THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, May 17, 1995 TAG: 9505160290
SECTION: MILITARY NEWS PAGE: A6 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY REAR ADM. WILLIAM J. MCDANIEL
LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines
We all know the city now, far better than we ever thought we would.
I arrived in Oklahoma City three days after the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, having arranged a trip home for the day before, to a small farm 120 miles away.
Some of the impressions I received during four days in the city:
Tragedy, of course.
Tremendous resiliency.
Tremendous anger at the forces and individuals who committed this atrocity.
Pride. No individual or groups can steal that pride.
Rescue workers from all over the country - Oklahoma, California, Virginia, Maryland, Florida, Texas, New York - from everywhere, all exhibiting professionalism, dedication, compassion, caring.
I talked to them at length, and one of my friends on the California squad told me that ordinarily when they work a disaster, 95 percent of their effort is directed toward the work and maybe 5 percent toward the community.
But this was different. Why? He wasn't sure. Perhaps the nature of the disaster, and the fact that so many children were victims. But he thought it was more than that.
It was thousands of letters and posters that were posted around the explosion site, on every conceivable surface, from children and parents and teachers and churches, all saying, ``Thank you for caring.''
It was the demonstrated caring and love of the community and the anger of the nation. It was everyone reaching out, to hold and to comfort.
It was a squad that had worked 12 hours, all night, and faced injuries and near death when a large concrete slab slipped in the pit. Who in the morning, instead of going to bed, after eight days of continuous effort, did something else.
They showered and went en masse to a local grade school from which they had received many letters of thanks. There, they were greeted as heroes and role models, and loved as brave individuals by all the children and teachers.
I sat at night and watched the four huge cranes you have all seen on television, the dozens, even hundreds of people working through the rubble with their swinging arms, rock by rock, body by body.
The scene was surreal, lit by bright arc lights. Flags flew from the tops of every crane, and from all corners of the ruined building. Every time a worker found a flag in the rubble, it was hung from the building as a symbol - of life, or pride, or the ability to get back up against seemingly impossible odds.
I'm not sure; it was something different for each person there. Children's toys - wagons, tricycles, slides - bent, but still there, waiting for someone to come and play. Search dogs everywhere.
People tying Stars and Stripes bandanas around their necks and on their heads. Another symbol - of something. Again, different for each of them but for all, a gesture of defiance to those who committed this atrocity. And again, a statement of absolute refusal to be defeated.
I left there May 7, very proud to be from Oklahoma but equally proud to be a part of America, where we will not accept these events as a normal part of life.
This is not Beirut or Iraq. The cults, the crazies, the hate groups, the idiots, they won't gain the upper hand. And they won't make the federal government turn this into a police state.
Why? Because the common person out there, every one of us, is not really so common after all.
We understand compassion, and we know justice and we won't accept less. MEMO: McDaniel is commander of the Naval Medical Center in Portsmouth. by CNB