I debated whether to post on this topic, but since someone beat me to it, here are my thoughts:

I always regarded Bin Laben very personally - as in he tried to kill ME, and did kill people I knew. I don't believe in celebrating death, but I have found myself quite emotional about the news.

In many ways my experiences on 9/11/01 are what led me here to ETS. The only reason for my survival that day was luck. Yes, I made good decisions, but people standing only yards away from me at the time the second plane hit - who had made the same decisions as me - were killed or maimed for life. I didn't like knowing that I owed my survival to luck, so I sought to educate myself, and found this great resource. (Note, there was little if anything I could have done that morning to take luck out of the equation, and I've made peace with that. Sometimes you will find yourself in a situation where either your time has come or it hasn't. Finding yourself in the middle of one of the largest terror attacks in history is certainly one of those situations.)

To bring things full circle, this morning I reminded my wife to keep her situational awareness up during her commute into NYC. No headphones on while in crowded places, etc. And we reviewed her plans for getting home to me and the kids if something bad should happen. She's much more prepared to handle adversity now, thanks to all I have learned on this forum. I hope she does not have to put the knowledge to use.

May God bless our troops, give our leaders this wisdom to navigate through treacherous times, and give our first responders the strength they will need to respond to whatever retaliation is thrown our way.