A FITTING CODA TO SEPT 11, 2001

(Some media comments regarding  Bin Laden’s death with which I largely agree).  President Obama, “Justice has been done”.  Leon Panetta stated: ” Bin Laden is dead. Al-Quida is not”.  The terrorist attack on the Twin Towers 9/11/2001 is riveted in memory. That morning I shared watching TV in stunned silence with Vietnamese elderly students. I was tutoring them to read and speak English. What struck me is that both my wife and I felt somewhat uncomfortable with the celebrations at the White House and Ground Zero. Largely a group of college youth shouting USA! USA! Does our discomfort having something to do with age perspective?  Rudolph Guiliani, NY mayor in 2001,  spoke of satisfaction with Bin Laden’s demise but felt “uncomfortable with the celebration.”  Harry Waizer, a 9/11 survivor,  stated: “If this means there is one less death in the future, then I’m glad for that. But I just can’t find it in me to be glad one more person is dead, even if it is Osama bin Laden”.  So I take  “a sober satisfaction with the raid  – that “put a coda on the grim decade 2001-2011”. We share with those who lost loved ones on 9-11 at ground Zero and the Pentagon “the pain of remembrance”.