During remarks on the Senate floor Thursday, Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) spoke about the victims of the Oklahoma City terrorist attack ahead of its 30th anniversary next week.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Mr. President, next week, Oklahoma and the nation will pause for a moment and will remember
00:15nationally for a moment on April the 19th at 9.02 in the morning. And some people will
00:23look around and go, has it been 30 years? And other people will say, what happened 30 years
00:31ago? Because it depends on your generation of when you were born and how old you were
00:36or if you were even alive in 1995. But if you were alive in 1995, you remember where
00:44you were when the news came out that there was an explosion at a federal building in Oklahoma
00:51City. It was the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. A man who was mad at the government and determined
01:00he was going to cause an uprising of people to take down the federal government, pulled
01:06a rider truck in front of a federal building, loaded it with diesel fuel and with ammonium
01:13nitrate, lit fuses, and walked away and got in his car and drove away. As he drove away
01:21behind him, the explosion went off. It killed 168 people, including 19 children who were
01:27in the daycare center on the ground floor. And our nation was forever changed.
01:37We pause every year still in Oklahoma. We've never forgotten. Every year, we think about
01:43those who were killed, those who survived, and those who were changed forever. We remember
01:48every single year, as we will again this year on the 30th anniversary. And we'll pause to
01:56remember. The people that are around us in Oklahoma are our neighbors, they're our friends, but
02:02many of them are also survivors or family members of survivors or family members of those who
02:07were lost. There are still police officers and firefighters that have literally never been
02:12back to that location because it's too painful to be able to return to a spot where they carried
02:19out the bodies of their friends and neighbors. There are individuals that their family was
02:27truly forever changed. And now 30 years later, they still get together and talk and visit, catch
02:33up with each other. There are survivor networks that still engage and still keep in contact
02:38with each other, remembering what happens when out of control anger took the lives of 168 people.
02:50On that sacred ground, there's still a quiet reflection pool. There are 168 chairs there to remind
03:00people of the 168 lives. There's a phenomenal museum that's next to it that people come to literally
03:08from all over the world to study terrorism, domestic terrorism in particular, and to be able to walk
03:15through what happened in the crime scene and how it was so quickly resolved. We have law enforcement,
03:22first responders, families and communities that come from everywhere just to be able to learn and to
03:27reflect. There are children that survived the daycare center that are now adults. Let me give you two,
03:36Brandon and Rebecca Denny. Brandon was three years old and he literally barely survived his injuries. In fact,
03:45doctors gave him a 10% chance of survival, but he did. As an adult, he works to still help and serve others.
03:55Rebecca, she was rescued from the rubble at two years old. She now has a family of her own.
04:03She speaks powerfully, still, about forgiveness over bitterness.
04:10They were some of those miracle babies that survived. Many of the children around them did not.
04:16This past week, it was really a remarkable moment that a lot of people in this town probably missed,
04:22and I understand. There's a lot of things going on right now. But on the south side of the Capitol,
04:29there was a spot of dirt that was dug up there, and a group of Oklahomans, along with the architect of
04:35the Capitol, buried a seedling tree. Now, that may not seem like a big deal on the Capitol grounds,
04:41but there aren't many trees that are planted on the Capitol grounds. Many of the trees that are on the
04:45grounds are 100 years old, or some 200. This is a great historic place and a spot of reflection.
04:51But in one spot there, we just planted a tree. And you may say, what's the big deal about that tree?
04:56Well, if you're in Oklahoma, you already know the rest of this story, but I'd like to be able to tell this body the rest of that story.
05:01On April the 19th, 1995, when that truck bomb explosion took place and took 168 lives,
05:11it destroyed the Alfred Primera Federal Building. Across the street was the Journal Record Building.
05:16It just demolished a big section of that as well, blew out all the windows and destroyed it.
05:21In the parking lot there in front of that building was an American elm tree. It was a scrubby tree growing
05:27in a parking lot. And if you've ever just seen a tree in a parking lot, you know it's not usually
05:32the healthiest looking thing. But it was just growing there in the middle of the asphalt.
05:37But when the explosion happened, it literally destroyed all those lives. But for that tree,
05:41it blew literally every leaf off of that tree. But the force of the impact and the heat of the impact
05:48was so strong that it literally turned the tree. The bark literally that usually has this nice little
05:54stripe as it grows. It literally has a turning point in it around it. And everyone just assumed
05:59that tree's dead. No one paid attention to it. And in the year of the cleanup and of all the recovery
06:04and what was happening during that time period, no one paid attention to it. Until the next spring,
06:10that scrubby little tree in the asphalt started sprouting. And people were shocked.
06:18It's alive. And suddenly it went from being a scrubby tree in a parking lot that was just going
06:25to be cleared out to being a sign of hope. So we cleared the asphalt and everything else away from
06:31it. Arborists came and began to fertilize it and to take care of it. That scrubby little tree is now
06:36nicknamed the survivor tree now. And it is the picture of Oklahoma after that bombing. We survived.
06:46That scrubby little American elm tree is now enormous 30 years later. Its branches and its leaves spread out
06:56over that site. It is the shaded spot. And on the morning of April 19th, there will be survivors and
07:04families that will sit under its branches. As we pause for 168 seconds and as we read the names of those who
07:12we lost, they'll be underneath that survivor tree thinking again of, we survived. We're still here.
07:21The term the Oklahoma standard was born during that time period is neighbor help neighbor.
07:27And as we cared for each other and for the people that came to our help from all over the world,
07:32literally. If you walk into my office, you'll see a picture of the survivor tree that's there.
07:37How does that seedling that we just planted and that survivor tree connect?
07:43Well, that seedling is a daughter of that survivor tree. The seed was literally picked up off the ground
07:50under that survivor tree, was planted and grown. And now it's about three feet tall.
07:57That seedling, that daughter, we just planted 30 years later at the United States Capitol.
08:03So that this nation will never forget the out of control anger that turned to violence and hatred.
08:17It is our prayer from Oklahoma that as people walk down the path outside, that they would stop and read
08:23the plaque beside that little seedling tree. That in the decades ahead, it would grow to be a giant
08:30American elm just like its parent, the survivor tree. And that people would remember the lives that were
08:38lost, those who survived and those who were changed forever. That's our hope. That's why that tree was
08:45planted on the Capitol lawn this week. My simple request from my colleagues, April the 19th. It's a Saturday.
08:54When it comes at 902 Central Time, would you just pause with us for just a moment? And remember, join us,
09:09because we will absolutely never forget. With that, I yield the floor.