Millions of Americans smiled patriotically late Sunday night.

After nearly a decade, the War on Terror finally scored a direct hit on the enemy that stung our nation so deeply in 2001.

Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks and the free world’s most wanted man, was killed at the hands of an elite team of U.S. Navy SEALs.

Celebrating a death with cheerful chants and firecrackers almost seems out of character for America.

That’s the kind of bloodthirsty behavior people in third-world countries do.

We don’t do that here.

But we were pushed, hard, back in 2001 by a form of evil difficult for us to imagine.

The terror attacks on 9/11 caught our nation off guard.

A few hours after the towers of the World Trade Center crumbled, our nation’s grief turned to anger; our focus turned to justice.

Fortunately our nation’s leaders — even of vastly different political parties — had the determination and guts to not give up the hunt.

Former President George W. Bush’s determination and insistence that the War on Terror would not cease until total victory was achieved set the groundwork for the intelligence that led to bin Laden.

President Obama picked up where Bush left off and allowed the military and intelligence community to keep after bin Laden.

Ultimately Obama had to make the gutsy call to send in the SEAL team without fully knowing if bin Laden was at the compound or not.

Americans had reason to smile on Sunday and we shouldn’t feel guilty over it. Good triumphed over evil, even if just for a bit.

Now our nation must not let her guard down. The head of one snake has been severed, but many, many more exist.