Editor's Story: Osama bin Laden's Death Brings Closure and Hope

Editor's note: is the editor of Oakland Township Patch.

When I learned of Osama bin Laden’s death, I was sitting on my couch in Rochester Hills editing a video for Patch.

When I first heard about the attack on the twin towers nearly 10 years ago, I was a freshman at DePaul University in Chicago, IL, sleeping late on my day off.

When I first heard the words “my unit is deploying to Afghanistan” escape from my husband’s lips in 2006, I was working in the child center at Lifetime Fitness in Tempe, AZ. Our son was crawling around the infant room behind us; I almost collapsed.

My husband, Army Specialist , deployed with his Army National Guard unit – B Co., 1-158 Infantry Battalion – to Khost, Afghanistan, near the Pakistan border, in 2007. He was gone for 16 months.

For those of you who have ever had a loved one serve overseas, you understand. You understand the crushing heartbreak you feel in the days after he deploys, the agony of still smelling him on your pillow that first night when he’s already halfway to Kuwait. You understand what it’s like to hear the phone ring and have your heart leap out of your throat because it might be him calling. You understand worrying day and night, even in your dreams.

There are hours spent writing letters, composing emails, assembling care packages. You bake cookies you hope will last long enough to make it to Afghanistan. You make special trips to Lee Lee’s Asian Market store for his favorite jerky, so he can have a taste of home while he’s 6,000 miles away.

You stop watching the news.

You scrape together enough money for a video camera just so he can see his infant son grow into a toddler. So he can watch his son learn to run, jump, throw. Say, “Hi, daddy,” and, “I love you” to the camera. You cry softly into your pillow almost every night because your son can’t kiss his daddy goodnight. Then you cry some more because your pillow doesn’t smell like your husband any more.

If you have a loved one in the military, you also understand what it’s like to imagine – as much as you try not to – the ways your soldier could die.

Maybe he’ll get shot. Maybe a mortar will land on the barracks while he’s asleep. Maybe an RPG will tear through the side of his Humvee. Most likely, it will be an IED exploding beneath his truck – after all, he’s lead convoy driver.

For two of Jesse’s fellow soldiers, it was IEDs. One soldier left behind a wife and two little girls; the other was just 19 years old. I went to one of the funerals, but I don’t remember it.

While Jesse was in Afghanistan, an RPG exploded near his vehicle, he and his fellow soldiers were mortared almost daily, and he once missed driving over an IED with his Humvee by a couple inches. He was lucky.

Would he have been in Afghanistan if it were not for bin Laden and the events of 9/11? I don’t know. What I do know is that I’m glad. Glad Jesse is alive, and glad bin Laden is dead.

I know Bin Laden’s death will not mean the end of the fighting, and I’m sure more American lives will be lost in Afghanistan and Iraq, but his death still brings closure and hope to those of us who have been waiting almost a decade for this day.

This is a victory for Americans, and especially for the families of the victims of 9/11. It is also a victory for the men and women of the U.S. military who have served bravely and honorably since 9/11. As Obama said, “Justice has been done.”

Though we are divorced now, my ex-husband and I are still very good friends, and we have a beautiful son who will forever unite us.

He has never asked for recognition for his service, which makes me even more proud of him and the sacrifices he made for his country. I know Jesse is also glad bin Laden is dead, and I hope he feels proud of all that he and his fellow soldiers have accomplished.