Reaction to Osama Bin Laden's Death...

Hearing news of Osama Bin Laden's death brings back many memories of September 11, 2001 for me. Some good, some bad. I was working at MetLife in Warwick at the time.  I remember getting out of my car in the employee parking lot that day thinking, "What a shame it is that I'm going into work." It was such a beautiful day. The sun was shining, the sky was blue with little white clouds. Who knew that my world, and that of everyone else, would change less than ten minutes after I walked up to my desk.

The first phone call I received was from someone at one of MetLife's New Jersey offices.  The guy on the phone told me to find a TV, because a plane had just hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center. I ran over to the Claims unit because I knew that they had a TV there.  It was easy to find it. There were at least two dozen people standing around the TV, staring at it, dumbfounded. I got there in just enough time to see the South Tower get hit by the second plane. My next thought was that we were all going to die. My boss ended up letting all of the employees leave early that day.  My friends went with me to the RI Mall so we could donate blood. The RI Blood Center had set up a donation center on the lower level.  It was an interesting wait to give blood. The original crew of Trading Spaces, including Ty Pennington, were standing in line right behind us. As famous as they were, no one went up to them to get an autograph. I think that everyone was still in shock by what happened. We stood in line for almost 2 hours before being told to go home, that they had enough blood.

My husband, Jason, has different memories of that day. At the time 9/11 happened, he was in the Navy, stationed aboard the USS Juneau in Japan.  He and the others on board the ship who were sleeping were awakened by others. Jason was only one of a few select group of Navy personnel on the ship at the time who were specially trained for certain weapons. He was immediately put on watch and the USS Juneau was sent to the Middle East 2 days later.

I know that many people, like myself, can remember exactly where they were, what they were doing, and how they felt when 9/11 happened. I still feel hurt and anger at what happened.  Am I happy that Osama Bin Laden is dead? I can say honestly yes and no at the same time. Yes, because now Osama Bin Laden can never personally thrust his evil upon the world any more. No, because I feel that his death will not stop anything. I feel that possibly it could get worse.