Five years ago on September 11, 2001 I was thousands of miles away from home. My husband and I were vacationing in paradise, the island of Phuket, Thailand. It was evening in Phuket, and we were eating dinner with friends at an outdoor café. One of our friends had finished eating and decided to browse at some of the nearby shops. A little while later Jackie came running up to the table telling us to come watch television in a nearby jewelry shop, she said something terrible was happening in New York City. We rushed into the shop, just in time to see the second plane hit the World Trade Center. We stared at the screen in stunned disbelief. None of us knew quite what to say. We watched television for a bit longer then decided to head back to the hotel as quickly as possible. In the cab on the way home I remember looking at my husband and saying that Osama bin Laden had planned this, that no one but him could have planned such a deadly and terrible plot against America.

We never felt afraid, just stunned and disoriented. I remember we could only get two TV channels that fed coverage of the disaster, one of which was MSNBC-Asia. I remember watching Ashley Banfield broadcasting from the streets of NYC covered in white ash. We flipped back and forth between those stations for hours, crying and talking, trying to understand the unthinkable. The next morning, Alan said 'this is a terrible thing but there's nothing we can do about it, we have to go on,' and he was right. Sitting and being miserable in our hotel room didn't serve any useful purpose. We certainly weren't going home for several days even if we wanted to, we were staying put for now. So we ventured out and everywhere we went we watched the images on television and felt peoples concern and sorrow for our loss. When the Thai people found out we were Americans they went out of their way to express their sympathy. Even though Thailand is a primarily Muslim country we were never exposed to any rudeness, or meanness. My impression of the Thai people is that they are some of the kindness and warmest people I've ever met.

When we flew home, security at the airport in Bangkok was tight but everyone was orderly and patient and I felt absolutely no fear, just relief that we were heading home to our son. As we made our way through customs, an Indian customs agent wearing a turban pointed at the open newspaper in front of him and looked at us and said, "Osama bin Laden is a very bad man." Even strangers were united in their disgust for Osama bin Laden.

From the moment that I learned that Osama bin Laden was indeed responsible for this brutal and deadly attack on our nation I have been supportive of and dedicated to the idea of seeking him out and making him pay for his crimes. He used others to carry out his deadly plans but he masterminded the brutality and for that he should pay. When the U.S. invaded Afghanistan and routed the Taliban, I was proud and encouraged. But when the leaders of our country and our military chose to scale back the hunt for Osama in favor of invading Iraq, I was devastated. I couldn't then and don't now understand or comprehend the logic of launching an unnecessary and unprovoked war against Iraq.

If we do not find and either arrest or kill Osama bin Laden we have failed every single person killed on September 11, 2001 and their deaths have no meaning but to glorify the cause of religious terrorism. We have failed them and their families by not focusing every ounce of energy, will and ingenuity we possess in this effort. How is it possible that we live in what we know is the greatest, richest nation on the earth but we are at a loss to seek out and destroy our sworn enemy? When Bush and Cheney speak of "winning the war on terror" I have no faith in their ability to win what I perceive to be an unconventional war and an endless battle against evil because they can't even find the one individual responsible for the most successful terrorist attack on our nation. Nothing else really matters at this point besides finding and neutralizing Osama. Not democracy in the Middle East, not stabilizing Iraq, nothing else matters.