On a recent road trip with my rescue dog, Schuyler, I stopped for the night in Oklahoma City. My car needed charging, I needed a break from driving and I wanted to visit a site that had haunted me for most of my life.

The bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was the first major news story I personally remember occurring. The bombing resulted in the deaths of 168 people, 19 of whom were children in daycare.

I still remember seeing footage of the bomb going off and a cloud of debris overtaking terrified people who fled, screaming. 

What had just happened? Which way should they run? What about all the people inside?

That moment is frozen at the Gates of Time, a part of the Oklahoma City National Memorial representing how much changed in the 120 seconds between 9:01 and 9:03 AM. The bomb went off at 9:02. 

When Schuyler and I approached the memorial, I was overtaken by the fence, a simple chain-link remnant of what had surrounded the building prior to April 19, 1995. People directly affected by the carnage had left so many letters, cards, flowers and gifts in the immediate aftermath that the fence turned into a makeshift memorial, as often happens at sites where this kind of brutality occurs.

Nearly 30 years later, the original fence is still preserved as part of the memorial that commemorates the people murdered that day and the shattering of a community by collective trauma. Those who lost loved ones continue to visit the fence to leave letters, photographs, flowers and even toys for the toddlers in the daycare who died before they were old enough to hold a crayon.

I was glad I had come there with Schuyler. Sometimes you need your dog. 

The story of Identity theology is the story of national trauma and the Oklahoma City bombing is part of that narrative. Though FBI agents initially suspected Muslim extremists were behind the catastrophe, the perpetrator was actually a white supremacist.

The bombing was an effort to fulfill the goals of Identity, including victory in an end-times race war where the white people would topple the Zionist Occupied Government.

The concept of “Zionist Occupied Government” (ZOG) begins with the centuries-old anti-semitic trope that insists a secret cabal of Jews is controlling world events.

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