Shortly before President Barack Obama took to the podium in the East Room of the White House, junior Daniel Haddad was watching Celebrity Apprentice on NBC. The broadcast was interrupted by a news bulletin. Haddad’s first reaction was of frustration.
“I just thought, ‘Well dammit, who’s going to be voted off the Celebrity Apprentice?’” Haddad said.
Soon, however, he realized the real news was bigger than Donald Trump’s reality show.
Osama bin Laden had been killed by U.S. forces in northern Pakistan.
Haddad said he turned 21 years old just a few days before and immediately knew where to go after he heard the news.
“Something told me to be at Kilroy’s,” he said.
Haddad grabbed a Michael Jordan Toon Squad jersey, because it was red, white and blue, and borrowed an Uncle Sam vest from a friend before heading to Kirkwood. When he arrived at about 12:30 a.m. he said he was surrounded by patriotism and patriotic gear. He said he saw people “decked out in red, white and blue, decked out in flags, decked out in hats.”
Haddad said Kilroy’s was filled with cheers and chants exulting America. The crowds sang along to “It’s America” by Rodney Atkins, “Proud to be an American” and other patriotic songs.
“I was there with friends. I was there with students. I was there with Americans,” Haddad said. “It was one of the coolest acts of patriotism I’ve ever been a part of.”
This was a much different atmosphere from what Haddad remembers of Sept. 11, 2001. Sitting in a sixth-grade classroom in Arlington Heights, Ill., Haddad was convinced his father had died. His father was on a business trip to New York and had a meeting scheduled high in the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
Late in the day, neither Haddad nor his family had heard from his father since he had left a frantic voice message in the morning as the towers fell.
“That’s the first time I really felt like I grew up,” Haddad said. “I just immediately started thinking, what am I going to do? I’m the oldest of three boys. Am I going to run this family now?”
Later that evening, Haddad finally heard that his father was safe and sound, but Haddad still carries the memories of that day. He still gets choked up talking about it nearly 10 years later.
“Sometimes I’ll fight with my dad,” he said. “I just think about how I’m glad I’ve got a dad to fight with.”
Sunday night, however, was a time to celebrate, not to mourn. He was excited to be out, “both as someone who was personally affected by 9/11 and as a citizen of America.”
“This is something the college generation will remember forever,” he said. “Where they were on Sept. 11 and 10 years later when we got the man responsible.”
Haddad said he stayed at Kilroy’s until 2:15 in the morning.
He posted on Facebook that, “there is no place more patriotic tonight than Kilroy’s On Kirkwood.”
“I’m proud to be here. I’m proud to be an American. I’m proud to be an IU Hoosier,” he said. “Last night it didn’t matter if you were a greek, a GDI, in-state student, out-of-state student. Last night we were all Americans.”
Sophomore Kaitlyn Walker was studying for her corporate finance exam on the third floor of the west tower of the Herman B Wells Library on the night the news broke.
Like many studying, Twitter was open in a window for proper procrastination. Walker, a policy analysis major, kept studying and checking Twitter occasionally.
At 10:30 p.m., something caught the admitted news-junkie’s eye.
“Mystery presidential address at 10:30 on a Sunday night and I’m nowhere near a television. #PolicyAddictFail,” she posted on her account.
At that point, Walker realized she needed to move from her spot on the third floor to a television on the ground floor. She found a group of students huddled around a television without sound, trying to learn any new information.
“Might have left prime real-estate at the library to locate the nearest TV.
#nerdconfession,” she posted.
While waiting for the president to speak, she continued to check her phone for Twitter updates. A friend recommended a link to a C-SPAN live-feed. By this point, she had made it back to the third floor and had heard the news from Twitter.
Osama bin Laden had died.
“I’ll never be able to forget Herman B Wells now,” Walker tweeted at 10:47 p.m.
Walker said the third floor in the Wells Library was so silent you could hear a pin drop. Students were studying and checking the news, but they were still completely silent.
Then, from the stairway, she heard a shout.
“Kid just busted through the doors on quiet floor of the library to yell ‘Osama bin Laden is F-ing dead’ followed by chants of ‘America’ #USA,” Walker posted at 11:20 p.m.
After that, Walker said the mood changed. Once the murmur from the interruption settled, the floor was quiet again, but there was a palpable energy. Walker said that it was doubtful that any student was getting much studying done, as everyone seemed to be checking the Internet for updates.
Fifteen minutes later, President Obama took the podium. Walker said that every computer was watching the live-feed of his speech. Walker tuned in on the whitehouse.gov feed.
“Getting chills watching all the other students staring intently at their computers watching POTUS address the nation. #MobilizedYouth,” she tweeted at 11:37 p.m., two minutes after the president began his speech.
After the official announcement, Walker said it was difficult to keep studying, even though the floor had become quiet again. Studying was not an option when there was so much to watch unfold online.
“Things I need to do: study for my two finals tomorrow, Things I am capable of doing: stalking news sites and twitter,” she posted.
Walker stayed in the library until shortly after 3 a.m., when she finally let the news sit for the night.
Cans of Busch Light and Pabst Blue Ribbon surrounded a small American flag hung from a stake-in-the-ground turned flagpole in the lawn of a Varsity Villas apartment late Sunday night. A cold drizzle made the dark night uncomfortable, but out of the cold, dark, damp night, the hoots and hollers of the three residents of the apartment turned the atmosphere from dreary to celebratory.
Toby Keith’s “American Ride” blared from inside, but the song was skipping as if from a bad connection.
“We gotta start this song over,”senior Zach Otto shouted from the porch.
“That’s us, that’s right. Gotta love this American ride,” blasted the country song’s chorus from the little townhouse.
Otto called his neighbors, seniors Phil Sollman and Shayne Guinn, when he saw the news that bin Laden had been killed flash across the TV screen. The group, seven in all, grabbed beers and shotgunned them while playing “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue” by Toby Keith.
Sollman said that the group then began sprinting around the complex in the rain, singing the “Star-Spangled Banner” and “God Bless America,” waving flags and shouting as fireworks went off overhead, launched from nearby apartments.
That’s when they christened the makeshift flagpole with ducktape in the front lawn.
“Every headline in the world tomorrow: Osama is dead,” Otto proclaimed. “America wins!”
As cars drove by, the trio shouted and raised their beer cans in the air. More often than not they were received with a celebratory honk of the horn or yell out the car window.
Sollman, who was wearing a red, white and blue cutoff t-shirt with “AMERICA” written across the chest, did not seem worried about the possibility of reactionary attacks in response to the terrorist leader’s death.
“Yeah, of course they’ll try to retaliate, and then we’ll kick their ass again,” he said. “I love America and I’m glad we killed Osama.”
“You’re not going to find anyone more American than us,” Sollman said. “Osama fucking bin Laden is dead!”
They spent the evening shouting and celebrating the American victory from their porch. The cheers from the trio could be heard from across the Varsity Villas complex. The shouts were victorious and patriotic, defiant and celebratory. Otto, Sollman and Guinn stayed out until around 1 a.m. before moving the celebration to Kilroy’s in full-American gear.
They had to first wake up roommate, senior Tyler Barnett, who had gone to bed early and missed the big announcement. Guinn woke him up with triumphant news and a beer.
“As soon as I saw [Barnett’s] excited expression, I pulled out a Busch Light and handed it to him,” Guinn said.
The troupe then moved to Kirkwood, windows down, flags waving and music blaring.
“It was one of my prouder moments of my college career,” Sollman said.
