Americans celebrated early Monday in a show of patriotism against the man who committed his life to attacking U.S. citizens, while those directly affected by Osama bin Laden's terrorist plots quietly reflected on the closure finally gained from his death.
In front of the White House, a chant of "U.S.A.! U.S.A.!" filled the night air, and the quickly growing group spontaneously broke into an off-key rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner."
"I was in D.C. during 9/11," said Mason Wright, 33, who recalled his days as a student at American University, watching a second plane hit the World Trade Center in 2001. "It's hard to believe 10 years later, it's over."
"It's terrible to sit here and celebrate someone's death, but to the thousands of lives that were lost -- it's finally come to an end," he added.
Alan Comar, 29, worked as a contractor in Afghanistan. He clutched his girlfriend as he watched hundreds clad in red, white and blue gather in front of the White House.
"There's very few of those got-to-be-there moments," the Washington resident said. "This is one of them."
Dustin Swensson, who recently served in Iraq, echoed those comments, calling the news "historic."
"It's what the world needed," he said as he celebrated outside the White House gates. "(I'll) always remember where I was when the towers went down and I'm always going to remember where I am now."
The mood was much more somber at the Pentagon memorial a few miles away, where 184 people died when the hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 crashed there on September 11, 2001.
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