Mountain View Property Reduced, Priced to Sell

(Reprinted from Sunday's Times and News-Star)

Is it just me, or did you look at video and pictures of the bin Laden Compound and think, “Man, a million dollars sure doesn’t buy what it used to.”

Despite the back yard mountain view, this place is not exactly the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port. On tape, it looks more like a kennel compound, or an auto salvage yard – no offense to auto salvage yards. I guarantee you that at least twice a week, somebody knocked on the front gate and asked, “Got anything in a Labrador or a collie, or a fender for a ‘04 Fiesta?”

This place reportedly costs a million bucks? Somebody overpaid.

What are cinder blocks going for in Pakistan these days, 500 bucks each?
Another thing: I’ve decided never to use Abbottabad Fencing Company. Ever. Not impressed.

I imagine a crooked sign out front of the property today. “Sand and Stone Rentals and Properties: Just Reduced! Priced to Sale! (Will need some minor repair…)”

It is true that during the lifetimes of all peace-loving people, not all terrorists will be “eliminated.” But one has been. There is one new “vacancy” sign today.

A child asked me this week why everyone was so happy that a man had died, even if he was a bad, bad man. And I told her that “happy” might not be the word – though it might be. An evil life leads to death, and I think what people were celebrating was the end of something evil. If Hitler kills six million Jews or if bin Laden is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans and his own countrymen, no love will be lost for their passing.

It’s pom pom time. Seeya!

Along those lines, I am so grateful that the Navy SEALS are on the same side we’re on. God bless them. If the United States military and our special ops forces are after you, it’s just over. I’m sorry. You might as well sack up the equipment and come on inside because the game is done. Good night Irene. Lights out. There is not a rock big enough or a hole deep enough…

Imagine where you might have been on a lazy Tuesday in March of 2004. A lunch meeting in 2007. A nap on an August afternoon in 2009. Anytime you’ve been doing something in the past nine years and eight months, somebody somewhere in cammo and a short haircut was figuring out how to put a bullet in the head of a guy intent on destroying America and more American lives. Or Muslim lives. All innocents.

Every second of the day and night for the past nearly 10 years, somebody has been tracking, working on finding one guy.

Relentless.

Night-vision goggles. Chinook helicopters. Guns and knives and ropes and purpose.
Once the SEALS strapped on their gear and lifted off from their secret location, it was all over but the shooting and the shouting.

I like that so much is secret about the SEALS and the U.S. Army Delta Force and all of America’s special operation forces. You don’t send out press releases in these outfits. They are very secretive, very needed, doing very dangerous work that has to be done, and I hope they at least sense how much they’re appreciated by their countrymen and by all who cherish peace and human dignity.

In this case especially, the “vacancy” sign tells me all I really need to know.
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