It's been a fascinating night.
It was simple enough for awhile -- I was quietly watching my favorite baseball team, the New York Mets, on Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN. Good game until the Bottom of the 8th when Philadelphia tied the score 1-1.
Then sometime around the early Top of the 9th, the camera went to show the announcing crew in the announcers booth. The main dude looking at the camera said, along the lines of, "We have some breaking news coming into us now."
--"Okay, it's something related to baseball that's pretty big," I thought.
"You can turn to your local ABC station,"
--"This is not baseball related," I quickly thought after I heard "ABC."
"...for more on the apparent killing of Osama Bin Laden."
WHAT?!?!?!?!?!
WOW! I was left breathless. I immediately hit the buttons for the Fox News Channel and Geraldo was talking about it. Up from my chair I was. While momentarily standing I started to cry before I descended to my knees in front of my TV. Worshiping a false idol it may have appeared I was. But no, I was overcome with such emotion at this breaking news. I listened intently while my eyes kept filling with tears.
The President was set to speak in a little bit. Couple minutes of that and I went back to baseball. Game, game, game, tied 1-1 in the 9th, hopefully a Mets win in the 9th or in extra innings with a chance to maybe beat the 1st place Phillies.
Back to Fox News Channel. Let me check NBC. CBS. ABC. They're all covering this before the President is set to speak. Back to baseball. Then here to Christian Forums to see what's been posted in News & Current Events. Anything in American Politics? Yup for both.
Baseball was soon forgotten about. I switched to CNN and parked it there while posting like crazy to the thread in American Politics about the news.
A second time and then a third and then a fourth I paused what I was doing and really focused on this news, each time breaking into tears. Wow.
I grew up just 22 miles northwest of midtown Manhattan so maybe 25 or 26 miles from downtown and the Financial District where the World Trade Center stood. I recall a late winter day my senior year of high school when some pipes froze and our school was closed. We didn't learn of the closure until arriving in the parking lot before Homeroom. Myself and my best friend Chris and our friends Amy and Erica decided to go into New York City. We drove to Ridgewood and took the train to Hoboken and then the subway under the Hudson. We headed to Little Italy for an early lunch at a great Italian pizza joint and then down to the World Trade Center for a ride to the Observation Deck on the 110th flood. After that we took the subway uptown and wandered around Times Square for awhile. Twas such a wonderful and carefree day.
Couple years later my friend Jennifer got a summer internship at some firm in the WTC. She'd often work late and I'd head into the city to meet up with her and we'd go grab some dinner somewhere and then ride the train together back to Jersey. About a handful of time I did that and each time I'd head to the North Tower of the WTC, walk into the lobby and head right on up to the 79th floor where she worked.
Another WTC remembrance was from the golf course I worked at as a caddy: the Ridgewood Country Club. From the 3rd hole fairway on the Center Course, in the distance you could see the tops of the World Trade Center towers.
Driving towards Paramus on Route 208/4, around the church in Hawthorne, you could also see the WTC from there.
And as a wee youngin', well, maybe around 12 or 13, my parents took me and my brother to Windows On The World, the restaurant at the top of one of the towers.
Lastly, bein' just 20+ miles away, my small hometown of Oakland, New Jersey is a suburb of NYC. My town and surrounding towns lost people on 9/11, commuters who worked in the towers. One person who died from one of the planes crashing into the South Tower used to buy my friends and I beer. He was the older brother of a high school friend who I used to hang out with. In the blink of an eye, someone I knew died on 9/11.
So the WTC has always been a part of my life in a somewhat big way.
Oh wait, one more anecdote, one year I was arrested near Madison Square Garden on 34th Street for not paying to ride the PATH train (the subway to New Jersey.) I was young and stupid and knew that late at night you could hop the turnstile . . . unless cops were watching unbeknownst to the turnstile hopper. Three people I was with were busted for drugs while I was not. I should have been given a ticket and let go but they handcuffed me and hauled me away, too. We were taken by the Port Authority Police to an area below the World Trade Center. On the way, one of the cops was nice enough to be our tour guide, pointing out, "This is were they tried to blow up the World Trade Center," referring to the February 1993 terrorist attack there. Reconstruction was still going on at the time. Work was happening to repair the underground garages where the cops still had a holding cell area working. After a day and a half in jail, I had a way cool public defender with Doc Marten boots on and the judge apologized saying I should have been let go with a ticket.
Anyway . . . where was I? It's been a long history between the WTC, NYC and me. 9/11 was very, very personal. The images aren't on TV anymore but around the anniversaries, I can't even watch the video on the news, it's that painful. I literally must cover my eyes or turn away.
I'll always remember the day when President George W. Bush started the attack against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Football was on, or almost on, on a Sunday afternoon. It was around 12:45 pm, I think, Eastern U.S. time. The pre-game show was almost over, about 15 minutes to go, and Greg Gumbel or someone said they had to go to Washington for an address by the President. The war had formally started.
"Dead or Alive" W. had said at one point shortly after the attacks or sometime after the war started. "Dead or Alive."
Now 9½ years later, Dead or Alive is the exact same thing President Obama carried out in Pakistan to get Osama Bin Laden. Dead or Alive. It would have been preferable if he had been taken alive. Reportedly he was given a chance to surrender but didn't. A woman was even killed who was being used a human shield for Bin Laden. Just as much as he did on 9/11, he probably died hating America and us infidels who don't believe in their extremist brand of Islam.
There's been so much emotion in me since that news broke all those hours ago. It's not been celebratory but it's been satisfaction. Justice. He had every chance to give his life to Christ and repent for his sins . . . but we can only guess that he most certainly did not. I've sometimes thought that with a gun in my hand, loaded with just one bullet, and the opportunity, that I might kill him myself. Many a Christian probably thought that very same thing. It's a conflicting feeling. No Christian should think such a way. But of all the people on the planet, I thought that way about only 1 out of over 6,775,000,000 people. I don't think that makes me blood thirsty. Maybe I would've let that bastard live if I had the chance to kill him. I don't know for sure. Now that he's dead I know that there's some feeling of closure. The War on Terror is not over. Terrorism against Americans and against other places in the West is still a threat. But Bin Laden's dead. Finally. Millions of Americans will live their lives just a little happier from now on. That's weird and feels wrong to say about someone who had died . . . but Bin Laden was no Mother Teresa. He was evil personified and his death makes the world a better place. For that I not necessarily rejoice but I know justice has been achieved.
(And through all of these emotional hours, I never even took 30 seconds to check to see if the NY Mets won or not. Like most Mets fans, I wrote this whole 3-game series off as a loss against the best team in baseball, but maybe they happened to win. Compared to the news of the night, it doesn't even matter.)
It was simple enough for awhile -- I was quietly watching my favorite baseball team, the New York Mets, on Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN. Good game until the Bottom of the 8th when Philadelphia tied the score 1-1.
Then sometime around the early Top of the 9th, the camera went to show the announcing crew in the announcers booth. The main dude looking at the camera said, along the lines of, "We have some breaking news coming into us now."
--"Okay, it's something related to baseball that's pretty big," I thought.
"You can turn to your local ABC station,"
--"This is not baseball related," I quickly thought after I heard "ABC."
"...for more on the apparent killing of Osama Bin Laden."
WHAT?!?!?!?!?!
WOW! I was left breathless. I immediately hit the buttons for the Fox News Channel and Geraldo was talking about it. Up from my chair I was. While momentarily standing I started to cry before I descended to my knees in front of my TV. Worshiping a false idol it may have appeared I was. But no, I was overcome with such emotion at this breaking news. I listened intently while my eyes kept filling with tears.
The President was set to speak in a little bit. Couple minutes of that and I went back to baseball. Game, game, game, tied 1-1 in the 9th, hopefully a Mets win in the 9th or in extra innings with a chance to maybe beat the 1st place Phillies.
Back to Fox News Channel. Let me check NBC. CBS. ABC. They're all covering this before the President is set to speak. Back to baseball. Then here to Christian Forums to see what's been posted in News & Current Events. Anything in American Politics? Yup for both.
Baseball was soon forgotten about. I switched to CNN and parked it there while posting like crazy to the thread in American Politics about the news.
A second time and then a third and then a fourth I paused what I was doing and really focused on this news, each time breaking into tears. Wow.
I grew up just 22 miles northwest of midtown Manhattan so maybe 25 or 26 miles from downtown and the Financial District where the World Trade Center stood. I recall a late winter day my senior year of high school when some pipes froze and our school was closed. We didn't learn of the closure until arriving in the parking lot before Homeroom. Myself and my best friend Chris and our friends Amy and Erica decided to go into New York City. We drove to Ridgewood and took the train to Hoboken and then the subway under the Hudson. We headed to Little Italy for an early lunch at a great Italian pizza joint and then down to the World Trade Center for a ride to the Observation Deck on the 110th flood. After that we took the subway uptown and wandered around Times Square for awhile. Twas such a wonderful and carefree day.
Couple years later my friend Jennifer got a summer internship at some firm in the WTC. She'd often work late and I'd head into the city to meet up with her and we'd go grab some dinner somewhere and then ride the train together back to Jersey. About a handful of time I did that and each time I'd head to the North Tower of the WTC, walk into the lobby and head right on up to the 79th floor where she worked.
Another WTC remembrance was from the golf course I worked at as a caddy: the Ridgewood Country Club. From the 3rd hole fairway on the Center Course, in the distance you could see the tops of the World Trade Center towers.
Driving towards Paramus on Route 208/4, around the church in Hawthorne, you could also see the WTC from there.
And as a wee youngin', well, maybe around 12 or 13, my parents took me and my brother to Windows On The World, the restaurant at the top of one of the towers.
Lastly, bein' just 20+ miles away, my small hometown of Oakland, New Jersey is a suburb of NYC. My town and surrounding towns lost people on 9/11, commuters who worked in the towers. One person who died from one of the planes crashing into the South Tower used to buy my friends and I beer. He was the older brother of a high school friend who I used to hang out with. In the blink of an eye, someone I knew died on 9/11.
So the WTC has always been a part of my life in a somewhat big way.
Oh wait, one more anecdote, one year I was arrested near Madison Square Garden on 34th Street for not paying to ride the PATH train (the subway to New Jersey.) I was young and stupid and knew that late at night you could hop the turnstile . . . unless cops were watching unbeknownst to the turnstile hopper. Three people I was with were busted for drugs while I was not. I should have been given a ticket and let go but they handcuffed me and hauled me away, too. We were taken by the Port Authority Police to an area below the World Trade Center. On the way, one of the cops was nice enough to be our tour guide, pointing out, "This is were they tried to blow up the World Trade Center," referring to the February 1993 terrorist attack there. Reconstruction was still going on at the time. Work was happening to repair the underground garages where the cops still had a holding cell area working. After a day and a half in jail, I had a way cool public defender with Doc Marten boots on and the judge apologized saying I should have been let go with a ticket.
Anyway . . . where was I? It's been a long history between the WTC, NYC and me. 9/11 was very, very personal. The images aren't on TV anymore but around the anniversaries, I can't even watch the video on the news, it's that painful. I literally must cover my eyes or turn away.
I'll always remember the day when President George W. Bush started the attack against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Football was on, or almost on, on a Sunday afternoon. It was around 12:45 pm, I think, Eastern U.S. time. The pre-game show was almost over, about 15 minutes to go, and Greg Gumbel or someone said they had to go to Washington for an address by the President. The war had formally started.
"Dead or Alive" W. had said at one point shortly after the attacks or sometime after the war started. "Dead or Alive."
Now 9½ years later, Dead or Alive is the exact same thing President Obama carried out in Pakistan to get Osama Bin Laden. Dead or Alive. It would have been preferable if he had been taken alive. Reportedly he was given a chance to surrender but didn't. A woman was even killed who was being used a human shield for Bin Laden. Just as much as he did on 9/11, he probably died hating America and us infidels who don't believe in their extremist brand of Islam.
There's been so much emotion in me since that news broke all those hours ago. It's not been celebratory but it's been satisfaction. Justice. He had every chance to give his life to Christ and repent for his sins . . . but we can only guess that he most certainly did not. I've sometimes thought that with a gun in my hand, loaded with just one bullet, and the opportunity, that I might kill him myself. Many a Christian probably thought that very same thing. It's a conflicting feeling. No Christian should think such a way. But of all the people on the planet, I thought that way about only 1 out of over 6,775,000,000 people. I don't think that makes me blood thirsty. Maybe I would've let that bastard live if I had the chance to kill him. I don't know for sure. Now that he's dead I know that there's some feeling of closure. The War on Terror is not over. Terrorism against Americans and against other places in the West is still a threat. But Bin Laden's dead. Finally. Millions of Americans will live their lives just a little happier from now on. That's weird and feels wrong to say about someone who had died . . . but Bin Laden was no Mother Teresa. He was evil personified and his death makes the world a better place. For that I not necessarily rejoice but I know justice has been achieved.
(And through all of these emotional hours, I never even took 30 seconds to check to see if the NY Mets won or not. Like most Mets fans, I wrote this whole 3-game series off as a loss against the best team in baseball, but maybe they happened to win. Compared to the news of the night, it doesn't even matter.)
