A Washington state teacher marked the death of Osama bin Laden by shaving a beard he'd grown since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Gary Weddle, 50, vowed that he wouldn't shave until the al Qaeda leader was captured or killed. He made the decision after learning that Taliban leaders would kill men if they shaved their beards.

"I'm a God-fearing man," Weddle told Reuters. "Knowing that thousands of people were getting crushed [was horrifying]."

Almost 10 years later, Weddle was starting to think the beard would never come off.

"Yeah I thought I'd be buried with it. I thought he'd eluded us indefinitely," he recalled. "I did not anticipate it would take 10 years. Next time, I'll just stop eating watermelon."

When Weddle received a phone call that bin Laden was killed, he didn't believe it.

Once the truth started to sink in, Weddle said he cried for a few minutes and then immediately went to his bathroom for a long-awaited shave.

He'd grown 3,454 days worth of facial hair.