"All-American Monster" - 9781573920889

At 9:02 A.M. on April 19, 1995, the serenity of America's heartland was destroyed when a massive explosion leveled one side of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, and the reality of terrorism shocked the nation. Damage from the blast covered many city blocks; 168 men, women, and children were killed; and an estimated 500 were injured. On April 21, Timothy McVeigh was formally charged as a suspect in the bombing.
More than a year after the bombings, as the wheels of justice grind slowly toward a trial, the nation, in its shock and horror, still asks: Who is Timothy McVeigh? Why would anyone commit such a horrible act? What turned a seemingly ordinary small-town boy - a decorated former soldier and war hero - into an alleged mass murderer and the most hated man in America?
Journalist Brandon M. Stickney answers many of the compelling questions surrounding McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing, and puts this critical information into the broader perspective of McVeigh's childhood, his educational and military service, and his efforts to find meaning and purpose in life. In this thoroughly researched and sensitively written biography, the author, a reporter and native of the western New York area where McVeigh was born and raised, draws on his own personal experience, available documents, and numerous interviews with McVeigh's family, friends, and associates to offer intimate details of McVeigh's life - factors that contributed to his startling transformation from all-American boy to "All-American Monster."