Authorizing Representation By the Senate Legal Counsel in the Case of Desmond Bellard V. Ronald Wyden, U.S. Senator

Floor Speech

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Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I join my colleague in expressing some frustration that we can't vote on the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It is the kind of stuff that drives people crazy back home for an individual that is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Most people back in my State of Oklahoma think this has already been done. But to not be able to move on this, to literally have my Democratic colleagues block it and say we are not going to allow the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for our military to be able to be there, it is just another one of those moments of Washington, DC, gridlock and frustration, especially when this person moved out of committee with a vote of 24 to 4.

That is overwhelming bipartisan support. There is just not controversy about this nominee. But now suddenly to be able to have a game, to be able to say we want to be able to stall this out and maybe block this person until after Easter, so we don't have a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is frustrating for people to say: Come on, just have the vote.

So I join my colleagues on the Republican side to say: What is the problem? Everyone knows this person is going to be voted on and is going to be approved because there is such wide bipartisan support, but for my Democratic colleagues to say: Nope, we want to drag this out for weeks, I just don't think it is the right thing to do. Clearly, they disagree, but I don't think it is the right thing to do. 30th Anniversary of Oklahoma City Bombing

Mr. President, next week, Oklahoma and the Nation will pause for a moment, and we will remember, nationally, for a moment, on April 19 at 9:02 in the morning.

And some people will look around and go, ``Has it been 30 years?'' and other people will say: ``What happened 30 years ago?'' because it depends on your generation of when you were born and how old you were or if you were even alive in 1995, but if you were alive in 1995, you remember where you were when the news came out that there was an explosion at a Federal building in Oklahoma City.

It was the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. A man who was mad at the government and determined he was going to cause an uprising of people to take down the Federal Government pulled a Ryder truck in front of a Federal building, loaded it with diesel fuel and with ammonia nitrate, lit fuses, walked away, got in his car and drove away.

As he drove away, behind him, the explosion went off that killed 168 people, including 19 children who were in the daycare center on the ground floor. And our Nation was forever changed.

We pause every year still in Oklahoma. We have never forgotten. Every year, we think about those who were killed and those who survived and those who were changed forever. We remember every single year, as we will again this year on the 30th anniversary, and we will pause to remember.

The people that are around us in Oklahoma are our neighbors, they are our friends, but many of them are also survivors or family members of survivors or family members of those who are lost. There are still police officers and firefighters that have literally never been back to that location because it is too painful to be able to return to a spot where they carried out the bodies of their friends and neighbors.

There are individuals that their family was truly forever changed. And now, 30 years later, they still get together and talk and visit, catch up with each other. There are survivor networks that still engage and still keep in contact with each other, remembering what happens when out-of-control anger took the lives of 168 people.

On that sacred ground, there is still a quiet reflection pool. There are 168 chairs there to remind people of the 168 lives. There is a phenomenal museum that is next to it that people come to literally from all over the world to study terrorism, domestic terrorism in particular, and to be able to walk through what happened in the crime scene and how it was so quickly resolved. We have law enforcement, first responders, families and communities that come from everywhere just to be able to learn and to reflect.

There are children that survived the daycare center that are now adults. Let me give you two: Brandon and Rebecca Denny. Brandon was 3 years old, and he literally barely survived his injuries; in fact, doctors gave him a 10 percent chance of survival, but he did. As an adult, he works to still help and serve others.

Rebecca, she was rescued from the rubble at 2 years old. She now has a family of her own. She speaks powerfully, still, about forgiveness over bitterness.

They were some of those miracle babies that survived. Many of the children around them did not.

This past week, it was really a remarkable moment that a lot of people in this town probably missed, and I understand. There is a lot of things going on right now. But on the south side of the Capitol, there was a spot of dirt that was dug up there and a group of Oklahomans, along with the Architect of the Capitol, buried a seedling tree.

Now, that may not seem like a big deal on the Capitol grounds, but there aren't many trees that are planted on the Capitol grounds. Many of the trees that are on the grounds are 100 years old or some, 200. This is a great historic place and a spot of reflection.

But in one spot there, we just planted a tree. And you may say: What is the big deal about that tree? Well, if you are in Oklahoma, you already know the rest of this story, but I would like to be able to tell this body the rest of that story.

On April 19, 1995, when that truck bomb explosion took place, it took 168 lives. It destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. Across the street was the Journal Record Building; it just demolished a big section of that as well, blew out all the windows, destroyed it. In the parking lot there in front of that building was an American elm tree. It was a scrubby tree growing in a parking lot. If you have seen a tree in the parking lot, you know it is not usually the healthiest looking thing, but it was just growing there in the middle of the asphalt. But when the explosion happened, it literally destroyed all those lives. But for that tree, it blew literally every leaf off of that tree. But the force of the impact and the heat of the impact was so strong, that it literally turned the tree. The bark literally that usually has this nice little stripe as it grows literally has a turning point in it and around it, and everyone just assumed that tree is dead. No one paid attention to it.

In the year of the cleanup and all of the recovery and what was happening during that time period, no one paid attention to it, until the next spring, that scrubby little tree in the asphalt started sprouting. And people were shocked. It is alive. And suddenly it went from being a scrubby tree in the parking lot that was just going to be cleared out to being a sign of hope.

So we cleared the asphalt and everything else away from it. An arborist came and began to fertilize it and to take care of it. That scrubby little tree is now nicknamed ``The Survivor Tree'' now, and it is the picture of Oklahoma after that bombing. We survived.

That scrubby little American elm tree is now enormous 30 years later. Its branches and its leaves spread out over that site. It is the shaded spot. And on the morning of April 19, there will be survivors and families that will sit under its branches. And as we pause for 168 seconds and as we read the names of those who we lost, they will be underneath that Survivor Tree thinking again of: We survived. We are still here.

The term ``the Oklahoma standard'' was born during that time period as neighbor helped neighbor and as we cared for each other and the people who came to our home from all over the world, literally.

If you walk into my office, you will see a picture of the Survivor Tree that is there. How does that seedling that we just planted and that Survivor Tree connect? Well, that seedling is a daughter of that Survivor Tree. A seed was literally picked up off the ground under that Survivor Tree, was planted and grown, and now it is about 3 feet tall. That seedling, that daughter, we just planted 30 years later at the U.S. Capitol so that this Nation will never forget the out-of-control anger that turned to violence and hatred.

It is our prayer from Oklahoma that, as people walk down the path outside, that they would stop and read the plaque beside that little seedling tree. That in the decades ahead, it will grow to be a giant American elm, just like its parent, the Survivor Tree, and that people would remember the lives that were lost, those who survived, and those who were changed forever.

That is our hope. That is why that tree was planted on the Capitol lawn this week.

My simple request for my colleagues: April 19, it is a Saturday--when it comes, at 9:02 central time, would you just pause with us for just a moment and remember? Join us because we will absolutely never forget.
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