that the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Buildingrnwas bombed. Just as most Americansrnalive at the time of President JohnrnF. Kennedy’s assassination rememberrnwhere they were when they heard thernnews, so almost every person living inrnOklahoma City or its suburbs can tellrnyou what he was doing when he felt andrnheard the explosion.rnI was teaching English to foreign studentsrnat the University of Central Oklahomarnin Edmond, 15 miles from downtownrnOklahoma City and the MurrahrnFederal Building. We were on the thirdrnfloor of a former dormitory, which wasrnbeing renovated for use as an administrationrnand classroom building. Constructedrnin the era when elements of traditionalrnbeauty still enhanced collegerncampuses, the old mammoth boastedrngranite floors, a winding staircase withrnpolished wooden banisters, and marblernwindow seats beneath enormous windowsrnon the landings. At 9:01, my studentsrnwere beginning to take an examination,rnand I was performing the ritual ofrnscrutinizing them. Once they seemedrnsufficiently engrossed, or at least deterredrnfrom cheating, I planned to settlerndown with Fifty Russian Winters by MargaretrnWettlin. At 9:02, every head jerkedrnup at the loud crash, which sounded exactlyrnas if the construction crew workingrnon the clay tile roof had somehow managedrnto hoist a very large and very fullrntrash dumpster to the roof and then droprnit squarely to the ground. While such arnsound was unsettling, we were so used tornthe noise of our building’s reconstructionrnthat we were more awestruck thanrnfrightened. Whatever it was, it wasrnclearly over and I motioned for the studentsrnto resume their test-taking. Allrndid, except one young Saudi Arabian,rnwho looked alarmed and found it hardrnto concentrate. In retrospect, I suspectrnthat he had at least one other possiblernexplanation for the sound and was surprisedrnthat I had ignored it.rnMost of us here in Oklahoma Citv didrnnot know immediately what would makernsuch a sound. For all that CNN showedrnus of the Gulf War and Bosnia, mostrnAmericans do not know the sounds ofrnwar. Television news generallv shows eitherrnthe aftermath of explosions, repleternwith weeping bereaved women, or it displaysrnsoundless computer graphics ofrnfuzzy squarish targets followed by a flashrnof light, indicating by its positionrnwhether or not our glorious Americanrntechnology has produced a direct hit, arnbit like the children’s game “Battleship.”rnFor those of us on the outskirts of OklahomarnCitv that dav, it was again to ourrntelevisions that we turned to learn thernexplanation for what we had heard.rnWalking past the student lounge afterrnclass, I noticed the grieved and serious,rnbut unsurprised, face of my Kazakh studentrnamong others watching the television.rnI stepped in for a moment andrnlearned the news.rnResponses during the first days variedrnwidely. The response of one of my colleaguesrnwas to buy copies of all the newspapersrnpublished within a 500-milernradius for the next few days, more as souvenirs,rnI think, than for information,rnsince they all reported basically the samernthing. According to the Daily Oklahoman,rnthe city’s only major newspaper,rnand according to local television and radiorncoverage, some people reacted to earlyrnreports of Middle Eastern involvementrnby treating local Arabs with deepenedrnsuspicion and, in several cases, with outrightrnhostility. One man reported thatrnneighbors banged on his door so fiercelyrnthat his terrified pregnant wife miscarriedrntheir child. The higher-ranking officialsrnof the BATF office located in thernMurrah Federal Building had respondedrnin advance to the tragedy by not havingrnshown up for work that morning. Thernsecretaries who worked in the BATF officernresponded by dying a violent death.rn(For weeks after the bombing, the DailyrnOklahoman published lists, classified byrnjob, title, and office of the dead, as theyrnwere unearthed and identified. Sincernthe date invited the connection of thernbombing with the Waco event, my husbandrnand I looked specifically to seernwhether BATF officials were also killedrnin the bombing or had inexplicably escapedrnharm.) During the ensuing weeksrnof searching the rubble for the bodily remainsrnof victims, Oklahomans droverntheir cars with headlights on as a show ofrnsympathy, awareness, and solidarity. OnrnApril 19, 1996, the headlights were oncernagain lit, as drivers silently proclaimedrnthat those who had lost loved ones werernnot forgotten.rnThe most common response by far,rnhowever, can be summed up in the expression,rn”Not here!” Things like thisrnjust don’t happen in middle America,rnnot in Oklahoma. I heard it over andrnover again. Oklahomans were only expressingrna typically American naivete.rnAmerican involvement in the wars of thern20th century has alwavs occurred “overrnthere” or “somewhere in the Pacific” orrnin the “European theater.” Theater!rnWho thought up this way of naming arnwar zone: as if we were all simply watchingrna play! Now, however, it has turnedrninto a Breeht play, durmg which the actorsrnon stage turn and pelt the audiencernwith stage props. “No fair!” the audiencerncries, forgetting that there never was arnprotective wall of separation between thernstage and the rest of the theater; therernwas only air.rnFaced with the opportunity to feelrnwhat it might be like to be an Iraqi or arnBosnian Serb on the business end of arn”smart bomb,” or, more genericallv,rnwhat it feels like to live in the majority ofrnthe world’s countries—most of whichrnhave been touched by some sort of massrnviolence in this century—we insteadrnlearned about self-pity and denial. Onernspecifically morbid response of the televisionrnand news magazine media was tornfocus on the children in the daycare centerrnas the bombing’s most important victims.rnPerhaps it was because they werernlittle and cute and could be carried awayrnbv burly firemen with soot-streaked,rngrieving faces. Perhaps they representedrnhow small and vulnerable everyone feltrnin the face of such a tragedy.rnGarnering a certain measure of sympathyrnis inherent in the telling of a storyrnand is part of what makes one thingrnnewsworthy and another not. It is relevantrnthat people were killed, maimed,rnwidowed, and orphaned by the bombing.rnIf the perpetrator had bombed arngrove of trees in Roman Nose State Park,rnfor example, the story would rightlyrnbe thought relatively unimportant. Therneffect of an event on human lives is anrnessential part of a news story. When,rnhowever, the news media go beyond establishingrnan item’s newsworthiness andrnattempt to get their audience to sufferrnvicariously with the victims of a disaster,rnthis is going too far.rnHuman compassion carries with it, byrndefinition, the desire for action to relievernthe person’s suffering. Yet the compassionrnof the newscast’s audience, howeverrnsincere, cannot reach the Liberians, thernBosnians, the orphaned children of soldiers,rnor the victims of the OklahomarnCity bombing. True morality belongs insteadrnon a local level, and matters ofrncompassion should be left to the families,rnthe churches, the communities, thernneighbors, the Red Cross. Long-distance,rnvicarious suffering is simply notrnreal suffering. It tricks us into thinkingrn40/CHRONlCLESrnrnrn