Post by cruororism on Oct 10, 2003 21:39:40 GMT
Timothy McVeigh, who hoped to have a career in the U.S. Army, eventually grew
Timothy McVeigh on the day of his arrest
deeply suspicious of anything related to the government.
Socially awkward and fascinated by guns, McVeigh found an order and a purpose in the military were lacking in his life in upstate New York. His mother and two sisters had moved away to Florida when he was 15, leaving McVeigh and his father to fend for themselves.
He was smart—his test scores had earned him a college scholarship—but disengaged. He dropped out of community college and became obsessed with survivalism, storing weapons and supplies in the basement.
“I guess he thought that someday a nuclear attack or something was going to happen,” his father, William McVeigh, told Peter Jennings in an ABC special report. “That was my feeling. You know, he was ready for anything.”
Timothy McVeigh, who earned minimum wage at a Burger King in his hometown of Pendleton and later worked as a security guard in Buffalo, would have the chance to become a hero when he joined the Army at the age of 20.
McVeigh Loved the Army
McVeigh thrived at Fort Riley, Kan. While other soldiers enjoyed the nightlife, McVeigh remained on base,
Timothy McVeigh at Fort Benning, Georgia. (AP)
devouring Guns and Ammo and Soldier of Fortune magazines and The Turner Diaries, a novel about right-wing “patriots” who overthrow the federal government.
“He had this thing—he didn’t know what it was going to be—catastrophe, famine, natural or, you know, complete collapse of government,” said William Dilley, who served with McVeigh. “He honestly believed something was going to happen.”
One soldier who shared his views and became his close friend was Terry Nichols, who enlisted at the older age of 33. Nichols lasted only a year, taking a hardship discharge after his wife divorced him. Meanwhile, McVeigh rose quickly through the ranks, becoming a sergeant while most of his contemporaries were still privates. His weapons training helped him win a Bronze Star in the Gulf War, where he boasted of killing Iraqis and providing security for Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf.
He hoped to become a Green Beret and was ordered back to the United States for the tryout. But he was unprepared for the physical rigors and washed out after only two days.
“It just shattered his attitude about the military. He had fallen apart,” said his friend John Kelso.
Wandering the States, McVeigh quit the service and drifted from his hometown to Nichols’ farmhouse in Michigan to Kingman, Ariz., where another Army buddy, Michael Fortier, was living in a trailer. He sold weapons at gun shows and complained that government had too much control over people’s lives.
“America is in serious decline,” he wrote to his local paper, The Lockport Union Sun and Journal. “We have no proverbial tea to dump … Do we have to shed blood to reform the current system?”
Says Jennifer McVeigh, Timothy McVeigh’s younger sister and confidant: “He thought the government was becoming somewhat oppressive in certain ways. Overstepping their bounds in certain ways.”
McVeigh seemed particularly enraged by three government efforts to control guns: the Brady gun-control law, the raid at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992 and the siege at the Branch Davidian complex in Waco, Texas, in 1993. He even made a pilgrimage to Waco during the 51-day standoff between the Branch Davidians and the FBI.
“Tim McVeigh believed that the federal government executed 76 people at Waco, including 30 women and 25 children. That was his political belief. He was not alone in that opinion,” defense attorney Stephen Jones said his opening statement at McVeigh’s trial.
The government said that McVeigh took it upon himself to avenge the Waco tragedy by bombing the Oklahoma City federal building exactly two years later.
McVeigh “converted the Ryder truck from a cargo vehicle into a gigantic deadly bomb,” prosecutor Joseph Hartzler told the jury. “The truck was there to impose the will of Timothy McVeigh on the rest of America, and to do so by premeditated violence and terror.”