The first murder I witnessed was at age 3, on September 11, 2001. Although I was too young to fully grasp what the burning towers across the Hudson River meant, I soon came to understand that many families around us had lost someone forever. (I later learned that, like many other New Yorkers, my aunt barely missed becoming one of the victims by being late to work.) And I heard that a stranger from a strange land named "Osama bin Laden" was responsible.
A little under a decade later, the U.S. government announced that it had killed bin Laden, to the jubilation of my middle school classmates. But the end of bin Laden did not bring the relief that Americans were hoping for. President Barack Obama was quick to warn the public that "his death does not mark the end of our effort." In fact, the worst of the war on terror was yet to come.
