Many people don't realize that the 1995 terror bombing in Oklahoma City affected more than the single federal building. A number of other structures were also affected, and some of them were shortly razed, as well. The large YMCA building, sitting a block away, catty-cornered from the blast, had all of its windows broken in the explosion. A small percentage of the injuries and deaths that resulted from the event were also in these other buildings. |
I sat in a chair in my driveway, last night, and closed my eyes for several moments, trying to appreciate the sounds and smells of battle. The uneven cadence of popping and booming and cracking filled my imagination with scenes of Valley Forge. My nose was filled with the smells of gunpowder that lingers in our still air. I thought to myself, this does not show me the true sense of war. I do not feel the urgency of escape, the fear of death, the anxiety of losing my family. I do not hear the cries of pain, the shrieks of danger, the grunts of effort, or the moans of agony.
No movie, no matter how graphic, can match the truth of war, whether revolutionary, civil, or police action. No book or account can express the full reality or a skirmish, whether worldwide or isolated on an island in the South Pacific. I then opened my eyes and considered my family - my wife, my son, and my daughter - and I realized, without the founders and the fighters, my life would be very different. |
AuthorD. Ed. Hoggatt is an award-winning fourth grade teacher. Click Titles to Order Now
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July 2017
RECOMMENDED READING
Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko
Because of Mr. Terupt by Rob Buyea Charlotte's Web by E. B. White Chippin Cleats by D. Ed. Hoggatt Crumbling Spirit by D. Ed. Hoggatt Echo by Pam Muñoz Ryan Hatchet by Gary Paulsen Holes by Louis Sachar Loser by Jerry Spinelli Mumsket by D. Ed. Hoggatt Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse Out of the Wind by D. Ed. Hoggatt Petey by Ben Mikaelsen Ramona the Pest by Beverly Cleary Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom by Louis Sachar Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelsen Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls Yankee Girl by Mary Ann Rodman |