Celebrate This: Coming to Terms Over The Killing of Osama Bin Laden

It’s been over one week since we learned that Osama Bin Laden was killed by the US Navy’s mythical Seal Team Six while conducting Operation Neptune Spear halfway around the world. It is only now that I can begin to put into words the thoughts and emotions flung into motion on the first day of May, 2011.

In the hours and days that followed, celebrations, planned and unplanned broke out. All forms of media were energized by the dramatic death of the most notorious man of our time.

News commentators and pundits of all types repeatedly made the amusing gaffe of transposing “Obama and Osama” in their sheer excitement to proclaim the “good news.” As I listened to this, I chuckled and thought, why don’t we just call him Bin Laden? This way we can avoid sounding like Ted Kennedy.

"Then Lend the Eye a Terrible Aspect"

This is one great video. It is not my intention to glorify war or the warrior by this post. I wish to make this very clear at the outset. War is a scourge; it is sorrowful and wasteful. Strong steps should always be taken to avoid it, if at all possible. We would say this about anything that brings about suffering. Still, we can not avoid suffering entirely.

The video may sound gruesome but it illustrates the essential mindset of the warrior; it is necessary for the warrior to “lend the eye a terrible aspect” because warriors of a good a decent people are, by their nature, peace loving; this does not necessarily make them cowards though. Without this “aspect,” this “summoning of blood,” the warrior has no chance for survival or victory over evil because of his peaceful nature. Therefore, this summoning emerges not from lust but from love. Sad as it is, and condition of our fallen nature, we have to respect those who stand in the fire and fight to keep evil at bay. This is the point of this post and nothing more.  We Americans tend to be plain spoken and blunt. Nevertheless, I still see some of the classical ideas for summoning courage in this piece. I hear Shakespeare in this video. Here are just a few quick comparisons.

From The Warrior Song:

"I'm a one of kind....Stand with me, you'll never stand alone."

“come to the nightmare, come to me….the shadow of death is the one I cast.”

“aim with the hand, shoot with the mind, kill with a heart like arctic ice.”

From Shakespeare's Henry V:
"But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,"

From Shakespeare's Julius Caesar:

"Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war!"

From Shakespeare's Henry V:
“In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;”

Also, if you listen to the video carefully I think you can hear R. Lee Ermey singing one of the choruses.

The video and lyrics can be found together at this link.

A WAR BY ANY OTHER NAME…revisited

I wrote the first article on 9-11 about one month after 9-11-01 and submitted it to the Contra Costa Times. (I have it posted here on my blog under the date of October 4, 2001) Of course, they never published it. What a surprise.


Looking back on my concerns of the time, I am saddened by the fact that what I feared has, for the most part, come true.

A WAR BY ANY OTHER NAME…

It has now been one month since our nation was transformed once again. On September 11, 2001, we were changed forever in the blast of fire, rubble, horror, and hate.