On the morning of April 19, 1995 -- 29 years ago Friday -- a young blond man parked a Ryder truck in a drop-off zone outsider the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
The man locked the truck and quickly left the area. He dropped the keys to the truck as he made his way to a getaway car.
A few minutes later, the truck -- loaded with 4,800 pounds of homemade explosives -- detonated.
The blast created a 30-foot wide, eight-foot deep crater where the truck was parked. One third of the nine-story Murrah building was destroyed. A total of 324 other buildings in a 14-block radius of the courthouse were damaged or destroyed. More than 80 cars parked nearby were destroyed.
The death toll was staggering. The bombing claimed 168 lives -- including 19 children under 6 years of age. Nearly 700 others were inured.
The Oklahoma City bombing would stand as the worst act of terrorism on U.S. soil until attacks of the Sept. 11, 2001.
The hunt for those responsible for the carnage was the largest criminal investigation in U.S. history. It didn't take long to find the culprits. Timothy McVeigh -- the man who drive the Ryder Truck -- was arrested within 90 minutes for driving without a license plate and carrying a concealed weapon. Further investigation revealed that McVeigh and Terry Nichols, who had met during Army basic training, were the chief architects of the plot, assisted by Michael Fortier, McVeigh's Army roommate. Fortier's wife. Lori, and McVeigh's sister, Jennifer, were also arrested, but received immunity in exchange for their testimony at trial.
Fortier agreed to testify and was given 12 years. He got out in 2006 and disappeared into the Witness Protection Program. Nichols got life. McVeigh received the ultimate penalty and, on June 11, 2001, became the first federal inmate to be executed in nearly 40 years when he was put to death by lethal injection at the U.S. Federal Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana.
When asked if he had any regrets, McVeigh said he wished he had destroyed all of the Murrah building.
Why did they do it? The plotters all held strong anti-government views, nourished over the years by literature from a variety of extremist groups. McVeigh also said it was anger over the federal government's actions at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas and the siege at Ruby Ridge, Idaho,
For years conspiracy theorists have speculated that there were more people involved in the bombing. McVeigh denied there were any other accomplices, saying that they simply were not needed.
We should never forget those who died on April 19, 1995. Nor should we forget that terror does not have to come from across the water. Hate and anti-government extremism are still out there, capitalizing on our nation's political divide, and spreading faster than ever to a wider audience thanks to the Internet and social media. We must always be vigilant at home as well as abroad.