Timothy McVeigh BY: BOBBY ARCHEY

Timothy's Life McVeigh was born on April 23rd, He was raised by his father after his parents got divorced when he was only 10 years old which made him upset and also made him a target for bullies at school. Many people that knew him described him as a very shy kid who kept to himself most of the time as he didn't make very many friends. He had one girlfriend in high school but didn’t know how to communicate with females so it was a short lived relationship. McVeigh supposedly told a reporter during a break in an interview that he didn’t have a high sex drive like most other boys in his school, he only had a very strong urge to die. He graduated his high school with poor grades although he was prolific at computer hacking and actually hacked into government systems. He graduated high school and at the age of 20 he graduated from military school.

Timothy's Military Career McVeigh had a very celebrated career in the military. He received a Bronze Star for his service as a vehicle crewman in the Persian Gulf War and was also the top scoring gunner using the 25 mm cannon in the Bradley Fighting Vehicles that were a part of the 1st Infantry Division. He was later a part of Operation Desert Storm with the 1st Infantry Division. In the battles in Kuwait, he was very disturbed at the fact that the U.S. army executed surrendering Iraqi soldiers and even more by the destruction that the city suffered. He aspired to be a part of the U.S. Army Special Forces but did not meet the physical requirements and dropped out of the training and soon after decided to leave the army. Timothy soon after was honorably discharged from the army on December 31st, 1991.

Timothy's Motive McVeigh was extremely angered by the way the American Government handled raids they had planned out. The main source of his anger came from the Waco Siege. He was extremely against he U.S. government taking away guns from citizens because he believed that the government was becoming way too powerful and were going to eventually take all rights away and the citizens would have no way to fight back. He handed out cards that had the information of an American sharpshooter named Lon Horiuchi and sent many hate messages to him that threatened his life and his family members, some family members that worked in the building he later bombed in Oklahoma City.

Oklahoma City Bombing McVeigh and his partner Terry Nichols constructed a bomb that was made of amonium nitrate and nitromethane and loaded 5,000 pounds worth of the explosive compound into the back of a rented Ryder truck. He and Nichols drove to the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19th, 1995 and lit the 2 minute fuse at a stop light and parked the truck in front of the building. The bomb destroyed the entire front end of the building which had a children's daycare center on the second floor of the building. The blast from the bomb had killed 168 people including 19 children that were in the daycare center and injured over 650 more. McVeigh was given the death penalty for this bombing and was executed by lethal injection on June 11th, 2001 and Terry Nichols was sentenced 161 life sentences without parole. This act of terrorism still stands as the most significant act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history.

Social Control Theory Timothy McVeigh was driven by his personal beliefs. He believed that the American Government was trying to take away citizens' rights and wanted to show them that it was completely unacceptable. He believed the only way to show this was to commit an act of terrorism on U.S. soil that would enrage people and encourage them to take up arms to defend their country and others around them.