Done, Done, On To The Next One

In light of the recent news of last night I am going to switch gears and take a little break from my usual nonsense.  Don't worry, give me a few days and I will be back to writing about junk food and 80's movies.  Today I wanted to comment on the death of Osama Bin Laden.

I was right in the middle of my normal Sunday night routine of wasting time looking at Facebook and half listening to the TV that was on for background noise.  Suddenly I heard a phrase that I was not expecting to hear last night or really any other night, "Osama Bin Laden is dead."  I'm sure many of you had the same reaction that I did when I just stared at the TV for a minute with my mouth hanging open.  It had been so long, I couldn't believe it finally happened.  I was captivated, I couldn't take my eyes off of the television screen.  This was in small part because of Wolf Blitzer's breathtaking beard, but primarily because of the words coming out of his mouth.

So many things have happened in the almost ten years since 9/11.  Our thoughts have moved on to other more trivial  things like Charlie Sheen and Snooki.  Many of us were probably unsure of whether or not we were even still looking for Bin Laden.  Personally I thought he probably died a few years ago and it was covered up by his people "Weekend at Bernie's" style.  Who knows if the grainy cheap camcorder images of him were shot now or 20 years ago.  But all doubts about the efforts of our military and intelligence were finally put to rest when the announcement was made yesterday evening that he was dead. 

So what does this mean?  It certainly doesn't mean that the game is over and we can let our guard down.  There is still work to do.  I am quite certain that the terrorist organizations have had plans in place for his death for awhile.  I imagine whoever is right below him on the scumbag org chart just moves up a spot.  That does not diminish the importance of Bin Laden's demise.  I think it is a message to other evildoers that no matter how much time passes, you are never off the hook.  So if you want to mess with us, we're going to get you.  It may not be today or tomorrow.  You may have to endure a decade of sleeping with one eye open.  But it will happen. 

The other positive thing is that I feel like there is some nostalgia going on for that post 9/11 unity that we had in this country.  For example, last night when the news was breaking, there was a Phillies/Mets baseball game going on.  It was the 9th inning and the score was 1 to 1 (9/11....crazy right?).  Now the divisional rivalry between the Phillies and the Mets isn't quite Yankees/Red Sox or Rocky/Mr T, but it can get nasty at times.  Fans of both teams chanted in unison, "U-S-A!  U-S-A!  U-S-A!"  I hope we can hold onto this feeling longer than we did last time. 

So today take a second and be thankful that the world got just a little bit safer yesterday.  If you see a current or former member of our armed services take a second to stop and say, "Thank you."  Or it would be even better if when you saw them you bought them a beer or a sandwich to say thank you.  Either way let them know you appreciate everything they have done.  God bless America.