The announcement Sunday that Osama bin Laden was dead – killed by U.S. Forces in the mountains near Pakistan – unleashed a torrent of emotion and celebration from American citizens not seen for some time, at least not by me.
The monster was dead at last.
Revelers stormed the White House, waving flags and chanting “U-S-A! U-S-A!”; college campuses and town squares erupted in cheers; Toby Keith probably wrote another song.
And a 9-11 widow on his Delta Airlines flight, KING-5 TV reporter Jim Forman wrote on Twitter, broke out in tears and was comforted by everyone else aboard the plane – a firm albeit brief moment of redemption in a decade-long war that’s often had very little of it.
And I thought of my cousin, Brian.
Brian is a sailor in the U.S. Navy. He enlisted a few years back, but up until this spring had never been stationed further afield than in a land-locked city in the southern United States, where he had spent months in training.
Brian is a few years younger than me, a college graduate from California whose father served in the Navy, too. He was frustrated with the job market at home and had talked often about going to grad school, but then adjusted course and chose the Navy instead.
We don’t see each other as much as we did when we were kids, when my family’s vacations would take us down south every summer, and his hockey tournaments would bring him north in winter, but we’ve kept in touch online.
I always enjoyed his stories – about the cool radar equipment he was learning to use, or the weekend he and his fellow sailors spent celebrating in Boston after graduating into active duty. Wearing their dress whites, they didn’t pay for a single drink for two days.
We never talked about war, or terrorists, or whether or not he was scared of either.
He wouldn’t have told me anyway, even if he was, so I never asked.
We last talked on Facebook, me on the laptop in my kitchen, him on a plane en route to somewhere in the Middle East. I asked him where he was ultimately headed, and he said it was classified, but before signing off, added:
“Dude, I’m headed 20,000 leagues under the sea to places you honestly don’t even want to know about.”
I don’t doubt that he’s right. And it made me feel guilty that, moments before, I’d been complaining to my girlfriend about having to take the garbage out to the curb in the rain.
In previous conversations, Brian would tell me repeatedly that he was bored, stuck in his tiny apartment with lawn chairs for furniture and a small TV he bought for cheap, because all his stuff was still back home in California.
And though he ached for something to do – he wanted to go where something, anything was happening – I took some solace knowing that unless he slipped in the shower, the chances of him suffering some kind of water-related tragedy were slim.
But now bin Laden is dead, his Al-Qaida terrorist organization has vowed revenge on America – and Americans – and I don’t know where my cousin is.
It’s been weeks since we last talked, although I’m constantly reminded of him by the American quarter in my wallet. I didn’t put it there on purpose – it’s just some leftover change from a recent trip to Las Vegas – but I haven’t taken it out either, upon first discovering it mixed up with my Canadian currency.
Because every time I see it, or run my fingers over the embossed eagle on its one side while searching for coffee money or a stashed-away receipt, I think of my cousin, who is still thousands of leagues under the sea in places I don’t even want to know about.
I just hope he gets home OK.
Nick Greenizan is the sports reporter at the Peace Arch News.
