Locals Welcome Bin Laden's End

Town streets, sidewalks, and coffee shops were home to patriotic gestures and cheeriness Monday morning, marking Osama bin Laden’s demise.

Even so, cheer was tempered by caution.

 Lincoln’s Landing waitress Laura Haberek said everyone who came in the Humphrey Street restaurant was talking about the historic event.

“One guy said, ‘Everybody is happy but a little nervous,’” she said.

Landing regular Sal Maddalone of Swampscott drank coffee at the counter. Above, a television in the corner broadcasted the latest developments in the story.

“I’m happy,” he said. “Others are overjoyed. We don’t know what is going to come. It’s going to slow them down I hope.”

US commandos killed the terrorist almost 10 years after the attacks of 9/11.

Maddalone wonders if the military action will draw retaliation from other terrorists.

Meanwhile, celebration was on the mind of Rory Flannery, 25, of the local company Flannery’s Handymen.

He fixed American flags to the front of a company moving van and the side of a rack-body truck this morning before heading out on the job.

Flannery knew one of two Swampscott military people killed in the war on terror.

He knew Army Spc. well enough to say hi to, and went to school with a cousin of the soldier, he said.

Spc. Raymond was killed in Iraq in September 2006. Marine Capt. was killed in Iraq in February 2007.

Flannery said he was glad to hear the bin Laden news.

“Something needed to happen,” he said.

Three--year-old Aaron Felings held an American flag while riding in a baby carriage on Burrill Street.

His mother, Alexandra ,was pushing him and his brother, Lucas, 1, to storytelling time at the Swampscott library.

Aaron is too young to be political. He just likes the flag, his mother said.

But she was very happy with the bin Laden news.

“We’ve been waiting 10 years,” she said.

Back at Lincoln’s Landing, Laura Haberek said her husband, Taylor, was happy.

He is an Army veteran who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan before finishing his six-year enlistment in March 2010.

9/11 was the reason he joined the Army, she said.