House panel urges Purple Hearts for victims of Oklahoma City

The House Armed Services Committee approved an amendment to its defense policy roadmap that calls on the Defense Department to award the Purple Heart to six military members killed in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

Rep. Steve Russell (R-Okla.), an Iraq War veteran, proposed the measure. It was adopted in an en bloc of amendments to the fiscal 2016 national defense authorization act (NDAA) by voice vote.

The votes comes after the Army recently awarded the Purple Heart and its civilian equivalent to the victims of the 2009 Fort Hood mass shooting and another attack that occurred at a recruiting center in Little Rock, Ark., that same year.

A provision in last year’s NDAA expanded eligibility for the Purple Heart by broadening what should be considered an attack by a “foreign terrorist organization.”

The Oklahoma City attack, carried out by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, two Americans who had no ties to terrorist organizations.