Bin Laden dead: shot heard ’round the world

Where were you when you heard that Osama bin Laden had been killed by American commandos? I think I can say with perfect certainty that you could never imagine where I was.

I can’t believe it myself. For my husband and me, it was the morning of May 2 and we were docked in Fujairah, one of the smallest of the United Arab Emirates. Our ship would be there for one day, and we were signed up for an excursion to see the sights. We turned on CNN in our cabin; it was 7:30 a.m. Fujairah time, and late Sunday night in the U.S.

Osama bin Laden dead … Navy SEALs rappel from helicopters into a secret compound in Abbottabad … bin Laden shot in the left eye. Then again, through the heart.” Hunted down and dead, at last, and no Americans killed in the raid that etched a place in history for its daring and precision.

The news pierced right through the cocoon of our month-long cruise half a world away. Still in our cabin but glued to the TV, we listened to the president’s brief speech. It was about 11:30 p.m. stateside. We realized that many Americans were probably asleep and wouldn’t hear the news until the next morning. Boy, did we feel far from home.

The truth? We cried. I don’t think I realized how much the grief of 9/11 still weighed on my heart. Ten years after the devastating attacks that altered our cultural DNA, here was a moment of — what? Justice? Triumph? Satisfaction? Dare I say, the pleasure of knowing that an American hand had struck the final nail, sealing the coffin of a murderous fanatic?

A strange note: On the night of the raid, we were sailing through the Gulf of Oman, 1,000 miles, as the crow flies, from the bin Laden compound in Pakistan. After dinner, my husband and I walked around the deck. We looked out at the water and we noted the pitch-black night. Just a few stars. No moon.

“A perfect night for a pirate attack,” my husband said. Such threats were real on this particular voyage. But as it turns out, it was also a perfect night to take out bin Laden; men and machines were already in the skies over the Abbottabad compound.