The death toll in the Oklahoma City bombings increased by one on Monday. Timothy McVeigh gave his life for a cause he believed in. In return, we gave him a media circus venue to promote his cause. He died without remorse or guilt. He died a warrior. He died having completed the same kind of task we Americans asked him to complete in another land and gave him a bronze medal for carrying out.

I listened and watched as did millions of others as the victims’ witnesses, the press corps, and his lawyers described his death. Stoic might be a good word for his apparent demeanor. His invocation, “Invictus,” reiterated for us the fact that he thought of himself as having done a great deed for history. Not society. Timothy McVeigh had no respect for society.

A while back I read a letter to the editor of a local newspaper which stated “Timothy McVeigh is giving his life to protest big government in our faces. He was a patriot soldier who ... was angered by what he saw in Vietnam, by the burning of the children at Waco.” It closes with, “We need to listen to Tim McVeigh and stop telling others how to live their lives.” I think this individual had another cause, and Tim McVeigh’s story somehow fitted his argument. Listen to Tim McVeigh? If I listen to him, what do I learn? If it was wrong in Vietnam and Waco, how can killing 168 people in Oklahoma City make it different? It is an enigma I cannot fathom.

I heard this morning that we, as a nation, have made “killing a part of the healing process.” I have spoken with a friend who tells me the cost of keeping a man on death row justifies killing him rather than letting him spend a lifetime regretting or, at best, reflecting on his decision. There was no “heat of the moment” in this massacre. It was planned and executed coldly and the perpetrator remained cold and insensitive to the horror he created. He did it to bring attention to what? We killed him for closure?
I can bring personal experience to this scene and say there is no closure for pain and suffering caused by someone else’s careless or considerate act of malice. As an individual who suffers daily from the carelessness of another, whose life was taken in the process, I don’t know how the victims can see this as any closure or answer. Their loved ones are still dead. So we added one to the number. An eye for an eye? It’s possible that since I have no recourse against a dead woman, I feel differently. She died in my presence. It did not make my suffering or my injuries any less. It did not make me feel better about the fact that she rammed my vehicle head on at breakneck speed and changed my life forever. Can I go to her grave and feel any better about the fact that I deal with constant pain? If we console ourselves with saying that the media hoopla and killing Tim McVeigh is for the victims, and if the victims tell us they are better for it, I disagree. How can watching another person die take away the post-traumatic stress triggered without warning by any remembrance: a smell, a certain temperature in the air, a time of year or a day. No, they aren’t relieved. In fact, I heard one say that she “thought she would feel something more” than she felt.

The only death that will take away my pain is my own. I somehow think that will always be true of the living victims and the grieving families of those 168 people who didn’t live. Timothy McVeigh isn’t living either. He didn’t tell them what they wanted to hear. Why? I ask myself that question often.

Why? Why me? The death at 7:14 a.m. Monday is not the answer to anything except fiscal considerations on the part of the federal government. The same government Tim was making a statement against. Will his name be removed from a list somewhere that legions the heroes of wars who received Bronze Stars? We give Bronze Stars for killing.

Sami Felmet lives in Waynesville and can be contacted at sammi419@lycos.com

 

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