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Washington, D.C.—The passage of time has done little to ease the sorrow over the loss of 168 men, women and children murdered in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) said today, the seventh anniversary of the bombing.

“Just as we mourn the terrible losses from terrorist attacks of Sept. 11,” the NTEU leader said, “we remember and mourn the loss of our colleagues who died in Oklahoma City in 1995 while in the service of others. These needless deaths, wherever they occur, serve to underscore for all of us how precious each life is.”

President Kelley said it is important for the nation to remember, particularly as it continues with a lengthy and difficult war against terrorism, that terrorist attacks are not random.

“They are designed not just to kill,” she said, “but to instill fear and mistrust.” To that end, both the attacks of last September and the bombing of the Murrah building failed, because the attacks “did not deter

us from applying our best efforts to making this a better country.”

The NTEU leader noted a continuing surge in support from the American public for the work of government employees at all levels in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, emphasizing in particular the number of

political leaders who time and again have identified those who worked so hard in the attack aftermath not only as government workers, but as unionized government workers.

“For most people, it is one thing to criticize this or that government program or agency in some abstract sense,” Kelley said. “It is quite another when they put a face and a life to the work of public employees,” she added. “Most often, the criticism is replaced with thanks for a job well done.”

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing some 150,000 employees in 25 agencies and departments. It maintains a banner reflecting its sentiments after the Oklahoma City bombing. In black letters on a white background, it reads: “We Mourn. We Care. We Remember.”