SAC community reacts to the death of Osama bin Laden:
Still shocked from the wreckage of a hijacked plane crashing into the south tower, then 9-year-old Jesse Martinez watched on TV as another plane slammed into the north tower of the World Trade Center. At that moment, his aunt was on the 85th floor. She did not make it out.
“I watched it live when the jets crashed into the smoking building,” Martinez said.
A feeling of justice overwhelmed Martinez, now a SAC football player, as he learned Sunday evening that Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, was shot and killed in Abbotabad, Pakistan, during a raid conducted by elite special forces, the U.S. Navy Seals.
“Justice has been done,” President Obama announced to the world close to midnight Sunday.
For the millennial generation born from 1980 to 2000, like Michael Kuzara, the death of bin Laden signifies a sense of closure.
Kuzara woke up on Sept. 11 to face a shouting, confused and scared mother — the chaos of the towers coming down, the images of the planes smashing into buildings. America was under attack.
“After that, I took into consideration what happened, and I felt sorry for all the people, so after I graduated high school, my first decision was to join the military,” Kuzara said.
The anger over the first successful attack on the U.S. mainland has been avenged, but second year SAC Fire Tech major and Naval seaman Jorge Zuniga says it is not over.
“They bombed the twin towers and we went to war with them. We killed bin Laden. That’s probably what they’re going to do, start another war,” Zuniga said.
The decision of the president not to release the photos of bin Laden was announced Wednesday, because “there is no need to spike the football,” President Obama said.
The refusal of the Obama administration to release photos of a dead bin Laden might stir controversy among skeptics.
“I think it’s really just to help Obama … keep the mind off the economy,” Juan Jaime, a freshman paralegal major, said.
Jacob Broaddus, a first year freshman and tight end on the SAC football team, said he questions what will come of bin Laden’s death.
“I feel like he’s been out of the picture for so long that I really don’t know that it will make too big of a difference,” Broaddus said. “I feel like it definitely gives a good boost to our troops.”
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