Last night, a satellite the size of a school bus, weighing about 5,000 pounds, with about 1,000 pounds of potentially dangerous hydrazine, continued its uncontrolled descent, coming to 130 miles above the earth’s surface.

And then the USS Lake Erie fired a single Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) that flew up and hit the moving target, at a combined speed of 22,000 mph. What’s left of the satellite has been deemed harmless.

Also, earlier this month, somebody in McLean, Virginia gave the order, somebody in Nevada “pulled the trigger” (pressed the button, most likely) and the number five most wanted al-Qaeda leader at his compound in the far-off corner of Mir Ali, Pakistan, was flame-broiled on the business end of a Hellfire missile fired from a Predator drone. It’s an act unimaginable to the military of our fathers, and would seem like magic to the military of our grandfathers.

I don’t know about Michelle Obama, but ingenuity and innovation like this give me another one of those moments where I’m proud of my country.