Monday, May 2, 2011

Historic

"He did resist the assault force, and he was killed in a firefight," an official said. NBC News reported that he was shot in the left eye.

"I've never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure." 
- Mark Twain

"Don't celebrate death; celebrate justice."
--Derek Webb





Osama bin Laden is dead. Terrorism is still alive. Evil is still alive. This can be seen as a moral victory, but for those who lost loved ones in the war or due to any terrorist attack, even bin Laden's death cannot bring the dead back to life. 

However, this was a historic occasion. I remember where I was nearly 11 years ago during 9/11 -- I was in math class in high school, and I heard that a plane had flown into the Twin Towers. We thought it was an accident, though.

Then the Pentagon was attacked, and we realized this was no accident. This was pre-meditated. This was intentional.

I left school early and was glued to the news for the next 24 hours. Scared, I called my dad, who drove 18 hours from his job to be with me and my mom. I just knew we would go to war immediately. I just knew this would be something like WWI or WWII.

I remember the day we declared war. It was my roommate's birthday. We sat in our dorm room, eating cake, and watched the firestorm over the Middle East.

And, now, I remember the moment I heard that U.S. forces killed bin Laden. My husband and I had been watching the last Michael Scott episode of "The Office," and his brother texted him with the news. We immediately paused the show. He turned on a news channel, and I turned on the computer after not finding any news via my smartphone. We stayed up to watch the president's speech. And then we went to bed.

Where were you May 1, 2011?

6 comments:

Mari said...

I was home - had worked the night before, but hadn't yet gone to bed. I ended up not sleeping, and watching news coverage. I'm glad justice was served, but as you said terrorism is still alive and I can't be happy that he will be in hell.

misti said...

Hmm...was in bed watching Scrubs and got a text message from Kim. Pulled the news up on my iPhone! Then (couldn't resist) had to check facebook to see if it was blowing up. Which it of course was.

I saw a Derek Webb quote (love him) this morning: "Don't celebrate death; celebrate justice."

Penny said...

Ahh, thanks for that quote, Misti! I actually like it better!

Brooke said...

love the derek webb quote!

i was in bed. jay said "obama is calling a press conference - i bet its about OSB" i thought it was a weird jump to make. guess not

Sara@iSass said...

Rob and I were about to watch a DVR'd show, I had to go to the bathroom, and when I came out Obama was walking to his podium. I said "Why are you watching CNN? Is'nt there some kind of sports on?"
Then I saw the scrolling bit about Osama being killed. We sat there and watched until Brian Williams said "We'll be signing off from regular NBC station's but will continue over at MSNBC. So we went to bed and I turned on MSNBC.
I think what bothers me most, He was living in a damn mansion. I don't believe for one second the Pakistani's didn't know he was there. Um, hello there's a big mansion out in the middle of nowhere, did they think it rained one day and grew? Oh, AND the using the woman as a shield...that's a class act. I'll gaurd my tongue from saying anything further. Evil is still around and kicking this world in the crotch.
I have to add, when you said you were in High School when the planes hit, that made me feels really OLD! LOL ;)

David said...

We saw the news leading up to the speech on a television above the luggage carousel at DFW airport as we were returning from vacation. But the speech was delayed and we didn't find out what it was all about until we got to my truck and turned on the radio.