Earlier today, a friend of mine from Canada sent me an instant message on MSN messenger. The first thing she said was “You must be thrilled 
Last night I got the CNN breaking news email a few minutes before 10 pm that said CNN was reporting that Osama bin Laden had been killed and immediately turned off my dvd player and put on NBC. By that time, Brian Williams and company had already taken over and I realized that it was true. I say that because when I first saw that email from CNN, I did a double take and didn’t quite believe it. But the way Brian Williams was talking about it, I knew it had to be real. I spent much of the next hour shaking my head in disbelief. Ultimately I stayed up to watch President Obama speak. I thought his remarks were quite good and very appropriate.
Even this morning as I watched the special edition of The Today Show and they talked through what happened and what it means going forward, I never stopped to really process my own feelings on the matter. Whether you knew someone killed on 9/11 or not, that day forever changed how Americans viewed and interacted with the world. Yes, it also meant changes around the world but the biggest changes took place here in the United States.
It’s now been 24 hours since I heard the news and I’m still no closer to sorting out how I feel. I didn’t know anyone who was killed on 9/11. I don’t live anywhere near any of the places attacked on 9/11 and yet 9/11 changed everything. There’s so much about that day that I’ll never forget. I’ll never forget when we began bombing Afghanistan. And now, the reason for going to war in Afghanistan is over. We went to war to find Osama bin Laden, one of the masterminds of the 9/11 attacks and (at the time) the leader of Al Qaeda. I know there’s always been a part of me that wondered if we’d ever find Osama bin Laden. I know that finding him now doesn’t handle the bigger Al Qaeda issues and yet there’s something hugely symbolic about the US finally getting Public Enemy #1. I’ve not celebrated his death, but I’m glad to know he can no longer plot against the good and decent people of the world.
Now the question is where do we go from here? The death of Osama bin Laden closes a chapter filled with horrific lows and hopeful highs. However, I don’t believe this is the end of America’s story, so the question now is what does the next chapter bring us? What direction do we want to go?
