A Quiet Dignity

Osama bin Laden was an evil man, there is no doubt of that. He had evil in his heart and he did evil deeds. He killed American lives by the thousands and proudly bragged about it, looking for ways to continue killing ‘The Great Satan’. It is good that he is dead. It is good that he will kill no more. However, to celebrate a man’s death, an evil man’s eternal damnation, feels wrong.

America should be proud. We should be relieved. We should be well pleased with our remarkable Military. But we should not gloat. We should not sing and dance in the streets, shouting “USA! USA!” We should have a quiet dignity. Our military men, those enigmatic Navy Seals, did their job and they did it well, and they should be praised and given the highest honors for a job well done. But we should not revel in an evil man's demise.

If we sing and dance and gloat and revel, how are we any different than the evil that we are trying to overcome? Do we not remember the anger, the fury, that was stirred up in the American heart at the images of the Battle of Mogadishu when the desecrated corpse of U.S. Staff Sgt. William David Cleveland was dragged through the streets of Mogadishu? Or when the servicemen involved in the ill fated rescue mission of the Iranian Hostages were drug through the streets of Tehran during massive street protests?

I realize that we are not dragging the body of Osama bin Laden through the streets, but perhaps a little more restraint is called for. Let us not become that which we are fighting against. We are Americans. We are better than this. Be proud. Be grateful. Say thank you to our service men and women, and then employ a quiet dignity.