Freedom of Speech

May 2nd, 2011 is a day that will go down in American history as a major turning point in America's war on terror. Although many people will think of the day as the day that an elite force of American soldiers assaulted Osama Bin Laden's hiding place and killed him, I'll remember the day as a time when our country came together to celebrate and rejoice because a man responsible for countless murders and crimes against our country is no longer able to do so. Although it's true that the death of Bin Laden will not go without retaliation from his followers, for the time being many Americans can feel a sense of closure knowing that one of our country's greatest enemies is no longer a threat.

I remember exactly where I was when I first heard this news and I remember exactly what I chose to do as a result. I was sitting at a kitchen table doing homework when a friend came in an informed me that Osama Bin Laden had been killed. I went onto facebook and my newsfeed was filled with statuses relating to his death and I then turned on the news. Another friend then came in and suggested we go to celebrate this great day in American history, and what better way to celebrate it than to travel to the capital of our country. So, that's what we did.

We arrived at DC just after 2AM and our first reactions were kind of confused ones. At first glance the city looked like a dead zone. There were literally no people and we were in dead silence when we got out of the car and began heading for the white house. We could see the Washington monument sticking out of the ground lit up in the dark night sky and that was literally the only thing we could see worth noting. We began our small trek to the President's home.

All you had to do to  find the white house was follow the flashing red and blue police lights and the crowd of people giving out high fives, chanting "U S A!" wearing absurd amounts of red, white and blue. You could feel the enthusiasm of the people from 5 to 7 blocks away from the white house. People driving down the straights were laying their hands down on their car horns and had passengers sticking out of all their windows screaming. Some cars were blasting music and had passengers standing up out of the sun roof waving their hands.

Here's what it looked like approaching the white house, the crowd was massive. Police officers were standing all throughout the are and you could tell they weren't too happy about being at work at 3AM on a Monday. You could hear the people all screaming out of joy and excitement at this point and the urge to run into the crowd and celebrate was unbearable.

This picture was taken in front of the white house and shot to show how far down the street the crowd went. You can't even see the end of the crowd in the picture, but you can see multiple American flags waving in the air and a few other interesting red white and blue articles of clothing like that guy's hat on the right of the picture. The chants were overwhelming from the center of the crowd and you could see news crews running around filming and snapping pictures to try and capture the moment and the high spirits in the crowd.

The final picture I took features the white house and the crowd in front of it. The white house really stands out with all the spot lights on it, and if you look closely you can see the American flag flying over the white house. This is a really awesome sight to me, it shows how much people care for their country and is a strong demonstration of patriotism. I stayed at the celebration till 5AM but I am more than certain that some people stayed their until the sun come up. It's too bad Obama probably had trouble getting some shut eye last night but I think he'd agree it was worth it to see the people he leads celebrate on account of what I'd consider his best decision yet as president. The one thing I can't stress enough about the photos above is that all the people featured in them are celebrating, and that it was an incredibly peaceful albeit very loud celebration. I have now seen multiple people make posts that are opposing the celebration in DC and calling it "blind patriotism" or referring to it as "the DC riots." Take it from someone who was there, both these statements are so far from the truth I can't even begin to understand how people got those ideas into their heads. What occurred in DC on the morning of May 2nd, 2011 was patriotism at it's finest and the celebration that took place demonstrated support for our country and the decisions made by it's leaders.