Video

Video by Clayton Cummins

PJ Allen at Tinker Air Force Base

72nd Air Base Wing

March 12, 2025 | 3:04

Thirty years have passed since one of the darkest days in Oklahoma history. On April 19, 1995, ex-Army Soldier Timothy McVeigh parked a rented truck in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City. At 9:02a.m., McVeigh detonated a powerful bomb inside that truck turning what was a peaceful downtown block into a warzone.

PJ Allen, an aviation technician at Tinker Air Force Base, was just 18 months old when his grandmother dropped him off at the America’s Kids Daycare located in the Murrah Building on that fateful day. At the time Allen’s grandmother, Delores Watson, was working up the road when the bombing occurred.