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"...unless you've lived in or around Waco, you don't know the Davidians. I lived in Waco and 15 miles from Waco. There was trouble at their "compound" every weekend."

Ditto that. I was a freshman at Baylor in Waco at the time. I'll never forget hearing about the Davidians during the first week of my New Testament class that January. My instructor told us about this group of people who had come from California and settled outside of town because they felt that when Jesus returned, it would be to Waco (of all places!). Don't you know that a room full of college kids thought that was hilarious! Then, of course, it was just the next month when the initial raid took place. We were certainly buzzing with surprise and interest to see Waco make the national news. Supposedly, the Davidians were tipped off by John McLemore, a reporter from our local CBS affiliate, KWTX (he seemed to disappear from the face of the earth shortly thereafter, as you can imagine). As you said, N8VTXNinWV, we were always hearing about the goings-on at the compound, long before the national media picked up the story (I can't tell you how many times the local news broke into 'Days of Our Lives' to bring us the latest from Mt. Carmel...very frustrating to a college girl at the time. lol). After the initial raid, lots of us drove out there to see what the heck was going on. Before long, though, everything was blocked off so that we nosy spectators could no longer get close enough to see anything. I'll never forget watching the fire 10 years ago today. I sat in my best friend's room down the hall and we were just transfixed by the scene. We didn't cry, we were just shocked. We had certainly heard about this self-appointed messiah who had multiple wives and lovers, including young girls. We knew about the stockpiled weapons, and the pledges to die for Koresh, rather than leave the compound. No, we didn't cry. We were just angered by Koresh and stunned over the needless tragedy. It didn't occur to me then to be angry at the government; I was just disgusted at David Koresh's perversion of Christ.