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Originally uploaded by maria jpeg

The news started to trickle out around 10:15 last night that US Forces with help from US Intelligence agencies had found and killed Osama Bin Laden in Abottabad, Pakistan. I got the news during the cleanup from yesterday’s Sweetlife Festival, and as the news began to firm up, the word passed through the remaining staff at Merriweather Post Pavilion, and everyone’s eyes lit up.

For those of us who were resident here ten years ago when Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, this is a day that many of us thought wouldn’t come. The first response from everyone I told was raised eyebrows and surprise, followed almost universally with a fist-pump.

There’s been a lot of hand-wringing this morning on social media services about what it means to celebrate in the face of another death among the tens of thousands that followed the attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon in September of 2001. But celebrate many did, with a raucous gathering in Lafayette Park and around the Northwest Gate to the White House last night, and spilling up Vermont Avenue toward K Street.

The photos from our Flickr Group are just starting to flow in as people wake up and process what it was that happened last night.

In a town where we’ve had more cause for mourning than celebration, to see DC go wild like it hasn’t since Election night in 2008, well, color me happy for the momentary jubilation.

Tom Bridge

I live and work in the District of Columbia. I write at We Love DC, a blog I helped start, I work at Technolutionary, a company I helped start, and I’m happy doing both. I enjoy watching baseball, cooking, and gardening. I grow a mean pepper, keep a clean scorebook, and wash the dishes when I’m done. Read Why I Love DC.