WHAT !!! Oklahoma City Bombing On Television today --- WHAT !!! Oklahoma City Bombing. Fifteen years ago, a bomb ripped through a federal building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in the worst homegrown terror attack on U.S. soil. The April 19, 1995, attack killed 168 people, shattering the belief of many that America was largely immune to domestic terrorism. Fifteen years later, the impact of the bombing still reverberates with those who lived through it. CNN checks in with some of the survivors of the attack, including several who were children at the time.
More than 200 children had parents killed or disabled when an anti-government conspirator's truck bomb destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. Thomas and others have benefited from a continuing legacy of the attack: the outpouring of donations from people who wanted to help the families of the victims. At the time of the blast, the children ranged from infants to teenagers. Suddenly, they were left to be raised by single parents or grandparents, were placed with other family members or sent to homes in other states.
With the scholarship money available, about two-thirds have since gone on to college or other education programs, and the graduates now include physicians, lawyers, veterinarians and pharmacists.
Dion Thomas' life began spiraling out of control after her mother was killed in the Oklahoma City bombing, when the straight-A student started skipping classes and saw her grades slip to D's, F's and incompletes. She stayed in her bedroom for days, unable to come out. No one let her see her mother's body to say goodbye, thinking it was better for her daughter to remember how she was alive. "I pretty much almost dropped out of high school," said Thomas, who was a sophomore when her mother, Social Security Administration employee Charlotte Thomas, died in the April 19, 1995, attack.
Tags: columbine, columbine school shooting, hitler s birthday, oklahoma city, timothy mcveigh
More than 200 children had parents killed or disabled when an anti-government conspirator's truck bomb destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. Thomas and others have benefited from a continuing legacy of the attack: the outpouring of donations from people who wanted to help the families of the victims. At the time of the blast, the children ranged from infants to teenagers. Suddenly, they were left to be raised by single parents or grandparents, were placed with other family members or sent to homes in other states.
With the scholarship money available, about two-thirds have since gone on to college or other education programs, and the graduates now include physicians, lawyers, veterinarians and pharmacists.
Dion Thomas' life began spiraling out of control after her mother was killed in the Oklahoma City bombing, when the straight-A student started skipping classes and saw her grades slip to D's, F's and incompletes. She stayed in her bedroom for days, unable to come out. No one let her see her mother's body to say goodbye, thinking it was better for her daughter to remember how she was alive. "I pretty much almost dropped out of high school," said Thomas, who was a sophomore when her mother, Social Security Administration employee Charlotte Thomas, died in the April 19, 1995, attack.
Tags: columbine, columbine school shooting, hitler s birthday, oklahoma city, timothy mcveigh
