with college ID and 5 and under, free.

Oklahoma City National Museum and Memorial,  620 North Harvey Avenue, Oklahoma City; 405-235-3313.