One Crucial Lesson to Add to Rachel Maddow's TV Special on Timothy McVeigh

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Rachel Maddow's MSNBC documentary, The McVeigh Tapes: The Confessions of an American Terrorist, which was broadcast multiple times last week to mark the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, offered not only an historic investigation but a cautionary tale. Militias and right-wing extremist groups are on the rise, both the Department of Homeland Security and the Southern Poverty Law Center report, and each week the discourse and decorum of professional hate-mongers at the right wing of media, government, and advocacy organizations reach new lows. The documentary, a level-headed examination of both the perpetrator and the victims of the largest act of terrorism ever inflicted by an American citizen on American citizens, could not be more timely, coming only weeks after the arrest of a Michigan-based militia group allegedly plotting against government agents and coinciding with much publicized march on Washington by gun rights groups. "We ignore this, our own very recent history of anti-government violence and the dangers of domestic terrorism, at our peril," Maddow warned in an ad for her show. But there's another equally important lesson to be learned from the McVeigh story: we ignore our government's recent history of violence, both abroad and at home, at the greatest peril.

Before the Wars

Much has been made of McVeigh's early involvement in guns, which his grandfather Ed McVeigh launched when Tim was 14, with the gift of a .22 caliber rifle. Pendleton, NY, McVeigh's rural hometown outside Buffalo, was a community that hunted for food, a more moral and humane practice than buying industrially raised and slaughtered meat, McVeigh would later argue in a letter to a local paper. And much has been made of McVeigh's early interest in survivalism, another practice founded in a harsh upstate realities. When McVeigh was nine, a blizzard crippled Buffalo; cars got buried and people froze to death. Like many other families, the McVeighs ran out of basic supplies, which led to the family practice of stockpiling water and food. The Buffalo in which Timothy McVeigh came of age was suffering brutal economic conditions as well. Banks and factories closed or contracted, collapsing local businesses and real estate. The large radiator plant that had provided two generations of McVeighs (UAW members and Democrats) with secure, if wearying, work stopped hiring. After high school and an uninspiring year at a local technical college, McVeigh moved in and out of dead-end jobs, filling his time with his hobbies of guns, computers, and survivalism, but his frustration mounted. He wanted work and a life, and soon McVeigh made the choice than many young people with limited means and prospects made in the late eighties: he joined the military.

The Army

By all accounts, McVeigh found himself in the Army, which he joined in May 1988, a month after his 20th birthday. As a soldier, his teenage interest in machinery and guns could flourish and his early survivalism could morph into a disciplined military lifestyle. To a fellow soldier interviewed by journalists Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck for their book, American Terrorist -- Maddow's documentary, in which they both appear, is based on their tapes -- McVeigh was "the epitome of infantry." But the histrionic rituals of violence and killing turned him off, McVeigh told Michel and Herbeck: "Twenty times a day, it would be, 'Blood makes the grass grow! Kill! Kill! Kill!' You would be screaming that until your throat was raw. … If somebody put a video camera on that, they would think it was a bunch of sickos." Disciplined, talented, and highly intelligent, McVeigh finished basic training with the highest grades and an unmatched score of 1,000 out of 1,000 points in marksmanship. To his delight, the Army invited him to apply for the Special Forces, a perfect match for his interest and skills, but before he could try out he was shipped to the Gulf, to wait for the looming war.